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ESSAYS, 






CRITICAL AND MISCELLANftOC S. 



BY 



T. BAB1NGTON MAOATJLAY. 




Shut flufc %nmb i^tHon. 



NEW YOKK: 
D. APPLETON & CO., 90, 92 & 94 GRAND STPvEET. 

1869. 



TR4-1 



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PUBLISHERS' NOTICE. 



The very general and nigh commendation, bestowed by the press 
and the community uoon the American edition of Macaulay's Miscellaneous 
Writings, has induced the publishers to issue a new and cheap edition 
embracing the remainder of the articles in the Edinburgh Review, and 
several articles written and published while the author was at college. 



CONTENTS 



i* 



Milton 

Edinburgh Review. 1825. 

Machiavelli • 19' 

Edinburgh Review. 1827. 

Dryden ---........--.-- 35 

Edinburgh Review. 1828. 

History .-.-...-.--.-.- -51 

Edinburgh Review. 1828. 

\llam's Constitutional History -------------67 

Edinburgh Review. 1828. 

Southey's Colloquies on Society -------------99 

Edinburgh Review. 1830. 

VIoore's Life of Lord Byron ---------------116 

Edinburgh Review. 18?1. 

Southey's Edition of the Pilgrim's Progress --.--•-•- 128 

Edinburgh Review. 1831. 

S Croker's Edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson -------- 135 J*V 

Edinburgh Review. 1831. 

Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden ---.--«-•-- 151 

Edinburgh Review. 1831. 

Nares's Memoirs of Lord Burghley ..--.------ 171 

Edinburgh Review. 1832. 

> Dumont's Recollections of Mirabeau ----------- 182 

Edinburgh Review. 1832. 

Lord Mahon's War of the Succession ----------- 192 

Edinburgh Review. 1333. 

Walpole's Letters to Sir Horace Mann ----------211 

Edinburgh Review. 1833. 

Thackeray's History of the Earl of Chatham -------- 226 

Edinburgh Review. 1834. 

Lord Bacon ... -., .. 243 

Edinburgh Review. 1837. 

Mackintosh's History of the Revolution in England, in 1688 - • - 289 

Edinburgh Review. 1835 

ui 



iv CONTENTS. 

Sir John Malcolm's Life of Lord Clive ---------.. 315 

Edinburgh Review. 1840. 

Life and Writings of Sir William Temple -. .. 345 

Edinburgh Review. 1838. 

Church and State -- ------------.... 379 

Edinburgh Review. 1839. 

Ranke's History of the Popes -•--«•...---- -401 

Edinburgh Review. 1840. 

Cowley and Milton --.•- 410 

On Mitford's History of Greece ------....... 424 

On the Athenian Orators ---------------- 433 

Comic Dramatists of the Restoration ---.-- 438 

Edinburgh Review. 1841. 

The Late Lord Holland -------- ....... 456 

Edinburgh Review. 1841. 

Warren Hastings ------------------- 460 

Edinburgh Review. 1841. 

Frederic the Great ------- -- .-----..- 502 

Edinburgh Review. 1842. 

Lays of Ancient Rome ------- ---.----.. 531 

Preface 533 

Horatius ■ - 540 

The Battle of the Lake Regillus ------ - 547 

Virginia ._....---------. 556 

The Prophecy of Capys 563 

Appendix ---------------------- 560 

Madame D Arblay -'---.'--. ........... 573 

Edinburgh Review. January, 1843. 

Life and Writings of Addison ----.•..------- 594 

Edinburgh Review. July, 1843. 

Eareue's Memoirs ------------------- 624 

Edinburgh Review. April, 1844. 

Mr. Robert Montgomery's Poems --.----------- 657 

Edinburgh Review. April, 1830. 

Civil Disabilities of the Jews --------------- 665 

Mill's Essay on Government ---------------- 670 

Edinburgh Review. March, 1829. 

Rentham's Defence of Mill ---- ..----.--«- 684 

Edinburgh Review. June, 1829. 

Utilitarian Theory of Government ------------- 69G 

Edinburgh Review. October, 1829. 
The Earl of Chatham ----------- 709 

Edinburgh Review. October, 1844. 

Speech on Installation as Lord Rector of Glasgow University - - 740 
Speech on Retiring from Political Life ----------- 743 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANIES. 



MILTON.* 

[Edinburgh Review, 1825.] 



Towards the close of the year 1823, Mr. Le- 
mon, Deputy Keeper of the State Papers, in the 
course of his researches among the presses of 
his office, met with a large Latin manuscript. 
With it were found corrected copies of the 
foreign despatches written by Milton, while he 
filled the office of Secretary, and several papers 
relating to the Popish Trials and the Rye-house 
Plot. The whole was wrapped up in an enve- 
lope, superscribed " To Mr. Skinner, Merchant." 
On examination, the large manuscript proved 
to be the long lost Essay on the Doctrines of 
Christianity, which, according to Wood and 
Toland, Milton finished after the Restoration, 
and deposited with Cyriac Skinner. Skinner, 
it is well known, held the same political opi- 
nions with his illustrious friend. It is therefore 
probable, as Mr. Lemon conjectures, that he 
may have fallen under the suspicions of the 
government during that persecution of the 
Whigs which followed the dissolution of the 
Oxford Parliament, and that, in consequence 
cf a general seizure of his papers, this work 
may have been brought to the office in which 
it had been found. But whatever the adven- 
tures of the manuscript may have been, no 
doubt can exist, that it is a genuine relic of the 
great poet. 

Mr. Sumner, who was commanded by his 
majesty to edit and translate the treatise, has 
acquitted himself of this task in a manner 
honourable to his talents and to his character. 
His version is not indeed very easy or elegant ; 
but it is entitled to the praise of clearness and 
fidelity. His notes abound with interesting 
quotations, and have the rare merit of really 
elucidating the text. The preface is"evidently 
the work of a sensible and candid man, firm in 
»is own religious opinions, and tolerant to- 
wards those of others. 

The book itself will not add much to the 
fame of Milton. It is, like all his Latin works, 
well written— though not exactly in the style 
of the Prize Essays of Oxford and Cambridge. 
There is no elaborate imitation of classical 



* Joanma Miltoni, Angli, de Doctrina Christiana libri 
duo posthumi. A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, com- 
piled from the Holy Scriptures alone. By John Milton, 
translated from the original by Charles R. Sumner, 
M A.. &c. &c. 1825. 



antiquity, no scrupulous purity, none of the 
ceremonial cleanness which characterize?- ha 
diction of our academical Pharisees. He does 
not attempt to polish and brighten his compose 
tion into the Ciceronian gloss and brilliancy. 
He does not, in short, sacrifice sense and spirit 
to pedantic refinements. The nature of his 
subject compelled him to use many words 

"That would have made Quint ilian stare and gasp." 

But he writes with as much ease and freedom 
as if Latin were his mother tongue; and 
where he is least happy, his failure seems to 
arise from the carelessness of a native, not 
from the ignorance of a foreigner. What Den- 
ham with great felicity says of Cowley, may be 
applied to him. He wears the garb, but not 
the clothes, of the ancients. 

Throughout the volume are discernible the 
traces of a powerful and independent mind, 
emancipated from the influence of authority, 
and devoted to the search of truth. He pro- 
fesses to form his system from the Bible alone; 
and his digest of Scriptural texts is certainly 
among the best that have appeared. But he is 
not always so happy in his inferences as in his 
citations. 

Some of the heterodox opinions whicn he 
avows seem to have excited considerable 
amazement : particularly his Arianism, and 
his notions on the subject of polygamy. Yel 
we can scarcely conceive that any person 
could have read the Paradise Lost without 
suspecting him of the former, nor do we thfhfc 
that any reader, acquainted with the history cf 
his life, ought to be much startled at the latter. 
The opinions which he has expressed respect- 
ing the nature of the Deity, the eternity of mat- 
ter, and the observation of the Sabbath, might, 
we think, have caused more just surprise 

But we will not go into the discussion of 
these points. The book, were it far more or- 
thodox, or far more heretical than it is, would 
not much edify or corrupt the present genera- 
tion. The men of our time are not to be con 
verted or perverted by quartos. A few mort- 
days, and this Essay will follow the Defensi» 
Populi to the dust and silence of the upper 
shelf. The name of its author, and the ie> 
markable circumstances attending its publ'i" 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



'ion, will secure, to it a certain degree of atten- 
tion. For a month or two it will occupy a few 
minutes of chat in every drawing-room, and a 
few columns in every magazine ; and it will 
then, to borrow the elegant language of the 
play-bills, be withdrawn, to make room for the 
forthcoming novelties. 

We wish, however, to avail ourselves of the 
interest, transient as it may be, which this 
work has excited. The dexterous Capuchins 
never choose to preach on the life and mira- 
cles of a saint, till they have awakened the 
devotional feelings of their auditors, by exhi- 
biting some relic of him — a thread of his gar- 
ment, a lock of his hair, or a drop of his blood. 
On the same principle, we intend to take ad- 
vantage of the late interesting discovery, and, 
while this memorial of a great and good man 
is still in the hands of all, to say something of 
his moral and intellectual qualities. Nor, we 
are convinced, will the severest of our readers 
blame us if, on an occasion like the present, 
we turn for a short time from the topics of the 
day to commemorate, in all love and reve- 
rence, the genius and virtues of John Milton, 
the poet, the statesman, the philosopher, the 
glory of English literature, the champion and 
the martyr of English liberty. 

It is by his poetry that Milton is best known; 
and it is of his poetry that we wish first to 
speak. By the general suffrage of the civilized 
world, his place has been assigned among the 
greatest masters of the art. His detractors, 
however, though out-voted, have not been 
silenced. There are many critics, and some 
ot great name, who contrive, in the same 
breath, to extol the poems and to decry the poet. 
The works, they acknowledge, considered in 
themselves, may be classed among the noblest 
productions of the human mind. But they will 
not allow the author to rank with those great 
men who, born in the infancy of civilization, 
supplied, by their own powers, the want of in- 
struction, and, though destitute of models them- 
selves, bequeathed to posterity models which 
defy imitation. Milton, it is said, inherited 
what his predecessors created; he lived in an 
enlightened age ; he received a finished edu- 
cation ; and we must therefore, if we would 
form a just estimate of his powers, make large 
deductions for these advantages. 

We venture to say, on the contrary, para- 
doxical as the remark may appear, that no 
poet has ever had to struggle .with more un- 
favourable circumstances than Milton. He 
doubted, as he has himself owned, whether 
he had not been born " an age too late." For 
this notion Johnson has thought fit to make 
him the butt of his clumsy ridicule. The poet, 
we believe, understood the nature of his art 
better than the critic. He knew that his poeti- 
cal genius derived no advantage from the 
civilization which surrounded him, or from 
the learning which he had acquired : and he 
looked back with something like regret to the 
iuder age of simple words and vivid impres- 
sions. 

We think that, as civilization advances, po- 
etry almost necessarily declines. Therefore, 
though we admire those great works of imagi- 
nation which have appeared in dark ages, we 



do not admire them the more because the> 
have appeared in dark ages. On the contrary 
we hold that the most wonderful and splendid 
proof of genius is a great poem produced in a 
civilized age. We cannot understand why 
those who believe in that most orthodox article 
of literary faith, that the earliest poets are 
generally the best, should wonder at the rule 
as if it were the exception. Surely the uni 
formity of the phenomenon indicates a corres 
ponding uniformity in the cause. ■ 

The fact is, that common observers reason 
from the progress of the experimental sciences 
to that of .the imitative arts. The improve- 
ment of the former is gradual and slow. Ages 
are spent in collecting materials, ages more in 
separating and combining them. Even when 
a system has been formed, there is still some- 
thing to add, to alter, or to reject. Every gene- 
ration enjoys the use of a vast hoard be- 
queathed to it by antiquity, and transmits it, 
augmented by fresh acquisitions, to future 
ages. In these pursuits, therefore, the firs' 
speculators lie under great disadvantages, and, 
even when they fail, are entitled io praise. 
Their pupils, with far inferior intellectual 
powers, speedily surpass them in actual attain- 
ments. Every girl, who has read Mrs. Maicet's 
little Dialogues on Political Economy, could 
teach Montague or Walpole many lessons in 
finance. Any intelligent man may now, by 
resolutely applying himself for a few years to 
mathematics, learn more than the great New- 
ton knew after half a century of study and 
meditation. 

But it is not thus with music, with painting, 
or with sculpture. Still less is it thus with po- 
etry. The progress of refinement rarely sup- 
plies these arts with better objects of imitation. 
It may, indeed, improve the instruments which 
are necessary to the mechanical operations of 
the musician, the sculptor, and the painter. 
But language, the machine of the poet, is best 
fitted for his purpose in its rudest state. Na- 
tions, like individuals, first perceive, and then 
abstract. They advance from particular im- 
ages to general terms. Hence, the vocabulary 
of an enlightened society is philosophical, that 
of a half-civilized people is poetical. 

This change in the language of men is part- 
ly the cause, and partly the effect of a corres- 
ponding change in the nature of their intellec- 
tual operations, a change by which science 
gains, and poetry loses. Generalization is ne- 
cessary to the advancement of knowledge, but 
particularly in the creations of the imagination. 
In proportion as men know more, and think 
more, they look less at individuals and more 
at classes. They therefore make better theo- 
ries and worse poems. They give us vague 
phrases instead of images, and personified 
qualities instead of men. They may be better 
able to analyze human nature than their pre- 
decessors. But analysis is not the business 
of the poet. His office is to portray, not to dis- 
sect. He may believe in a morai ser.se, like 
Shaftesbury. He may refer all human actionj 
to self-interest, like Helvetius, or he may nevei 
think about the matter at all. His creed on 
such subjects will no more influence his 
nn^try. properly so called, than the notions 



MILTON. 



which a painter may have conceived respecting 
the lachrymal glands, or the circulation of the 
blood will affect the tears of his Niobe, or the 
blushes of his Aurora. If Shakspeare had 
written a book on the motives of human ac- 
tions, it is by no means certain that it would 
have been a good one. It is extremely impro- 
bable that it would nave contained half so 
much able reasoning on the subject as is to be 
found in the "Fable of the Bees." But could 
Mandeville have created an Iago 1 Well as he 
knew how to resolve characters into their ele- 
ments, would he have been able to combine 
those elements in such a manner as to make 
up a man — a real, living, individual man 1 

Perhaps no man can be a poet, or can even 
enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness 
of mind, if any thing which gives so much 
pleasure ought to be called unsoundness. By 
poetry we mean, not of course all writing in 
verse, nor even all good writing in verse. 
Our deflation excludes many metrical compo- 
sitions which, on other grounds, deserve the 
highest praise. By poetry we mean, the art of 
employing words in such a manner as to pro- 
duce an illusion on the imagination : the art of 
doing by means of words what the painter does 
by means of colours. Thus the greatest of 
poets has described it, in lines universally ad- 
mired for the vigour and felicity of their dic- 
tion, and still more valuable on account of the 
just notion which they convey of the art in 
which he excelled. 

" Ab imagination bodies forth 
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 
A local habitation and a name." 

These are the fruits of the " fine frenzy" which 
he ascribes to the poet — a fine frenzy doubtless, 
but still a frenzy. Truth, indeed, is essential 
to poetry ; but it is the truth of madness. The 
reasonings are just; but the premises are false. 
After the first suppositions have been made, 
everything ought to be consistent; but those 
first suppositions require a degree of credulity 
which almost amounts to a partial and tempo- 
rary derangement of the intellect. Hence, of 
all people, children are the most imaginative. 
They abandon themselves without reserve to 
every illusion. Every image which is strongly 
presented to their mental eye produces on 
them the effect of reality. No man, whatever 
his sensibility may be, is ever affected by 
Hamlet or Lear, as a little girl is affected by 
the story of poor Red Riding-hood. She knows 
that it is all false, that wolves cannot speak,j 
that there are no wolves in England. Yet inl 
spite of her knowledge she believes ; she' 
weeps, she trembles ; she dares not go into a 
dark room .est she should feel the teeth of the 
monster at her throat. Such is the despotism 
of the imagination over uncultivated minds. 

In a rude state of society, men are children 
■Tith a greater variety of ideas. It is there- 
fore in such a state of society that we may 
ixpect to find the poetical temperament in its 
highest perfection. In an enlightened age 
there will bo much intelligence, much science, 
much philosophy, abundance of just classifica- 
tion and subtle analysis, abundance of wit and 
iloquence, abundance of verses, and even of 



good ones — but little poetry. Men will judge 
and compare ; but they will not create. They 
will talk about the old poets, and comment on 
them, and to a certain degree enjoy them. 
But they will scarcely be able to conceive the 
effect which poetry produced on their ruder 
ancestors, the agony, the ecstasy, the plenitude 
of belief. The Greek Rhapsodists, according to 
Plato, could not recite Homer without almost 
falling into convulsions.* The Mohawk hardlv 
feels the scalping-knife while he shouts his 
death-song. The power which the ancient 
bards of Wales and Germany exercised over 
their auditors seems to modern readers almost 
miraculous. Such feelings are very rare in a 
civilized community, and most rare among 
those who participate most in its improve- 
ments. They linger longest among the pea- 
santry. 

Poetry produces an illusion on the eye of the 
mind, as a magic lantern produces an illusion 
on the eye of the body. And, as the magic 
lantern acts best in a dark room, poetry effects 
its purpose most completely in a dark age. 
As the light of knowledge breaks in upon its 
exhibitions, as the outlines of certainty be- 
come more and more definite, and the shades 
of probability more and more distinct, the 
hues and lineaments of the phantoms which it 
calls up grow fainter and fainter. We cannot 
unite the incompatible advantages of reality 
and deception, the clear discernment of tru'h 
and the exquisite enjoyment of fiction. 

He who, in an enlightened and literary 
society, aspires to be a great poet, must first 
become a little child. He must take to pieces 
the whole web of his mind. He must unlearn 
much of that knowledge which has perhaps 
constituted hitherto his chief title of supe- 
riority. His very talents will be a hinderance 
to him. His difficulties will be proportioned 
to his proficiency in the pursuits which are 
fashionable among his contemporaries ; and 
that proficiency will in general be proportioned 
to the vigour and activity of his mind. And 
it is well, if, after all his sacrifices and exer- 
tions, his works do not resemble a lisping 
man, or a modern ruin. We have seen in our 
own time, great talents, intense labour, arid 
long meditation, employed in this struggle 
against the spirit of the age, and employed, 
we will not say, absolutely in vain, but with 
dubious success and feeble applause. 

If these reasonings be just, no poet has 
ever triumphed over greater difficulties than 
Milton. He received a learned education. 
He was a profound and elegant classical 
scholar: he had studied all the mysteries of 
Rabbinical literature : he was intimately ac- 
quainted with every language of modern Eu- 
rope, from which either pleasure or information 
was then to be derived. He was perhaps the 
only great poet of later times who has been 
distinguished by the excellence of his Latin 
verse. The genius of Petrarch was scarcely 
of the first order ; and his poems in the ancicn: 
language, though much praised by those who 
have never read them, are wretched com 
positions. Cowley, with all his admirable wi< 



* See the Dialogue between Socrates and !o 



MACATJLAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



and ingenuity, had little imagination; nor 
indeed do we think his classical diction com- 
parable to that of Milton. The authority of 
Johnson is against us on this point. But 
Johnson had studied the bad writers of the 
middle ages till he had become utterly insen- 
sible to the Augustan elegance, and was as ill 
qualified to judge between two Latin styles 
as an habitual drunkard to set up for a wine- 
taster. 

Versification in a dead language is an exotic, 
a far-fetched, costly, sickly imitation of that 
which elsewhere may be found in healthful 
and spontaneous perfection. The soils on 
which this rarity flourishes are in general as 
ill suited to the production of vigorous native 
poetry, as the flower-pots of a hot-house to the 
growth of oaks. That the author of the Para- 
dise Lost should have written the Epistle to 
Manso, was truly wonderful. Never before 
were such marked originality and such ex- 
quisite mimicry found together. Indeed, in all 
the Latin poems of Milton, the artificial manner 
indispensable to such works is admirably pre- 
served, while, at the same time, the richness 
of his fancy and the elevation of his senti- 
ments give to them a peculiar charm, an air 
of nobleness and freedom, which distinguishes 
them from all other writings of the same class. 
They remind us of the amusements of those 
angelic warriors who composed the cohort of 
Gabriel : 

"About him exercised heroic games 
The unarmed youth of heaven. Hut o'er their heads 
Celestial arniory, shield, helm, and spear, 
Hung bright, with diamond flaming and with gold." 

We cannot look upon the sportive exercises 
for which the genius of Milton ungirds itself, 
without catching a glimpse of the gorgeous 
and terrible panoply which it is accustomed 
to wear. The strength of his imagination 
triumphed over every obstacle. -So intense 
and ardent was the fire of his mind, that it not 
only was not suffocated beneath the weight 
of its fuel, but penetrated the whole super- 
incumbent mass with its own heat and ra- 
diance. 

It is not our intention to attempt any thing 
like a complete examination of the poetry of 
Miiton. The public has long been agreed as 
to the merit of the most remarkable passages, 
the incomparable harmony of the numbers, 
and the excellence of that style which no rival 
has been able to equal, and no parodist to 
degrade, which displays in their highest per- 
fection the idiomatic powers of the English 
tongue, and to which every ancient and every 
modern language has contributed something 
of grace, of energy, or of music. In the vast 
field of criticism in which we are entering, 
innumerable reapers have already put their 
sickles. Yet the harvest is so abundant that 
the negligent search of a straggling gleaner 
may be rewarded with a sheaf. 

The most striking characteristic of the poetry 
of Milton is the extreme remoteness of the 
associations, by means of which it acts on the 
reader. Its effect is produced, not so much 
by what it expresses, as by what it suggests, 
not so much by the ideas which it directly 
conveys, a? by other ideas which are con- 



nected with them. He electrifies the mind 
through conductors. The most unimaginative 
man must understand the Iliad. Homer gives 
him no choice, and requires from him no txer- 
tion ; but takes the whole upon himself, and 
sets his images in so clear a light that it is 
impossible to be blind to them. The works 
of Milton cannot be comprehended or enjoyed, 
unless the mind of the reader co-operate wilh 
that of the writer. He does not paint a finished 
picture, or play for a mere passive listener. 
He sketches, and leaves others to fill up the 
outline. He strikes the key-note, and expects 
his hearer to make out the melody. 

We often hear of the magical influence 
of poetry. The expression in general means 
nothing ; but, applied to the writings of Milton, 
it is most appropriate. His poetry acts like 
an incantation. Its merit lies less in its 
obvious meaning than in its occult power. 
There would seem, at first sight, to be no more 
in his words than in other words. But they 
are words of enchantment ; no sooner are they 
pronounced than the past is present, and the 
distant near. New forms of beauty start at 
once into existence, and all the burial places 
of the memory give up their dead. Change 
the structure of the sentence, substitute one 
synonyme for another, and the whole effect is 
destroyed. The spell loses its power : and he 
who should then hope to conjure with it, would 
find himself as much mistaken as Cassim in 
the Arabian tale, when he stood crying, " Open 
Wheat," " Open Barley," to the door which 
obeyed no sound but " Open Sesame !" The 
miserable failure of Dryden, in his attempt to 
rewrite some parts of the Paradise Lost, is a 
remarkable instance of this. 

In support of these observations we may 
remark, that scarcely any passages in the 
poems of Milton are more generally known, 
or more frequently repeated, than those which 
are little more than muster rolls of names. 
They are not always more appropriate or 
more melodious than other names. But they 
are charmed names. Every one jf them is 
the first link in a long chain of associated 
ideas. Like the dwelling-place of our infancy 
revisited in manhood, like the song of our 
country heard in a strange laud, they produce 
upon us an effect wholly independent of their 
intrinsic value. One transports us back to a 
remote period of history. Another places us 
among the moral scenery and manners of a 
distant country. A third evokes all the dear 
classical recollections of childhood, the school- 
room, the dog-eared Virgil, the holiday, and 
the prize. A fourth brings before us the 
splendid phantoms of chivalrous romance, 
the trophied lists, the embroidered housings, 
the quaint devices, the haunted forests, the 
enchanted gardens, the achievements of ena- 
moured knights, and the smiles of rescued 
princesses. 

In none of the works of Milton is his pecu- 
liar manner more happily displayed than in 
the Allegro and the Penseroso. It is impossi« 
ble to conceive that the mechanism of language 
can be brought to a more exquisite degree of 
perfection. These poems differ from others 
as ottar of roses differs from ordinary roso 



MILTON. 



water, the close packed essence from the thin 
diluted mixture. They are indeed not so much 
poems, as collections of hints, from each of 
which the reader is to make out a poem for 
himself. Every epithet is a text for a canto. 

The Comus and the Samson Agonistes are 
works, which, though of very different merit, 
offer some marked points of resemblance. 
They are both Lyric poems in the form of 
Plays. There are perhaps no two kinds of 
composition so essentially dissimilar as the 
drama and the ode. The business of the dra- 
matist is to keep himself out of sight, and to 
let nothing appear but his characters. As 
soon as he attracts notice to his personal feel- 
ings, the illusion is broken. The effect is as 
unpleasant as that which is produced on the 
stage by the voice of a prompter, or the en- 
trance of a scene-shifter. Hence it was that 
the tragedies of Byron were his least success- 
ful performances. They resemble those paste- 
board pictures invented by the friend of child- 
ren, Mr. Newberry, in which a single movable 
head goes around twenty different bodies ; so 
that the same face looks out upon us succes- 
sively, from the uniform of a hussar, the furs 
of a judge, and the rags of a beggar. In all 
the characters, patriots and tyrants, haters and 
lovers, the frown and sneer of Harold were 
discernible in an instant. But this species of 
egotism, though fatal to the drama, is the inspi- 
ration of the ode. It is the part of the lyric 
poet to abandon himself, without reserve, to his 
own emotions. 

Between these hostile elements many great 
men have endeavoured to effect an amalgama- 
tion, but never with complete success. The 
Greek drama, on the model of which the Sam- 
son was written, sprung from the Ode. The 
dialogue was ingrafted on the chorus, and 
naturally partook of its character. The genius 
of the greatest of the Athenian dramatists co- 
operated with the circumstances under which 
tragedy made its first appearance. iEschylus 
was, head and heart, a lyric poet. In his time, 
the Greeks had far more intercourse with the 
East than in the days of Homer ; and they had 
not yet acquired that immense superiority in 
war, in science, and in the arts, which, in the 
following generation, led them to treat the 
Asiatics with contempt. From the narrative 
of Herodotus, it should seem that they still 
looked up, with the veneration of disciples, to 
Egypt and Assyria. At this period, accord- 
ingly, it was natural that the literature of 
Greece should be tinctured with the Oriental 
style. And that style, we think, is clearly 
discernible in the works of Pindar and yEschy- 
lus. The latter often reminds us of the He- 
brew writers. The book of Job, indeed, in 
conduct and diction, bears a considerable re- 
semblance to some of his dramas. Considered 
as plays, his works are absurd: considered as 
choruses, they are above all praise. If, for 
instance, we examine the address of Clytem- 
nestra t3 Agamemnon on his return, or the de- 
scription of the seven Argive chiefs, by the 
principles of dramatic writing, we shall in- 
stantly condemn them as monstrous. But, if 
we forget the characters, and think only of the 
poetry, we shall admit that it has never been 



.surpassed in energy and magnificence. St* 
phocles made the Greek drama as dramatic as 
was consistent with its original form. His 
portraits of men have a sort of similarity ; bu' 
it is the similarity not of a painting, but of a 
bas-relief. It suggests a resemblance ; but it 
does not produce an illusion. Euripides at- 
tempted to carry the reform further. But it 
was a task far beyond his powers, perhaps l;e- 
yond any powers. Instead of correcting what 
was bad, he destroyed what was excellent. He 
substituted crutches for stilts, bad sermons fol 
good odes. 

Milton, it is well known, admired Euripides 
highly; much more highly than, in our opinion, 
he deserved. Indeed, the caresses, which this 
partiality leads him to bestow on "sad Elec- 
tra's poet," sometimes reminds us of the beau- 
tiful Queen of Fairy-land kissing the long ears 
of Bottom. At all events, there can be no 
doubt that this veneration for the Athenian, 
whether just or not, was injurious to the Sam- 
son Agonistes. Had be taken /Eschylus for 
his model, he would have given himself up to 
the lyric inspiration, and poured out profusely 
all the treasures of his mind, without bestow- 
ing a thought on those dramatic proprieties 
which the nature of the work rendered it im- 
possible to preserve. In the attempt to recon- 
cile things in their own nature inconsistent, he 
has failed, as every one must have failed. We 
cannot identify ourselves with the characters, 
as in a good play. We cannot identify our- 
selves with the poet, as in a good ode. The 
conflicting ingredients, like an acid and an 
alkali mixed, neutralize each other. We are 
by no means insensible to the merits of this 
celebrated piece, to the severe dignity of the 
style, the graceful and pathetic solemnity of 
the opening speech, or the wild and barbaric 
melody which gives so striking an effect to the 
choral passages. But we think it, we confess, 
the least successful effort of the genus of 
Milton. 

The Comus is framed on the model of the 
Italian Masque, as the Samson is framed on 
the model of the Greek Tragedy. It is, cer- 
tainly, the noblest performance of the kind 
which exists in any language. It is as far su- 
perior to the Faithful Shepherdess, as the 
Faithful Shepherdess is to the Aminta, or the 
Aminta to the Pastor Fido. It was well for 
Milton that he had here no Euripides to mis- 
lead him. He understood and loved the litera- 
ture of modern Italy. But he did not feel for 
it the same veneration which he entertained 
for the remains of Athenian and Roman poetry, 
consecrated by so many lofty and ei;dearing 
recollections. The faults, moreover, of his 
Italian predecessors were of a kind to which 
his mind had a deadly antipathy. He could 
stoop to a plain style, sometimes even to a bald 
style ; but false brilliancy was his utter aver 
sion. His Muse had no objection to a russei 
attire; but she turned with disgust from th* 
finery of Guarini, as tawdry, and as paltry as 
the rags of a chimney-sweeper on May-day 
Whatever ornaments the wears are of massive 
gold, aot only dazzling to the sight, but capabl« 
ading the severest test of the crucible. 

Milton attended in the Comu? to the distinc 



MAC AULA PS MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



lion wnich he neglected in the Samson. He 
made it what it ought to be, essentially lyrical, 
and dramatic only in semblance. He has not 
attempted a fruitless struggle against a defect 
inherent in the nature of that species of com- 
position; and he has, therefore, succeeded, 
wherever success was not impossible. The 
speeches must be read as majestic soliloquies; 
and he wno so leads them will be enraptured 
with their eloquence, their sublimity, and their 
music. The interruptions of the dialogue, 
however, impose a constraint upon the writer, 
and break the illusion of the reader. The 
finest passages are those which are lyric in 
form as well as in spirit. "I should much 
commend," says the excellent Sir Henry Wot- 
ton, in a letter to Milton, " the tragical part, if 
the lyrical did not ravish me with a certain 
dorique delicacy in your songs and odes, where- 
unto, I most plainly confess to you, I have seen 
yet nothing parallel in our language." The 
criticism was just. It is when Milton escapes 
from the shackles of the dialogue, when he is 
discharged from the labour of uniting two in- 
congruous styles, when he is at liberty to in- 
dulge his choral raptures without reserve, that 
he rises even above himself. Then, like his 
own Good Genius, bursting from the earthly 
form and weeds of Thyrsis, he stands forth in 
celestial freedom and beauty ; he seems to cry 
exultingly, 

" Now my task is smoothly done, 
I can fly, or I can run," 

to skim the earth, to soar above the clouds, to 
bathe in the Elysian dew of the rainbow, and 
to inhale the balmy smells of nard and cassia, 
which the musky winds of the zephyr scatter 
through the cedared alleys of the Hesperides.* 

There are several of the minor poems of 
Milton on which we would willingly make a 
few remarks. Still more willingly would we 
enter into a detailed examination of that ad- 
mirable poem, the Paradise Regained, which, 
strangely enough, is scarcely ever mentioned, 
except as an instance of the blindness of that 
parental affection which men of letters bear 
towards the offspring of their intellects. That 
Milton was mistaken in preferring this work, 
excellent as it is, to the Paradise Lost, we 
must readily admit. But we are sure that the 
superiority of the Paradise Lost to the Para- 
dise Regained is not more decided than the 
superiority of the Paradise Regained to every 
poem which has since made its appearance. 
But our limits prevent us from discussing the 
point at length. We hasten on to that extraor- 
dinary production, which the general suffrage 
of critics has placed in the highest class of 
human compositions. 

The only poem of modern times which can 



' There eternal summer dwells, 
And west winds with musky wing, 
About the cedared alleys fling 
Nard and cassia's balmy smells : 
Irio there with humid bow 
Wa.ers the odorous banks, that blow 
Flowers of more mingled hue 
Than her purfled scarf can show, 
And drenches with Elysian dew, 
(List, mortals, if your ears be true,) 
Beds of hyacinths and roses, 
Where young Adonis oft reposes, 
Waxing well of his deep wound." 



be compared with the Paradise Lost, is tht 
Divine Comedy. The subject of Milton, in 
some points, resembled that of Dante ; but hs 
has treated it in a widely different manner. 
We cannot, we think, better illustrate oui 
opinion respecting our own great poet, than 
by contrasting him with the father of Tuscan 
literature. 

The poetry of Milton differs from that of 
Dante, as the hieroglyphics of Egypt differed 
from the picture-writing of Mexico. The 
images which Dante employs speak for them> 
selves : — they stand simply for what they are. 
Those of Milton have a signification which is 
often discernible only to the initiated. Their 
value depends less on what they directly re 
present, than on what they remotely suggest 
However strange, however grotesque, may b a . 
the appearance which Dante undertakes to de- 
scribe, he never shrinks from describing it. 
He gives us the shape, the colour, the sound, 
the smell, the taste ; he counts the numbers ; 
he measures the size. His similes are the il- 
lustrations of a traveller. Unlike those of other 
poets, and especially of Milton, they are intro- 
duced in a plain, business-like manner; not 
for the sake of any beauty in the objects from 
which they are drawn, not for the sake of any 
ornament which they may impart to the poem, 
but simply in order to make the meaning of the 
writer as clear to the reader as it is to himself. 
The ruins of the precipice which led from the 
sixth to the seventh circle of hell, were like 
those of the rock which fell into the Adige on 
the south of Trent. The cataract of Phlege 
thon was like that of Aqua Cheta at the mo 
nasteiy of St. Benedict. The place where the 
heretics were confined in burning tombs re- 
sembled the vast cemetery of Aries ! 

Now, let us compare with the exact details 
of Dante the dim intimations of Milton. We 
will cite a few examples. The English poel 
has never thought of taking the measure of 
Satan. He gives us merely a vague idea of 
vast bulk. In one passage the fiend lies 
stretched out, huge in length, floating many a 
rood, equal in size to the earth-born enemies 
of Jove, or to the sea-monster whic"h the mari- 
ner mistakes for an island. When he ad- 
dresses himself to battle against the guardian 
angels, he stands like Teneriffe or Atlas ; his 
stature reaches the sky. Contrast with these 
descriptions the lines in which Dante has de- 
scribed the gigantic spectre of Nimrod. "His 
face seemed to me as long and as broad as the 
ball of St. Peter's at Rome; and his other limbs 
were in proportion ; so that the bank, which 
concealed him from the waist downwards, 
nevertheless showed so much of him, tha« 
three tall Germans would in vain have at- 
tempted to reach his hair." "We are sensible 
that we do no justice to the admirable style of 
the Florentine poet. But Mr. Cary's transla- 
tion is not at hand, and our version, however 
rude, is sufficient to illu? trate our meaning. 

Once more, compare the lazar-house, in the 
eleventh book of the Paradise Lost, with the 
last ward of Malebolge in Dante. Milton avoids 
the loathsome details, and takes refuge in in- 
distinct, but solemn and tremendous imagery — 
Despair hurrying from couch to couch, to mock 



MILTON. 



the wretches with his attendance: Death shak- 
ing his dart over them, but in spite of suppli- 
cations, delaying to strike. What says Dante] 
"There was such a moan there as there would 
be if all the sick, who, between July and Sep- 
tember, are in the hospitals of Valdichiana, 
and of the Tuscan swamps, and of Sardinia, 
were in one pit together; and such a stench 
was issuing forth as is wont to issue from de- 
cayed limbs." 

We will not take upon ourselves the invi- 
dious office of settling precedency between two 
such writers. Each in his own department is 
incomparable ; and each, we may remark, has, 
wisely or fortunately, taken a subject adapted 
to exhibit his peculiar talent to the greatest 
advantage. The Divine Comedy is a personal 
narrative. Dante is the eye-witness and ear- 
witness of that which he relates. He is the 
very man who has heard the tormented spirits 
crying out for the second death; who has read 
the dusky characters on the portal, within 
which fnere is no hope ; who has hidden his 
face from the terrors of the Gorgon ; who has 
fled from the hooks and the seething pitch of 
Barbariccia and Diaghignazzo. His own hands 
have grasped the shaggy sides of Lucifer. His 
own feet have climbed the mountain of expia- 
tion. His own brow has been marked by the 
purifying angel. The reader would throw aside 
such a tale in incredulous disgust, unless it 
were told with the strongest air of veracity, 
with a sobriety even in its horrors, with the 
greatest precision and multiplicity in its de- 
tails. The narrative of Milton in this respect 
differs from that of Dante, as the adventures 
of Amidas differ from those of Gulliver. The 
author of Amidas would have made his book 
ridiculous if he had introduced those minute 
particulars which give such a charm to the 
work of Swift, the nautical observations, the 
affected delicacy about names, the official do- 
cuments transcribed at full length, and all the 
unmeaning gossip and scandal of the court, 
springing out of nothing, and tending to no- 
thing. We are not shocked at being told that 
a man who lived, nobody knows when, saw 
many very strange sights, and we can easily 
abandon ourselves to the illusion of the ro- 
mance. But when Lemuel Gulliver, surgeon, 
now actually resident at Eotherhithe, tells us 
of pigmies and giants, flying islands and phi- 
losophizing horses, nothing but such circum- 
stantial touches could produce, for a single 
moment, a deception on the imagination. 

Of all the poets who have introduced into 
their works the agency of supernatural beings, 
Milton has succeeded best. Here Dante de- 
cidedly yields to him. And as this is a point 
on which many rash and ill-considered judg- 
ments have been pronounced, we feel inclined 
to dwell on it a little longer. The most fatal 
error which a poet can possibly commit in the 
management of his machinery,is that of attempt- 
ing to philosophize too much. Milton has been 
cften censured for ascribing to spirits many 
- functions of which spirits must be incapable. 
But these objections, though sanctioned by 
eminent names, originate, we venture to say, 
in profound ignorance of the art of poetry. 

What is spirit 1 ? What are our own minds, the 



portion of spirit with which we are best ac 
quaintell We observe certain phenomena 
We cannot explain them into material causes 
We therefore infer that there exists something 
which is not material. But of this something 
we have no idea. We can define it only by 
negatives. We can reason about it only by 
symbols. We use the word, but we have no 
image of the thing : and the business of pretry 
is with images, and not with words. The poe«. 
uses words indeed; but they are merely the 
instruments of his art, not its objects. They 
are the materials which he is to dispose in 
such a manner as to present a picture to the 
mental eye. And, if they are net so disposed, 
they are no more entitled to be called poetry, 
than a bale of canvass and a box of colours 
are to be called a painting. 

Logicians may reason about abstractions , 
but the great mass of mankind can never feel 
an interest in them. They must have images. 
The strong tendency of the multitude in all 
ages and nations to idolatry can be explained 
on no other principle. The first inhabitants 
of Greece, there is every reason to believe, 
worshipped one invisible Deity. But the ne- 
cessity of having something more definite to 
adore produced,, in a few centuries, the innu- 
merable crowd of gods and goddesses. In like 
manner the ancient Persians thought it im- 
pious to exhibit the Creator under a human 
form. Yet even these transferred to the sun 
the worship which, speculatively, they consi- 
dered due only to the Supreme mind. The 
history of the Jews is the record of a continua. 
struggle between pure Theism, supported by 
the most terrible sanctions, and the strangely 
fascinating desire of having some visible and 
tangible object of adoration. Perhaps none' 
of the secondary causes which Gibbon has as- 
signed for the rapidity with which Christianity 
spread over the world, while Judaism scarcely 
ever acquired a proselyte, operated more power- 
fully than this feeling. God, the uncreated, 
the incomprehensible, the invisible, attracted 
few worshippers. A philosopher might admire 
so noble a conception; but the crowd turned 
away in disgust from words which presented 
no image to their minds. It was before Deity, 
embodied in a human form, walking among 
men, partaking of their infirmities, leaning on 
their bosoms, weeping over their graves, slum- 
bering in the manger, bleeding on the cross, 
that the prejudices of the Synagogue, and the 
doubts of the Academy, and the pride of fh:. 
Portico, and the fasces of the lictor, and the 
swords of thirty legions, were humbled in the 
dust ! Soon after Christianity had achieved its 
triumph, the principle which had assisted it 
began to corrupt. It became a new paganism 
Patron saints assumed the offices of household 
gods. St. George took the place of Mars. St 
Elmo consoled the mariner for the loss of Cas 
tor and PoLux, The Virgin Mother and Cicilia 
succeeded to Venus and the Muses. The fas- 
cination of sex and loveliness was again joined 
to that of celestial dignity; and the homage of 
chivalry was blended with that of religion 
Reformers have often made a stand againsi 
these feelings ; but never with more than ap- 
parent and partial success. The men who df 



8 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



molishei the images in cathedrals have not 
always been able to demolish those which were 
enshrined in their minds. It would not be diffi- 
cult to show, that in politics the same rule 
holds good. Doctrines, we are afraid, must 
generally be embodied before they can excite 
strong public feeling. The multitude is more 
easily interested for the most unmeaning badge, 
or the most insignificant name, than for the 
most important principle. 

From these considerations, we infer, that no 
poet who should affect that metaphysical accu- 
racy for the want of which Milton has been 
blamed, would escape a disgraceful failure. 
Still, however, there was another extreme, 
which, though far less dangerous, was also to 
be avoided. The imaginations of men are in 
a great measure under the control of their 
opinions. The most exquisite art of a poetical 
colouring can produce no illusion when it is 
employed to represent that which is at once 
perceived to be incongruous and absurd. Mil- 
ton wrote in an age of philosophers and theo- 
logians. It was necessary therefore for him to 
abstain from giving such a shock to their un- 
derstandings, as might break the charm which 
it was his object to throw over their imagina- 
tions. This is the real explanation of the 
indistinctness and inconsistency with which 
he has often been reproached. Dr. Johnson 
acknowledges, that it was absolutely neces- 
sary for him to clothe his spirits with ma- 
terial forms. "But," says he, "he should 
have secured the consistency of his system, 
by keeping immateriality out of sight, and se- 
ducing the reader to drop it from his thoughts." 
This is easily said ; but what if he could not 
seduce the reader to drop it from his thoughts 1 
What if the contrary opinion had taken so full 
a poss on of the minds of men, as To leave 
no room even for the quasi-belief which poetry 
requires 1 Such we suspect to have been the 
case. It was impossible for the poet to adopt 
altogether the material or the immaterial sys- 
tem. He therefore took his stand on the 
debatable ground. He left the whole in am- 
biguity. He has doubtless by so doing laid 
himself open to the charge of inconsistency. 
But, though philosophically in the wrong, we 
cannot but believe that he was poetically in 
the right. This task, which almost any other 
writer would have found impracticable, was 
easy to him. The peculiar art which he pos- 
sessed of communicating his meaning circuit- 
ously, through a long succession of associated 
ideas, and of intimating more than he ex- 
pressed, enabled him to disguise those incon- 
gruities which he could not avoid. 

Poetry, which relates to the beings of another 
wcrld, ought to be at once mysterious and 
picturesque. That of Milton is so. That of 
Dante is picturesque, indeed, beyond any that 
was ever written. Its effect approaches to that 
produced by the pencil or the chisel. But it is 
picturesque to the exclusion of all mystery. 
This is a fault indeed on the right side, a fault 
inseparable from the plan of his poem, which, 
as we have already observed, rendered the ut- 
most accuracy of description necessary. Still 
it is a fault. His supernatural agents excite 
Mi interest; but it is not the interest which is 



proper to supernatural agents. We feel tha 
we could talk with his ghosts and demons, 
without any emotions of unearthly awe. We 
could, like Don Juan, ask them to supper, and 
eat heartily in their company His angels are 
good men with wings. His devils are spiteful, 
ugly executioners. His dead men are merely 
living men in strange situations. The scene 
which passes between the poet and Facinata 
is justly celebrated. Still, Facinata in the 
burning tomb is exactly what Facinata would 
have been at an auto da fe. Nothing can be 
more touching than the first interview of Dante 
and Beatrice. Yet what is it, but a lovely wo- 
man chiding, with SAveet austere composure, 
the lover for whcse affections she is grateful, 
but whose vices she reprobates 1 The feelings 
which give the passage its charm would suit 
the streets of Florence, as well as the summit 
of the Mount of Purgatory. 

The Spirits of Milton are unlike those of 
almost all other writers. His fiends, in parti- 
cular, are wonderful creations. They are not 
metaphysical abstractions. They are not 
wicked men. They are not ugly beasts. They 
have no horns, no tails, none of the fee-faw- 
fum of Tasso and Klopstock. They have just 
enough in common with human, nature to be 
intelligible to human beings. Their characters 
are, like their forms, marked by a certain dim 
resemblance to those of men, but exaggerated 
to gigantic dimensions and veiled in myste- 
rious gloom. 

Perhaps the gods and demons of iEschylus 
may best bear a comparison with the angels 
and devils of Milton. The style of the Athe- 
nian had, as we have remarked, something of 
the vagueness and tenor of the Oriental cha- 
racter ; and the same peculiarity may be traced 
in his mythology. It has nothing of the ame- 
nity and elegance which we generally find in 
the superstitions of Greece. All is rugged, 
barbaric, and colossal. His legends seem to 
harmonize less with the fragrant groves and 
graceful porticos, in which his countrymen 
paid their vows to the God of Light and God- 
dess of Desire, than with those huge and gro- 
tesque labyrinths of eternal granite, in which 
Egypt enshrined her mystic Osiris, or in which 
Hindostan still bows down to her seven-headed 
idols. His favourite gods are those of the 
elder generations, — the sons of heaven and 
earth, compared with whom Jupiter himself 
was a stripling and an upstart, — the gigantic 
Titans and the inexorable Furies. Foremost 
among his creations of this class stands Pro- 
metheus, half fiend, half redeemer, the friend 
of man, the sullen and implacable enemy of 
heaven. He bears undoubtedly a considerable 
resemblance to the Satan of Milton. In both 
we find the same -^patience of control, the 
same ferocity, the same uncouruerable price. 
In both characters also are mingled, though in 
very different proportions, some kind and 
generous feelings. Prometheus, however, is 
hardly superhuman enough. He talks too 
much of his chains and his uneasy posture 
He is rather too much depressed and agitated. 
His resolution seems to depend on the know- 
ledge which he possesses, that he holds the fats 
of his torturer in his hands, and that the houf 



MILTON. 







or his release will surely come. But Satan is 
a creature of another sphere. The might of 
his intellectual nature is victorious over the ex- 
tremity of pain. Amidst agonies which cannot 
be conceived without horror, he deliberates, 
resolves, and even exults. Against the sword 
of Michael, against the thunder of Jehovah, 
against the naming lake and the marl burning 
with solid fire, against the prospect of an eter- 
nity of unintermittent misery, his spirit bears 
up unbroken, resting on its own innate ener- 
gies, requiring no support from any thing ex- 
ternal, nor even from hope itself! 

To return for a moment to the parallel which 
we have been attempting to draw between Mil- 
ton and Dante, we would add, that the poetry 
of these great men has in a considerable degree 
taken its character from their moral qualities. 
They are not egotists. They rarely obtrude 
their idiosyncrasies on their readers. They 
have nothing in common with those modern 
beggars for fame, who extort a pittance from 
the compassion of the inexperienced, by ex- 

?osing the nakedness and sores of their minds. 
et it would be difficult to name two writers 
whose works have been more completely, 
though undesignedly, coloured by their per- 
sonal feelings. 

The character of Milton was peculiarly dis- 
tinguished by loftiness of thought; that of 
Dante by intensity of feeling. In every line 
of the Divine Comedy we discern the asperity 
which is produced by pride struggling with 
misery. There is perhaps no work in the 
world so deeply and uniformly sorrowful. The 
melancholy of Dante was no fantastic caprice. 
It was not, as far as at this distance of time 
lan be judged, the effect of external circum- 
stances. It was from within. Neither love 
nor glory, neither the conflicts of the earth nor 
the hope of heaven could dispel it. It twined 
every consolation and every pleasure into its 
own nature. It resembled that noxious Sardi- 
nian soil of which the intense bitterness is said 
to have been perceptible even in its honey. 
His mind was, in the noble language of the He- 
brew poet, " a land of darkness, as darkness 
itself, and where the light was as darkness !" 
The gloom of his character discolours all the 
passions of men and all the face of nature, 
and tinges with its own livid hue the flowers 
of Paradise and the glories of the Eternal 
Throne ! All the portraits of him are singu- 
larly characteristic. No person can look on 
the features, noble even to ruggedness, the 
dark furrows of the cheek, the haggard and 
woful stare of the eye, the sullen and contemp- 
tuous curve of the lip, and doubt that they be- 
longed to a man too proud and too sensitive to 
be happy. 

Milton was, like Dante, a statesman and a 
lover ; and, like Dante, he had been unfortu- 
nate in ambition and in love. He had sur- 
vived his health and his sight, the comforts of 
his home and the prosperity of his party. Of 
the great men, by whom he had been distin- 
guished at his entrance into life, some had 
been taken away from the evil to come ; some 
had carried into foreign climates their un- 
conquerable hatred of oppression ; some were 
pininsj in dungeons; and some had poured 



forth their blood on scjffolds. That hatefu, 
proscription, facetiously termed the Act of In. 
demnity and Oblivion, had set a mark on the 
poor, blind, deserted poet, and held him up by 
name to the hatred of a profligate court and 
an inconstant people ! Venal and licentious 
scribblers, with just sufficient talent to clothe 
the thoughts of a pander in the style of a bell- 
man, were now the favourite writers of the 
sovereign and the public. It was a loathsome 
herd — which could be compared to nothing so 
fitly as to the rabble of Comus, grotesque mon- 
sters, half bestial, half human, dropping with 
wine, bloated with gluttony, and reeling in ob- 
scene dances. Amidst these his Muse was 
placed, like the chaste lady of the Masque, 
lofty, spotless, and serene — to be chatted at, 
and pointed at, and grinned at, by the whole 
rabble of Satyrs and Goblins. If ever despond- 
ency and asperity could be excused in any 
man, it might have been excused in Milton. 
But the strength of his mind overcame every 
calamity. Neither blindness, nor gout, nor 
age, nor penury, nor domestic afflictions, nor 
political disappointments, nor abuse, nor pro- 
scription, nor neglect, had power to disturb 
his sedate and majestic patience. His spirits 
do not seem to have been high, but they were 
singularly equable. His temper was serious, 
perhaps stern; but it was a temper which no 
sufferings could render sullen or fretful. Such 
as it was, when, on the eve of great events, he 
returned from his travels, in the prime of health 
and manly beauty, loaded with literary distinc- 
tions and glowing with patriotic hopes, such 
it continued to be — when, after having experi 
enced every calamity which is incident to our 
nature, old, poor, sightless, and disgraced, he 
retired to his hovel to die ! 

Hence it was, that though he wrote tha 
Paradise Lost at a time of life when images 
of beauty and tenderness are in general be- 
ginning to fade, even from those minds in 
which they have not been effaced by anxiety 
and disappointment, he adorned it with all 
that is most lovely and delightful in the phy- 
sical and in the moral world. Neither Theo- 
critus nor Ariosto had a finer or a more health- 
ful sense of the pleasantness of external 
objects, or loved better to luxuriale amidst 
sunbeams and flowers, the songs of nightin- 
gales, the juice of summer fruits, and the 
coolness of shady fountains. His conception 
of love unites all the voluptuousness of the 
Oriental harem, and all the gallantry of the 
chivalric tournament, with all the pure and 
quiet affection of an English fireside. His 
poetry reminds us of the miracles of Alpine 
scenery. Nooks and dells, beautiful as fairy- 
land, are embosomed in its most rugged ana 
gigantic elevations. The roses and myrtles 
bloom unchilled on the verge of the avalanche. 

Traces, indeed, of the peculiar character of 
Milton may be found in all his works ; but it 
is most strongly displayed in th« Sonnets. 
Those remarkable poems have been under- 
valued by critics, who have not understood 
their nature. They have no epigrammatic 
point. There is none of the ingenuity of Fili 
caji in the thought, none of the hard and bril- 
liant enamel of Petrarch in the style The.* 



10 



MACAULAY S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



are simple but majestic records of the feelings 
of the poet ; as little tricked out for the public 
eye as his diary would have been. A victory, 
an expected attack upon the city, a momentary 
lit of depression or exultation, a jest thrown 
out against one of his books, a dream, which 
for a short time restored to him that beautiful 
face over which the grave had closed forever, 
led him to musings which, without effort, 
shaped themselves into verse. The unity of 
sentiment and severity of style, which charac- 
terize these little pieces, remind us of the 
Greek Anthology ; or perhaps still more of the 
Collects of the English Liturgy — the noble 
poem on the Massacres of Piedmont is strictly 
a collect in verse. 

The Sonnets are more or less striking, ac- 
cording as the occasions which gave birth to 
them are more or less interesting. But they 
are, almost without exception, dignified by a 
sobriety and greatness of mind to which we 
know not where to look for a parallel. It would 
indeed be scarcely safe to draw any decided 
inferences, as to the character of a writer, 
from passages directly egotistical. But the 
qualities which we have ascribed to Milton, 
though perhaps most strongly marked in those 
parts of his works which treat of his personal 
feelings, are distinguishable in every page, and 
impart to all his writings, prose and poetry, 
English, Latin, and. Italian, a strong family 
likeness. 

His public conduct was such as was to be 
expected from a man of a spirit so high, and 
an intellect so powerful. He lived at one of 
Jie most memorable eras in the history of man- 
kind; at the very crisis of the great conflict 
vetween Oromasdes and Arimanes — liberty 
tnd despotism, reason and prejudice. That 
great battle was fought for no single genera- 
tion, for no single land. The destinies of the 
human race were staked on the same cast 
with the freedom of the English people. Then 
were first proclaimed those mighty principles, 
which have since worked their way into the 
depths of the American forests, which have 
roused Greece from the slavery and degrada- 
tion of two thousand years, and which, from 
one end of Europe to the other, have kindled 
an unquenchable fire in the hearts of the op- 
pressed, and loosed the knees of the oppressors 
with a strange and unwonted fear ! 

Of those principles, then struggling for their 
infant existence, Milton was the most devoted 
and eloquent literary champion. We need 
not say how much we admire his public con- 
duct. But we cannot disguise from ourselves, 
that a large portion of his countrymen still 
think it unjustifiable. The civil war, indeed, 
has been more discussed, and is less under- 
stood, than any event in English history. The 
Roundheads laboured under the disadvantage 
of which the lion in the fable complained so 
bitterly. Though they were the conquerors, 
their enemies were the painters. As a body, 
mey had done their utmost to decry and ruin 
literature ; and literature was even with them, 
as, in the long run, it always is with its ene- 
mies. The best book, on their side of the 
question, is the charming memoir of Mrs. 
Huohinson. May's History of the Parliamept 



is good ; but it breaks off at the most interest* 
ing crisis of the struggle. The performance 
of Ludlow is very foolish and violent; and 
most of the later writers who have espoused 
the same cause, Oldmixon, for instance, and 
Catherine Macaulay, have, to say the least, 
been more distinguished by zeal than either 
by candour or by skill. On the other side are 
the most authoritative and the most popular 
historical works in our language, that of Cla- 
rendon, and that of Hume. The former is not 
only ably written and full of valuable informa- 
tion, but has also an air of dignity and sin- 
cerity which makes even the prejudices and 
errors with which it abounds respectable. 
Hume, from Whose fascinating narrative the 
great mass of the reading public are still con- 
tented to take their opinions, hated religion so 
much, that he hated liberty for having been 
allied with religion — and has pleaded the cause 
of tyranny with the dexterity of an advocate, 
while affecting the impartiality of a judge. 

The public conduct of Milton must be ap- 
proved, or condemned, according as the resist- 
ance of the people to Charles I. shall appear 
to be justifiable or criminal. We shall there- 
fore make no apology for dedicating a few 
pages to the discussion of that interesting 
and most important question. We shall not 
argue it on general grounds, we shall not recur 
to those primary principles from which the 
claim of any government to the obedience of 
its subjects is to be deduced; it is a vantage- 
ground to which we are entitled ; but we will 
relinquish it. We are, on this point, so confi- 
dent of superiority, that we have no objection 
to imitate the ostentatious generosity of those 
ancient knights, who vowed to joust withoui 
helmet or shield against all enemies, and to 
give their antagonist the advantage of sun and 
wind. We will take the naked, constitutional 
question. We confidently affirm, that every 
reason, which can be urged in favour of the 
Revolution of 1688, may be urged with at least 
equal force in favour of what is called the 
great rebellion. 

In one respect only, we think, can the 
warmest admirers of Charles venture to say 
that he was a better sovereign than his son. 
He was not, in name and profession, a papist 
we say in name and profession, because both 
Charles himself and his miserable creature, 
Laud, while they abjured the innocent badges 
of popery, retained all its worst vices, a com- 
plete subjection of reason to authority, a weak 
preference of form to substance, a childish 
passion for mummeries, an idolatrous venera- 
tion for the priestly character, and, above all, a 
stupid and ferocious intolerance. This, how- 
ever, we waive. We will concede that Charles 
was a good protestant ; but we say that his 
protestantism does not make the slightest dis- 
tinction between his case and that of James. 

The principles of the Revolution have often 
been grossly misrepresented, and never more 
than in the course of the present year. There 
is a certain class of men, who, while they 
profess to hold in reverence the great names 
and great actions of former times, never look 
at them for any other purpose than in order to 
find in them some excuse for existing abuses. 



MILTON 



J! 



In every venerable precedent, tl ey pass by 
what is essential, and take only vhat is acci- 
dental : they keep out of sight what is benefi- 
cial, and hold up to public imitation all that is 
defective. If, in any part of any great exam- 
ple, there be any thing unsound, these flesh-flies 
detect it with an unerring instinct, and dart 
upon it with a ravenous delight. They cannot 
always prevent the advocates of a good mea- 
sure from compassing their end; but they feel, 
with their prototype, that 

"Their labours must be to pervert that end, 
And out of good still to find means of evil." 

To the blessings' which England has de- 
rived from the Revolution these people are 
utterly insensible. The expulsion of a tyrant, 
the solemn recognition of popular rights, 
liberty, security, toleration, all go for nothing 
with them. One sect there was, which, from 
unfortunate temporary causes, it was thought 
necessary to keep under close restraint. One 
part of tire empire there was so unhappily cir- 
cumstanced, that at that time its misery was 
necessary to our happiness, and its slavery to 
our freedom ! These are the parts of the Re- 
volution which the politicians of whom we 
speak love to contemplate, and which seem to 
them, not indeed to vindicate, but in some de- 
gree to palliate the good which it has produced. 
Talk to them of Naples, of Spain, or of South 
America. They stand forth, zealots for the 
doctrine of Divine Right, which has now come 
back to us, like a thief from transportation, 
under the alias of Legitimacy. But mention 
the miseries of Ireland ! Then William is a 
hero. Then Somers and Shrewsbury are great 
men. Then the Revolution is a glorious era ! 
The very same persons, who, in this country, 
never omit an opportunity of reviving every 
wretched Jacobite slander respecting the whigs 
of that period, have no sooner crossed St. 
George's channel, than they begin to fill their 
bumpers to the glorious and immortal memory. 
They may truly boast that they look not at men 
but measures. So that evil be done, they care 
not who does it — the arbitrary Charles or the 
liberal William, Ferdinand the catholic or 
Frederick the protestant! On such occasions 
their deadliest opponents may reckon upon 
their candid construction. The bold assertions 
of these people have of late impressed a large 
portion of the public with an opinion that 
James II. was expelled simply because he was 
a catholic, and that the Revolution was essen- 
tially a protestant revolution. 

But this certainly was not the case. Nor 
can any person, who has acquired more know- 
ledge of the history of those times than is to be 
found in Goldsmith's Abridgment, believe that, 
if James had held his own religious opinions 
without wishing to make proselytes ; or if, 
wishing even to make proselytes, he had con- 
tented himself with exerting only his cons>.,.c. *■ 
tional influence for that purpose, the Prince of 
Orange would ever have been invited over. 
Our ancestors, we suppose, knew their own 
meaning. And, if we may believe them, their 
hostility was primarily not to popery, but to 
tyranny. They did not drive out a tyrant be- 
cause he was a catholic; but they excluded 



catholics from the crown, because (hey thought 
them likely to be tyrants. The ground on 
which they, in their famous resolution, de- 
clared the throne vacant, was this, "that 
James had broken the fundamental laws of th« 
kingdom." Every man, therefore, who ap 
proves of the Revolution of 1688, must hold 
that the breach of fundamental luws on the part of 
the sovereign justifies resistance. The question 
then is this : Had Charles I. broken the funda- 
mental laws of England ] 

No person can answer in the negative, un- 
less he refuses credit, not merely to all the 
accusations brought against Charles by his 
opponents, but to the narratives of the warmest 
royalists, and to the confessions of the king 
himself. If there be any historian of any party 
who has related the events of that reign, the 
conduct of ChaTles, from his accession to the 
meeting of the Long Parliament, had been a 
continued course of oppression and treachery. 
Let those who applaud the Revolution and con- 
demn the rebellion, mention one act of James 
II., to which a parallel is not to be found in the 
history of his father. Let them lay their fin- 
gers on a single article in the Declaration of 
Right, presented by the two Houses to WilJiam 
and Mary, which Charles is not acknowledged 
to have violated. He had, according to the 
testimony of his own friends, usurped the 
functions of the legislature, raised taxes without 
the, consent of parliament, and quartered 
troops on the people in the most illegal and 
vexatious manner. Not a single session of 
parliament had passed without some unconsti- 
tional attack on the freedom of debate. The 
right of petition was grossly violated. Arbi- 
trary judgments, exorbitant fines, and unwar- 
ranted imprisonments, were grievances of daif.y 
and hourly occurrence. If these things do not 
justify resistance, the Revolution was treason ; 
if they do, the Great Rebellion was laudable. 

But, it is said, why not adopt milder mea 
sures ] Why, after the king had consented to 
so many reforms, and renounced so many op- 
pressive prerogatives, did the parliament con- 
tinue to rise in their demands, at the risk of 
provoking a civil war] The ship-money had 
been given up. The star-chamber had been 
abolished. Provision had been made for the 
frequent convocation and secure deliberation 
of parliaments. Why not pursue an end con- 
fessedly good, by peaceable and regular means? 
We recur again to the analogy of the Revolu- 
tion. Why was James driven from the throne * 
Why was he not retained upon conditions * 
He too had offered to call a free parliament, 
and to submit to its decision all the matters in 
dispute. Yet we praise our forefathers, who 
preferred a revolution, a disputed succession, 
a dynasty of strangers, twenty years of foreign 
and intestine war, a standing army, and a na- 
tional debt, to the rule, however restricted, of a 
tried and proved tyrant. The Long Parlia- 
ment acted on the same principle, and is enti- 
tled to the same praise. They could not trust 
the king. He had no doubt passed salutary laws. 
But what assurance had they that he would 
not break them] He had renounced oppres 
sive prerogatives. But where was the security 
that he would not resume them 7 They had U< 



18 



MAOAULAY S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



deal with a man whom no tie could bmd, a man 
who made and broke promises with equal faci- 
lity, a man whose honour had been a hundred 
limes pawned — and never redeemed. 

Here, indeed, the Long Parliament stands 
on still stronger ground than the Convention 
of 1688. No action of James can be compared 
for wickedness and impudence to the conduct 
of Charles with respect to the Petition of Right. 
The lords and commons present him with a 
bill in which the constitutional limits of his 
power are marked out. He hesitates ; he evades ; 
at last he bargains to give his assent, for five 
subsidies. The bill receives his solemn assent. 
The subsidies are voted. But no sooner is the 
tyrant relieved, than he returns at once to all 
the arbitrary measures which he had bound 
himself to abandon, and violates all the 
clauses of the very act which he had been 
paid to pass. . 

For more than ten years, the people had 
seen the rights, which were theirs by a double 
claim, by immemorial inheritance and by re- 
cent purchase, infringed by the perfidious king 
who had recognised them. At length circum- 
stances compelled Charles to summon another 
parliament ; another chance was given them 
for liberty. Were they to throw it away as 
they had thrown away the former 1 Were 
they again to be cozened by le Roi le veut? 
Were they again to advance their money on 
pledges, which had been forfeited over and 
over again 1 Were they to lay a second Peti- 
tion of Right at the foot of the throne, to grant 
another lavish aid in exchange for another un- 
meaning ceremony, and then take their de- 
parture, till, after ten years' more of fraud and 
oppression, their prince should again require 
a supply, and again repay it with a perjury 1 
They were compelled to choose whether they 
would trust a tyrant or conquer him. We think 
that they chose wisely and nobly. 

The advocates of Charles, like the advocates 
of other malefactors against whom overwhelm- 
ing evidence is produced, generally decline all 
controversy about the facts, and content them- 
selves with calling testimony to character. He 
had so many private virtues ! And had James 
II. no private virtues! Was even Oliver 
Cromwell, his bitterest enemies themselves 
being judges, destitute of private virtues'? 
And what, after all, are the virtues ascribed to 
Charles 1 A religious zeal, not more sincere 
than that of his son, and fully as weak and 
narrow-minded, and a few of the ordinary 
household decencies, which half the tomb- 
stones in England claim for those who lie be- 
neath them. A good father ! A good husband ! 
— Ample apologies indeed for fifteen years of 
persecution, tyranny, and falsehood. 

We charge him with having broken his co- 
ronation oath — and we are told that he kept 
his marriage-vow ! We accuse him of having 
given up his people to the merciless inflictions 
of the most hot-headed and hard-hearted of 
prelates — and the defence is, that he took his 
little son on his knee and kissed him! We 
censure him for having violated the articles 
of the Petition of Right, after having, for good 
and valuarje consideration, promised to ob- 
*r.r » »• them — and we are informed that he was 



accustomed to hear prayers at six o'clock iD 
the morning! It is to such considerations as 
these, together with his "Vandyke dress, his 
handsome face, and his peaked beard, that he 
owes, we verily believe, most of his popularity 
with the present generation. 

For ourselves, we own that we do not under 
stand the common phrase — a good man, but a 
bad king. We can as easily conceive a good 
man and an unnatural father, or a good man 
and a treacherous friend. We cannot, in esti- 
mating the character of an individual, leave 
out of our consideration his conduct in the 
most important of all human relations. And 
if in that relation we find him to have been 
selfish, cruel, and deceitful, we shall take the 
liberty to call him a bad man, in spite of all 
his temperance at table, and all his regularity 
at chapel. 

We cannot refrain from adding a few words 
respecting a topic on which the defenders of 
Charles are fond of dwelling. If, they say, he 
governed his people ill, he at least governed 
them after the example of his predecessors. If 
he violated their privileges, it was because those 
privileges had not been accurately defined. No 
act of oppression has ever been imputed to 
him which has not a parallel in the annals cf 
the Tudors. This point Hume has laboured 
with an art which is as discreditable in an his- 
torical work as it would be admirable in a 
forensic address. The answer is short, clear, 
and decisive. Charles had assented to the 
Petition of Right. He had renounced the op- 
pressive powers said to have been exercised 
by his predecessors, and he had renounced 
them for money. He was not entitled to set 
up his antiquated claims against his own re- 
cent release. 

These arguments are so obvious that it may 
seem superfluous to dwell upon them. But 
those who have observed how much the events 
of that time are misrepresented and misunder- 
stood, will not blame us for stating the case 
simply. It is a case of which the simplest 
statement is the strongest. 

The enemies of the parliament, indeed, rare- 
ly choose to take issue on the great points of 
the question. They content themselves with 
exposing some of the crimes and follies of 
which public commotions necessarily gave 
birth. They bewail the unmerited fate of 
Strafford. They execrate the lawless violence 
of the army. They laugh at the scriptural 
names of the preachers. Major-generals fleec- 
ing their districts ; soldiers revelling on the 
spoils of a ruined peasantry ; upstarts, enrich- 
ed by the public plunder, taking possession of 
the hospitable firesides and hereditary trees 
of the old gentry; boys smashing the beautiful 
windows of cathedrals ; Quakers riding nakec. 
through the market-place ; Fifth-monarchy- 
men shouting for King Jesus ; agitators lec- 
turing from the tops of tubs on the fate of 
Agag ; — all these, they tell us, were the off- 
spring of the Great Rebellion. 

Be it so. We are not careful to answer in 
this matter. These charges, were they infinite- 
ly more important, would not alter our opinion 
of an event, which alone has made us to differ 
from the slaves who crouch beneath the seep- 



MILTON. 



13 



tres of Brandenburg and Braganza. Many- 
evils, no doubt, were produced by the civil war. 
They were the price of our liberty. Has the 
acquisition been worth the sacrifice] It is the 
nature of the devil of tyranny to tear and rend 
the body which he leaves. Are the miseries 
of continued possession less horrible than the 
struggles of the tremendous exorcism 1 

If it were possible that a people, brought up 
under an intolerant and arbitrary system, could 
subvert that system without acts of cruelty and 
folly, half the objections to despotic power 
would be removed. We should, in that case, 
be compelled to acknowledge that it at least 
produces no pernicious effects on the intellec- 
tual and moral character of a people. We de- 
plore the outrages which accompany revolu- 
tions. But the more violent the outrages, the 
more assured we feei that a revolution was ne- 
cessary. The violence. of those outrages will 
always be proportioned to the ferocity and ig- 
norance of.the people: and the ferocity and 
ignorance of the people will be proportioned 
to the oppression and degradation under which 
they have been accustomed to live. Thus it 
was in our civil war. The rulers in the church 
and state reaped only that which they had 
sown. They had prohibited free discussion — 
they had done their best to keep the people un- 
acquainted with their duties and their rights. 
The retribution was iust and natural. If they 
suffered from poptuar ignorance, it was be- 
cause they had themselves taken away the key 
of knowledge. If they were assailed with blind 
•ury, it was because they had exacted an 
equally blind submission. 

It is the character of such revolutions that 
we always see the Avorst of them at first. Till 
men have been for some time free, they know 
not how to use their freedom. The natives of 
wine countries are always sober. In climates 
where wine is a rarity, intemperance abounds. 
A newly liberated people may be compared to 
a northern army encamped on the Rhine or 
the Xeres. It is said that, when soldiers in 
such a situation first find themselves able to 
indulge without restraint in such a rare and 
expensive luxury, nothing is to be seen but in- 
toxication. Soon, however, plenty teaches dis- 
cretion; and after wine has been for a few 
months their daily fare, they become more 
temperate than they had ever been in their 
own country. In the same manner the final 
and permanent fruits of liberty are wisdom, 
moderation, and mercy. Its immediate effects 
are often atrocious crimes, conflicting errors, 
scepticism on points the most clear, dogma- 
tism on points the most mysterious. It is just 
at this crisis that its enemies love to exhibit 
it. They pull down the scaffolding from the 
half-finished edifice ; they point to the flying 
dust, the falling bricks, the comfortless rooms, 
the frightful irregularity of the whole appear- 
ance ; and then ask in scorn where the pro- 
mised splendour and comfort are to be found 1 
If such miserable sophisms were to prevail, 
there would never be a good house or a good 
government in the world. 

Ariosto tells a pretty story of a fairy, who, 
by some mysterious law of her nature, was 
Condemned to appear at certain seasons in the 
2 



form of a foul and poisonous snake. Thos« 
who injured her during the period of her dis« 
guise, were forever excluded from participa- 
tion in the blessings which she bestowed. But 
to those who, in spite of her loathsome aspect 
pitied and protected her, she afterwards re* 
vealed herself in the beautiful and celestial 
form which was natural to her, accompanied 
their steps, granted all their wishes, filled their 
houses with wealth, made them happy in love, 
and victorious in war.* Such a spirit is 
Liberty. At times she takes the form of a 
hateful reptile. She grovels, she hisses, she 
stings. But wo to those who in disgust shall 
venture to crush her ! And happy are those 
who, having dared to receive her in her de- 
graded and frightful shape, shall at length be 
rewarded by her in the time of her beauty and 
her glory. 

There is only one cure for the evils which 
newly acquired freedom produces — and that 
cure is freedom! When a prisoner leaves his 
cell, he cannot bear the light of day; — he is 
unable to discriminate colours, or recognise 
faces. But th«; remedy is not to remand him 
into his dungeon, but to accustom him to the 
rays of ths sun. The blaze of truth and liberty 
may at first dazzle and bewilder nations which 
have become half blind in the house of bondage 
But let them gaze on, and they will soon be able 
to bear it. In a few years men learn to reason. 
The extreme violence of opinion subsides. 
Hostile theories correct each other. The scat- 
tered elements of truth cease to conflict, and 
begin to coalesce. And at length a system of 
justice and order is educed out of the chaos. 

Many politicians of our time are in the habif 
of laying it down as. a self-evident proposition 
that no people ought to be free till they are fi 
to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy 
of the fool in the old story, who resolved not tc 
go into the water till he had learnt to swim ! 
If men are to wait for liberty till they become 
wise and good in slavery, they may indeed 
wait forever. 

Therefore it is that we decidedly approve 
of the conduct of Milton and the other wise 
and good men who, in spite of much that was 
ridiculous and hateful in the conduct of their 
associates, stood firmly by the cause of public 
liberty. We are not aware that the poet has 
been charged with personal participation iH 
any of the blamable excesses of that time. 
The favourite topic of his enemies is the line 
of conduct which he pursued with regard to 
the execution of the king. Of that celebrated 
proceeding we by no means approve. Still 
we must say, in justice to the many eminent 
persons who concurred in it, and in justice 
more particularly to the eminent person who 
defended it, that nothing can be more absurd 
than the imputations which, for the last hun 
dred and sixty years, it has been the fashion to 
cast upon the regicid.es. We have throughout 
abstained from appealing to first principles— 
we will not appeal to them now. We recur 
again to the parallel case of the Revolution. 
What essential distinction can be drawn be- 
tween the execution of the father and tht 



* Orlando Furioso, Canto 43 



14 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



deposition of the son 1 What constitutional 
maxim is there, which applies to the former 
and not to the latter 1 The king can do no j 
wrong. If so, James was as innocent as 
Charles could have been. The minister only- 
ought to be responsible for the acts of the 
sovereign. If so, why not impeach Jeffries 
and retain James ? The person of a king is 
sacred. Was the person of James considered 
sacred at the Boyne 1 To discharge cannon 
against an army in which a king is known to 
be posted, is to approach pretty near *o regi- 
cide. Charles too, it should always be re- 
membered, was put to death by men who had 
been exasperated by the hostilities of several 
years, and who had never been bound to him 
by any other tie than that which was common 
to them with all their fellow-citizens. Those 
who drove James from his throne, who seduced 
his army, who alienated his friends, who first 
imprisoned him in his palace, and then turned 
him out of it, who broke in upon his very 
slumbers by imperious messages, who pursued 
him with fire and sword from one part of the 
empire to another, who hanged, drew, and 
quartered his adherents, and attainted his 
innocent heir, were his nephew and his two 
daughters ! When we reflect on all these 
things, we are at a loss to conceive how the 
same persons who, on the fifth of November, 
thank God for wonderfully conducting his ser- 
vant King William, and for making all opposi- 
tion fall before him until he became our King 
and Governor, can, on the thirtieth of January, 
contrive to be afraid that the blood of the Royal 
Martyr may be visited on themselves and their 
ehildren. 

We do not, we repeat, approve of the execu- 
tion of Charles ; not because the constitution 
exempts the king from responsibility, for we 
know that all such maxims, however excellent, 
have their exceptions ; nor because we feel 
any peculiar interest in his character, for we 
think that his sentence describes him with 
perfect justice as a " tyrant, a traitor, a mur- 
derer, and a public enemy;" but because we 
are convinced that the measure was most in- 
jurious to the cause of freedom. He whom it 
removed was a captive and a hostage. His 
heir, to whom the allegiance of every royalist 
was instantly transferred, was at large. The 
Presbyterians could never have been perfectly 
leconciled to the father. They had no such root- 
ed enmity to the son. The great body of the 
people, also, contemplated that proceeding with 
feelings which, however unreasonable, no go- 
vernment could safely venture to outrage. 

But. though we think the conduct of the 
regicides blamable, that of Milton appears to 
us in a very different light. The deed was 
done. It could not be undone. The evil was 
incurred; and the object was to render it as 
small as possible. We censure the chiefs 
of the army for not yielding to the popular 
opinion : but we cannot censure Milton for 
wishing to change that opinion. The very 
ieeling, which would have restrained us from 
committing the act, would have led us, after it 
had been committed, to defend it against the 
ravings of servility and superstition. For the 
<ake of public liberty, we wish that the thing 



had not been done, while the people dis* 
approved of it. But, for the sake of public 
liberty, we should also have wished the people 
to approve of it when it was done. If any 
thing more were wanting to the justification 
of Milton, the book of Salmasius would furnish 
it. That miserable performance is now with 
justice considered only as a beacon to word- 
catchers who wish to become statesmen. Th« 
celebrity of the man who refuted it, the "JEnc& 
magni dextra," gives it all its fame with the 
present generation. In that age the state of 
things was different. It was not then fully 
understood- how vast an interval separates the 
mere classical scholar from the political philo- 
sopher. Nor can it be doubted, that a treatise 
which, bearing the name of so eminent a 
critic, attacked the fundamental principles of 
all free governments, must, if suffered to re- 
main unanswered, have produced a most per- 
nicious effect on the public mind. 

We wish to add a few words relative to 
another subject on which the enemies of 
Milton delight to dwell — his conduct during 
the administration of the Protector. That an 
enthusiastic votary of liberty should accept 
office under a military usurper, seems, no 
doubt, at first sight, extraordinary. But all the 
circumstances in which the country was then 
placed were extraordinary. The ambition of 
Oliver was of no vulgar kind. He never seems 
to have coveted despotic power. He at first 
fought sincerely and manfully for the parlia- 
ment, and never deserted it, till it had deserted 
its duty. If he dissolved it by force, it was 
not till he found that the few members, Who 
remained after so many deaths, secessions, 
and expulsions, were desirous to appropriate 
to themselves a power which they held only 
in trust, and to inflict upon England the 
curse of a Venetian oligarchy. But even 
when thus placed by violence at the head 
of affairs, he did not assume unlimited power 
He gave the country a constitution far more 
perfect than any which had at that time been 
known in the world. He reformed the repre- 
sentative system in a manner which has ex- 
torted praise even from Lord Clarendon. Foi 
himself, he demanded indeed the first place in 
the commonwealth ; but with powers scarcely 
so great as those of a Dutch stadtholder, or an 
American president. He gave the parliament 
a voice in the appointment of ministers, and 
left to it the whole legislative authority — not 
even reserving to himself a veto on its enact- 
ments. And he did not require that the chief 
magistracy should be hereditary in his family. 
Thus far, we think, if the circumstances of the 
time, and the opportunities which he had of 
aggrandizing himself, be fairly considered, he 
will not lose by comparison with Washington 
or Bolivar. Had his moderation been met by 
corresponding moderation, there is no reason 
to think that he would have overstepped tne 
line which he had traced for himself. But 
when he found that his parliaments questioned 
the authority under which they met, and that he 
was in danger of being deprived of the restrict- 
ed power which was absolutely necessary to his 
personal safety, then, it must be acknowledged, 
he adopted a more arbitrary policy. 



MILTON. 



15 



ret, though -we believe that the intentions 
of Cromwell were at first honest, though we 
Relieve that he was driven from the noble 
course which he had marked out for himself 
by the almost irresistible force of circum- 
stances, though we admire, in common with 
all men of all parties, the ability and energy 
of his splendid administration, we are not 
pleading for arbitrary and lawless power, even 
in his hands. We know that a good constitu- 
tion is infinitely better than the best despot. 
But we suspect, that, at the time of which we 
speak, the violence of religious and political 
enmities rendered a stable and happy settle- 
ment next to impossible. The choice lay, not 
between Cromwell and liberty, but between 
Cromwell and the Stuarts. That Milton chose 
well, no man can doubt, who fairly compares 
the events of the protectorate with these of the 
thirty years which succeeded it — the darkest 
and most disgraceful in the English annals. 
CromwelL,was evidently laying, though in an 
irregular manner, the foundations of an ad- 
mirable system. Never before had religious 
liberty and the freedom of discussion been 
enjoyed in a greater degree. Never had the 
national honour been better upheld abroad, or 
the seat of justice better filled at home. And 
it was rarely that any opposition, which stopped 
short of open rebellion, provoked the resent- 
ment of the liberal and magnanimous usurper. 
The institutions which he had established, as 
set down in the Instrument of Government, 
and the Humble Petition and Advice, were 
excellent. His practice, it is true, too often 
departed from the theory of these institutions. 
But, had he lived a few years longer, it is 
probable that his institutions would have sur- 
vived him, and that his arbitrary practice 
would have died with him. His power had 
not been consecrated by any ancient preju- 
dices. It was upheld only by his great per- 
sonal qualities. Little, therefore, was to be 
dreaded from a second Protector, unless he 
were also a second Oliver Cromwell. The 
events which followed his decease are the 
most complete vindication of those who exert- 
ed themselves to uphold his authority. For 
his death dissolved the whole frame of society. 
The army rose against the Parliament, the 
different corps of the army against each other. 
Sect raved against sect. Party plotted against 
party. The Presbyterians, in their eagerness 
to be revenged on the Independents, sacrificed 
their own liberty, and deserted all their old 
principles. Without casting one glance on the 
past, or requiring one stipulation for the future, 
they threw down their freedom at the feet of 
the most frivolous and heartless of tyrants. 

Then came those days, never to be recalled 
without a blush — the days of servitude without 
loyalty, and sensuality without love, of dwarf- 
ish talents and gigantic vices, the paradise of 
cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age 
of tfos coward, the bigot, and the slave. The 
king cringed to his rival that he might trample 
on his people, sunk into a vicercy of France, 
and pocketed, with complacent infamy, her 
degrading insults and her mere degrading 
gold. The caresses of harlots and the jests 
of buffoons regulated the measures of a go- 



vernment, which haa just ability enough tc 
deceive, and just religion enough to persecute 
The principles of liberty were the scoff of every 
grinning courtier, and the Anathema Marana- 
tha of every fawning dean. In every high 
place, worship was paid to Charles and James 
— Belial and Moloch ; and England propitiated 
those obscene and cruel idols with the blood 
of her best and bravest children. Crime suc- 
ceeded to crime, and disgrace to disgrace, till 
the" race, accursed of God and man, was a 
second time driven forth, to wander on the 
face of the earth, and to be a by-word and a 
shaking of the head to the nations. 

Most of the remarks Avhich we have hitherto 
made on the public character of Milton, apply 

to him only as one of a large body. We shall- 

proceed to notice some of the peculiarities-—— 
which distinguished him from his contempo- 
raries. And, for that purpose, it is necessary 
to take a short survey of the parties into which 
the political Avorld was at that time divided. 
We must premise, that our observations are 
intended to apply only to those who adhered, 
from a sincere preference, to one or to the 
other side. At a period of public commotion, 
every faction, like an Oriental army, is attended 
by a crowd of camp followers, a useless and 
heartless rabble, who prowl round its line of 
march in the hope of picking up something 
under its protection, but desert it in the day of 
battle, and often join to exterminate it after a 
defeat. England, at the time of which we are 
treating, abounded with such fickle and selfish 
politicians, who transferred their support to 
every government as it rose, — who kissed the 
hand of the king in 1640, and spit in his face 
in 1 649, — who shouted with equal glee when 
Cromwell was inaugurated in Westminster 
Hall, and when he was dug up to be hanged at 
Tyburn — who dined on calves' heads or on 
broiled rumps, and cut down oak branches or 
stuck them up as circumstances altered, with- 
out the slightest shame or repugnance. These 
we leave out of the account. We take our 
estimate of parlies from those who really 
deserved to be called partisans. 

We would speak first of the Puritans, the 
most remarkable body of men, perhaps, which 
the world has ever produced. The odious and 
ridiculous parts of their character lie on the 
surface. He that runs may read them; nor 
have there been wanting attentive and mali- 
cious observers to point them out. For many 
years after the Restoration, they were the theme 
of unmeasured invective and derision. They 
were exposed to the utmost licentiousness of 
the press and of the stage, at the time when 
the press and the stage were most licentious. 
They were not men of letters ; they were, as a 
body, unpopular ; they could not defend them- 
selves ; and the public would not take them 
under its protection. They were therefore 
abandoned, without reserve, to the tender mer- 
cies of the satirists and dranratists. The 
ostentatious simplicity of their dress, theit 
sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff pos- 
ture, their long graces, their Hebrew names 
the Scriptural phrases which they introduced 
on every occasion, their contempt of human 
learning, their detestation of polite arnus*- 



10 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



merits, were indeed fair game for the laughers. 
But it is not from the laughers alone that the 
philosophy of history is to be learnt. And he 
who approaches this subject should carefully 
guard against the influence of that potent ridi- 
cule, which has already misled so many excel- 
lent writers. 

" Ecco il fonte del riso, ed ecco il rio 
Che mortali perigli in se contiene : 
Hor qui tener a fren nostro a desio, 
Ed esser cauti molto a noi conviene *'* 

Those who roused the people to resistance — 
who directed their measures through a long 
aeries of eventful years — who formed, out of 
the most unpromising materials, the finest 
army that Europe had ever seen — who tram- 
pled down King, Church, and Aristocracy — 
who, in the short intervals of domestic sedition 
and rebellion, made the name of England ter- 
rible to every nation on the face of the earth, 
were no vulgar fanatics. Most of their ab- 
surdities were mere external badges, like the 
signs of freemasonry or the dresses of friars. 
We regret that these badges were not more 
attractive. We regret that a body, to whose 
courage and talents mankind has owed inesti- 
mable obligations, had not the lofty elegance 
which distinguished some of the adherents of 
Charles I., or the easy good breeding for which 
the court of Charles II. was celebrated. But, 
if we must make our choice, we shall, like 
Bassanio in the play, turn from the specious 
caskets which contain only the Death's head 
and the Fool's head, and fix our choice on the 
plain leaden chest which conceals the treasure. 

The Puritans were men whose minds had 
derived a peculiar character from the daily 
contemplation of superior beings and external 
interests. Not consent with acknowledging, in 
general terms, an overruling Providence, they 
habitually ascribed every event to the will of 
the Great Being, for whose power nothing was 
too vas t, for whose inspection nothing was too 
minute To know him, to serve him, to enjoy 
him, was with them the great end of existence. 
They rejected with contempt the ceremonious 
homage which other sects substituted for the 
pure worship of the soul. Instead of catching 
occasional glimpses of the Deity through an 
obscuring Veil, they aspired to gaze full on the 
intolerable brightness, and to commune with 
him face to face. Hence originated their con- 
tempt for terrestrial distinctions. The differ- 
ence between the greatest and meanest of man- 
kind seemed to vanish, when compared with 
the boundless interval which separated the 
whole race from him on whom their own eyes 
were constantly fixed. They recognised no 
title to superiority but his favour ; and, confi- 
dent of that favour, they despised all the ac- 
complishments and all the dignities of the 
world. If they were unacquainted with the 
works of philosophers and poets, they were 
deeply read in the oracles of God. If their 
names were not found in the registers of he- 
ralds, they felt assured that they were recorded 
in the Book of Life. If their steps were not 
accompanied by a splendid train of menials, 
legions of ministering angels had charge over 
vhfira. Their palaces were houses not made 



* Gerusalemme Liberata, xv. 57. 



with hands: their diadems crowns cf glory 
which should never fade away ! On the rich 
and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they 
looked down with contempt : for they esteemed 
themselves rich in a more precious treasure, 
and eloquent in a more sublime language, 
nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and 
priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. 
The very meanest of them was a being to 
whose fate a mysterious and terrible import- 
ance belonged — on whose slightest actions the 
spirits of light and darkness looked with 
anxious interest — who had been destined, be- 
fore heaven and earth were created, to enjoy 
a felicity which should continue when heaven 
and earth should have passed away. Events 
which short-sighted politicians ascribed to 
earthly causes had been ordained on his ac- 
count. For his take empires had risen, and 
flourished, and decayed. For his sake the 
Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen 
of the evangelist and the harp of the prophet. 
He had been rescued by no common deliverer 
from the grasp of no common foe. He had 
been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar 
agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. 
It was for him that the sun had been darkened, 
that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had 
arisen, that all nature had shuddered at the suf- 
ferings of her expiring God ! 

Thus the Puritan was made up of two differ- 
ent men, the one all self-abasement, penitence, 
gratitude, passion ; the other proud, calm, in- 
flexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in 
the dust before his Maker ; but he setvhis foot 
on the neck of his king. In his devotional re- 
tirement, he prayed with convulsions, and 
groans, and tears. He was half maddened by 
glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the 
lyres of angels or the tempting whispers of 
fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific 
Vision, or woke screaming from dreams of 
everlasting fire. Like Vane, he thought him- 
self intrusted with the sceptre of the millennial 
year. Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitter- 
ness of his soul that God had hid his face from 
him. But when he took his seat in the coun- 
cil, or girt on his sword for war, these tem- 
pestuous workings of the soul had left no 
perceptible trace behind them. People who 
saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth 
visages, and heard nothing from them but their 
groans and their whining hymns, might laugh 
at them. But those had little reason to laugh, 
who encountered them in the hall of debate or 
in the field of battle. These fanatics brought 
to civil and military affairs a coolness of judg- 
ment and an immutability of purpose which 
some writers have thought inconsistent with 
their religious zeal, but which were in fact the 
necessary effects of it. The intensity of their 
feelings on one subject made them tranquil on 
every other. One overpowering sentiment had 
subjected to itself pity and hatred, ambition 
and fear. Death had lost its terrors and plea- 
sure its charms. They had their smiles and 
their tears, their raptures and their sorrows, 
but not for the things of this world. Enthusiasm 
had made them stoics, had cleared their minds 
from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and 
raised them above the influenc* <"* danger >uid 



MILTON. 



17 



t> r corruption. It sometimts might lead them 
to pursue unwise ends, but never to choose un- 
wise means. They went through the world 
like Sir Artegale's iron man Talus with his 
flail) crushing and trampling down oppressors, 
mingling with human beings, but having nei- 
ther part nor lot in human infirmities ; insensi- 
ble to fatigue, to pleasure, and to pain ; not to 
be pierced by any weapon, not to be withstood 
by any barrier. 

Such we believe to have been the character 
of the Puritans. We perceive the absurdity of 
their manners. We dislike the sullen gloom 
of their domestic habits. We acknowledge 
that the tone of their minds was often injured 
by straining after things too high for mortal 
reach. And we know that, in spite of their 
hatred of Popery, they too often fell into the 
worst vices of that bad system, intolerance and 
extravagant austerity — that they had their an- 
chorites and their crusades, their Dunstans and 
their De Montforts, their Dominies and their 
Escobars. Yet when all circumstances are 
taken into consideration, we do not hesitate to 
pronounce them a brave, a wise, an honest, and 
a useful body. 

The Puritans espoused the cause of civil 
'iberty, mainly because it was the cause of re- 
ligion. There was another party, by no means 
numerous, but distinguished by learning and 
ability, which co-operated with them on very 
different principles. We speak of those whom 
Cromwell was accustomed to call the Heathens, 
men who were, in the phraseology of that time, 
doubting Thomases or careless Gallios with 
regard to religious subjects, but passionate 
worshippers of freedom. Heated by the study 
of ancient literature, they set up their country 
as their idol, and proposed to themselves the 
heroes of Plutarch as their examples. They 
seem to have borne some resemblance to the 
Brissotines of the French Revolution. But it 
is not very easy to draw the line of distinction 
between them and their devout associates, 
whose tone and manner they sometimes found 
it convenient to affect, and sometimes, it is 
probable, imperceptibly adopted. 

We now come to the Royalists. We shall 
attempt to speak of them, as we have spoken 
of their antagonists, with perfect candour. We 
shall not charge upon a whole party the profli- 
gacy and baseness of the horseboys, gamblers, 
and bravoes, whom the hope of license and 
plunder attracted from all the dens of White- 
friars to the standard of Charles, and who dis- 
graced their associates by excesses which, 
under the stricter discipline of the Parliament- 
ary armies, were never tolerated. We will 
select a more favourable specimen. Thinking, 
as we do, that the cause of the king was the 
cause of bigotry and tyranny, we yet cannot 
refrain from looking with complacency on the 
character of the honest old Cavaliers. We feel 
a national pr.Je in comparing them with the 
instruments which the despots of other coun- 
tries are compelled to employ, with the mutes 
who throng their antechambers, and the Janis- 
saries who mount guard at their gates. Our 
royalist countrymen were not heartless, dan- 
fling courtiers, bowing at every step, and sim- 
pering at every word. Thev were not mere 



machines for destruction dressed up in uni- 
forms, caned into skill, intoxicated Into valour, 
defending without love, destroying without 
hatred. There was a freedom in their subser- 
viency, a nobleness in their very degradation. 
The sentiment of individual independence was 
strong within them. They were indeed mis-- 
led, but by no base or selfish motive. Coin- 
passion and romantic honour, the prejudice;; 
of childhood, and the venerable names of his- 
tory, threw over them a spell potent as that of 
Duessa; and, like the Red-Cross Knight, they 
thought that they were doing battle for an in- 
jured beauty, while they defended a false and 
loathsome sorceress. In truth, they scarcely 
entered at all into the merits of the political 
question. It was not for a treacherous king 
or an intolerant church that they fought; but 
for the old banner which had waved in so 
many battles over the heads of their fathers, 
and for the altars at which they had received 
the hands of their brides. Though nothing 
could be more erroneous than their political 
opinions, they possessed, in a far greater de- 
gree than their adversaries, those qualities 
which are the grace of private life. With 
many of the vices of the Round Table, they 
had also many of its virtues, courtesy, gene- 
rosity, veracity, tenderness, and respect for wo- 
man. They had far more both of profound and 
of polite learning than the Puritans. Their 
manners were more engaging, their tempers 
more amiable, their tastes more elegant, and 
their households more cheerful. 

Milton did not strictly belong to any of the 
classes which we have described. He was not 
a Puritan. He was not a Freetninker. He 
was not a Cavalier. In his character the no- 
blest qualities of every party were combined 
in harmonious union. From the parliament 
and from the court, from the conventicle and 
from the Gothic cloister, from the gloomy and 
sepulchral circles of the Roundheads and from 
the Christmas revel of the hospitable Cavalier, 
his nature selected and drew to itself whatever 
was great and good, while it rejected all the 
base and pernicious ingredients by which those 
fine elements were defiled. Like the Puritans, 
he lived 

" A» ever in his great Taskmaster'* eye.' 

Like them, he kept his mind continually fixed 
on an Almighty Judge and an eternal reward. 
And hence he acquired their contempt of ex- 
ternal circumstances, their fortitude, their 
tranquillity, their inflexible resolution. But 
not the coolest sceptic or the most profane 
scoffer was more perfectly free from the con- 
tagion of their frantic delusions, their savage 
manners, their ludicrous jargon, their scorn of 
science, and their aversion to pleasure. Hating 
tyranny with a perfect hatred, he had never- 
theless all the estimable and ornamental quali- 
ties, which were almost entirely monopolized 
by the party of the tyrant. There was none' 
who had a stronger sense of the value of lite- 
rature, a finer relish for every elegant amuse- 
ment, or a more chivalrous delicacy of honoui 
and love. Though his opinions were demo- 
cratic, his tastes and his associates were such 
as harmonize best with monarchy and aristc 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



cracy. He was under the influence of all the 
feelings by which the gallant cavaliers were 
misled. But of those feelings he was the mas- 
ter and not the slave. Like the hero of Homer, 
he enjoyed all the pleasures of fascination ; 
but he was not fascinated. He listened to the 
song of the Sirens ; yet he glided by without 
being seduced to their fatal shore. He tasted 
the cup of Circe ; but he bore about him a sure 
antidote against the effects of its bewitching 
sweetness. The illusions which captivated 
his imagination never impaired his reasoning 
powers. The statesman was a proof against 
the splendour, the solemnity, and the romance 
which enchanted the poet. Any person who 
will contrast the sentiments expressed in his 
Treatises on Prelacy, with the exquisite lines 
on ecclesiastical architecture and music in. the 
Penseroso, which were published about the 
same time, will understand our meaning. 
This is an inconsistency which, more than any 
thing else, raises his character in our estima- 
tion ; because it shows how many private 
tastes and feelings he sacrificed, in order to do 
what he considered his duty to mankind. It is 
the very struggle of the noble Othello. His 
heart relents ; but his hand is firm. He does 
naught in hate, but all in honour. He kisses 
the beautiful deceiver before he destroys her. 

That from which the public character of 
Milton derives its great and peculiar splendour 
still remains to be mentioned. If he exerted 
himself to overthrow a foresworn king and a 
persecuting hierarchy, he exerted himself in 
conjunction with others. But the glory of the 
battle, which he fought for that species of free- 
dom which is the most valuable, and which 
was then the least understood, the freedom of 
the human mind, is all his own. Thousands 
and tens of thousands among his contempora- 
ries raised their voices against ship-money 
and the star-chamber. But there were few in- 
deed who discerned the more fearful evils of 
moral and intellectual slavery, and the bene- 
fits which would result from the liberty of the 
press and the unfettered exercise of private 
judgment. These were the objects which Mil- 
ton justly conceived to be the most important. 
He was desirous that the people should think 
for themselves as well as tax themselves, and 
be emancipated from the dominion of preju- 
dice as well as from that of Charles. He 
knew that those who, with the best intentions, 
overlooked these schemes of reform, and con- 
tented themselves with pulling down the king 
and imprisoning the malignants, acted like the 
heedless brothers in his own poem, who, in 
their eagerness to disperse the train of the sor- 
cerer, neglected the means of liberating the 
captive. They thought only of conquering 
when they should have thought of disenchant- 
ing. 

M OIi, ye mistook! You should have snatched the wand! 
Without the rod reversed, 

And backward mutters of dissevering power, 

We cannot free the lady that sits here 

Bound in strong fetters fixed and motionless." 

To reverse the rod, to spell the charm back- 
ward, to break the ties which bound a stupe- 
fied people to the seat of enchantment, was the 
noble aim of Milton. To this all his public 
conduct was directed. For this he joined th» 



Presbyterians — for this he forsook them. Ha 
fought their perilous battle ; but he turned 
away with disdain from their insolent triumph. 
He saw that they, like those whom they haU 
vanquished, were hostile to the liberty oi 
thought. He therefore joined the Independents, 
and called upon Cromwell to break the seculai 
chain, and to save free conscience from the 
paw of the Presbyterian wolf.* With a view 
to the same great object, he attacked the 
licensing system in that sublime treatise which 
every statesman should Avear as a sign upon 
his hand, and as frontlets between his eyes. 
His attacks were, in general, directed less 
against particular abuses than against those 
deeply-seated errors on which almost all abuses 
are founded, the servile worship of eminent 
men and the irrational dread of innovation. 

That he might shake the foundations of 
these debasing sentiments more effectually, he 
always selected for himself the boldest literary 
services. He never came up to the rear when 
the outworks had been carried and the breach 
entered. He pressed into the forlorn hope. 
At the beginning of the changes, he wrote with 
incomparable energy and eloquence against 
the bishops. But, when his opinion seemed 
likely to prevail, he passed on to other sub- 
jects, and abandoned prelacy to the crowd of 
writers who now hastened to insult a falling 
party. There is no more hazardous enterprise 
than that of bearing the torch of truth into 
those dark and infected recesses in which no 
light has ever shone. But it was the choice 
and the pleasure of Milton to penetrate the 
noisome vapours and to brave the terrible ex 
plosion. Those who most disapprove of his 
opinions must respect the hardihood with 
which he maintained them. He, in general, 
left to others the credit of expounding and de- 
fending the popular parts of his religious and 
political creed. He took his own stand upon 
those which the great body of his countrymen 
reprobated as criminal, or -derided as para- 
doxical. He stood up for divorce and regicide. 
He ridiculed the Eikon. He attacked the pre- 
vailing systems of education. His radiant and 
beneficent career resembled that of the god of 
light and fertility, 

"Nitor in adversum; nee me, qui cretera, vincit 
Impetus, et rapido contrarius evehor orbi." 

It is to be regretted that the prose writings 
of Milton should, in our time, be so little read. 
As compositions, th«y deserve the attention of 
every man who wishes to become acquainted 
with the full power of the English language. 
They abound with passages compared with 
which the finest declamations of Burke sink into 
insignificance. They are a perfect field of cloth 
of gold. The style is stiff, with gorgeous em- 
broidery. Not even in the earlier books of the 
Paradise Lost has he ever risen higher than in 
those parts of his controversial works in which 
his feelings, excited by conflict, find a vent in 
bursts of devotional and lyric rapture. It is. 
to borrow his own majestic language, "a 
sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping 
symphonies."! 

* Sonnet to Cronweil. 

t The Reason of Church Gove-nment urged agawiBi 
Prelacy, Book II. 



MACHIAVELLI. 



10 



"We had intended to look more closely at 
their performances, to analyze the peculiari- 
ties of their diction, to dwell at some length 
on the sublime wisdom of the Areopagitica, 
and the nervous rhetoric of the Iconoclast, and 
to point out some of those magnificent pas- 
sages which occur in the Treatise of Reforma- 
tion and the Animadversions on the Remon- 
strant. But the length to which our remarks 
have already extended renders this impossible. 

We must conclude. And yet we can scarce- 
ly tear ourselves away from the subject. The 
days immediately following the publication of 
this relic of Milton appear to be peculiarly set 
apart and consecrated to his memory. And 
we shall scarcely be censured if, on this his 
festival, we be found lingering near his shrine, 
how worthless soever may be the offering 
which we bring to it. While this book lies 
on our table, we seem to be contemporaries 
of the great poet. We are transported a hun- 
dred and fifty years back. We can almost 
fancy trTat we are visiting him in his small 
lodging; that we see him sitting at the old or- 
gan beneath the faded green hangings ; that 
we can catch the quick twinkle of his eyes, 
rolling in vain to find the day ; that we are 
reading in the lines of his noble countenance 
the proud and mournful history of his glory 
and his affliction ! We image to ourselves the 
breathless silence in which we should listen 
to his slightest word ; the passionate venera- 
tion with which we should kneel to kiss his 
hand and weep upon it ; the earnestness with 
which we should endeavour to console him, if 
indeed such a spirit could need consolation, for 
ihe neglect of an age unworthy of his talents 
and his virtues ; the eagerness with which we 
should contest with his daughters, or with his 
Quaker friend, Elwood, the privilege of read- 
ing Homer to him, or of taking down the im- 
mortal accents which flowed from his lips. 



These are perhaps foolish feelings. Yet wa 
cannot be ashamed of them ; nor shal' we be 
sorry if what we have written shall in any de* 
gree excite them in other minds. We are noi 
much in the habit of idolizing either the living 
or the dead. And we think that there is no 
more certain indication of a weak and ill-regu- 
lated intellect than that propensity which, for 
want of a better name, we will venture to 
christen Boswellism. But there are a few cha- 
racters which have stood the closest scrutiny 
and the severest tests, which have been tried 
in the furnace and have proved pure, which 
have been weighed in the balance and have 
not been found wanting, which have been de- 
clared sterling by the general consent of man- 
kind, and which are visibly stamped with the 
image and superscription of the Most High. 
These great men we trust that we know how 
to prize ; and of these was Milton. The sight 
of his books, the sound of his name, are re- 
freshing to us. His thoughts resemble those 
celestial fruits and flowers which the Virgin 
Martyr of Massinger sent down from the gar- 
dens of Paradise to the earth, distinguished 
from the productions of other soils, not only 
by their superior bloom and sweetness, but by 
their miraculous efficacy to invigorate and to 
heal. They are powerful, not only to delight, 
but to elevate and purify. Nor do we envy 
the man who can study either the life or the 
writings of the great Poet and Patriot without 
aspiring to emulate, not indeed the sublime 
works with which his genius has enriched our 
literature, but the zeal with which he laboured 
for the public good, the fortitude with which 
he endured every private calamity, the lofty 
disdain with which he looked down on tempta- 
tion and dangers, the deadly hatred which he 
bore to bigots and tyrants, and the faith which 
he so sternly kept with his country and with 
his fame. 



MACHIAVELLI; 



[Edinburgh Review, 1827.] 



Those who have attended to the practice of 
our literary tribunal are well aware that, by 
means of certain legal fictions similar to those 
of Westminster Hall, we are frequently en- 
abled to take cognisance of cases lying beyond 
the sphere of our original jurisdiction. We 
need hardly say, therefore, that, in the present 
instance, M. Perier is merely a Richard Roe — 
that his name is used for the sole purpose of 
bringing Machiavelli into court — and that he 
will not be mentioned in any subsequent stage 
of the proceedings. 

We doubt whether any name in literary his- 
tory be so generally odious as that of the man 
whose character and writings we now propose 
to consider. The terms in which he is com- 



* (F.uvres compUte$ de JWachiavel, traduites par J. V. 
rEBiGR. Paris, 1825. 



monly described would seem to import that h« 
was the Tempter, the Evil Principle, the dis- 
coverer of ambition and revenge, the original 
inventor of perjury ; that, before the publica- 
tion of his fatal Prince, there had never been a 
hypocrite, a tyrant, or a traitor, a simulated 
virtue or a convenient crime. One writer 
gravely assures us, that Maurice of Saxony 
learned all his fraudulent policy from that ex 
ecrable volume. Another remarks, that since 
it was translated into Turkish, the Sultans 
have been more addicted than formerly to the 
custom of strangling their brothers. Our own 
foolish Lord Lyttleton charges the poor Floren 
tine with the manifold treasons of the House 
of Guise, and the massacre of St. Bartholomew 
Several authors have hinted that the Gunpov- 
der Plot is to be primarily attributed to his 
doctrines, and seem to think that his efhVv 



20 



MAC AUL AY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



Dught to be substituted for that of Guy Fawkes, 
in those processions by which the ingenuous 
youth of England annually commemorate the 
preservation of the Three Estates. The Church 
of Rome has pronounced his works accursed 
things. Nor have our own countrymen been 
backward in testifying their opinion of his 
merits. Out of his surname they have coined 
an epithet for a knave — and out of his Chris- 
tiaa name a synonyme for the Devil.* 

It is indeed scarcely possible for any person, 
not well acquainted with the history and litera- 
ture of Italy, to read, without horror and 
amazement, the celebrated treatise which has 
brought so much obloquy on the name of Ma- 
chiavelli. Such a display of wickedness, naked, 
yet not ashamed, such cool, judicious, scientific 
atrocity, seem rather to belong to a fiend than 
to the most depraved of men. Principles 
which the most hardened ruffian would 
scarcely hint to his most trusted accomplice, 
or avow, without the disguise of some palliat- 
ing sophism, even to his own mind, are pro- 
fessed without the slightest circumlocution, 
and assumed as the fundamental axioms of all 
political science. 

It is not strange that ordinary readers should 
regard the author of such a book as the most 
depraved and shameless of human beings. 
Wise men, however, have always been in- 
clined to look with great suspicion on the an- 
gels and demons of the multitude; and in the 
present instance, several circumstances have 
led even superficial observers to question the 
justice of the vulgar decision. It is notorious 
that Machiavelli was, through life, a zealous 
republican. In the same year in which he 
composed his manual of Kingcraft, he suffered 
imprisonment and torture in the cause of 
public liberty. It seems inconceivable that 
'.he martyr of freedom should have design- 
edly acted as the apostle of tyranny. Several 
eminent writers have, therefore, endeavoured 
to detect, in this unfortunate performance, 
some concealed meaning more consistent with 
(he character and conduct of the author than 
'hat which appears at the first glance. 

One hypothesis is, that Machiavelli intended 
to practice on the young Lorenzo de Medici a 
fraud, similar to that which Sunderland is said 
to have employed against our James the 
Second, — that he urged his pupil to violent and 
perfidious measures, as the surest means of 
accelerating the moment of deliverance and 
revenge. Another supposition, which Lord 
Bacon seems to countenance, is, that the trea- 
tise was merely a piece of grave irony, in- 
tended to warn nations against the arts of' 
ambitious men. It would be easy to show that 
neither of these solutions is consistent with 
many passages in the Prince itself. But the 
most decisive refutation is that which is fur- 
nished by the other works of Machiavelli. In 
all the writings which he gave to the public, 
dud in all those which the research of editors 
lias, in the course of three centuries, dis- 



* Nick Machiavel had ne'er a trick, 
Tho' he gave his name to our Old Nick. 

Hudibras, Part III. Canto I. 
'*ii, we believe, there is a schism on this subject among 
lie antiauaries. 



covered — in his Comedies, designed for he 
entertainment of the m"i H ' ;, de — in his Com- 
ments on Livy, intended for the perusal of the 
most enthusiastic patriots of Florence — in his 
History, inscribed to one of the most amiable 
and estimable of the Popes — in his Public 
Despatches — in his private Memoranda, th^ 
same obliquity of moral principle for which 
the Prince is so severely censured is more or 
less discernible. We doubt whether it would 
be possible to find, in all the many volumes 
of his compositions, a single expression indi- 
cating that dissimulation and treachery had 
ever struck him as discreditable. 

After this it may seem ridiculous to say, that 
we are acquainted with few writings which 
exhibit so much elevation of sentiment, so 
pure and warm a zeal for the public good, or 
so just a view of the duties and rights of citi 
zens, as those of Machiavelli. Yet so it is. 
And even from the Prince itself we could select 
many passages in support of this remark. To 
a reader of our age and country this incon- 
sistency is, at first, perfectly bewildering. The 
whole man seems to be an enigma — a gro- 
tesque assemblage of incongruous qualities — 
selfishness and generosity, cruelty and benevo- 
lence, craft and simplicity, abject villany and 
romantic heroism. One sentence is such as a 
veteran diplomatist would scarcely write in 
cipher for the direction of his most confiden- 
tial spy : the next seems to be extracted from 
a theme composed by an ardent schoolboy on 
the death of Leonidas. An act of dexterous 
perfidy, and an act of patriotic self-devotion, 
call forth the same kind and the same degree 
of respectful admiration. The moral sensi 
bility of the writer seems at once to be 
morbidly obtuse and morbidly acute. Two 
characters altogether dissimilar are united in 
him. They are not merely joined, but inter 
woven. They are the warp and the woof of 
his mind ; and their combination, like that of 
the variegated threads in shot silk, gives to the 
whole texture a glancing and ever-changing 
appearance. The explanation might have 
been easy, if he had been a very weak or 3 
very affected man. But he was evidently nei 
ther the one nor the other. His works prove 
beyond all contradiction, that his understand 
ing was strong, his taste pure, and his sense 
of the ridiculous exquisitely keen. 

This is strange — and yet the strangest is be- 
hind. There is no reason whatever to think, 
that those amongst whom he lived saw any 
thing shocking or incongruous in his writings. 
Abundant proofs remain of the high estimation 
in which both his works and his person were 
held by the most respectable among his con- 
temporaries. Clement the Seventh patronised 
the publication of those very books which .the 
council of Trent, in the following generation, 
pronounced unfit for the perusal of Christians. 
Some members of the democratical party cen- 
sured the secretary for dedicating the Prince to a 
patron who bore the unpopular name of Medici. 
But to those immoral doctrines, which have 
since called forth suet severe reprehensions, 
no exception appears to have been taken. The 
cry against them was first raised beyond the 
Alps — and seems to have been heard with 



MACHIAVELLI. 



51 



amazement in Italy The earliest assailant, as 
far as we are aware, was a countryman of our 
own, Cardinal Pole. The author of the Anti- 
Machiavelli was a French Protestant. 

It is, therefore, in the state of moral feeling 
among the Italians of those times, that we 
must seek for the real explanation of what 
seems most mysterious in the life and writings 
of this remarkable man. As this is a subject 
which suggests many interesting considera- 
tions, both political and metaphysical, we shall 
make no apology for discussing it at some 
length. 

During the gloomy and disastrous centuries 
which followed the downfall of the Roman Em- 
pire, Italy had preserved, in a far greater de- 
gree than any other part of Western Europe, 
the traces of ancient civilization. The night 
which descended upon her was the night of an 
arctic summer : — the dawn began to reappear 
before the last reflection of the preceding sun- 
set had faded from the horizon. It was in the 
time of th? French Merovingians, and of the 
Saxon Heptarchy, that ignorance and ferocity 
seemed to have done their worst. Yet even 
then the Neapolitan provinces, recognising the 
authority of the Eastern Empire, preserved 
something of Eastern knowledge and refine- 
ment. Rome, protected by the sacred charac- 
ter of its Pontiffs, enjoyed at least comparative 
security and repose. Even in those regions 
where the sanguinary Lombards had fixed 
their monarchy, there was incomparably more 
of wealth, of information, of physical comfort, 
and of social order, than could be found in 
Gaul, Britain, or Germany. 

That which most distinguished Italy from 
the neighbouring countries was the importance 
which the population of the towns, from a very 
early period, began to acquire. Some cities 
founded in wild and remote situations, by fu- 
gitives who had escaped from the rage of the 
barbarians, preserved their freedom by their 
obscurity, till they became able to preserve it 
by their power. Others seemed to have re- 
tained, under all the changing dynasties of 
invaders, under Odoacer and Theodoric, Narses 
and Alboin, the municipal institutions which 
had been conferred on them by the liberal 
policy of the Great Republic. In provinces 
which the central government was too feeble 
either to protect or to oppress, these institu- 
tions first acquired stability and vigour. The 
citizens, defended by their walls and governed 
by their own magistrates and their own by- 
laws, enjoyed a considerable share of republi- 
can independence. Thus a strong democratic* 
spirit wa,s called into action. The Carlovingian 
sovereigns were too imbecile to subdue it. 
The generous policy of Otho encouraged it. 
It might perhaps have been suppressed by a 
close coalition between the Church and the 
Empire. It was fostered and invigorated by 
their disputes. In the twelfth century it 
attained its full vigour, and, after a long and 
doubtful conflict, it triumphed over the abili- 
ties and courage of the Swabian Princes. 

The assistance of the ecclesiastical power 
had greatly contribut&d to the success of the 
Giehs. That success would, however, have 
been a doubtful good, if its only effect had 



been to substitute a moral for a political servi 
tude, to exalt the Popes at the expense of the 
Caesars. Happily the public mind of Italy had 
long contained the seeds of free opinions 
which were now rapidly developed by the ga 
nial influence of free institutions. The people 
of that country had observed the whole ma- 
chinery of the church, its saints and its mira- 
cles, its lofty pretensions and its splendid cere- 
monial, its worthless blessings and its harmless 
curses, too long and too closely to be duped. 
They stood behind the scenes on which others 
were gazing with childish awe and interest. 
They witnessed the arrangement of the pul 
leys, and the manufacture of the thunders. 
They saw the natural faces and heard the na- 
tural voices of the actors. Distant nations 
looked on the Pope as the vicegerent of the 
Almighty, the oracle of the All-wise, the um 
pire from whose decisions, in the disputes 
either of theologians or of kings, no Christian 
ought to appeal. The Italians were acquaint 
ed with all the follies of his youth, and with 
all the dishonest arts by which he had attained 
power. They knew how often he had em 
ployed the keys of the church to release him 
self from the most sacred engagements, and its 
wealth to pamper his mistresses and nep'hews. 
The doctrines and rites of the established re- 
ligion they treated with decent reverence. But 
though they still called themselves Catholics, 
they had ceased to be Papists. Those spiritual 
arms which carried terror into the palaces and 
camps of the proudest sovereigns excited only 
their contempt. When Alexander commanded 
our Henry the Second to submit to the lash 
before the tomb of a rebellious subject, he was 
himself an exile. The Romans, apprehending 
that he entertained designs against their liber- 
ties, had driven him from their city; and, 
though he solemnly promised to confine him- 
self for the future to his spiritual functions, 
they still refused to re-admit him. 

In every other part of Europe, a large and 
powerful privileged class trampled on the peo- 
ple and defied the government. But in the 
most flourishing parts of Italy the feudal no- 
bles were reduced to comparative insignifi- 
cance. In some districts they took shelter 
under the protection of the powerful common- 
wealths which they were unable to oppose, 
and gradually sunk into the mass of burghers. 
In others they possessed great influence ; but 
it was an influence widely different from that 
which was exercised by the chieftains of the 
Transalpine kingdoms. They were not pet- 
ty princes, but eminent citizens. Instead 
of strengthening their fastnesses among the 
mountains, they embellished their places in 
the market-place. The state of society in the 
Neapolitan dominions, and in some parts of 
the Ecclesiastical State, more nearly resembled 
that which existed in the great monarchies of 
Europe. But the governments of Lombardy 
and Tuscany, through all their rrvolutions, 
preserved a different character. A people, 
when assembled in a town, is far more formi- 
dable to its rulers than when dispersed over a 
wide extent of country. The most arbitrary 
of the Caesars found it necessary to feed and 
divert the inhabitants of their unwieldy capi- 



23 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



tal at the expense of the piwinces. The citi- 
zens of Madrid have more than once besieged 
.heir sovereign in his own palace, and extorted 
from him the most humiliating concessions. 
The sultans have often been compelled to pro- 
pitiate the furious rabble of Constantinople 
with the head of an unpopular vizier. From 
the same cause there was a certain tinge of 
democracy in the monarchies and aristocracies 
of Northern Italy. 

Thus liberty, partially, indeed, and transient- 
ly, revisited Italy ; and with liberty came com- 
merce and empire, science and taste, all the 
comforts and all the ornaments of life. The 
crusades, from which the inhabitants of other 
countries gained nothing but relics and 
wounds, brought the rising commonwealths 
of the Adriatic and Tyrrhene seas a large in- 
crease of wealth, dominion, and knowledge. 
Their moral and their geographical position 
enabled them to profit alike by the barbarism 
of the West and the civilization of the East. 
Their ships covered every sea. Their fac- 
tories rose on every shore. Their money- 
changers set their tables in every city. Manu- 
factures flourished. Banks were established. 
The operations of the commercial machine 
were facilitated by many useful and beautiful 
inventions. We doubt whether any country 
of Europe, our own perhaps excepted, have at 
the present time reached so high a point of 
wealth and civilization as some parts of Italy 
had attained four hundred years ago. Histo- 
rians rarely descend to those details from 
which alone the real state of a community 
can be collected. Hence posterity is too often 
deceived by the vague hyperboles of poets and 
rhetoricians, who mistake the splendour of a 
court for the happiness of a people. Fortu- 
nately John Villain has given us an ample and 
precise account of the state'of Florence in the 
earlier part of the fourteenth century. The 
revenue of the republic amounted to three 
hundred thousand florins, a sum which, allow- 
ing for the depreciation of the precious metals, 
was at least equivalent tc six hundred thou- 
sand pounds sterling ; a la:"s;er sum than Eng- 
land and Ireland, two centuries ago, yielded an- 
nually to Elizabeth — a larger sum than, accord- 
ing to any computation which we have seen, the 
Grand-duke of Tuscany now derives from a 
territory of much greater extent. The manu- 
facture of wool alone employed two hundred 
factories and thirty thousand workmen. The 
cloth annually produced sold, at an average, 
for twelve hundred thousand florins ; a sum 
fairly equal, in exchangeable value, to two 
millions and a half of our money. Four hun- 
dred thousand florins were annually coined. 
Eighty banks conducted the commercial ope- 
ra'ions, not of Florence only, but of all Europe. 
The transactions cf these establishments were 
sometimes of a magnitude which may surprise 
even the contemporaries of the Barings and 
the Rothschilds. Two houses advanced to 
Edward the Third of England upwards of 
three hundred thousand marks, at a time when 
the mark contained more silver than fifty shil- 
lings of the present aay, ana wnen tne value 
_* c.i ver M - as more than quadruple of what it 
now is. The city aim its envirors contained 



a hundred and seventy thousand inhlbitantg, 
In the various schools about ten thousand 
children were taught to read; twelve hundred 
studied arithmetic ; six hundred received a 
learned education. The progress of elegant 
literature and of the fine arts was proportioned 
to that of the public prosperity. Under tho 
despotic successors of Augustus, all the fields 
of the intellect had been turned into arid 
wastes, still marked out by formal boundaries, 
still retaining the traces of old cultivation, but 
yielding neither flowers nor fruit. The deluge 
of barbarism came. It swept away all the 
landmarks. It obliterated all the signs of for* 
mer tillage. But it fertilized while it devas 
tated. When it receded, the wilderness was 
as the garden of God, rejoicing on every sice, 
laughing, clapping its hands, pouring forth in 
spontaneous abundance every thing brilliant, 
or fragrant, or nourishing. A new language, 
characterized by simple sweetness and simple 
energy, had attained its perfection. No tongue 
ever furnished more gorgeous and vivid tints 
to poetry ; nor was it long before a poet ap- 
peared who knew how to employ them. Early 
in the fourteenth century came forth the Di- 
vine Comedy, beyond comparison the greatest 
work of imagination which had appeared since 
the poems of Homer. The following genera- 
tion produced, indeed, no second Dante ; but 
it was eminently distinguished by general in- 
tellectual activity. The study of the Latia 
writers had never been wholly neglected in 
Italyi But Petrarch introduced a more pro 
found, liberal, and elegant scholarship; and 
communicated to his countrymen that enthu 
siasm for the literature, the history, and ths 
antiquities of Rome, which divided his own 
heart with a frigid mistress and a more frigid 
muse. Boccaccio turned their attention to this 
more sublime and graceful models of Greece. 

From this time the admiration of learning 
and genius became almost an idolatry among 
the people of Italy. Kings and republics, car- 
dinals and doges, vied with each other in ho- 
nouring and flattering Petrarch. Embassies 
from rival states solicited the honour of his in- 
structions. His coronation agitated the court 
of Naples and the people of Rome as much as 
the most important political transactions could 
have done. To collect books and antiques, to 
found professorships, to patronise men of 
learning, became almost universal fashions 
amciig the great. The spirit of literary re- 
search allied itself to that of commercial en- 
terprise. Every place to which the merchant- 
princes of Florence extended their gigantic 
traffic, from the bazaars of the Tigris to the 
monasteries of the Clyde, was ransacked foi 
medals and manuscripts. Architecture, paint- 
ing, and sculpture were munificently encou* 
raged. Indeed it would be difficult to name an 
Italian of eminence during the period of which 
we speak, who, whatever may have been his 
general character, did not at least affect a .ova 
of letters and of the arts. 

Knowledge and public prosperity continued 
to advance together. Both attained their meri- 
man in tne age 01 Lorenzo the Magnificent. 
We cannot refrain from quoting the splendid 
passage, in which the Tuscan Thucydides de 






MACHIAVELLI. 



23 



tferibes the state of Italy at that period : — Ri- 
dotta tutta in somma pace e tranquillita, colti- 
vata non meno ne' luoghi piu montuosi e piu 
sterili che nelle pianure e regioni piu fertili, 
ne sottoposta ad altro imperio che de 'suoi me- 
desimi, non solo era abbondantissima d'abita- 
tori e di ricchezze; ma illustrata sommamente 
dalla magnificenza di molti principi, dallo 
splendore di molte nobilissime e bellissime 
citta, dalla sedia e maesta. delle religione, fiori- 
va d'uomini prestantissimi nell' amministra- 
zione delle cose pubbliche, e d'ingegni molto 
nobili in tutte le scienze, ed in qualunque arte 
preclara ed industriosa."* When we peruse 
this just and splendid description, we can 
scarcely persuade ourselves that we are read- 
ing of times, in which the annals of England 
and France present us only with a frightful 
spectacle of poverty, barbarity, and ignorance. 
From the oppressions of illiterate masters, and 
the sufferings of a brutalized peasantry, it is 
delightful £p turn to the opulent and enlighten- 
ed States of Italy — to the vast and magnificent 
cities, the ports, the arsenals, the villas, the 
museums, the libraries, the marts filled with 
every article of comfort and luxury, the manu- 
factories swarming with artisans, the Apen- 
nines covered with rich cultivation up to their 
very summits, the Po wafting the harvests of 
Lombardy to the granaries of Venice, and car- 
rying back the silks of Bengal and the firs of 
Siberia to the palaces of Milan. With pecu- 
liar pleasure, every cultivated mind must re- 
pose on the fair, the happy, the glorious Flo- 
rence — on the halls which rung with the mirth 
of Pulci — the cell where twinkled the midnight 
lamp of Politian — the statues on which the 
young eye of Michel Angelo glared with the 
frenzy of a kindred inspiration — the gardens 
in which Lorenzo meditated some sparkling 
song for the May-day dance of the Etrurian 
virgins. Alas, for the beautiful city ! Alas, 
for the wit and the learning, the genius and 
the love ! 

"Le donne, e cavalier, gli affanni, gli agi, 
Che ne'nvogliav' amore e cortesia, 
La dove i cuor' son fatti ei malvagi."f 

A time was at hand, when all the seven vials 
of the Apocalypse were to be poured forth and 
shaken out over those pleasant countries — a 
time for slaughter, famine, beggary, infamy, 
slavery, despair. 

In the Italian States, as in many natural bo- 
dies, untimely decrepitude was the penalty of 
precocious maturity. Their early greatness, 
and their early decline, are principally to be at- 
tributed to the same cause — the preponderance 
which the towns acquired in the political sys- 
tem. 

In a community of hunters or of shepherds, 
every man easily and necessarily becomes a 
soldier. His ordinary avocations are perfectly 
compatible with all the duties of military ser- 
vice. However remote may be the expedition 
on which he is bound, he finds it easy to trans- 
port with him the stock from which he derives 
his subsistence. The whole people is an army; 
the whole year a march. Such was the state 



* Guicckirdini, lib. i. 



t Dante Purgatorio, xiv. 



of society which facilitated the gigantic con« 
quests of Attila and Timour. 

But a people which subsists by the culliva« 
tion of the earth is in a very different situation. 
The husbandman is bound to the soil on which 
he labours. A long campaign Avould be ruin 
ous to him. Still his pursuits are such as give 
to his frame both the active and the passive 
strength necessary to a soldier. Nor do they, 
at least in the infancy of agricultural science, 
demand his uninterrupted attention. At par- 
ticular times of the year he is almost wholly 
unemployed, and can, without jnjury to him 
self, afford the time necessary for a short expe- 
dition. Thus, the legions of Rome were sup- 
plied during its earlier wars. The season, 
during which the farms did not require the 
presence of the cultivators, sufficed for a short 
inroad and a battle. These operations, too 
frequently interrupted to produce decisive re- 
sults, yet served to keep up among the people a 
degree of discipline and courage which render- 
ed them, not only secure, but formidable. The 
archers and billmen of the middle ages, who, 
with provisions for forty days at their backs, 
left the fields for the camp, were troflps of the 
same description. 

But, when commerce and manufactures 
begin to nourish, a great change takes place. 
The sedentary habits of the desk and the loom 
render the exertions and hardships of war in- 
supportable. The occupations of traders and 
artisans require their constant presence and 
attention. In such a community, there is little 
superfluous time ; but there is generally much 
superfluous money. Some members of the so- 
ciety are, therefore, hired to relieve the rest 
from a task inconsistent with their habits and 
engagements. 

The history of Greece is, in this, as in many 
other respects, the best commentary on the 
history of Italy. Five hundred years before 
the Christian era, the citizens of the republics 
round the JEge&n Sea formed perhaps the finest 
militia that ever existed. As wealth and re- 
finement advanced, the system underwent a 
gradual alteration. The Ionian States were 
the first in which commerce and he arts were 
cultivated, — and the first in which the ancient 
discipline decayed. Within eighty years after 
the battle of Platoea, mercenary troops were 
everywhere plying for battles and sieges. In 
the time of Demosthenes, it was scarcely pos- 
sible to persuade or compel the Athenians to 
enlist for foreign service. The laws of Lycur 
gus prohibited trade and manufactures. The 
Spartans, therefore, continued to form a national 
force, long after their neighbouis had begun to 
hire soldiers. But their military spirit declined 
with their singular institutions. In the second 
century, Greece contained only one nation of 
warriors, the savage highlanders of iEtolia, 
who were at least ten generations behind their 
countrymen in civilization and intelligence. 

All the causes which produced these effects 
among the Greeks acted still more strongly on 
the modern Italians. Instead of a power like 
Sparta, in its nature warlike, they had amongst 
them an ecclesiastical state, in its nature pa- 
cific. Where there are numerous slaves, every 
freeman is induced bv the strongest motives ta 



24 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



familiarize himself with the use of arms. The 
commonwealths of Italy did not, like those of 
Greece, SAvarm with thousands of these house- 
hold enemies. Lastly, the mode in which mi- 
litary operations were conducted, during the 
prosperous times of Italy, was peculiarly un- 
favourable to the formation of an efficient mili- 
tia. Men covered with iron from head to foot, 
armed with ponderous lances, and mounted on 
horses of the largest breed, were considered as 
composing the strength of an army. The in- 
fantry was regarded as comparatively worth- 
less, and was neglected till it became really so. 
These tactics maintained their ground for cen- 
turies in most parts of Europe. That foot sol- 
diers could withstand the charge of heavy ca- 
valry was thought utterly impossible, till, to- 
wards the close of the fifteenth century, the 
rude mountaineers of Switzerland dissolved 
the spell, and astounded the most experienced 
generals, by receiving the dreaded shock on 
an impenetrable forest of pikes. 

The use of the Grecian spear, the Roman 
pword, or the modern bayonet, might be acquir- 
ed with comparative ease. But nothing short 
of the daily exercise of years could train the 
man at arms to support his ponderous panoply 
and manage his unwieldy weapon. Through- 
out Europe, this most important branch of war 
became a separate profession. Beyond the 
Alps, indeed, though a profession, it was not 
generally a trade. It was the duty and the 
amusement of a large class of country gentle- 
men. It was the service by which they held 
their lands, and the diversion by which, in the 
gbsence of mental resources, they beguiled 
&eir leisure. But, in the Northern States of 
foaly, as we have already remarked, the grow- 
ing power of the cities, where it had not exter- 
minated this order of men, had completely 
changed their habits. Here, therefore, the prac- 
tice of employing mercenaries became univer- 
sal, at a time when it was almost unknown in 
other countries. 

When war becomes the trada of a separate 
class, the least dangerous course left to a 
government is to form that class into a stand- 
ing army. It is scarcely possible, that men 
can pass their lives in the service of a single 
state, without feeling some interest in its 
greatness. Its victories are their victories. 
Its defeats are their defeats. The contract 
loses something of its mercantile character. 
The services of the soidier are considered as 
the effects of patriotic zeal, his pay as the tri- 
bute of national gratitude. To betray the power 
which employs him, to be even remiss in its 
service, are in his eyes the most atrocious and 
degrading of crimes. 

When the princes and commonwealths of 
Italy began to use hired troops, their wisest 
course would have been- to form separate mili- 
tary establishments. Unhappily this was not 
done. The mercenary warriors of the Penin- 
sula, instead of being attached to the service 
of different powers, were regarded as the com- 
mon proper*y of all. The connection between 
the state and its defenders was reduced to the 
most simple naked traffic. The adventurer 
brought his horse, his weapons, his strength, 
and his experience into the market. Whether 



the King of Naples or the Duke of Milan, the 
Pope or the Signory of Florence, struck the 
bargain, was to him a matter of perfect indif- 
ference. He was for the highest wages and 
the longest term. When the campaign foi 
which he had contracted was finished, there 
was neither law nor punctilio to prevent him 
from instantly turning his arms against his 
late masters. The soldier was altogether dis- 
joined from the citizen and from the subject. 

The natural consequences followed. Left to 
the conduct of men who neither loved those 
whom they defended, nor hated those whom 
they opposed — who were often bound by 
stronger ties to the army against which they 
fought than the state which they served — who 
lost by the termination of the conflict, and 
gained by its prolongation, war completely 
changed its character. Every man came into 
the field of battle impressed with the know- 
ledge that, in a few days, he might be taking 
the pay of the power against which he was 
then employed, and fighting by the side of his 
enemies against his associates. The strongest 
interest and the strongest feelings concurred to 
mitigate the hostility of those who had lately 
been brethren in arms, and who might soon be 
brethren in arms once more. Their common 
profession was a bond of union not to be for- 
gotten, even when they were engaged in the 
service of contending parties. Hence it was 
that operations, languid and indecisive beyond 
any recorded in histor}', marches and counter- 
marches, pillaging expeditions and blockades, 
bloodless capitulations and equally bloodless 
combats, make up the military history of Italy 
during the course of nearly two centuries. 
Mighty armies fight from sunrise to sunset. A 
great victory is won. Thousands of prisoners 
are taken ; and hardly a life is lost ! A pitched 
battle seems to have been really less dangerous 
than an ordinary civil tumult. 

Courage was now no longer necessary even 
to the military character. Men grew old in 
camps, and acquired the highest renown by 
their warlike achievements, without being 
once required to face serious danger. The 
political consequences are too well known. 
The richest and most enlightened part of the 
world was left undefended, to the assaults of 
every barbarous invader — to the brutality of 
Switzerland, the insolence of France, and the 
fierce rapacity of Arragon. The moral effects 
which followed from this state of things were 
still more remarkable. 

Among the rude nations which lay beyond 
the Alps, valour was absolutely indispensable 
Without it, none could be eminent ; few could 
be secure. Cowardice was, therefore, naturally 
considered as the foulest reproach. Among 
the polished Italians, enriched by commerce, 
governed by law, and passionately attached to 
literature, every thing was done by superiority 
of intelligence. Their very wars, more pacific 
than the peace of their neighbours, required 
rather civil than military qualifications. Hence, 
while courage was the point of honour in 
other countries, ingenuity became the point of 
honour in Italy. 

From these principles were deduced, by pro* 
cesses strictly analogous, two opposite sys- 



MACHIAVELLI. 



So 



terns of fashionable morality. — Through the 
preater part of Europe, the vices which pecu- 
liarly belong to timid dispositions, and which 
are the natural defence of weakness, fraud, 
and hypocrisy, have alwavs been most disre- 
putable. On the other hand, the excesses of 
haughty and daring spirits have been treated 
with indulgence, and even with respect. The 
Italians regarded with corresponding lenity 
those crimes which require self-command, 
address, quick observation, fertile invention, 
and profound knowledge of human nature. 

Such a prince as our Henry the Fifth would 
have been the idol of the North. The follies 
of his youth, the selfish and desolating ambi- 
tion of his manhood, the Lollards roasted at 
slow fires, the prisoners massacred on the field 
of battle, the expiring lease of priestcraft re- 
newed for another century, the dreadful legacy 
of a causeless and hopeless war, bequeathed to 
a people who had no interest in its event, 
every thing; is forgotten, but the victory of 
Agincourt ! Francis Sforza, on the other hand, 
was the model of the Italian hero. He made 
his employers and his rivals alike his tools. 
He first overpowered his open enemies by the 
help of faithless allies ; he then armed himself 
against his allies with the spoils taken from 
his enemies. By his incomparable dexterity, 
he raised himself from the precarious and de- 
pendent situation of a military adventurer to 
the first throne of Italy. To such a man much 
was forgiven — hollow friendship, ungenerous 
enmity, violated faith. Such 'are the opposite 
errors which men com nit, when their morality 
is not a science, but a ta 5te ; when they abandon 
eternal principles for accidental associations. 

We have illustrated our meaning by an in- 
stance taken from history. We will select 
another from fiction. Othello murders his 
wife ; he gives orders for the murder of his 
lieutenant; he ends by murdering himself. 
Yet he never loses the esteem and affection of 
a Northern reader — his intrepid and ardent 
spirit redeeming every thing. The unsuspect- 
ing confidence with which he listens to his 
adviser, the agony with which he shrinks from 
the thought of shame, the tempest of passion 
with which he commits his crimes, and the 
haughty fearlessness with which he avows 
them, give an extraordinary interest to his 
character. Iago, on the contrary, is the object 
of universal loathing. Many are inclined to 
suspect that Shakspeare has been seduced into 
an exaggeration unusual with him, and has 
drawn a monster who has no archetype in 
human nature. Now we suspect, that an 
Italian audience, in the fifteenth century, would 
have felt very differently. Othello would have 
inspired nothing but detes f ation and contempt. 
The folly with which he trusts to the friendly 
professions of a man whose promotion he had 
obstructed — the credulity with which he takes 
unsupported assertions, and trivial circum- 
stances, fox unanswerable proofs — the violence 
with which he silences the exculpation till the 
exculpation can only aggravate his misery, 
would have excited the abhorrence and disgust 
of the spectators. The conduct of Iago they 
would assuredly have condemned; but they 
would have condemned it as we condemn that 



of his victim. Something of tnterest and re« 
spect would have mingled with their disap- 
probation. The readiness of his wit, the 
clearness of his judgment, the skill with which 
he penetrates the dispositions of others and 
conceals his own, would have insured to him 
a certain portion of their esteem. 

So wide was the difference between the 
Italians and their neighbour:;. A similar dif- 
ference existed between the Greeks of the se- 
cond century before Christ, and their masters 
the Romans. The conquerors, brave ani 
resolute, faithful to their engagements, and 
strongly influenced by religious feelings, were, 
at the same time, ignorant, arbitrary, and 
cruel. With the vanquished people were de- 
posited all the art, the science, and the litera- 
ture of the Western world. In poetry, in 
philosophy, in painting, in architecture, in 
sculpture, they had no rivals. Their manners 
were polished, their perceptions acute, their 
invention ready; they were tolerant, affable, 
humane. But of courage and sincerity they 
were almost utterly destitute. The rude war- 
riors who had subdued them consoled them- 
selves for their intellectual inferiority, by 
remarking that knowledge and taste seemed 
only to make men atheists, cowards, and 
slaves. The distinction long continued to be 
strongly marked, and furnished an admirable 
subject for the fierce sarcasm of Juvenal. 

The citizen of an Italian commomvealth was 
the Greek of the time of Juvenal, and the Greek 
of the time of Pericles, joined in one. Like 
the former, he was timid and pliable, artful and 
unscrupulous. But, like the latter, he had a 
country. Its independence and prosperity 
were dear to him. If his character were de- 
graded by some mean crimes, it was, on the 
other hand, ennobled by public spirit and by an 
honourable ambition. 

A vice sanctioned by the general opinion is 
merely a vice. The evil terminates in itself. 
A vice-condemned by the general opinion pro- 
duces a pernicious effect on the whole charac- 
ter. The former is a local malady, the latter a 
constitutional taint. When the reputation of 
the offender is lost, he too often flings the re- 
mains of his virtue after it in despair. The 
Highland gentleman, who, a century ago, lived 
by taking black mail from his neighbours, 
committed the same crime for which Wild 
was accompanied to Tyburn by the huzzas cf 
two hundred thousand people. But there can 
be no doubt that he was a much less depraved 
man than Wild. The deed for which Mrs. 
Brownrigg was hanged sinks into nothing, 
when compared with the conduct of the Roman 
who treated the public to a hundred pair of 
gladiators. Yet we should probably wrong 
such a Roman if we supposed that his disposi- 
tion was so cruel as that of Mrs. Brownrigg. 
In our own country, a woman forfeits her 
place in society, by what, in a man. is too 
commonly considered as an honourable dis- 
tinction, and, at worst, as a venial error. The 
consequence is notorious. The moral prin- 
ciple of a woman is frequently more impaired 
by a single lapse from virtue, than that of a 
man by twenty years of intrigue. Classical 
antiquity would furnish us with instances 



«c 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



stronger, if possible, than those to which we 
have referred. 

We must apply this principle to the case be- 
fore us. Habits of dissimulation and falsehood, 
no doubt, mark a man of our age and country 
as utterly worthless and abandoned. But it by 
no means follows that a similar judgment 
would be just in the case of an Italian of the 
middle ages. On the contrary, we frequently 
find those faults, which we are accustomed to 
consider as certain indications of a mind alto- 
gether depraved, in company with great and 
good qualities, with generosity, with benevo- 
lence, with disinterestedness. From such a 
state of society, Palamedes, in the admirable 
dialogue of Hume, might have drawn illustra- 
tions of his theory as striking as any of those 
with which Fourli furnished him. These are 
not, we well know, the lessons which historians 
are generally most careful to teach, or readers 
most willing to learn. But they are not there- 
fore useless. How Philip disposed his troops 
at Chseronea, where Hannibal crossed the Alps, 
whether Mary blew up Darnley, or Siquicr shot 
Charles the Twelfth, and ten thousand other 
questions of the same description, are in them- 
selves unimportant. The inquiry may amuse 
us, but the decision leaves us no wiser. He 
alone reads history aright, who, observing how 
powerfully circumstances influence the feel- 
ings and opinions of men, how often vices pass 
iato virtues, and paradoxes into axioms, learns 
to distinguish what is accidental and transitory 
in human nature, from what is essential and 
zramutable. 

In this respect no history suggests more im- 
portant reflections than that of the Tuscan and 
Lombard commonwealths. The character of 
the Italian statesman seems, at first sight, a 
collection of contradictions, a phantom, as 
monstrous as the portress of hell in Milton, half 
divinity, half snake, majestic and beautiful 
above, grovelling and poisonous below. We 
see a man, whose thoughts and words have no 
connection with each other ; who never hesi- 
tates at an oath when he wishes to seduce, who 
never wants a pretext when he is inclined to 
betray. His cruelties spring, not from the heat 
of blood, or the insanity of uncontrolled power, 
but from deep and cool meditation. His pas- 
sions, like well-trained troops, are impetuous 
by rule, and in their most headstrong fury 
never forget the discipline to which they have 
been accustomed. His whole soul is occupied 
with vast and complicated schemes of ambi- 
tion. Yet his aspect and language exhibit no- 
thing but philosophic moderation. Hatred and 
revenge eat into his heart : yet every look is a 
cordial smile, every gesture a familiar caress. 
He never excites the suspicion of his adver- 
sary by petty provocations. His purpose is 
disclosed only when it is accomplished. His 
face is unruffled, his speech is courteous, till 
vigilance is laid asleep, till a vital point is ex- 
posed, till a sure aim is taken ; and then he 
strikes — for the first and last time. Military 
courage, the boast of the sottish German, the 
frivolous and prating Frenchman, the roman- 
tic and arrogant Spaniard, he neither possesses 
nor values. He shuns danger, not because he 



is insensible to shame, but because, in the so 
ciety in which he lives, timidity has ceased tc 
be shameful. To do an injury openly is, in his 
estimation, as wicked as to do it secretly, and 
far less* profitable. With him the most honour- 
able means are — the surest, the speediest, and 
the darkest. He cannot comprehend how a 
man should scruple to deceive him whom he 
does not scruple to destroy. He would think 
it madness to declare open hostilities against 
a rival whom he might stab in a friendly em- 
brace, or poison in a consecrated wafer. 

Yet this man, black with the vices which toe 
consider as most loathsome — traitor, hypocrite, 
coward, assassin — was by no means destitute 
even of those virtues which we generally con- 
sider as indicating superior elevation of charac- 
ter. In civil courage, in perseverance, in pre- 
sence of mind, those barbarous warriors who 
were foremost in the battle or the breach, were 
far his inferiors. Even the dangers which he 
avoided, with a caution almost pusillanimous, 
never confused his perceptions, never para- 
lyzed his inventive faculties, never wrung out 
one secret from his ready tongue and his in- 
scrutable brow. Though a dangerous enemy, 
and a still more dangerous accomplice, he was 
a just and beneficent ruler. With so much un- 
fairness in his policy, there was an extraordi- 
nary degree of fairness in his intellect. Indif- 
ferent to truth in the transactions of life, he 
was honestly devoted to the pursuit of truth in 
the researches of speculation. Wanton cru- 
elty was not in his nature. On the contrary, 
where no political object was at stake, his dis- 
position was soft and humane. The suscepti- 
bility of his nerves, and the activity of his 
imagination, inclined him to sympathize with 
the feelings of others, and to delight in the cha 
rities and courtesies of social life. Perpetually 
descending to actions which might seem to 
mark a mind diseased through all its faculties, 
he had nevertheless an exquisite sensibility both 
for the natural and the moral sublime, for 
every graceful and every lofty conception. 
Habits of petty intrigue and dissimulation 
might have rendered him incapable of great 
general views ; but that the expanding effecl 
of his philosophical studies counteracted the 
narrowing tendency. He had the keenest en- 
joyment of wit, eloquence, and poetry. The 
fine arts profited alike by the severity of his 
judgment, and the liberality of his patronage. 
The portraits of some of the remarkable 
Italians of those times are perfectly in harmo- 
ny with this description. Ample and majestic 
foreheads ; brows strong and dark, but not 
frowning; eyes of which the calm full gaze, 
while it expresses nothing, seems to discern 
every thing ; cheeks pale with thought and se- 
dentary habits ; lips formed with feminine deli- 
cacy, but compressed with more than mascu- 
line decision, mark out men at once enterpris- 
ing and apprehensive; men equally skilled in 
detecting the purposes of others, and in con« 
cealing their own; men who must have been 
formidable enemies and unsafe allies ; but men ; 
at the same time, whose tempers were mild and 
equable, and who possessed an amplitude and 
subtlety of mind, which would have rendered 



MACHIAVELLI. 



27 



Ifiem eminent either in active or in contempla- 
tive life, and fitted them either to govern or to 
instruct mankind. 

Every age and every nation, has certain 
characteristic vices, which prevail almost uni- 
versally, which scarcely any person scruples 
to avow, and which even rigid moralists but 
faintly censure. Succeeding generations 
change the fashion of their morals, with their 
hats and their coaches ; take some other kind 
of wickedness under their patronage, and won- 
der at the depravity of their ancestors. Nor is 
this all. Posterity, that high court of appeal 
which is never tired of eulogizing its own jus- 
tice and discernment, acts, on such occasions, 
like a Roman dictator after a general mutiny. 
Finding the delinquents too numerous to be all 
punished, it selects some of them at hazard to 
bear the whole penalty of an oiTence in which 
they are not more deeply implicated than those 
who escape. Whether decimation be a con- 
venient mode of military execution, we know 
not: but we*solemnly protest against the intro- 
duction of such a principle into the philoso- 
phy of history. 

In the present instance, the lot has fallen on 
Machiavelli : a man whose public conduct was 
upright and honourable, whose views of mo- 
rality, where they differed from those of the 
persons around him, seem to have differed for 
the better, and whose only fault was, that, hav- 
ing adopted some of the maxims then generally 
received, he arranged them more luminously, 
and expressed them more forcibly than any 
other writer. 

Having now, we hope, in some degree 
cleared the personal character of Machiavelli, 
we come to the consideration of his works. 
As a poet, he is not entitled to a very high 
place. The Decennali are merely abstracts of 
the history of his own times in rhyme. The 
style and versification are sedulously modelled 
on those ©f Dante. But the manner of Dante, 
like that of every other great original poet, was 
suited only to his own genius, and to his own 
subject. The distorted and rugged diction 
which gives to his unearthly imagery a yet 
mere unearthly character, and seems to pro- 
ceed from a man labouring to express that 
which is inexpressible, is at once mean and 
extravagant when misemployed by an imitator. 
The moral poems are in every point superior. 
That on Fortune, in particular, and that on Op- 
portunity exhibit both justness of thought and 
fertility of fancy. The Golden Ass has no- 
thing but the name in common with the Ro- 
mance of Apuleius, a book which, in spite of 
*'ts irregular plan and its detestable style, is 
among the most fascinating in the Latin lan- 
guage, and in which the merits of Le Sage and 
Radcliffe, Bunyan and Crebillon, are singularly 
unite 1. The Poem of Machiavelli, which is 
evidently unfinished, is carefully copied from 
the earlier Cantos of the Inferno. The writer 
loses himself in a wood. He is terrified by 
monsters, and relieved by a beautiful damsel. 
His protectress conducts him to a. large mena- 
gerie of emblematical beasts, whose peculiari- 
ties are described at length. The manner as 
well as the plan of the Divine Comedy is care- 
fully imitated. Whole lines are transferred 



from it. But they no longer produce iheii 
wonted effect. Virgil advises the husbandmen 
who removes a plant from one spot to anothel 
to mark its bearings on the cork, and to place 
it in the same position with regard to the dif< 
ferent points of the heaven in which it for- 
merly stood. A similar care is necessary in 
poetical transplantation. Where it is neglect 
ed, we perpetually see the flowers of language, 
which have bloomed on one soil, wither on 
another. Yet the Golden Ass is not altogether 
destitute of, merit. There is considerable in- 
genuity in the allegory, and some vivid colour- 
ing in the descriptions. 

The Comedies deserve more attention. The 
Mandragola, in particular, is superior to the 
best of Goldoni, and inferior only to the best 
of Moliere. It is the work of a man who, if 
he had devoted himself to the drama, would 
probably have attained the highest eminence, 
and produced a permanent and salutary effect 
on the national taste. This we infer, not so 
much from the degree, as from the kind of its 
excellence. There are compositions which 
indicate still greater talent, and which are 
perused with still greater delight, from which 
we should have drawn very different conclu 
sions. Books quite worthless are quite harm- 
less. The sure sign of the general decline of 
an art is the frequent occurrence, not of de 
formity, but of misplaced beauty. In general, 
tragedy is corrupted by eloquence, and comedy 
by wit. 

The real object of the drama is the exhibi- 
tion of the human character. This, we con- 
ceive, is no arbitrary canon, originating in 
local and temporary associations, like those 
which regulate the number of acts in a play, 
or syllables in a line. It is the very essence 
of a species of composition, in which every 
idea is coloured by passing through the me- 
dium of an imagined mind. To this funda- 
mental law every other regulation is subor- 
dinate. The situations which most signally 
develope character form the best plot. The 
mother tongue of the passions is the best style 

The principle, rightly understood, does not 
debar the poet from any grace of composition. 
There is no style in which some man may not, 
under some circumstances, express himself. 
There is therefore no style which the drama 
rejects, none which it does not occasionally 
require. It is in the discernment of place, of 
time, and of person, that the inferior artists 
fail. The brilliant rodomontade of Mercutio, 
the elaborate declamation of Antony, are, 
where Shakspcare has placed them, natural 
and pleasing. But Dryden would have made 
Mercutio challenge Tybalt, in hyperboles as 
fanciful as those in which he describes the 
chariot of Mab. — Corneille would have repre- 
sented Antony as scolding and coaxing Cleo. 
patra wth all the measured rhetoric of a fune 
ral oration. 

No writers have injured the Comedy cf Eng 
land so deeply as Congreve and Sheridan. 
Both were men of splendid wit and polished 
taste. Unhappily they made all their charac- 
ters in their own likeness. Their works bear 
the same relation to the legitimate drama 
i which a transparency bears to a paintjrg no 



88 



MAC AUL AY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



delicate touches; no hues imperceptibly fad- 
ing into each other ; the whole is lighted up 
with an universal glare. Outlines and tints 
are forgotten, in the common blaze which 
illuminates all. The flowers and fruits of the 
intellect abound ; but it is the abundance of a 
jungle, not of a garden — unwholesome, be- 
wildering, unprofitable from its very plenty, 
rank from its very fragrance. Every fop, 
every boor, every valet, is a man of wit. The 
very' butts and dupes, Tattle, Urkwould, Puff, 
Acres, outshine the whole Hotel de Rambouil- 
let. To prove the whole system of this school 
absurd, it is only necessary to apply the test 
which dissolved the enchanted Florimel — to 
place the true by the false Thalia, to contrast 
the most celebrated characters which have 
been drawn by the writers of whom we speak, 
with the Bastard in King John, or the Nurse in 
Romeo and Juliet. It was not surely from 
want of wit that Shakspeare adopted so differ- 
ent a manner. Benedick and Beatrice throw 
Mirabel and Millamant into the shade. All 
the good sayings' of the facetious hours of Ab- 
solute and Surface might have been clipped 
from the single character of Falstaff without 
being missed. It would have been easy for 
that fertile mind to have given Bardolph and 
Shallow as much wit as Prince Hal, and to 
have made Dogberry and Verges retort on 
each other in sparkling 'epigrams. But he 
knew, to use his own admirable language, that 
such indiscriminate prodigality was "from the 
purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first 
and now, was, and is, to hold, as it were, the 
mirror up to Nature." 

This digression will enable our readers to 
understand what we mean when we say that, 
in the Mandragola, Machiavelli has proved 
that he complete-ly understood the nature of 
the dramatic art, and possessed talents which 
would have enabled him to excel in it. By the 
correct and vigorous delineation of human na- 
ture, it produces interest without a pleasing or 
skilful plot, and laughter without the least am- 
bition of wit. The lover, not a very delicate 
or generous lover, and his adviser the parasite, 
are drawn with spirit. The hypocritical con- 
fessor is an admirable portrait. He is, if we 
mistake not, the original of Father Dominic, 
the best comic character of Dryden. But old 
Nicias is the glory of the piece. We cannot 
call to mind any thing that resembles him. The 
follies which Moliere ridicules are those of 
affectation, not those of fatuity. Coxcombs 
and pedants, not simpletons, are his game. 
Shakspeare has indeed a vast assortment of 
fools ; but the precise species of which we 
speak is not, if we remember right, to be found 
there. Shallow is a fool. But his animal spi- 
rits supply, to a certain degree, the place of 
cleverness. His talk is to that of Sir John 
what soda-water is to champagne. It has the 
effervescence, though not the body or the fla- 
vour. Slender and Sir Andrew Aguecheek 
are- fools, troubled with an uneasy conscious- 
ness of their folly, which, in the latter, pro- 
duces a most edifying meekness and docility, 
and in the former, awkwardness, obstinacy, 
and confusion. Cloten is an arrogant fool, 
Osric a foppish fool, Ajax a savage fool ; but 



Nicias is, as Thersites says of Patroclus, * 
fool positive. His mind is occupied by no 
strong feeling; it takes every character, and 
retains none ; its aspect is diversified, not by 
passions, but by faint and transitory semblances 
of passion, a mock joy, a mock fear, a mock 
love, a mock pride, which chase each othei' 
like shadows over its surface, and vanish as 
soon as they appear. He is just idiot enough 
to be an object, not of pity or horror, but of 
ridicule. He bears some resemblance to poor 
Calandrino, whose mishaps, as recounted by 
Boccaccio, have made all Europe merry for 
more than -four centuries. He perhaps resem- 
bles still more closely Simon de Villa, to whom 
Bruno and Buffulmacco promised the love of 
the Countess Civilian.* Nicias is, like Simon, 
of a learned profession ; and the dignity with 
which he wears the doctoral fur renders his 
absurdities infinitely more grotesque. The 
old Tuscan is the very language for such a 
being. Its peculiar simplicity gives even to 
the most forcible reasoning and the most bril- 
liant wit an infantine air, generally delightful, 
but to a foreign reader sometimes a little ludi- 
crous. Heroes and statesmen seem to lisp 
when they use it. It becomes Nicias incom- 
parably, and renders all his silliness infinitely 
more silly. 

We may add, that the verses, with which 
the Mandragola is interspersed, appear to us 
to be the most spirited and correct of all that 
Machiavelli has written in metre. He seems 
to have entertained the same opinion ; for he 
has introduced some of them in other places. 
The contemporaries of the author were not 
blind to the merits of this striking piece. It 
was acted at Florence with the greatest suc- 
cess. Leo the Tenth was among its admirers, 
and by his order it was represented at Rome.f 

The Clizia is an imitation of the Casina of 
Plautus, which is itself an imitation of the lost 
KhMfovfAivoi of Diphilus. Plautus was, unques- 
tionably, one of the best Latin writers. His 
works are copies ; but they have in an extra- 
ordinary degree the air of originals. We in- 
finitely prefer the slovenly exuberance of his 
fancy, and the clumsy vigour of his diction, to 
the artfully disguised poverty and elegant lan- 
guor of Terence. But the Casina is by no 
means one of his best plays ; nor is it one 
which offers great facilities to an imitator. 
The story is as alien from modern habits of 
life, as the manner in which it is developed 
from the modern fashion of composition. The 
lover remains in the country, and the heroine 
is locked up in her chamber during the whole 
action, leaving their fate to be decided by a 
foolish father, a cunning mother, and two kna- 
vish servants. Machiavelli has executed his 
task with judgment and taste. He has accom- 
modated the plot to a different state of society, 
and has very dexterously connected it with 
the history of his own times. The relation 
of the trick put on the doating old lover is ex 



* Decameron, Giorn. viii. Nov. 9. 

t Nothing can be more evident than that Paulas Jo- 
vius designates the Mandragola under the name of the 
Nicias. We should not have noticed what is so per- 
fectly obvious, were it not that this natural and palpable 
misnomer has led the sagacious and Industrious Bayla 
into a gross error. 



MACHIAVELLI. 



29 



5[uisitely humorous. It is far superior to The 
corresponding passage in the Latin comply, 
and scarcely yields to the account which Fal- 
staff gives of his ducking. 

Two other comedies without titles, the one 
in prose, the other in verse, appear among the 
works of Machiavelli. The former is very 
short, lively enough, hut of no great value. 
The latter we can scarcely believe to be 
genuine. Neither its merits nor its defects re- 
mind us of the reputed author. It was first 
printed in 1796, from a manuscript discovered 
in the celebrated library of the Strozzi. Its 
genuineness, if we have been rightly informed, 
is established solely by the comparison of 
hands. Our suspicions are strengthened by the 
circumstance, that the same manuscript con- 
tained a description of the plague of 1527, 
which has also, in consequence, been added to 
the works of Machiavelli. Of this last compo- 
sition the strongest external evidence would 
scarcely indjice us to believe him guilty. No- 
thing was ever written more detestable, in mat- 
ter and manner. The narrations, the reflec- 
tions, the jokes, the lamentations, are all the 
very worst of their respective kinds, at once 
trite and affected — threadbare tinsel from the 
Ragfairs and Monmouth-streets of literature. 
A foolish school-boy might perhaps write it, 
and, after he had written it, think it much finer 
than the incomparable introduction of the De- 
cameron. But that a shrewd statesman, whose 
earliest works are characterized by manliness 
of thought and language, should at nearly sixty 
years of age, descend to such puerility, is ut- 
terly inconceivable. 

The little Novel of Belphegor is pleasantly 
conceived and pleasantly told. But the extra- 
vagance of the satire in some measure injures 
its effect. Machiavelli was unhappily married ; 
and his wish to avenge his own cause and that 
of his brethren in misfortune, carried him be- 
yond even the license of fiction. Jonson seems 
to have combined some hints taking from this 
taie with others from Boccaccio, in the plot of 
The Devil is an Ass — a play which, though not 
the most highly finished of his compositions, 
is perhaps that which exhibits the strongest 
proofs of geniua. 

The political correspondence of Machiavelli, 
first published in 1767, is unquestionably 
genuine and highly valuable. The unhappy 
circumstances in which his country was placed, 
during the greater part of his public life, gave 
extraordinary ccouragement to diplomatic 
talents. From ,ne moment that Charles the 
Eighth descended from the Alps, the whole 
character of Italian politics was changed. The 
governments of the Peninsula cease to form an 
independent system. Drawn from their old 
orbit by the attraction of the larger bodies 
which now approached them, they became 
mere satellites of France and Spain. All their 
disputes, internal and external, were decided 
by foreign influence. The contests of oppo- 
site factions were carried on, not as formerly 
in the Senate-house, or in the market-place, 
but in the antechambers of Louis and Ferdi- 
nand. Under these circumstances, the pros- 
perity of the Italian States depended far more on 
tfie ability of their foreign agents than on the 
3 



conduct of those who were intrusted with the 
domestic administration. The ambassador had 
to discharge functions far more delicate than 
transmitting orders of knighthood, introducing 
tourists, or presenting his brethren with the 
homage of his high consideration. He was an 
advocate, to whose management the dearest in- 
terests of his clients were intrusted ; a spy, cloth- 
ed with an inviolable character. Instead of 
consulting the dignity of those whom he repre- 
sented by a reserved manner and an ambigu- 
ous style, he was to plunge into all the in- 
trigues of the court at which he resided, to dis- 
cover and flatter every weakness of the prince 
who governed his employers, of the favourite 
who governed the prince, and of the lacquey 
who governed the favourite. He was to com- 
pliment the mistress and bribe the confessor, 
to panegyrize or supplicate, to laugh or weep, 
to accommodate himself to every caprice, to 
lull every suspicion, to treasure every hint, to 
be every thing, to observe every thing, to endure 
every thing. High as the r,rt of political in- 
trigue had been carried it Italy, these were 
times which required it all. 

On these arduous errands Machiavelli was 
frequently employed. He was sent to treat 
with the King of the Romans and with the 
Duke of Valentinois. He was twice ambassa- 
dor at the court of Rome, and thrice at that of 
France. In these missions, and in several 
others of inferior importance, he acquitted him- 
self with great dexterity. His despatches form 
one of the most amusing and instructive col- 
lections extant. We meet with none of the 
mysterious jargon so common in modern state 
papers, the flash-language of political robbers 
and sharpers. The narratives are clear and 
agreeably written ; the remarks on men and 
things clever and judicious. The conversa 
tions are reported in a spirited and character- 
istic manner. We find ourselves introduced 
into the presence of the men who, during 
twenty eventful years, swayed the destinies of 
Europe. Their wit and their folly, their fret- 
fulness and their merriment are exposed to us. 
We are admitted to overhear their chat, and to 
watch their familiar gestures. It is interesting 
and curious to recognise, in circumstances 
which elude the notice of historians, the feeble 
violence and shallow cunning of Louis the 
Twelfth ; the bustling insignificance of Maxi- 
milian, cursed with an impotent pruriency for 
renown, rash yet timid, obstinate yet fickle, al- 
ways in a hurry, yet alway s too late ; — the 
fierce and haughty energy which gave dignity 
to the eccentricities of Julius ; — the soft and 
graceful manners which masked the insatiable 
ambition and the implacable hatred of Borgia. 

We have mentioned Borgia. It is impossi- 
ble not to pause for a moment on the name of 
a man in whom the political morality of Italy 
was so strongly personified, partially blended 
with the sterner lineaments of the Spanish 
character. On two important occasions Ma- 
chiavelli was admitted to his sosiety; once, at 
the moment when his spvendid villany achiev- 
ed its most signal triumph, when he caught in 
one snare and crushed at one blow all his mosl 
formidable rivals, and again when, exhausted 
by disease and overwhelmed by misfortunes 



so 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



which no human prudence coukl have averted, 
he was the prisoner of the deadliest enemy of 
his house. These interviews, between the 
greatest speculative and the greatest practical 
statesmen of the age, are fully described in the 
correspondence, and form perhaps the moot in- 
teresting part of it. From some passages in the 
Prince, and perhaps also from some indistinct 
traditions, several writers have supposed a con- 
nection between those remarkable men much 
closer than ever existed. The Envoy has even 
been accused-of promoting the crimes of the art- 
ful and merciless tyrant. But from the official 
documents it is clear that their intercourse, 
though ostensibly amicable, was in reality hos- 
tile. It cannot be doubted, however, that the 
imagination of Machiavelli was strongly im- 
pressed and his speculations on government 
coloured, by the observations which he made 
on the singular character, and equally singular 
fortunes, of a man who, under such disadvan- 
tages, had achieved such exploits ; who, when 
sensuality, varied through innumerable forms, 
could no longer stimulate his sated mind, 
found a more powerful and durable excitement 
in the intense thirst of empire and revenge ; — 
who emerged from the sloth and luxury of the 
Roman purple, the first prince and general of 
the age ; — who, trained in an unwarlike profes- 
sion, formed a gallant army out of the dregs of 
an unwarlike people : — who, after acquiring 
sovereignty by destroying his enemies, ac- 
quired popularity by destroying his tools; — 
who had begun to employ for the most saluta- 
ry ends the power which he had attained by the 
most atrocious means ; who tolerated within 
the sphere of his iron despotism no plunderer 
or oppressor but himself; — and who fell at last 
amidst the mingled curses and regrets of a 
people, of whom his genius had been the won- 
der, and might have been the salvation. Some of 
those crimes of Borgia, which to us appear the 
most odious, would not, from causes which we 
have already considered, have struck an Italian 
of the fifteenth century with equal horror. Pa- 
triotic feeling also might induce Machiavelli 
to look, with some indulgence and regret, on 
the memory of the only leader who could have 
defended the independence of Italy against the 
confederate spoilers of Cambray. 

On this subject Machiavelli felt most 
strongly. Indeed the expulsion of the foreign 
tyrants, and the restoration of that golden age 
which had preceded the irruption of Charles 
the Eighth, were projects which, at that time, 
fascinated all the master-spirits of Italy. The 
magnificent vision delighted the great but ill- 
regulated mind of Julius. It divided with 
manuscripts and sauces, painters and falcons, 
the attention of the frivolous Leo. It prompted 
the generous treason of Morone. It imparted 
a transient energy to the feeble mind and body 
of the last Sforza. It excited for one moment 
an honest ambition in the false heart of Pes- 
cara. Ferocity and insolence were not among 
the vices of the national character. To the 
discriminating cruelties of politicians, com- 
mitted for great ends on select victims, the 
moral code of the Italians was too indulgent. 
But though they might have recourse to bar- 
barity as an expedient, they did not require it 



as a stimulant. They turned with loathing 
from the atrocity of the strangers whc seemed 
to love blood for its own sake, who, not con- 
tent with subjugating, were impatient to de« 
stroy ; who found a fiendish pleasure in raring 
magnificent cities, cutting the throats of ene- 
mies who cried for quarter, or suffocating an 
unarmed people by thousands in the caverns 
to which they had fled for safety. Such were 
the scenes which daily excited the terror and 
disgust of a people, amongst whom, till lately, 
the worst that a soldier had to fear in a pitched 
battle was the loss of his horse, and the ex- 
pense of his ransom. The swinish intemper- 
ance of Switzerland, the wolfish avarice of 
Spain, the gross licentiousness of the French, 
indulged in violation of hospitality, of decency, 
of love itself, the wanton inhumanity which 
was common to all the invaders, had rendered 
them subjects of deadly hatred to the inhabi- 
tants of the Peninsula.* The wealth which 
had been accumulated during centuries of 
prosperity and repose was rapidly melting 
away. The intellectual superiority of the op- 
pressed people only rendered them more 
keenly sensible of their political degradation. 
Literature and taste, indeed, still disguised, 
with a flush of hectic loveliness and brilliancy, 
the ravages of an incurable decay. The iron 
had not yet entered into the soul. The time 
was not yet come when eloquence was to be 
gagged and reason to be hoodwinked — when 
the harp of the poet was to be hung on the 
willows of Arno, and the right hand of the 
painter to forget its cunning. Yet a discerning 
eye might even then have seen that genius 
and learning would not long survive the state 
of things from which they had sprung ; — that 
the great men whose talents gave lustre to that 
melancholy period had been formed under the 
influence of happier days, and would leave no 
successors behind them. The times which 
shine with the greatest splendour in literary 
history are not always those to which the 
human mind is most indebted. Of this we may 
be convinced, by comparing the generation 
which follows them with that which preceded 
them. The first fruits which are reaped under 
a bad system often spring from seed sown 
under a good one. Thus it was, in some mea- 
sure, with the Augustan age. Thus it was 
with the age of Raphael and Ariosto, of Aldus 
and Vida. 

Machiavelli deeply regretted the misfortunes 
of his country, and clearly discerned the cause 
and the remedy. It was the military system 
of the Italian people which had extinguished 
their valour and discipline, and rendered their 
wealth an easy prey to every foreign plun- 
derer. The Secretary projected a scheme alike 
honourable to his heart and to his intellect, for 
abolishing the use of mercenary troops, and 
organizing a national militia. 

The exertions which he made to effect this 
great object ought alone to rescue his name 
from obloquy. Though his situation and his 



* The opening stanzas of the Fourteenth Canto of tha 
Orlando Furioso give a frightful picture of the state of 
Italy in those times. Yet, strange to say, Ariosto is 
speaking of the conduct of those who called themselves 
lilies. 



MACHIAVELLI. 



31 



habits were pacific, he studied with intense 
assiduity the theory of war. He made himself 
master of all its details. The Florentine go- 
vernment entered into his views. A council 
of war was appointed. Levies were decreed. 
The indefatigable minister flew from place to 
place in order to superintend the execution of 
his design. The times were, in some respects, 
favourable to the experiment. The system of 
military tactics had undergone a great revolu- 
tion. The cavalry was no longer considered 
as forming the strength of an army. The hours 
which a citizen could spare from his ordinary 
employments, though by no means sufficient to 
familiarize him with the exercise of a man-at- 
arms, might render him a useful foot-soldier. 
The dread of a foreign yoke, of plunder, mas- 
sacre, and conflagration, might have conquered 
that repugnance to military pursuits, which 
both the industry and the idleness of great 
towns commonly generate. For a time the 
scheme promised well. The new troops ac- 
quitted themselves respectably in the field. 
Machiavelli looked with parental rapture on 
the success of his plan; and began to hope 
that the arms of Italy might once more be for- 
midable to the barbarians of the Tagus and the 
Rhine. But the tide of misfortune came on 
before the barriers which should have with- 
stood it were prepared. For a time, indeed, 
Florence might be considered as peculiarly 
fortunate. Famine and sword and pestilence 
had devastated the fertile plains and stately 
cities of the Po. All the curses denounced of 
old against. Tyre seemed to have fallen on 
Venice. Her merchants already stood afar 
off, lamenting for their great city. The time 
seemed near when the sea-weed should over- 
grow her silent Rialto, and the fisherman wash 
his nets in her deserted arsenal. Naples had 
been four times conquered and reconquered, 
by tyrants equally indifferent to its welfare, 
and equally greedy for its spoils. Florence, 
as yet, had only to endure degradation and ex- 
tortion, to submit to the mandate of foreign 
powers, to buy over and over again, at an 
enormous price, what was already justly her 
own, to return thanks for being wronged, and 
to ask pardon for being in the right. She was 
at length deprived of the blessings even of this 
infamous and servile repose. Her military 
and political institutions were swept away 
together. The Medici returned, in the train 
of foreign invaders, from their long exile. 
The policy of Machiavelli was abandoned; 
and his public services were requited with 
poverty, imprisonment, and torture. 

The fallen statesman still clung to his pro- 
ject with unabated ardour. With the view of 
vindicating it from some popular objections, 
and of refuting some prevailing errors on the 
subject of military science, he wrote his seven 
books on the Art of War. This excellent work 
is in the form of a dialogue. The opinions of 
(he writer are put into the mouth of Falvizio 
Colonna, a powerful nobleman of the Ecclesi- 
astical State, and an officer of distinguished 
asnt in the service of the King of Spain. He 
visits Florence on his way from Lombardy to 
his own Ic mains. He is invited to meet some 
mend? at the house of Cosimo Rucellui, an 



amiable and accomplished young man, whose 
early death Machiavelli feelingly ceplores. 
After partaking of an elegant entertainment, 
they retire from the heat into the most shady 
recesses of the garden. Fabrizio is struck by 
the sight of some uncommon plants. His host 
informs him that, though rare in modern days, 
they are frequently mentioned by the classical 
authors, and that his grandfather, like many 
other Italians, amused himself with practising 
the ancient methods of gardening. Fabrizio 
expresses his regret that those who, in later 
times, affected the manners of the old Romans, 
should select for • imitation their most trifling 
pursuits. This leads to a conversation on the 
decline of military discipline, and on the best 
means of restoring it. The institution of the 
Florentine militia is ably defended; and se- 
veral improvements are suggested in the 
details. 

The Swiss and the Spaniards were, at that 
time, regarded as the best soldiers in Europe. 
The Swiss battalion consisted of pikemen, and 
bore a close resemblance to the Greek phalanx. 
The Spaniards, like the soldiers of Rome, were 
armed with the sword and the shield. The 
victories of Flaminius and JUmilius over the 
Macedonian kings seem to prove the superi- 
ority of the weapons used by the legions. 

The same experiments had been recently 
tried with the same result at the battle of 
Ravenna, one of those tremendous days into 
which human folly and wickedness compress 
the whole devastation of a famine or a plague. 
In that memorable conflict, the infantry of 
Arragon, the old companions of Gonsalvo, 
deserted by all their allies, hewed a passage 
through the thickest of the imperial pikes, and 
effected an unbroken retreat, in the face of the 
gendarmerie of De Foix, and the renowned 
artillery of Este. Fabrizio, or rather Machia- 
velli, proposes to combine the two systems, to 
arm the foremost lines with the pike, for the 
purpose of repulsing cavalry, and those in the 
rear with the sword, as being a weapon better 
adapted for every purpose. Throughout the 
work, the author expresses the highest admira- 
tion of the military science of the ancient 
Romans, and the greatest contempt for the 
maxims which had been in vogue amongst the 
Italian commanders of the preceding genera- 
tion. He prefers infantry to cavalry ; and for- 
tified camps to fortified towns. He is inclined 
to substitute rapid movements, and decisive 
engagements, for the languid and dilatory 
operations of his countrymen. He attaches 
very little importance to the invention of gun- 
powder. Indeed he seems to think that it 
ought scarcely to produce any change in the 
mode of arming or of disposing troops. The 
general testimony of historians, it must be 
allowed, seems to prove, that the ill-construct- 
ed and ill-served artillery of those times, 
though useful in a siege, was of little value on 
the field of battle. 

Of the tactics of Machiavelli we will not 
venture to give an opinion ; but we are cer 
tain that his book is most able and interesting 
As a commentary on the history of his times 
it is invaluable. The ingenuity, the grace, and 
the perspicuity of the stvle, and the eloquenc« 



32 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



and animation of particular passages, must 
give pleasure even to readers who take no in- 
terest in the subject. 

The Prince and the Discourses on Livy were 
written after the fall of the republican govern- 
ment. The former was dedicated to the young 
Lorenzo de Medici. This circumstance seems 
to have disgusted the contemporaries of the 
writer far more than the doctrines which have 
rendered the name of the work odious in later 
times. It was considered as an indication of 
political apostasy. The fact, however, seems 
to have been, that Machiavelli, despairing of 
the liberty of Florence, was inclined to support 
any government which might preserve her 
independence. The interval which separated a 
democracy and a despotism, Soderini and Lo- 
renzo, seemed to vanish when compared with 
the difference between the former and the pre- 
sent state of Italy; between the security, the 
opulence, and the repose which it had enjoyed 
under its native rulers, and the misery in which 
it had been plunged since the fatal year in 
which the first foreign tyrant had descended 
from the Alps. The noble and pathetic ex- 
hortation with which the Prince concludes, 
shows how strongly the writer felt upon this 
subject. 

The Prince traces the progress of an ambi- 
tious man, the Discourses the progress of an 
ambitious people. The same principles on 
which in the former work the elevation of an 
individual are explained, are applied in the 
latter to the longer duration and more complex 
interests of society. To a modern statesman 
the form of the Discourses may appear to be 
puerile. In truth, Livy is not a historian on 
whom much reliance can be placed, even in 
cases where he must have possessed consider- 
able means of information. And his first De- 
cade, to which Machiavelli has confined him- 
self, is scarcely entitled to more credit than 
our chronicle of British kings who reigned be- 
fore the Roman invasion. But his commenta- 
tor is indebted to him for little more than a 
few texts, which he might as easily have ex- 
tracted from the Vulgate or the Decameron. 
The whole train of thought is original. 

On the peculiar immorality which has ren- 
dered the Prince unpopular, and which is al- 
most equally discernible in the Discourses, we 
have already given our opinion at length. We 
have attempted to show that it belonged rather 
to the age than to the man ; that it was a par- 
tial taint, and by no means implied general 
depravity. We cannot, however, deny that it 
is a great blemish, and that it considerably 
diminishes the pleasure which, in other re- 
spects, those works must afford to every in- 
telligent mind. 

It is, indeed, impossible to conceive a more 
healthful and vigorous constitution of the un- 
derstanding than that which these works indi- 
cate. The qualities of the active and the con- 
templative statesman appear to have been 
blended, in the mind of the writer, into a rare 
and exquisite harmony. His skill in the de- 
tails of business had not been acquired at the 
expense of his general powers. It had not 
rendered his mind less comprehensive, but it 
had served to correct his speculations, and to 



impart to them that vivid and practical cha> 
racter which so widely distinguishes them frorc 
the vague theories of most political philoso* 
phers. 

Every man who has seen the world knows 
that nothing is so useless as a general maxim. 
If it be very moral and very true, it may serve 
for a copy to a charity-boy. If, like those of 
Rochefoucauld, it be sparkling and whimsi* 
cal, it may make an excellent motto for an 
essay. But few, indeed, of the many wise 
apophthegms which have been uttered, from 
the time of the Seven Sages of Greece to thai, 
of Poor Richard, have prevented a single fool 
ish action. We give the highest and the most 
peculiar praise to the precepts of Machiavelli, 
when we say that they may frequently be of 
real use in regulating the conduct, not so much 
because they are more just or more profound 
than those which might be culled from other 
authors, as because they can be more readily 
applied to the problems of real life. 

There are errors in these works. But they 
are errors which a writer situated like Machia- 
velli could scarcely avoid. They arise, for the 
most part, from a single defect which appears 
to us to pervade his whole system. In his po- 
litical scheme the means had. been more deep- 
ly considered than the ends. The great prin- 
ciple, that societies and laws exist only for the 
purpose of increasing the sum of private hap- 
piness, is not recognised with sufficient clear- 
ness. The good of the body, distinct from the 
good of the members, and sometimes hardly 
compatible with it, seems to be the object 
which he proposes to himself. Of all politi- 
cal fallacies, this has had the widest and the 
most mischievous operation. The state of so- 
ciety in the little commonwealths of Greece, 
the close connection and mutual dependence 
of the citizens, and the severity of the laws of 
war, tended to encourage an opinion which, 
under such circumstances, could hardly be 
called erroneous. The interests of every in- 
dividual were inseparably bound up with those 
of the state. An invasion destroyed his corn- 
fields and vineyards, drove him from his home, 
and compelled him to encounter all the hard- 
ships of a military life. A peace restored him 
to security and comfort. A victory doubled 
the number of his slaves. A defeat perhaps 
made him a slave himself. When Pericles, in 
the Peloponnesian war, told the Athenians that 
if their country triumphed their private losses 
would speedily be repaired, but that if their 
arms failed of success, every individual 
amongst them would probably be ruined,* hn 
spoke no more than the truth. He spoke to 
men whom the tribute of vanquished cities 
supplied with food and clothing, with the luxu 
ry of the bath and the amusements of the 
theatre, on whom the greatness of their coun- 
try conferred rank, and before'whom the mem- 
bers of less prosperous communities trembled* 
and to men who, in case of a change in the 
public fortunes, would at least be deprived of 
every comfort and every distinction which they 
enjoyed. To be butchered on the smoking 
ruins of their city, to be dragged in chains tt 



* Thucydides. il. P2 



MACHIAVELLL 



33 



a fiave-market, to see one child torn from them 
to dig in the quarries of Sicily, and another to 
guard the harems of Persepolis ; those were 
the frequent and probable consequences of na- 
tional calamities. Hence, among the Greeks, 
patriotism became a governing principle, or 
rather an ungovernable passion. Both their 
legislators and their philosophers took it for 
granted that, in providing for the strength and 
greatness of the state, they sufficiently provid- 
ed for the happiness of the people. The writ- 
ers of the Roman empire lived under despots 
into whose dominion a hundred nations were 
melted down, and whose gardens would have 
covered the little commonwealths of Phlius 
and Plataea. Yet they continued to employ the 
same language, and to cant about the duty of 
sacrificing every thing to a country to which 
they owed nothing. 

Causes similar to those which had influ- 
enced the disposition of the Greeks, operated 
powerfully on the less vigorous and daring 
character of the Italians. They, too, were 
members of small communities. Every man 
was deeply interested in the welfare of the so- 
ciety to which he belonged — a partaker in its 
wealth and its poverty, in its glory and its 
shame. In the age of Machiavelli this was pe- 
culiarly the case. Public events had produced 
an immense sum of money to private citizens. 
The northern invaders had brought want to 
their boards, infamy to their beds, fire to their 
roofs, and the knife to their throats. It was 
natural that a man who lived in times like 
thcae should overrate the importance of those 
measures by which a nation is rendered formi- 
dable to its neighbours, and undervalue those 
which make it prosperous within itself. 

Nothing is raore remarkable in the political 
treatises of Machiavelli than the fairness of 
mind which they indicate. It appears where 
the author is in the wrong almost as strongly 
as where he is in the right. He never ad- 
vances a false opinion because it is new or 
splendid, because he can clothe it in a happy 
phrase or defend it by an ingenious sophism. 
His errors are at once explained by a reference 
to the circumstances in which he was placed. 
They evidently were not sought out ; they lay 
in his way and could scarcely be avoided. 
Such mistakes must necessarily be committed 
by early speculators in every science. 

In this respect it is amusing to compare the 
Prince and the Discourses with the Spirit of 
Laws. Montesquieu enjoys, perhaps, a wider 
celebrity than any political writer of modern 
Europe. Something he doubtless owes to his 
merit, but much more to his fortune. He had 
the good luck of a valentine. He caught the 
eye of the French nation at the moment when 
it was waking from the long sleep of political 
and religious bigotry, and in consequence he 
became a favourite. The English at that time 
considered a Frenchman who talked about 
constitutional checks and fundamental laws, 
as a prodigy not less astonishing than the 
learned pig or the musical infant. Specious 
but shallow, studious of effect, indifferent to 
truth, eager to build a system, but careless of 
collecting those materials oui. of which alone 
a siund and durable system can be built, he 



constructed theories as rapidly a:id as sljght.j 
as oard-houses — no sooner projected than com 
pleted — no sooner completed than blown away 
— no sooner blown away than forgotten. Ma- 
chiavelli errs only because his experience, ac- 
quired in a very peculiar state of society, could 
not always enable him to calculate the effect 
of institutions differing from those of which h* 
had observed the operation. Montesquieu errs 
because he has a fine thing to say and is re- 
solved to say it. If the phenomena which lie 
before him will not suit his purpose, all history 
must be ransacked. If nothing established by 
authentic testimony can be raked or chipped 
to suit his Procrustean hypothesis, he puts up 
with some monstrous fable about Siam, or 
Bantam, or Japan, told by writers compared 
with whom Lucian and Gulliver were vera- 
cious — liars by a double right, as travellers 
and as Jesuits. 

Propriety of thought and propriety of diction 
are commonly found together. Obscurity and 
affectation are the two greatest faults of style. 
Obscurity of expression generally springs from 
confusion of ideas ; and the same wish to daz- 
zle, at any cost, which produces affectation in 
the manner of a writer, is likely to produce 
sophistry in his reasonings. The judicious 
and candid mind of Machiavelli shows itself 
in his luminous, manly, and polished language. 
The style of Montesquieu, on the other hand, 
indicates in every page a lively and ingenious, 
but an unsound mind. Every trick of expres- 
sion, from the mysterious conciseness of an 
oracle to the flippancy of a Parisian coxcomb, 
is employed to disguise the fallacy of some 
positions, and the triteness of others. Absurdi- 
ties are brightened into epigrams ; truisms are 
darkened into enigmas. It is with difficulty 
that the strongest eye can sustain the glare 
with which some parts are illuminated, or 
penetrate the shade in which others are con- 
cealed. 

The political works of Machiavelli derive a 
peculiar interest from the mournful earnestness 
which he manifests, whenever he touches on 
topics connected with the calamities of his na- 
tive land. ' It is difficult to conceive any situa- 
tion more painful than that of a great man, con- 
demned to watch the lingering agony of an ex- 
hausted country, to tend it during the alternate 
fits of stupefaction and raving which precede 
its dissolution, to see the symptoms of vitality 
dissappear one by one, till nothing is left but 
coldness, darkness, and corruption. To this 
joyless and thankless duty was Machiavelli 
called. In the energetic language of the pro- 
phet, he was " mad for the sight of his eyes 
which he saw,"— disunion in the council, effe- 
minacy in, the camp, liberty extinguished, com- 
merce decaying, national honour sullied, an 
enlightened and flourishing people given ever 
to the ferocity of ignorant savages. Though 
his opinions had not escaped the contagion of 
that political immorality which was comni.ni 
among his countrymen, his natural disposition 
seems to have been rather stern and impetu- 
ous than pliant and artful. When the misery 
and degradation of Florence, and the foul out- 
rage which he had himself sustained roused 
his mind, the smooth craft of his profession an J 



Si 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



his nation is exchanged for the honest bitter- 
ness of scorn and anger. He speaks like one 
sick of the calamitous times and abject people 
among whom his lot is cast. He pines for the 
strength and glory of ancient Rome, for the 
fasces of Brutus and the sword of Scipio, the 
gravity of the curule chair, and the bloody pomp 
of the triumphal sacrifice. He seems to be 
transported back to the days, when eight hun- 
dred thousand Italiantwarriors sprung to arms 
at the rumour of a Gallic invasion. He breathes 
all the spirit of those intrepid and haughty pa- 
tricians, who forgot the dearest ties of nature 
in the claims of public duty, who looked with 
disdain on the elephants and on the gold of 
Pyrrhus, and listened with unaltered compo- 
sure to the tremendous tidings of Cannse. Like 
«n ancient temple deformed by the barbarous 
architecture of a later age, his character ac- 
quires an interest from the very circumstances 
which debase it. The original proportions are 
rendered more striking, by the contrast which 
they present to the mean and incongruous addi- 
tions. 

The influence of the sentiments which we 
have described was not apparent in his writ- 
ings alone. His enthusiasm, barred from the 
career which it would have selected for itself, 
seems to have found a vent in desperate levity. 
He enjoyed a vindictive pleasure in outraging 
the opinions of a society which he despised. 
He became careless of those decencies which 
were expected from a man so highly distin- 
guished in the literary and political world. The 
sarcastic bitterness of his conversation disgust- 
ed those who were more inclined to accuse his 
licentiousness than their own degeneracy, and 
who were unable to conceive the strength of 
those emotions which are concealed by the 
jests of the wretched, and by the follies of the 
wise. 

The historical works of Machiavelli still re- 
main to be considered. The life of Castruccio 
Castracani will occupy us for a very short 
time, and would scarcely have demanded our 
notice, had it not attracted a much greater 
share of public attention than it deserves. Few 
books, indeed, could be more interesting than 
a careful and judicious account, from such a 
pen, of the illustrious Prince, of Lucca, the most 
eminent of those Italian chiefs, who, like Pisis- 
tratus and Gelon, acquired a power felt rather 
than seer, and resting, not on law or on pre- 
scription, but on the public favour and on their 
great personal qualities. Such a work would 
exhibit to us the real nature of that species of 
sovereignty, so singular and so often misunder- 
stood, which the Greeks denominated tyranny, 
and which modified in some degree by the feu- 
dal system, re-appeared in the commonwealths 
of Lombardv and Tuscany. But this little 
composition of Machiavelli is in no sense a, 
history. It has no pretensions to fidelity. It is 
a trifle, and not a very successful trifle. It is 
scarcely more authentic than the novel of Bel- 
phegor, and is very much duller. 

The last great work of this illustrious man 
was the history of his native city. It was writ- 
ten by the command of the Pope, who, as chief 
of the house of Medici, was at that time sove- 
reign of Florence. The Characters of Cosmo, 



of Piero, and of Lorenzo, are, howei er, treated 
with a freedom and impartiality equally honour 
able to the writer and to the patron. The mise 
ries and humiliations of dependence, the brea^ 
which is more bitter than every other food, the 
stairs which are more painful than every other 
assent,* had not broken the spirit of Machi- 
avelli. The most corrupting post in a corrupt- 
ing profession had not depraved the generous 
heart of Clement. 

The history does not appear to be the fruit 
of much industry or research. It is unques- 
tionably inaccurate. But it is elegant, lively, 
and picturesque, beyond any other in the Ita- 
lian language. The reader, we believe, carries 
away from it a more vivid and a more faithful 
impression of the national character and man- 
ners, than from more correct accounts. The 
truth is, that the book belongs rather to ancient 
than to modern literature. It is in the style, 
not of Davila and Clarendon,. but of Herodotus 
and Tacitus; and the classical histories may 
almost be called romances founded in fact. 
The relation is, no doubt, in all its principal 
points, strictly true. But the numerous little 
incidents which heighten the interest, the words, 
the gestures, the looks, are evidently furnish- 
ed by the imagination of the author. The fash- 
ion of later times is different. A more exact 
narrative is given by the writer. It may be 
doubted whether more exact notions are con- 
veyed to the reader. The best portraits are 
those in which there is a slight mixture of cari- 
cature ; and we are not aware, that the best 
histories are not those in which a little of the 
exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judicious- 
ly employed. Something is lost in accuracy ; 
but much is gained in effect. The fainter lines 
are neglected; but the great characteristic 
features are imprinted on the mind forever. 

The history terminates with the death of Lo- 
renzo de Medici. Machiavelli had, it seems, 
intended to continue it to a later period. But 
his death prevented the execution of his de- 
sign; and the melancholy task of recording 
the desolation and shame of Italy devolved on 
Guicciardini. 

Machiavelli lived long enough to see the com- 
mencement of the last struggle for Florentine 
liberty. Soon after his death, monarchy was 
finally established — not such a monarchy as 
that of which Cosmo had laid the foundations 
deep in the constitution and feelings of his 
countrymen, and Avhich Lorenzo had embel- 
lished with the trophies of every science and 
every art; but a loathsome tyranny, proud 
and mean, cruel and feeble, bigoted and lasci- 
vious. The character of Machiavelii was hate- 
ful to the new masters of Italy; and those parts 
of his theory, which were in strict accordance 
with their own daily practice, afforded a pre- 
text for blackening his memory. His work* 
were misrepresented by the learned, miscon- 
strued by the ignorant, censured by the 
church, abused, with all the rancour of simu- 
lated virtue, by the minions of a base despot- 
ism, and the priests of a baser superstition. 
The name of the man whose genius had illu- 
minated all the dark places of policy, and to 

* Dante Paradisu Canto xvii. 



DRYDEN. 



36 



whcse patriotic wisdom an oppressed people 
had owed their last chance of emancipation 
and revenge, passed into a proverb of in- 
famy 

For more than two hundred years his bones 
lay undistinguished. At length, an English 
nobleman paid the last honours to the greatest 
statesman of Florence. In the Church of 
Santa Croce, a monument was erected to his 
memory, which is contemplated with reve- 
rence by all who can distinguish the virtues 



of a great mind through the corruptions of a 
degenerate age ; and which will be approachod 
with still deeper homage, when the object tc 
which his public life was devoted shall be 
attained, when the foreign yoke shall be bro- 
ken, when a second Proccita shall avenge th 1 ? 
wrongs of Naples, when a happier Rienzi sha. 
restore the good estate of Rome, when the 
streets of Florence and Bologna shall again 
resound with their ancient-war cry — Popolo ; 
popolo ; muoiano i tiranni! 



dryden; 



[Edinburgh Review, 1828.] 



The puDlic voice has assigned to Dryden 
the first place in the second rank of our poets 
—no mean station in a table of intellectual 
precedency so rich in illustrious names. It is 
allowed that, even of the few who were his 
superiors in genius, none has exercised a 
more extensive or permanent influence on the 
national habits of thought and expression. 
His life was commensurate with the period 
during which a great revolution in the public 
taste was effected ; and in that revolution he 
played the part of Cromwell. By unscrupu- 
lously taking the lead in its wildest excesses, 
he obtained the absolute guidance of it. By 
trampling on laws, he acquired the authority 
of a legislator. By signalizing himself as the 
most daring and irreverent of rebels, he raised 
himself to the dignity of a recognised prince. 
He commenced his career by the most frantic 
outrages. He terminated it in the repose of 
established sovereignty — the author of a new 
code, the root of a new dynasty. 

Of Dryden, however, as of almost every 
man who has been distinguished either in the 
literary or in the political world, it may be 
said that the course which he pursued, and the 
effect which he produced, depended less on his 
personal qualities than on the circumstances 
in which he was placed. Those who have 
read history with discrimination know the fal- 
lacy of those panegyrics and invectives, which 
represent individuals as effecting great moral 
and intellectual revolutions, subvecting esta- 
blished systems, and imprinting a new cha- 
racter on their age. The difference between 
one man and another is by no. means so great 
as the superstitious crowd supposes. But the 
same feelings Avhich, in ancient Rome, pro- 
duced the apotheosis of a popular emperor, 
and, in modern Rome, the canonization of a 
devout prelate, lead men to cherish an illusion 
which furnishes them with something to adore. 
By a law of association, from the operation of 
wrtiich even minds the most strictly regulated 
by reason are not wholly exempt, misery dis- 
poses us to hatred, and happiness to love, al- 

* The Poetical Works of John Drydew. In two vo- 
lume* University Edi» ion. London, 1826. 



though there may be no person to whom our 
misery or our happiness can be ascribed. 
The peevishness of an invalid vents itself 
even on those who alleviate his pain. The 
good-humour of a man elated by success often 
displays itself towards enemies. In the same 
manner, the feelings of pleasure and admira- 
tion, to which the contemplation of great events 
gives birth, make an object where they do not 
find it. Thus, nations descend to the absurdi- 
ties of Egyptian idolatry, and worship stocks 
and reptiles — Sacheverells and Wilkeses. 
They even fall prostrate before a deity to 
which they have themselves given the form 
which commands their veneration, and which, 
unless fashioned by them, would have remained 
a shapeless block. They persuade themselves 
that they are the creatures of what they have 
themselves created. For, in fact, it is the age 
that forms the man, not the man that forms 
the age. Great minds do indeed react on the 
society which has made them what they are ; 
but they only pay with interest what they have 
received. We extol Bacon, and sneer at Aqui- 
nas. But if their situations had been changed, 
Bacon might have been the Angelical Doctor, 
the most subtle Aristotelian of the schools ; 
the Dominican might have led forth the sci- 
ences from their house of bondage. If Luther 
had been born in the tenth century, he would 
have effected no reformation. If he had never 
been born at all, it is evident that the sixteenth 
century could not have elapsed without a great 
schism in the church. Voltaire, in the days 
of Lewis the Fourteenth, would probably have 
been, like most of the literary men of thai 
time, a zealous Jansenist, eminent among the 
defenders of efficacious grace, a bitter assail 
ant of the lax morality of the Jesuits and the 
unreasonable decisions of the Sorbonne. If 
Pascal had entered on his literary career, 
when intelligence was more general, and 
abuses at the same time more flagrant, when 
the church was polluted by the Iscariot Dubois, 
the court disgraced by the orgies of Canillac, 
and the nation sacrificed to the juggles of 
Law ; if he had lived to see a dynasty of har- 
lots, an empty treasury and a crowded harem, 
an army formidable only to those whom ii 



60 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



should have protected, a priesthood just reli- 
gious enough to be intolerant, he might possi- 
bly, like every man of genius in France, have 
imbibed extravagant prejudices against mo- 
narchy and Christianity. The wit which 
blasted the sophisms of Escobar, the impas- 
sioned eloquence which defended the sisters 
of Port Royal, the intellectual hardihood which 
was not beaten down even by Papal autho- 
rity, might have raised him to the Patriarchate 
of the Philosophical Church. It was long dis- 
puted whether the honour of inventing the 
method of Fluxions belonged to Newton or to 
Leibnitz. It is now generally allowed that 
these great men made the same discovery at 
the same time. Mathematical science, indeed, 
had then reached such a point, that if neither 
of them had ever existed, the principle must 
inevitably have occurred to some person within 
a few years. So in our own time the doctrine 
of rent now universally received by political 
economists, was propounded almost at the 
same moment, by two writers unconnected 
with each other. Preceding speculators had 
long been blundering round about it ; and it 
could not possibly have been missed much 
longer by the most heedless inquirer. We 
are inclined to think that, with respect to every 
great addition which has been made tc the 
stock of human knowledge, the case has been 
similar; that without Copernicus we should 
have been Copernicans, that without Colum- 
bus America would have been discovered, 
ihat without Locke we should have possessed 
a just theory of the origin of human ideas. 
Society indeed has its great men and its 
little men, as the earth has its mountains 
and its valleys. But the inequalities of in- 
tellect, like the inequalities of the surface 
of our globe, bear so small a proportion to 
the mass, that, in- calculating its great revo- 
lutions, they may safely be neglected. The 
sun illuminates the hills, while it is still below 
the horizon; and truth is discovered by the 
highest minds a little before it becomes mani- 
fest to the multitude. This is the extent of 
their superiority. They are the first to catch 
and reflect a light, which, without their assist- 
ance, must, in a short time, be visible to those 
who lie far beneath them. 

The same remark will apply equally to the 
fine arts. The laws on which depend the pro- 
gress and decline of poetry, painting, and 
sculpture, operate with little less certainty than 
those which regulate the periodical returns of 
heat and cold, of fertility and barrenness. 
Those who seem to lead the public taste, are, 
in general, merely outrunning it in the direc- 
tion which it is spontaneously pursuing. With- 
out a just apprehension of the laws to which 
we have alluded, the merits and defects of 
Dryden can be but imperfectly understood. 
We will, therefore, state what we conceive 
them to be 

The ages in which the masterpieces of ima- 
gination have been produced, have by no 
means been those in which taste has been 
most correct. It seems that the creative fa- 
culty and the critical faculty cannot exist toge- 
ther in their highest perfection. The causes 
of this phenomenon it is not difficult to assign. 



It is true that the man v» ho is best able to 
take a machine to pieces, and who most clear- 
ly comprehends the mannt r in which all its 
wheels and springs conduce to its general ef* 
feet, will be the man most competent to form 
another machine of similar power. In all the 
branches of physical and moral science which 
admit of perfect analysis, he who can resolve 
will be able to combine. But the analysis 
which criticism can effect of poetry is neces- 
sarily imperfect. One element must forever 
elude its researches ; and that is the very ele- 
ment by which poetry is poetry. In the de- 
scription of nature, for example, a judicious 
reader will easily detect an incongruous im- 
age. But he will find it impossible to explain 
in what consists the art of a writer who, in a 
few words, brings some spot before him so 
vividly that he shall know it as if he had lived 
there from childhood; while another, employ- 
ing the same materials, the same verdure, the 
same water, and the same flowers, committing 
no inaccuracy, introducing nothing which can 
be positively pronounced superfluous, omitting 
nothing which can be positively pronounced 
necessary, shall produce no more effect than 
an advertisement of a capital residence and a 
desirable pleasure-ground. To take another 
example, the great features of the character of 
Hotspur are obvious to the most superficial 
reader. We at once perceive that his courage 
is splendid, his thirst of glory intense, his ani- 
mal spirits high, his temper careless, arbitrary, 
and petulant ; that he indulges his own humoui 
without caring whose feelings he may wound- 
or whose enmity he may provoke, by his levi- 
ty. Thus far criticism will go. But soem- 
thing is still wanting. A man might have all 
those qualities, and every other quality which 
the most minute examiner can introduce into 
his catalogue of the virtues and faults of Hot 
spur, and yet he would not be Hotspur. Al 
most every thing that we have said of him ap 
plies equally to Falconbridge. i'et in the 
mouth of Falconbridge, mosi of his speeches 
would seem out of place, la real life, this per- 
petually occurs. We art. sensible of wide dif- 
ferences between men whom, if we are required 
to describe them, we should describe in almost 
the same terms. If we wure attempting to draw 
elaborate characters of ifiem, we should scarce- 
ly be able to point out an v strong distinction ; yet 
we approach them with feelings altogether dis- 
similar. We cannot conceive of them as using 
the expressions or gestures of each other. Let 
us suppose that a zoologist should attempt to 
give an account of some animal, a porcupine 
for instance, to people who had never seen it. 
The porcupine, he might say, is of the genus, 
mammalia, and the order gliris. There are 
whiskers on its face ; it is two feet long ; it 
has four toes before, five behind, two foreteeth, 
and eight grinders. Its body is covered with 
hair and quills. And when all this had been 
said, would any one of the auditors have 
formed a just idea of a porcupine 1 Would 
any two of them have formed the same idea 1 
There might exist innumerable races of ani« 
mals, possessing all the characteristics which 
have been mentioned, yet altogether unlike tc 
each other. What the description of our natu 



DRYDEN. 



37 



rahst is to a real porcupine, the remarks of 
criticism are to the images of poetry. What 
it so imperfectly decomposes, it cannot per- 
fectly reconstruct. It is evidently as impossi- 
ble to produce an Othello or a Macbeth by re- 
versing an analytical process so defective as 
it would be for an anatomist to form a living 
ma a out of the fragments of his dissecting 
room. In both cases, the vital principle eludes 
the finest instruments, and vanishes in the 
very instant in which its seat is touched. 
Hence those who, trusting to their critical 
skill, attempt to write poems, give us not im- 
ages of things, but catalogues of qualities. 
Their characters are allegories ; not good men 
and bad men, but cardinal virtues and deadly 
sins. We seem to have fallen among the ac- 
quaintances of our old friend Christian : some- 
times we meet Mistrust and Timorous : some- 
times Mr. Hate-good and Mr. Love-lust ; and 
then again Prudence, Piety, and Charity. 

That critical discernment is not sufficient to 
make men poets is generally allowed. Why 
it should keep them from becoming poets, is 
not perhaps equally evident. But the fact is, 
that poetry requires not an examining, but a 
believing frame of mind. Those feel it most, 
and write it best, who forget that it is a work 
of art ; to whom its imitations, like the reali- 
ties from which they are taken, are subjects 
not for connoisseurship, but for tears and 
laughter, resentment and affection, who are too 
much under the influence of the illusion to ad- 
mire the genius which has produced it ; who 
are too much frightened for Ulysses in the 
cave of Polyphemus, to care whether the pun 
about Outis be good or bad; who forget that 
such a person as Shakspeare ever existed, 
while they weep and curse with Lear. It is 
by giving faith to the creations of the imagina- 
tion that a man becomes a poet. It is by treat- 
ing those creations as deceptions, and by re- 
solving them, as nearly as possible, into their 
elements, that he becomes a critic. In the 
moment in which the skill of the artist is per- 
ceived, the spell of the art is broken. 

These considerations account for the absurd- 
ities into which the greatest writers have fal- 
len, when they have attempted to give general 
rules for composition, or to pronounce judg- 
ment on the works of others. They are unac- 
customed to analyze what they feel; they, 
therefore, perpetually refer their emotions to 
causes which have not in the slightest degree 
tended to produce them. They feel pleasure 
in reading a book. They never consider that 
this pleasure may be the effect of ideas, which 
some unmeaning expression, striking ori the 
first link or a chain of associations, may have 
called up in their own minds — that they have 
themselves furnished to the author the beauties 
which they admire. 

Cervantes is the delight of all classes of 
readers. Every schoolboy thumbs to pieces 
the most wretched translations of his romance, 
and knows the lantern jaws of the Knight- 
errant, and the broad cheeks of the Squire, 
as well as the faces of his own playfellows. 
The most experienced and fastidious judges 
are amazed at the perfection of that art which 
extracts inextinguishable laughter from the 



greatest of human calamities, without once vio 
lating the reverence due to it ; at that discrimi> 
nating delicacy of touch which makes a charac- 
ter exquisitely ridiculous without impairing its 
worth, its grace, or its dignity. In Don Quixote 
are several dissertations on the principles of 
poetic and dramatic writing. No passages in 
the whole work exhibit stronger marks of labour 
and attention ; and no passages in any work 
with which we are acquainted are more worth- 
less and puerile. Inourtimetheywouldscarcely 
obtain admittance into the literary department 
of the Morning Post. Every reader of the Di- 
vine Comedy must be struck by the veneration 
which Dante expresses for writers far inferior 
to himself. He will not lift up his eyes from 
the ground in the presence of Brunetto, all 
whose works are not worth the worst of his 
own hundred cantos. He does not venture to 
walk in the same line with the bombastic Sta- 
tius. His admiration of Virgil is absolute 
idolatry. If indeed it had been excited by the 
elegant, splendid and harmonious diction of 
the Roman poet, it would not have been alto- 
gether unreasonable ; but it is rather as an au- 
thority on all points of philosophy, than as a 
work of imagination, that he values the ^Eneid. 
The most trivial passages he regards as ora- 
cles of the highest authority, and of the most 
recondite meaning. He describes his con- 
ductor as the sea of all wisdom, the sun which 
heals every disordered sight. As he judged of 
Virgil, the Italians of the fourteenth century 
judged of him ; they were proud of him ; they 
praised him ; they struck medals bearing his 
head ; they quarrelled for the honour of pos- 
sessing his remains ; they maintained profes- 
sors to expound his writings. But what they 
admired was not that mighty imagination 
which called a new world into existence, and 
made all its sights and sounds familiar to the 
eye and ear of the mind. They said little of 
those awful and lovely creations on which la- 
ter critics delight to dwell — Farinata lifting 
his haughty and tranquil brow from his couch 
of everlasting fire — the lion-like repose of Sor- 
dello — or the light which shone from the celes- 
tial smile of Beatrice. They extolled their 
great poet for his smattering of ancient litera- 
ture and history ; for his logic and his divinity ; 
for his absurd physics, and his more absurd 
metaphysics ; for every thing but that in which 
he pre-eminently excelled. Like the fool in 
the story, who ruined his dwelling by digging 
for gold, which, as he had dreamed, was con- 
cealed under its foundations, they laid waste 
one of the noblest works of human genius, by 
seeking in it for buried treasures of wisdom, 
which existed only in their own wild reveries 
The finest passages were little valued till they 
had been debased into some monstrous alle- 
gory. Louder applause was given to- the lec- 
ture on fate and free-will, or to the ridiculous 
astronomical theories, than to those tremen- 
dous lines which disclose the secrets of the 
tower of hunger; or to that half-told tale cf 
guilty love, so passionate and so full of tears. 
We do not mean to say that the contempo- 
raries of Dante read, with less emotion than 
their descendants, of Ugolino groping among 
the wasted corpses of his children, or of Fran 



38 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



cesca starting at the tremulous kiss, and drop- 
ping the fatal volume. Far from it. We be- 
lieve that they admired these things less than 
ourselves, but that they felt them more. We 
should perhaps say, that they felt them too much 
to admire them. The progress of a nation from 
barbarism to civilization produces a change 
similar to that which takes place during the 
progress of an individual from infancy to ma- 
ture age. What man does not remember with 
regret the first time that he read Robinson Cru- 
soe 1 Then, indeed, he was unable to appreci- 
ate the powers of the writer ; or rather, he nei- 
ther knew nor cared whether the book had a 
writer at all. He probably thought it not half 
so fine as some rant of Macpherson about dark- 
browed Foldath, and white-bosomed Strina- 
dona. He now values Fingal and Temora 
only as showing with how little evidence a 
story may be believed, and with how little merit 
a book may be popular. Of the romance of 
Defoe he entertains the highest opinion. He 
perceives the hand of a master in ten thousand 
touches, which formerly he passed by without 
notioe. But though he understands the merits 
of the narrative better than formerly, he is far 
less interested by it. Xury, and Friday, and 
pretty Poll, the boat with the shoulder-of-mut- 
ton sail, and the canoe which could not be 
brought down to the water's edge, the tent with 
its hedge and ladders, the preserve of kids, and 
the den where the old goat died, can never 
again be to him the realities which they were. 

The days when his favourite volume set him 
upon making wheel-barrows and chairs, upon 
digging caves and fencing huts in the garden, 
can never return. Such is the law of our na- 
ture. Our judgment ripens, our imagination 
decays. We cannot at once enjoy the flowers 
of the spring of life and the fruits of its autumn, 
the pleasures of close investigation and those 
of agreeable error. We cannot sit at once in 
the front of the stage and behind the scenes. 
We cannot be under the illusion of the specta- 
cle, while we are watching the movements of 
the ropes and pulleys which dispose it. 

The chapter in which Fielding describes the 
behaviour of Partridge at the theatre, affords so 
complete an illustration of our proposition, that 
we cannot refrain from quoting some parts of it. 

" Partridge gave that credit to Mr. Garrick 
which he had denied to Jones, and fell into so 
violent a trembling that his knees knocked 
against each other. Jones asked him what 
was the matter, and whether he was afraid of 
the warrior upon the stage 1 — ' 0, la, sir,' said 
ne, ' I perceive now it is what you told me. I 
am not afraid of any thing, for I know it is but 
a play ; and if it was really a ghost, it could do 
one no harm at such a distance and in so much 
company ; and yet if I was frightened, I am not 
the only person.' — 'Why, who,' cries Jones, 
'dost thou take to be such a coward here besides 
thyself]' — ' Nay, you may call me a coward if 
you will ; but if that little man there upon the 
stage is not frightened, I never saw any man 
frightened in my life.' ... He sat with his eyes 
fixed partly on the Ghost and partly on Hamlet, 
and with his mouth open ; the same passions 
which succeeded each other in Hamlet, suc- 
ceeded likewise in him. 



"Little more worth remembering occurred 
during the play, at the end of which Jones askea 
him which of the players he liked best. To 
this he answered, with some appearance of in- 
dignation at the question, ' the King, without 
doubt.' — 'Indeed, Mr. Partridge,' says Mrs. Mil- 
ler, 'you are not of the same opinion with the 
town ; for they are all agreed that Hamlet is 
acted by the best player who was ever on the 
stage.' — ' He the best player !' cries Partridge 1 , 
with a contemptuous sneer ; ' why I could acj 
as well as he myself. I am sure, if I had seen 
a ghost, I should have looked in the very same 
manner, and done just as he did. And then, 
to be sure, in that scene, as you called it, be- 
tween him and his mother, where you told me 
he acted so fine, why, any man, that is any 
good man, that had such a mother, would have 
done exactly the same. I know you are only 
joking with me ; but indeed, madam, though I 
never was at a play in London, yet I have seen 
acting before in the country, and the King for 
my money ; he speaks all his words distinctly, 
and half as loud again as the other. Anybody 
may see he is an actor.' " 

In this excellent passage Partridge is repre- 
sented as a very bad theatrical critic. But 
none of those who laugh at him possess the 
tithe of his sensibility to theatrical excellence. 
He admires in the wrong place ; but he trem 
bles in the right place. It is indeed because ho 
is so much excited by the acting of Garrick, 
that he ranks him below the strutting, mouth- 
ing performer, who personates the King. So, 
we have heard it said, that in some parts of 
Spain and Portugal, an actor who should re- 
present a depraved character finely, instead of 
calling down the applauses of the audience, is 
hissed and pelted without mercy. It would be 
the same in England, if we, for one moment, 
thought that Shylock or Iago was standing be- 
fore us. While the dramatic art was in its 
infancy at Athens, it produced similar effects 
on the ardent and imaginative spectators. It is 
said that they blamed iEschylus for frightening 
them into fits with his Furies. Herodotus tells 
us, that when Phrynichus produced his trage- 
dy on the fall of Miletus, they fined him in a 
penalty of a thousand drachmas, for torturing 
their feelings by so pathetic an exhibition. 
They did not regard him as a great artist, but 
merely as a man who had given them pain. 
When they woke from the distressing illusion, 
they treated the author of it as they would 
have treated a messenger who should have 
brought them fatal and alarming tidings, which 
turned out to be false. In the same manner, a 
child screams with terror at the sight of a per- 
son in an ugly mask. He has perhaps seen the 
mask put on. But his imagination is too strong 
for his reason, and he entreats that it may be 
taken off. 

We should act in the same manner, if the 
grief and horror produced in us by wcrks of 
the imagination amounted to real torture. 
But in us these emotions are comparatively 
languid. They rarely affect our appetite or our 
sleep. They leave us sufficiently at ease to 
trace them to their causes, and to estimate the 
powers which produce them. Our attention is 
speedir* diverted from the images which cat 



DRYDEN. 



39 



forth our tears, to the art by which those images 
have been selected and combined. We applaud 
the genius of the writer. We applaud our own 
sagacity and sensibility, and we are comforted. 

Yet, though we think that, in the progress of 
nations towards refinement, the reasoning 
powers are improved at the expense of the ima- 
gination, we acknowledge, that to this rule 
there are many apparent exceptions. We are 
not, however, quite satisfied that they are more 
than apparent. Men reasoned better, for ex- 
ample, in the time of Elizabeth than in the 
time of Egbert ; and they also wrote better 
postry. But we must distinguish between poetry 
and a mental act, and poetry as a species of 
composition. If we take it in the latter sense, 
its excellence depends, not solely on the vigour 
of the imagination, but partly also on the in- 
Ltruments which the imagination employs. 
Within certain limits, therefore, poetry may be 
improving, while the poetical faculty is decay- 
ing. The,, vividness of the picture presented 
to the reader is not necessarily proportioned to 
the vividness of the prototype which exists in 
the mind of the writer. In the other arts we 
see this clearly. Should a man, gifted by na- 
ture with all the genius of Canova, attempt to 
carve a statue without instruction as to the 
management of his chisel, or attention to the 
anatomy of the human body, he would produce 
something compared with which the High- 
lander at the door of the snuff-shop would de- 
serve admiration. If an uninitiated Raphael 
were to attempt a painting, it would be a mere 
daub ; indeed, the connoisseurs say, that the 
ear y works of Raphael are little better. Yet, 
who can attribute this to want of imagination 7 
Who can doubt that the youth of that great ar- 
tist was passed amidst an ideal world of beauti- 
ful and majestic forms t Or, who will attribute 
the difference which appears between his first 
rude essays, and his magnificent Transfigura- 
tion, to a change in the constitution of his 
mindl In poetry, as in painting and sculpture, 
it is necessary that the imitator should be well 
acquainted with that which he undertakes to 
imitate, and expert in the mechanical part of 
his art. Genius will not furnish him with a 
vocabulary : it will not teach him what word 
most exactly corresponds to his idea, and will 
most fully convey it to others : it will not make 
him a great descriptive poet, till he has looked 
with attention on the face of nature ; or a great 
dramatist, till he has felt and witnessed much 
of the influence of the passions. Information 
and experience are, therefore, necessary ; not 
for the purpose of strengthening the imagina- 
tion, which is never so strong as in people in- 
capable of reasoning — savages, children, mad- 
men, and dreamers ; but for the purpose of en- 
abling the artist to communicate his concep- 
tions to others. 

In a barbarous age the imagination exercises 
a despotic power. So strong is the perception 
of what is unreal, that it often overpowers all 
the passions of the mind, and all the sensations 
of the body. At first, indeed, the phantasm re- 
mains undivulged, a hidden treasure, a word- 
less poetry, an invisible painting, a silent mu- 
sic, a dream of which the pains and pleasures 
«xist to the dreamer alone, a bitterness which 



the heart only knoweth, a joy with which a 
stranger intermeddleth not. The machinery, 
by which ideas are to be conveyed from one 
person to another, is as yet rude and defective. 
Between mind and mind there is a great gulf. 
The imitative arts do not exist, or are in their 
lowest state. But the actions of men amply 
prove that the faculty which gives birth to 
those arts is morbidly active. It is not yet the 
inspiration of poets and sculptors ; but it is the 
amusement of the day, the terror of the night 
the fertile source of wild superstitions. It 
turns the clouds into gigantic shapes, and the 
winds into doleful voices. The belief which 
springs from it is more absolute and undoubt- 
ing than any which can be derived from evi- 
dence. Ij; resembles the faith which we re- 
pose in our own sensations. Thus, the Arab, 
when covered with wounds, saw nothing bu. 
the dark eyes and the green kerchief of a beck- 
oning Houri. The Northern warrior laughed 
in the pangs of death, when he thought of the 
mead of Valhalla. 

The first works of the imagination are, as 
we have said, poor and rude, not from the want 
of genius, but from the want of materials. 
Phidias could have done nothing with an old 
tree and a fish bone, or Homer with the lan- 
guage of New Holland. 

Yet the effect of these early performances, 
imperfect as they must necessarily be, is im- 
mense. All deficiencies are to be supplied 
by the susceptibility of those to whom they are 
addressed. We all know what pleasure a 
wooden doll, which may be bought for six- 
pence, will afford to a little girl. She will re- 
quire no other company. She will nurse it, 
dress it, and talk to it all day. No grown-up 
man takes half so much delight in one of the 
incomparable babies of Chantrey. In the same 
manner, savages are more affected by the rude 
compositions of their bards than nations more 
advanced in civilization by the greatest mas- 
terpieces of poetry. 

In process of time, the instruments by which 
the imagination works are brought to perfec- 
tion. Men have not more imagination than 
their rude ancestors. We strongly suspect 
that they have much less. But they produce 
better works of imagination. Thus, up to a 
certain period, the diminution of the poetical 
powers is far more than compensated by the 
improvement of all the appliances and means 
of which those powers stand in need. Then 
comes the short period of splendid and con 
summate excellence. And then, from causes 
against which it is vain to struggle, poetry be- 
gins to decline. The progress of language, 
which was at first favourable, becomes fatal to 
it, and, instead of compensating for the decay 
of the imagination, accelerates that decay, and 
renders it more obvious. When the adven- 
turer in the Arabian tale anointed one of his 
eyes with the contents of the magical box, all 
the riches of the earth, however widely dis 
persed, however sacredly concealed, became 
visible to him. But when he tried the experi- 
ment on both eyes, he was struck with blind- 
ness. What the enchanted elixir was to the 
sight of the body, language is to the sight of 
the imagination. At first it calls up a world 



40 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



of glorious illusions, but when it becomes too 
copious, it altogether destroys the visual power. 
As the development of the mind proceeds, 
symbols, instead of being employed to convey 
images, are substituted for them. Civilized 
men think as they trade, not in kind, but by 
means of a circulating medium. In these cir- 
cumstances the sciences improve rapidly, and 
criticism among the rest; but poetry, in the 
highest sense of the word, disappears. Then 
comes the dotage of the fine arts, a second 
childhood, as feeble as the former, and far 
more hopeless. This is the age of critical 
poetry, of poetry by courtesy, of poetry to 
which the memory, the judgment, and the wit 
contribute far more than the imagination. We 
readily allow that many works of this descrip- 
tion are excellent ; we will not contend with 
those who think them more valuable than the 
great poems of an earlier period. We only 
maintain that they belong to a different species 
of composition, and are produced by a differ- 
ent faculty. 

It is some consolation to reflect that this 
critical school of poetry improves as the sci- 
ence of criticism improves ; and that the science 
of criticism, like every other science, is con- 
stantly tending towards perfection. As experi- 
ments are multiplied, principles are better un- 
derstood. 

In some countries, in our own, for example, 
there has been an interval between the down- 
fall of the creative school and the rise of the 
critical, a period during which imagination has 
been in its decrepitude, and taste in its infancy. 
Such a revolutionary interregnum as this will 
be deformed by every species of extravagance. 
The first victory of good taste is over the 
bcmbast and conceits which deform such times 
as these. But criticism is still in a very im- 
perfect state. What is accidental is for a long 
time confounded with what is essential. Ge- 
neral theories are drawn from detached facts. 
How many hours the action of a play may be 
allowed to occupy — how many similes an epic 
poet may introduce into his first book — whe- 
ther a piece which is acknowledged to have a 
beginning and end may not be without a mid- 
dle, and other questions as puerile as these, 
formerly occupied the attention of men of let- 
ters in France, and even in this country. 
Poets, in such circumstances as these, exhibit 
all the narrowness and feebleness of the criti- 
cism by which their manner has been fashion- 
,d. From outrageous absurdity they are pre- 
.erved indeed by their timidity. But they 
perpetually sacrifice nature and reason to ar- 
bitrary canons of taste. In their eagerness to 
avoid the mala prohibita of a foolish code, they 
are perpetually rushing on the maja in se. 
Their great predecessors, it is true, were as 
bad critics as themselves, or perhaps worse ; 
tut those predecessors, as we have attempted 
to show, were inspired by a faculty indepen- 
dent of criticism, and therefore wrote well 
while they judged ill. 

In time men begin to take more rational and 
comprehensive views of literature. The ana- 
tysis of poetry, which, as we have remarked, 
yms at best be imperfect, approaches nearer 
antl nearer to exactness. The merits of the 



wonderful models of former times are justly 
appreciated. The frigid productions of a later 
age are rated at no more than their proper 
value. Pleasing and ingenious imitations of 
the manner of the great masters appear. Poet- 
ry has a partial revival, a St. Martin's Sum- 
mer, which, after a period of dreariness and 
decay, agreeably reminds us of the splendour 
of its June. A second harvest is gathered in; 
though, growing on a spent soil, it has not the 
heart of the former. Thus, in the present age, 
Monti has successfully imitated the style of 
Dante ; and something of the Elizabethan in- 
spiration has been caught by several eminent 
countrymen of our own. But never will Italy 
produce another Inferno, or England another 
Hamlet. We look on the beauties of the mo- 
dern imitations with feelings similar to those 
with which we see flowers disposed in vases 
to ornament the drawing-rooms of a capital. 
We doubtless regard them with pleasure, with 
greater pleasure, perhaps, because, in the midst 
cf a place ungenial to them, they remind us 
of the distant spots on which they flourish in 
spontaneous exuberance. But we miss the 
sap, the freshness, and the bloont. Or, if we 
may borrow another illustration from Queen 
Scheherezade, we would compare the writers 
of this school to the jewellers who were em- 
ployed to complete the unfinished window of 
the palace of Aladdin. Whatever skill or cost 
could do was done. Palace and bazaar were 
ransacked for precious stones. Yet the artists, 
with all their dexterity, with all their assiduity, 
and with all their vast means, were unable to 
produce any thing comparable to the wonders 
which a spirit of a higher order had wrought 
in a single night. 

The history of every literature with which 
we are acquainted confirms, we think, the 
principles which we have laid down. In 
Greece we see the imaginative school of poet- 
ry gradually fading into the critical. iEschy- 
lus and Pindar were succeeded by Sophocles ; 
Sophocles by Euripides; Euripides by the 
Alexandrian versifiers. Of these last, Theo- 
critus alone has left compositions which de- 
serve to be read. The splendid and grotesque 
fairy-land of the Old Comedy, rich with such 
gorgeous hues, peopled with such fantastic 
shapes, and vocal alternately with the sweet- 
est peals of music and the loudest bursts of 
elvish laughter, disappeared forever. The 
masterpieces of the New Comedy are known 
to us by Latin translations of extraordinary 
merit. From these translations, and from the 
expressions of the ancient critics, it is clear 
that the original compositions were distin- 
guished by grace and sweetness, that they 
sparkled with wit and abounded with pleasing 
sentiments, but that the creative power was 
gone. Julius Caesar called Terence a half 
Menander — a sure proof that Menander was 
not a quarter Aristophanes. 

The literature of the Romans was merely a 
continuation of the literature of the Greeks. 
The pupils started from the point at which 
their masters had in the course of many gene- 
rations arrived. They thus almost wholly 
missed the period of original invention. The 
only Latin poets whose writings exhibit much 



DRYDEN 



41 



yigour of imagination are Lucretius and Ca- 
tullus. The Augustan age produced nothing 
equa>!. to their finer passages. 

In France, that licensed jester, whose jin- 
gling cap and motley coat concealed more ge- 
nius than ever mustered in the saloon of Ninon 
or of Madame Geoffrin, was succeeded by writ- 
ers as decorous and as tiresome as gentlemen- 
ushers. 

The poetry of Italy and of Spain has under- 
gone the same change. But nowhere has the 
revolution been more complete and violent 
„han in England. The same person who, when 
a boy, had clapped his thrilling hands at the 
first representation of the Tempest, might, with- 
out attaining to a marvellous longevity, have 
lived to read the earlier works of Prior and Ad- 
dison. The change, we believe, must, sooner 
or later, have taken place. But its progress 
was accelerated and its character modified by 
the political occurrences of the times, and par- 
ticularly b)fctwo events, the closing of the thea- 
tres under the Commonwealth, and the resto- 
ration of the house of Stuart. 

We have said that the critical and poetical 
faculties are not only distinct, but almost in- 
compatible. The state of our literature during 
the reigns of Elizabeth and James the First is 
a strong confirmation of this remark. The 
greatest works of imagination that the world 
has ever seen were produced at that period, 
The national taste, in the mean time, was to 
the last degree detestable. Alliterations, puns, 
antithetical forms of expression lavishly em- 
ployed where no corresponding opposition 
existed between the thoughts expressed, strain- 
ed allegories, pedantic allusions, every thing, 
ill short, quaint and affected in matter and 
manner, made up what was then considered as 
fine writing. The eloquence of the bar, the 
pulpit, and the council-board was deformed by 
conceits which would have disgraced the rhym- 
ing shepherds of an Italian academy. The 
king quibbled on the throne. We might, in- 
deed, console ourselves by reflecting that his 
majesty was a fool. But the chancellor quib- 
bled in concert from the woolsack, and the 
chancellor was Francis Bacon. It is needless 
to mention Sidney and the whole tribe of Eu- 
phuists. For Shakspeare himself, the greatest 
poet that ever lived, falls into the same fault 
whenever he means to be. particularly fine. 
While he abandons himself to the impulse of 
his imagination, his compositions are not only 
-the sweetest and the most sublime, but also 
the most faultless that the world has ever seen. 
But as soon as his critical powers come into 
play, he sinks to the level of Cowley, or rather 
he does ill what Cowley did well. All that is 
bad in his works is bad elaborately, and of 
malic s aforethought. The only thing wanting 
to maze them perfect was, that he should 
never have troubled himself with thinking 
whether they were good or not. Like the an- 
gels in Milton, he sinks "with compulsion and 
laborious flight." His natural tendency is up- 
wards. That he may soar it is only necessary 
that he should not struggle to fall. He resem- 
bled the American cacique who, possessing in 
unmeasured abundance the metals which in 
polished societies are esteemed the most pre- 



cious, was utterly unconscious of their value, 
and gave up treasures more valuable than the 
imperial crowns of other countries, to seciire 
some gaudy and far-fetched but worthless bau 
ble, a plated button, or a necklace of coloured 
glass. 

We have attempted to show that, as know- 
ledge is extended, and as the reason deveiopes 
itself, the imitative arts decay. We should, 
therefore, expect that the corruption of poetry 
would commence in the educated classes of 
society. And this, in fact, is almost constantly 
the case. The few great works of imagination 
which appear in a critical age are, almost 
without exception, the works of uneducated 
men. Thus, at a time when persons of quality 
translated French romances, and when the 
Universities celebrated royal deaths in verses 
about Tritons and Fauns, a preaching tinker 
produced the Pilgrim's Progress And thus a 
ploughman startled a generation, which had 
thought Hayley and Beattie great poets, with 
the adventures of Tam O'Shanter. Even in 
the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth the 
fashionable poetry had degenerated. It re 
tained few vestiges of the imagination of 
earlier times. It had not yet been subjected 
to the rules of good taste. Affectation had 
completely tainted madrigals and sonnets. 
The grotesque conceits and the tuneless hum 
bers of Donne were, in the time of James, the 
favourite models of composition at Whitehall 
and at the Temple. But though the literature 
of the Court was in its decay, the literature of 
the people was in its perfection. The Muses 
had taken sanctuary in the theatres, the haunts 
of a class whose taste was not better than thai 
of the Right Honourables and singular good 
Lords who admired metaphysical love-verses, 
but whose imagination retained all its fresh- 
ness and vigour; whose censure and approba- 
tion might be erroneously bestowed, but whose 
tears and laughter were never in the wrong. 
The infection which had tainted lync and 
didactic poetry had but slightly and partially 
touched the drama. While the noble and the 
learned were comparing eyes to burning- 
glasses, and tears to terrestrial globes, coyness 
to an enthymeme, absence to a pair of com- 
passes, and an unrequited passion to the for- 
tieth remainderman in an entail, Juliet leaning 
from the balcony, and Miranda smiling over 
the chess-board, sent home many spectators, 
as kind and simple-hearted as the master and 
mistress of Fletcher's Ralpho, to cry them' 
selves to sleep. 

No species of fiction is so delightful to us as 
the old English drama. Even its inferior pro 
ductions possess a charm not to be found in 
any other, kind of poetry. It is the most lucid 
mirror that ever was held up to nature. The 
creations of the great dramatists of Athens 
produce the effect of magnificent sculptures, 
conceived by a mighty imagination, polished 
with the utmost delicacy, imbodying ideas of 
ineffable majesty and beauty, but cold, pale, 
and rigid, with no bloom on the cheek, and nc 
speculation in the eye. In all the draperies; 
the figures, and the faces, in the lovers an- 
the tyrants, the Bacchanals and the Furies 
there is the same marble dullness and dea<" 



42 



MACAULATS MISCELLANEO JS WRITINGS. 



ness. Most of the characters of the French 
stage resemble the waxeii gentlemen and ladies 
in the window of a perfumer, rouged, curled, 
and bedizened, but fixed in such stiff attitudes, 
and staring with eyes expressive of such utter 
unmeaningness, that they cannot produce an 
illusion for a single moment. In the English 
plays alone is to be found the warmth, the 
mellowness, and the reality of painting. We 
know the minds of the men and women, as we 
know the faces of the men and women of Van- 
dyke. 

The excellence of these works is in a great 
measure the result of two peculiarities, which 
the critics of the French school consider as 
defects — from the mixture of tragedy and co- 
medy, and from the length and extent of the 
action. The former is necessary to render the 
drama a just representation of a world, in 
which the laughers and the weepers are per- 
petually jostling each other — in which every 
event has its serious and its ludicrous side. 
The latter enables us to form an intimate ac- 
quaintance with characters, with which we 
could not possibly become familiar during the 
few hours to which the unities restrict the 
poet. Inr this respect the works of Shakspeare, 
in particular, are miracles of art. In a piece, 
which may be read aloud in three hours, we 
aee a character gradually unfold all its re- 
cesses to us. We see it change with the 
change of circumstances. The petulant youth 
rises into the politic and warlike sovereign. 
The profuse and courteous philanthropist 
sours into a hater and scorner of his kind. 
The tyrant is altered, by the chastening of af- 
fliction, into a pensive moralist. The veteran 
general, distinguished by coolness, sagacity, 
and self-command, sinks under a conflict be- 
tween love, strong as death, and jealousy, cruel 
as the grave. The brave and loyal subject 
passes, step by step, to the extremities of hu- 
man depravity. We trace his progress from 
the first dawnings of unlawful ambition, to the 
cynical melancholy of his impenitent remorse. 
Yet, in these pieces, there are no unnatural 
transitions. Nothing is omitted: nothing is 
crowded. Great as are the changes, narrow 
as is the compass within which they are exhi- 
bited, they shock us as little as the gradual 
alterations of those, familiar faces which we 
see every evening and every morning. The 
magical skill of the poet resembles that of the 
Dervise in the Spectator, who condensed all 
the events of seven years into the single mo- 
ment during which the king held his head 
under the water. 

It is deserving of remark, that at the time of 
which we speak, the plays even of men not 
eminently distinguished by genius — such, for 
example, as Jonson — were far superior to the 
best works of imagination in other depart- 
ments. Therefore, though we conceive that, 
from causes which we have already investi- 
gated, our poetry must necessarily have de- 
clined, we think that, unless its fate had been 
accelerated by external attacks, it might have 
enjoyed an euthanasia — that genius might have 
neen kept alive by the drama till its place 
could, in some degree, be supplied by taste — 
tnat there woulJ have been scarcely any in- 



terval between the age of sublime invention 
and that of agreeable imitation. The works 
of Shakspeare, which were not appreciated 
with any degree of justice before the middle 
of the eighteenth century, might then have 
been the recognised standards of excellence 
during the .atter part of the seventeenth ; and 
he and the great Elizabethan writers might 
have been almost immediately succeeded by a 
generation of poets, similar to those who adorn 
our own times. 

But the Puritans drove imagination from its 
last asylum. They prohibited theatrical repre- 
sentations, and stigmatized the whole race of 
dramatists as enemies of morality and reli- 
gion. Much that is objectionable may be found 
in the writers whom they reprobated ; but 
whether they took the best measures for stop- 
ping the evil, appears to us very doubtful, and 
must, W3 think, have appeared doubtful to 
themselves, when, after the lapse of a few 
years, th.?y saw the unclean spirit whom they 
had cast out, return to his old haunts, with 
seven others fouler than himself. 

By the extinction of the drama, the fashion- 
able school of poetry — a school without truth 
of sentiment or harmony of versification— 
without the powers of an earlier or the cor- 
rectness of a later age — was left, to enjoy un- 
disputed ascendency. A vicious ingenuity, a 
morbid quickness to perceive resemblances 
and analogies between things apparently hete- 
rogeneous, constituted almost its only claim to 
admiration. Suckling was dead. Milton was 
absorbed in political and theological contro- 
versy. If Waller differed from the Cowleian 
sect of writers, he differed for the worse. He 
had as little poetry as they, and much less wit: 
nor is the languor of his verses less offensive 
than the ruggedness of theirs. In Denham 
alone the faint dawn of a better manner was 
discernible. 

But, low as was the state of our poetry 
during the civil war and the Protectorate, a 
still deeper fall was at hand. Hitherto our 
literature had been idiomatic. In mind as in 
situation, we had been islanders. The revolu- 
tions in our taste, like the revolutions in our 
government, had been settled without the in- 
terference of strangers. Had this state of things 
continued, the same just principles of reason- 
ing, which, about this time, were applied with 
unprecedented success to every part of phi- 
losophy, would soon have conducted our 
ancestors to a sounder code of criticism. 
There were already strong signs of improve- 
ment. Our prose had at length worked itself 
clear from those quaint conceits which still 
deformed almost every metrical composition. 
The parliamentary debates and the diplomatic 
correspondence of that eventful period had 
contributed much to this reform. In suci 
bustling times, it was absolutely necessary to 
speak and write to the purpose. The absurdi- 
ties of Puritanism had, perhaps, done more. 
At the time when that odious style, which 
deforms the writings of Hall and of Lord Ba- 
con, was almost universal, had appeared that 
stupendous work, the English Bible — a book 
which, if every thing else in our !anguag« 
should nerish. would alone suffice U *»iow th» 



DRYDEN. 



43 



whole extent of its beauty and power. The 
respect which the translators felt for the origi- 
nal prevented them from adding any of the 
hideous decorations then in fashion. The 
groundwork of the version, indeed, was of an 
earlier age. The familiarity with which the 
Puritans, on almost every occasion, used the 
scriptural phrases, was no doubt very ridicu- 
lous ; but it produced good effects. It was a 
cant ; but it drove out a cant far more offen- 
sive. 

The highest kind of poetry is, in a great 
measure, independent of those circumstances 
which regulate the style of composition in 
prose. But with that inferior species of poe- 
try which succeeds to it, the case is widely 
different. In a few years, the good sense and 
good taste which had weeded out affectation 
from moral and political treatises would, in 
the natural course of things, have effected a 
similar reform in the sonnet and the ode. The 
rigour of the victorious sectaries had relaxed. 
A dominant" religion is never ascetic. The 
government connived at theatrical representa- 
tions. The influence of Shakspeare was once 
more felt. But darker days were approaching. 
A foreign yoke was to be imposed on our lite- 
rature. Charles, surrounded by the compa- 
nions of his long exile, returned to govern a 
nation which ought never to have cast him out, 
or never to have received him back. Every 
year which he had passed among strangers 
had rendered him more unfit to rule his coun- 
trymen. In France he had seen the refractory 
magistracy humbled, and royal prerogative, 
though exercised by a foreign priest in the 
name of a child, victorious over all opposition. 
This spectacle naturally gratified a prince to 
whose family the opposition of parliaments 
had been so fatal. Politeness was his solitary 
good quality. The insults which he had suf- 
fered in Scotland had taught him to prize it. 
The effeminacy and apathy of his disposition 
fitted him to excel in it. The elegance and 
vivacity of the French manners fascinated 
him. With the political maxims and the so- 
cial habits of his favourite people, he adopted 
their taste in composition ; and, when seated 
on the throne, soon rendered it fashionable, 
partly by direct patronage, but still more by 
that contemptible policy which, for a time, 
made England the last of the nations, and 
raised Louis the Fourteenth to a height of 
powep and fame, such as no French sovereign 
had ever before attained. 

It was to please Charles that rhyme was 
f.rst introduced into our plays. Thus, a rising 
Plow, which would at any time have been 
riortal, was dealt to the English drama, then 
just recovering from its languishing condition. 
Two detestable manners, the indigenous and 
the imported, were now in a state of alternate 
conflict and amalgamation. The bombastic 
meanness of the new style was blended with the 
ingenious absurdity of the old ; and the mix- 
ture produced something which the world had 
never before seen, and which, we hope, it will 
never see again — something, by the side of 
which the worst nonsense of all other ages 
appears to advantage — something, which those 
who have attenuated to caricature it, have, 



against; iieir wil., been forced to flatter — of 
which the tragedy of Bayes is a very favour* 
able specimen. What Lord Dorset observed 
to Edward Howard, might ha>re been address- 
ed to almost all his contemporaries : — 

"As skilful divers to the bottom fall, 
Swifter than those who cannot swim at all ; 
So, in this way of writing without thinking, 
Thou hast a strange alacrity in sinking." 

From this reproach some clever men c.f the 
world must be expected, artd among them 
Dorset himself. Though by no means great 
poets, or even good versifiers, they always 
wrote with meaning, and sometimes with wit. 
Nothing indeed more strongly shows to what 
a miserable state literature had fallen, than 
the immense superiority which the occasional 
rhymes, carelessly thrown on paper by men 
of this class, possess over the elaborate pro- 
ductions of almost all the professed authors. 
The reigning taste was so bad, that the success 
of a writer was in inverse proportion to his 
labour, and to his desire of excellence. An 
exception must be made for Butler, who had as 
much wit and learning as Cowley, and who 
knew, what Cowley never knew, how to use 
them. A great command of good homely 
English distinguishes him still more from the 
other writers of the time. As for Gondibert. 
those may criticise it who can read it. Ima- 
gination was extinct. Taste was depraved. 
Poetry, driven from palaces, colleges, and the 
atres, had found an asylum in the obscure 
dwelling, where a great man, born out of due 
season, in disgrace, penury, pain, and blind 
ness, still kept uncontaminated a charactei 
and a genius worthy of a better age. 

Every thing about Milton is wonderful ; tu* 
nothing is so wonderful as that, in an age sa 
unfavourable to poetry, he should have pro 
duced the greatest of modern epic poems 
We are not sure that this is not in some do 
gree to be attributed to his want of sight. Th« 
imagination is notoriously most active when 
the external world is shut out. In sleep its 
illusions are perfect. They produce all the 
effect of realities. In darkness its visions are 
always more distinct than in the light. Every 
person who amuses himself with what is called 
building castles in the air, must have expe- 
rienced this. We know artists, who, before 
they attempt to draw a face from memory, 
close their eyes, that they may recall a more 
perfect image of the features and the expres- 
sion. We are therefore inclined to believe, 
that the genius of Milton may have been pre- 
served from the influence of times sc unfa- 
vourable to it, by his infirmity. Be this as it 
may, his works at first enjoyed a very small 
share of popularity. To be neglected by his 
contemporaries was the penalty which he paid 
for surpassing them. His great poem was 
not generally studied or admired, till writers 
far inferior to him had, by obsequiously cring- 
ing to the public taste, acquired sufficient fa- 
vour to reform it. 

Of these Dryden was the im.st eminent. 
Amidst the crowd of authors, who, during the 
earlier years of Charles the Second, courted 
notoriety by every species of absurdity and 
affectation, he speedily became conspicuous 



44 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



So man exercised so much influence on the 
age. The reason is obvious. On no man did 
the age exercise so much influence. He was 
perhaps the greatest of those whom we have 
designated as the critical poets ; and his lite- 
rary career exhibited, on a reduced scale, the 
whole history of the school to which he be- 
longed, the rudeness and extravagance of its 
infancy, the propriety, the grace, the dignified 
good sense, the temperate splendour of its 
maturity. His imagination was torpid, till it 
was awakened by his judgment. He began 
with quaint parallels and empty mouthing. 
He gradually acquired the energy of the sa- 
tirist, the gravity of the moralist, the rapture 
of the lyric poet. The revolution through 
which English literature has been passing, 
from the time of Cowley to that of Scott, may 
be seen in miniature within the compass of 
his volumes. 

His life divides itself into two parts. There 
is some debatable ground on the common 
frontier ; but the line may be drawn with tole- 
rable accuracy. The year 1678 is that on 
which we should be inclined to fix as the date 
of a great change in his manner. During the 
preceding period appeared some of his courtly 
panegyrics — his Annus Mirabilis, and most of 
his plays; indeed, all his rhyming tragedies. 
To the subsequent period belong his best dra- 
mas — All for Love, The Spanish Friar, and 
Sebastian — his satires, his translations, his 
didactic poems, his fables, and his odes. 

Of the small pieces which were presented 
to chancellors and princes, it would scarcely 
be fair to speak. The greatest advantage 
which the fine arts derive from the extension 
of knowledge is, that the patronage of indivi- 
duals becomes unnecessary. Some writers 
still affect to regret the age- of patronage. 
None but bad writers have reason to regret it. 
It is always an age of general ignorance. 
Where ten thousand readers are eager for the 
appearance of a book, a small contribution 
from each makes up a splendid remuneration 
for the author. Where literature is a luxury, 
confined to few, each of them must pay high. 
If the Empress Catherine, for example, wanted 
an epic poem, she must have wholly supported 
the poet ; — just as, in a remote country village, 
a man who wants a mutton-chop is sometimes 
forced to take the whole sheep ; — a thing which 
never happens where the demand is large. 
But men who pay largely for the gratification 
of their taste, will expect to have it united 
with some gratification to their vanity. Flat- 
tery is carried to a shameless extent ; and the 
habit of flattery almost inevitably introduces 
a false taste into composition. Its language 
is made up of hyperbolical commonplaces — 
offensive from their triteness — and still more 
offensive from their extravagance. In no 
school is the trick of overstepping the modesty 
of nature sc speedily acquired. The writer, 
accustomed to find exaggeration acceptable 
and necessary on one subject, uses it on all. 
It is not strange, therefore, that the early pane- 
gyrical verses of Dryden should be made up 
of meanness and bombast. They abound with 
the conceits which his immediate predecessors 
had brought into fashion. But his language 



and his versification were already far supe» 
rior to theirs. 

The Annus Mirabilis shows great command 
of expression and a fine ear for heroic rhyme, 
Here its merits end. Not only has it no claim 
to be called poetry ; but it seems to be the work 
of a man who could never, by any possibility, 
write poetry. Its affected similes are the best 
part of it. Gaudy weeds present a more en« 
couraging spectacle than utter barrenness. 
There is scarcely a single stanza in this long 
work, to which the imagination seems to have 
contributed any thing. It is produced, not by 
creation, but by construction. It is made up, 
not of pictures, but of inferences. We will 
give a single instance, and certainly a favour- 
able instance — a quatrain which Johnson has 
praised. Dryden is describing the sea-fight 
with the Dutch. 

" Amidst whole heaps of spices lights a ball ; 
And now their odours armed against them fly 
Some preciously by shattered porcelain fall, 
And some by aromatic splinters die." 

The poet should place his readers, as nearly as 
possible, in the situation of the sufferers or the 
spectators. His narration ought to produce 
feelings similar to those which would be excited 
by the event itself. Is this the case here 1 
Who, in a sea-fight, ever thought of the price 
of the china which beats out the brains of a 
sailor ; or of the odour of the splinter which 
shatters his* leg? It is not by an act of the 
imagination, at once calling up the scene be- 
fore the interior eye, but by painful meditation 
—by turning the subject round and round — by 
tracing out facts into remote consequences, 
that these incongruous topics are introduced 
into the description. Homer, it is true, per- 
petually uses epithets which are not peculiarly 
appropriate. Achilles is the swift-footed, Avhen 
he is sitting still. Ulysses is the much-endur- 
ing, when he has nothing to endure. Every 
spear casts a long shadow; every ox has 
crooked horns ; and every woman a high bosom, 
though these particulars may be quite beside 
the purpose. In our old ballads a similar 
practice prevails. The gold is always red, and 
the ladies always gay, though nothing whatever 
may depend on the hue of gold, or the temper 
of the ladies. But these adjectives are mere 
customary additions. They merge in the sub 
stantives to which they are attached. If thej 
at all colour the idea, it is with a tinge so sligh 
as in no respect to alter the general effect. In 
the passage which we have quoted from Dry- 
den, the case is very different. Preciously and 
aromatic divert our whole attention to them 
selves, and dissolve the image of the battle in 
a moment. The whole poem reminds us of 
Lucan, and of the worst parts of Lucan, the 
sea-fight in the bay of Marseilles, for example. 
The description of the two fleets during the 
night is perhaps the only passage which ought 
to be exempted from this censure. If it was 
from the Annus Mirabilis that Milton formed 
his opinion, when he pronounced Dryden a 
good rhymer, but no poet, he certainly judged 
correctly. But Dryden was, as we have said, 
one of those writers, in whom the period of 
imagination does not precede, but follow, the 
period of observation and reflection. 



DRYDE1N. 



45 



His plays, his rhyming plays in particular, 
are admirable subjects for those who wish to 
study the morbid anatomy of the drama. He 
was utterly destitute of the power of exhibiting 
real human beings. Even in the far inferior 
talent of composing characters out of those ele- 
ments into which the imperfect process of our 
reason can resolve them, he was very deficient. 
His men are not even good personifications ; 
they are not well-assorted assemblages of quali- 
ties. Now and then, indeed, he seizes a very 
coarse and marked distinction ; and gives up, 
not a likeness, but a strong caricature, in which 
a single peculiarity is protruded, and every 
thing else neglected ; like the Marquis of Gran- 
by at an inndoor, whom we know by nothing but 
his baldness ; or Wilkes, who is Wilkes only 
in his squint. These are the best specimens 
of his skill. For most of his pictures seem, 
like Turkey carpets, to have been expressly 
designed not to resemble any thing in the hea- 
vens above, in the earth beneath, or in the wa- 
ters under the earth. 

The latter manner he practises most fre- 
quently in his tragedies, the former in his 
comedies. The comic characters are, without 
mixture, loathsome and despicable. The men 
of Etherege and Vanbrugh are bad enough. 
Those of Smollet are perhaps worse. But they 
do not approach to the Celadons, the Wild- 
bloods, the Woodalls, and the Rhodophils of 
Dryden. The vices of these last are set off by 
a certain fierce, hard impudence, to which we 
know nothing comparable. Their love is the 
appetite of beasts; their friendship the con- 
federacy of knaves. The ladies seem to have 
been expressly created to form helps meet for 
such gentlemen. In deceiving and insulting 
their old fathers, they do not perhaps exceed 
the license which, by immemorial prescription, 
has been allowed to heroines. But they also 
cheat at cards, rob strong boxes, put up their 
favours to auction, betray their friends, abuse 
their rivals in a style of Billingsgate, and invite 
their lovers in the language of the Piazza. 
These, it must be remembered, are not the 
valets and waiting-women, the Mascarilles and 
Nerines, but the recognised heroes and hero- 
ines, who appear as the representatives of good 
society, and who, at the end of the fifth act, 
marry and live very happily ever after. The 
sensuality, baseness, and malice of their na- 
tur 3s are unredeemed by any quality of a differ- 
ent description, by any touch of kindness, or 
oven by an honest burst of hearty haired and 
revenge. We are in a world where there is 
no humanity, no veracity, no sense of shame 
— a world for which any good-natured man 
would gladly take in exchange the society of 
Milton's devils. But as soon as we enter the 
regions of Tragedy, we find a great change. 
The) r is no lack of the fine sentiment there. 
Metastasio is surpassed in his own department. 
Scuderi is out-scuderied. We are introduced 
to people whose proceedings we can trace to 
no motive — of whose feelings we can form no 
more idea than of a sixth sense. We have 
eft a race of creatures, whose love is as deli- 
cate and affectionate as the passion which an 
alderman feels for a turtle. We find ourselves 
among beings, whose love is purely disinte- 
4 



rested emotion — a loyalty extending to rassive 
obedience — a religion like that of the Quietists, 
unsupported by any sanction of hope or fear. 
We see nothing but despotism without power, 
and sacrifices without compensation. 

We will give a few instances : — In Aureng- 
zebe, Arimant, governor of Agra, falls in love 
with his prisoner Indamora. She rejects his suit 
with scorn ; but assures him that she shall make 
great use of her power over him. He threaten? 
to be angry. She answers, very coolly: 

" Do not : your anger, like your love, is vain : 
Whene'er I please, you must be pleased again. 
Knowing what power I have your will to bend, 
I'll use it ; for I need just such a frisnd." 

This is no idle menace. She soon bring? a 
letter, addressed to his rival, orders him to read 
it, asks him whether he thinks it sufficiently 
tender, and finally commands him to carry it 
himself. Such tyranny as this, it may be 
thought, would justify resistance. Arimant 
does indeed venture to remonstrate : 

"This fatal paper rather let me tear, 
Than, like Bellerophon, my sentence bear." 

The answer of the lady is incomparable : 

"You may; but 'twill not be your best advice; 
'Twill only give me pains of writing twice. 
You know you must obey me, soon or late. 
Why should you vainly struggle with your fate?*' 

Poor Arimant seems to be of the same 
opinion. He mutters something about fate ami 
freewill, and walks off with the billet-doux. 

In the Indian Emperor, Montezuma presents 
Almeria with a garland as a token of his love, 
and offers to make her his queen. She replies* 

" I take this garland, not as given by you ; 
But as my merit's and my beauty's due 
As for the crown which you, my slave, possess, 
To share it with you would but make me less." 

In return for such proofs of tenderness as 
these, her admirer consents to murder his twe 
sons, and a benefactor, to whom he feels tha 
warmest gratitude. Lyndaraxa, in the Con- 
quest of Granada, assumes the same lofty tone 
with Abdelmelech. He complains that she 
smiles upon his rival. 

" Lynd. And when did I my power so far resign, 

That you should regulate each look of mine 1 
Mdel. Then, when you gave your love, you gave thai 

power. 
Lynd. 'Twas during pleasure — 'tis revoked this hour 
Abdel. I'll hate you, and this visit is my last. 
Lynd. Do, if you can ; you know I hold you fast." 

That these passages violate all historica. 
propriety; that sentiments, to which nothing 
similar was ever even affected except by the 
cavaliers of Europe, are transferred to Mexico 
and Agra, is a light accusation. We have no 
objection to a conventional world, an Illyrian 
puritan, or a Bohemian seaport. While the 
faces are good, we care little about the back- 
ground. Sir Joshua Reynolds says, that the 
curtains and hangings in an historical painting 
ought to be, not velvet or cotton, but merely 
drapery. The same principle should be ap- 
plied to poetry and romance. The truth of 
character is the first object ; the truth of place 
and time is to be considered only in the second 
place. Puff himself could tell the actor to turr 



46 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



out his toes, and remind him that Keeper Hat- 
ton was a great dancer. We wish that, in our 
own time, a writer of a very different order 
from Puff had not too often forgotten human 
nature in the niceties of upholstery, millinery, 
and cookery. 

We blame Dryden, not because the persons 
of his dramas are not Moors or Americans, 
but because they are not men and women; 
not because love, such as he represents it, 
could not exist in a harem or in a wigwam, 
but because it could not exist anywhere. As 
is the love of his heroes, such are all their 
other emotions. All their qualities, their cou- 
rage, their generosity, their pride, are on the 
same colossal scale. Justice and prudence 
are virtues which can exist only in a moderate 
degree, and which change their nature and 
their name if pushed to excess. Of justice and 
prudence, therefore, Dryden leaves his favour- 
ites destitute. He did not care to give them 
what he could not give without measure. The 
tyrants and ruffians are merely the heroes al- 
tered by a few touches, similar to those which 
transformed the honest face of Sir Roger de 
Coverley into the Saracen's head. Through 
the grin and frown, the original features are 
■till perceptible. 

It is in the tragicomedies that these absurdi- 
ties strike us most. The two races of men, or 
rather the angels and the baboons, are there 
presented to us together. We meet in one 
scene with nothing but gross, selfish, unblush- 
ing, lying libertines of both sexes, who, as a 
punishment, we suppose, for their depravity, 
are condemned to talk nothing but prose. But 
as soon as we meet with people who speak in 
verse, we know that we are in society which 
would have enraptured the Cathos and Made- 
Ion of Moliere, in society for which Oroon- 
dates would have too little of the lover, Clelia 
too much of the coquette. 

As Dryden was unable to render his plays 
interesting by means of that which is the pecu- 
liar and appropriate excellence of the drama, 
it was necessary that he should find some 
substitute for it. In his comedies he supplied 
its place, sometimes by wit, but more fre- 
quently by intrigue, by disguises, mistakes of 
persons, dialogues at cross purposes, hair- 
breadth escapes, perplexing concealments, and 
surprising disclosures. He thus succeeded at 
least in making these pieces very amusing. 

In his tragedies he trusted, and not alto- 
gether without reason, to his diction and his 
versification. It was on this account, in all 
probability, that he so eagerly adopted, and so 
reluctantly abandoned, the practice of rhym- 
ing in his plays. What is unnatural appears 
less unnatural in that species of verse, than in 
lines which approach more nearly to common 
conversation ; and in the management of the 
heroic couplet, Dryden has never been equalled. 
It is unnecessary to urge any arguments against 
a fashion now universally condemned. But 
it is -worthy of observation, that though Dry- 
den was deficient in that talent which blank 
verse exhibits to the greatest advantage, and 
was certainly the best writer of heroic rhyme 
in our language, yet the plays which have, 
from the time of their first appearance, been 



considered as his best, are in blank verse. N» 
experiment can be more decisive. 

It must be allowed, that the worst even of 
the rhyming tragedies contains good descrip* 
tion and magnificent rhetoric. But, even when 
we forget that they are plays, and, passing by 
their dramatic improprieties, consider them 
with reference to the language, we are perpe- 
tually disgusted by passages which it is diffi- 
cult to conceive how any author could have 
written, or any audience have tolerated ; rants 
in which the raving violence of the manner 
forms a strange contrast with the abject tame- 
ness of the .thought. . The author laid the whole 
fault on the audience, and declared, that when 
he wrote them, he considered them bad enough 
to please. This defence is unworthy of a man 
of genius, and, after all, is no defence. Ot- 
way pleased without rant; and so might Dry- 
den have done, if he had possessed the powers 
of Otway. The fact is, that he had a tendency 
to bombast, which, though subsequently cor- 
rected by time and thought, was never wholly 
removed, and which showed itself in perform- 
ances not designed to please the rude mob of 
the theatre. 

Some indulgent critics have represented thia 
failing as an indication of genius, as the pro- 
fusion of unlimited wealth, the wantonness of 
exuberant vigour. To us it seems to bear a 
nearer affinity to the tawdriness of poverty, or 
the spasms and convulsions of weakness. Dry- 
den surely had not more imagination than 
Homer, Dante, or Milton, who never fall into 
this vice. The swelling diction of ^Eschylus 
and Isaiah resembles that of Almanzor and 
Maximin no more than the tumidity of a mus- 
cle resembles the tumidity of a boil. The 
former is symptomatic of health and strength, 
the latter of debility and disease. If ever 
Shakspeare rants, it is not when his imagina- 
tion is hurrying him along, but when he is hur- 
rying his imagination along — when his mind 
is for a moment jaded — when, as was said of 
Euripides, he resembles a lion, who excites 
his own fury by lashing himself with his tail. 
What happened to Shakspeare from the occa- 
sional suspension of his powers, happened to 
Dryden from constant impotence. He, like 
his confederate Lee, had judgment enough to 
appreciate the great poets of the preceding 
age, but not judgment enough to shun compe- 
tition with them. He felt and admired their 
wild and daring sublimity. That it belonged 
to another age than that in which he lived, and 
required other talents than those which he 
possessed ; that, in aspiring to emulate it, he 
was wasting, in a hopeless attempt, powers 
which might render him pre-eminent in a dif- 
ferent career, was a lesson which he did not 
learn till late. As those knavish enthusiasts, 
the French prophets, courted inspiration, by 
mimicking the writhings, swoonings, and gasp- 
ings, which they considered as its symptoms, 
he attempted, by affected fits of poetical fury, 
to bring on a real paroxysm ; and, like them, 
he got nothing but his distortions for his pains. 

Horace very happily compares those who, 
in his time, imitated Pindar, to the youth who 
attempted to fly to heaven on waxen wings, 
and who experienced so fatal and ignominioo* 



DRYDEN. 



4? 



a fall. His own admirable good sense pre- 
served him from this error, and taught him to 
cultivate a style in which excellence was 
within his reach. Dryden had not the same 
self-knowledge. He saw that the greatest 
poets were never so successful as when they 
rushed beyond the ordinary bounds, and that 
some inexplicable good fortune preserved 
them from tripping even when they staggered 
on the brink of nonsense. He did not per- 
ceive ihat they were guided and sustained by 
a power denied to himself. They wrote from 
the dictation of -the imagination, and they 
found a response in the imaginations of others. 
He, on the contrary, sat down to work him- 
self, by reflection and argument, into a deli- 
berate wildness, a rational frenzy. 

In looking over the admirable designs which 
accompany the Faust, we have always been 
much struck by one which represents the wi- 
zard and the tempter riding at full speed. The 
demon sits on his furious horse as heedlessly 
as if he wer? reposing on a chair. That he 
should keep his saddle in such a posture, 
would seem impossible to any who did not 
know that he was secure in the privileges of 
a superhuman nature. The attitude of Faust, 
on the contrary, is the perfection of horseman- 
ship. Poets of the first order might safely 
write as desperately as Mephistopheles rode. 
But Dryden, though admitted to communion 
with higher spirits, though armed with a por- 
tion of their power, and intrusted with some 
of their secrets, was of another race. What 
they might securely venture to do, it was mad- 
ness in him to attempt. It was necessary that 
taste and critical science should supply its 
deficiencies. 

We will give a few examples. Nothing can 
be finer than the description of Hector at the 
Grecian wall. 

o fi' ap' toSopt (PaiSt/ios E/crcop, 
NvKrt Soij araXavros vircjiria' Xa/urc fie xaX/rcd 
TixepfiaXtco, tov tetsro jrepi XP 01 ' Soie fie x t P (nv 
Aovp' ex ev 0VK av r 'S i*iv epvicaKoi avTi/So\rjiras, 
Noo-01 Seav, or' to-aAro Trv\a$' nvpi fi' oaoe fiefir\ei 
Awn/ca 6' oi pev reixos wepflatrav, oi fie ko.t' avra; 
Ilotijraf £0-£xdito TTvXag. Aavaoi fi' e<j>o/3r]5ev 
Nijaj ava y\a<)>vpas' ojiafios 5' aXiaoroj eru^Sij. 

What daring expressions ! Yet how signi- 
ficant! How picturesque! Hector seems to 
rise up in his strength and fury. The gloom 
of night in his frown — the fire burning in his 
eyes — the javelins and the blazing armour — 
the mighty rush through the gates and down 
the battlements — the trampling and the infinite 
roar of the multitude — every thing is with us ; 
every thing is real. 

Dryden has described a very similar event 
in Maximin ; and has done his best to be sub- 
lime, as follows : 

" There with a forest of their darts he strove, 
And stood like Capaneus defying Jove ; 
With his broad sword the boldest beating down, 
Till Fate grew pale, lest he should win the town, 
And turned the iron leaves of its dark book 
To make new dooms, or mend what it mistook." 

How exquisite is the imagery of the fairy- 
songs in the Tempest and the Midsummer 
Night's Dream ; Ariel riding through the twi- 
light on the bat, or sucking in the bells of 



flowers with the bee ; or the little bower-women 
of Titania, driving the spiders from the couck 
of the Queen ! Dryden truly said, that 

" Shakspeare's magic could not copied be; 
Within the circle none durst walk but he." 

It would have been well if he had not himself 
dared to step within the enchanted line, and 
drawn on himself a fate similar to that which, 
according to the old superstition, punished 
such presumptuous interferences. The follow- 
ing lines are parts of the song of his fairies : 

"Merry, merry, merry, we sail from the East, 
Half-tippled at a rainbow feast. 
In the bright moonshine, while winds whistle loud, 
Tivy, tivy, tivy, we mount and we fly, 
All racking along in a downy white cloud ; 
And lest our leap from the sky prove too far, 
We slide on the back of a new falling star, 
And drop from above 
In a jelly of love." 

These are very favourable instances. Those 
who wish for a bad one may read the dying 
speeches of Maximin, and may compare them 
with the last scenes of Othello and Lear. 

If Dryden had died before the expiration of 
the first of the periods into which we have di- 
vided his literary life, he would have left a re- 
putation, at best, little higher than that of Lee 
or Davenant. He would have been known only 
to men of letters ; and by them he would have 
been mentioned as a writer who threw away, 
on subjects which he was incompetent to treat, 
powers which, judiciously employed, might 
have raised him to eminence ; whose diction 
and whose numbers had sometimes very high 
merit, but all whose works were blemished by 
a false taste and by errors of gross negligence. 
A few of his prologues and epilogues might per- 
haps still have been remembered and quoted. 
In these little pieces, he early showed all the 
powers which afterwards rendered him the 
greatest of modern satirists. But during the 
latter part of his life, he gradually abandoned 
the drama. His plays appeared at longer in- 
tervals. He renounced rhyme in tragedy. His 
language became less turgid, his characters 
less exaggerated. He did not indeed produce 
correct representations of human nature ; but 
he ceased to daub such monstrous chimeras as 
those which abound in his earlier pieces. Here 
and there passages occur worthy of the best 
ages of the British stage. The style which the 
drama requires changes with every change of 
character and situation. He who can vary his 
manner to suit the variation is the great drama- 
tist ; but he who excels in one manner only, 
will, when that manner happens to be appro- 
priate, appear to be a great dramatist ; as the 
hands of a watch, which does not go, point 
right once in the twelve hours. Sometimes 
there is a scene of solemn debate. This a mere 
rhetorician may write as well as the greatest 
tragedian that ever lived. We confess that to 
us the speech of Sempronius in Cato seems 
very nearly as good as Shakspeare could have 
made it. But when the senate breaks up, and 
we find that the lovers and their mistresses, the 
hero, the villain, and the deputy villain, all 
continue to harangue in the same style, 
we perceive the difference between a man 
who can write a play and a man who can 



48 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



write a speech. In the same manner, wit, a 
talent for description, or a talent for narration, 
may, for a time, pass for dramatic genius. 
Dryden was an incomparable reasoner in verse. 
He was conscious of his power ; he was proud 
of it ; and the authors of the Rehearsal justly 
charged him with abusing it. His warriors and 
princesses are fond of discussing points of 
amorous casuistry, such as would have de- 
lighted a Parliament of Love. They frequently 
go still deeper, and speculate on philosophical 
necessity and the origin of evil. 

There were, however, some occasions which 
absolutely required this peculiar talent. Then 
Dryden was indeed at home. All his best 
scenes are of this description. They are all 
between men ; for the heroes of Dryden, like 
many other gentlemen, can never talk sense 
when ladies are in company. They are all 
intended to exhibit the empire of reason over 
violent passion. We have two interlocutors, 
the one eager and impassioned, the other high, 
cool, and judicious. The composed and ra- 
tional character gradually acquires the ascend- 
ency. His fierce companion is first inflamed 
to rage by his reproaches, then overawed by 
his equanimity, convinced by his arguments, 
and soothed by his persuasions. This is the 
case in the scene between Hector and Troilus, 
in that between Antony and Ventidius, and in 
that between Sebastian and Dorax. Nothing 
of the same kind in Shakspeare is equal to 
them, except the quarrel between Brutus and 
Cassius, which is worth them all three. 

Some years before his death, Dryden alto- 
gether ceased to write for the stage. He had 
turned his powers in a new direction, with 
success the most splendid and decisive. His 
taste had gradually awakened his creative fa- 
culties. The first rank in poetry was beyond 
his reach, but he challenged and secured the 
most honourable place in the second. His 
imagination resembled the wings of an ostrich. 
It enabled him to run, though not to soar. 
When he attempted the highest flights, he be- 
came ridiculous ; but while he remained in a 
.ower region, he outstripped all competitors. 

All his natural and all his acquired powers 
fitted him to found a good critical school of 
poetry. Indeed, he carried his reforms too far 
for his age. After his death, our literature re- 
trograded ; and a century was necessary to bring 
it back to the point at which he left it. The 
general soundness and healthfulness of his 
mental constitution ; his ' information, of vast 
superficies, though of small volume ; his wit, 
scarcely inferior to that of the most distinguish- 
ed followers of Donne ; his eloquence, grave, 
deliberate, and commanding, could not save 
him from disgraceful failure as a rival of 
Shakspeare, but raised him far above the level 
of Boileau. His command of language was 
immense. With him died the secret of the old 
poetical diction of England — the art of pro- 
ducing rich effects by familiar words. In the 
following century, it was as completely lost as 
the Gothic method of painting glass, and was 
but poony supplied by the laborious and tesse- 
lated imitations of Mason and Gray. On the 
other hand, he was the first writer under whose 
skilful management the scientific vocabulary 



fell into natural and pleasing verse. In thitr 
department, he succeeded as completely as his 
contemporary Gibbons succeeded in the similar 
enterprise of carving the most delicate flowers 
from heart of oak. The toughest and most 
knotty parts of language became ductile at his 
touch. His versification in the same manner, 
while it gave the first model of that neatness 
and precision which the following generation 
esteemed so highly, exhibited, at the same 
time, the last examples of nobleness, freedom, 
variety of pause and cadence. His tragedies 
in rhyme, however worthless in themselves, 
had at least served the purpose of nonsense- 
verses : they had taught him all the arts of me- 
lody which the heroic couplet admits. For 
bombast, his prevailing vice, his new subjects 
gave little opportunity; his better taste gra- 
dually discarded it. 

He possessed, as we have said, in a pre- 
eminent degree, the power of reasoning in 
verse ; and this power was now peculiarly use- 
ful to him. His logic is by no means uni- 
formly sound. On points of criticism, he al- 
ways reasons ingeniously; and, when he is 
disposed to be honest, correctly. But the theo- 
logical and political questions, which he under- 
took to treat in verse, were precisely those 
which he understood least. His arguments, 
therefore, are often worthless. But the man- 
ner in which they are stated is beyond all 
praise. The style is transparent. The topics 
follow each other in the happiest order. The 
objections are drawn up in such a manner, 
that the whole fire of the reply maybe brought 
to bear on them. The circumlocutions which 
are substituted for technical phrases, are clear, 
neat, and exact. The illustrations at once 
adorn and elucidate the reasoning. The spark- 
ling epigrams of Cowley, and the simple garru- 
lity of the burlesque poets of Italy, are alter- 
nately employed, in the happiest manner, to 
give effect to what is obvious ; or clearness to 
what is obscure. 

His literary creed was catholic, even to lati- 
tudinarianism ; not from any want of acute- 
ness, but from a disposition to be easily satis- 
fied. He was quick to discern the smallest 
glimpse of merit ; he was indulgent even to 
gross improprieties-, when accompanied by any 
redeeming talent. When he said a severe 
thing, it was to serve a temporary purpose, — 
to support an argument, or to tease a rival. 
Never was so able a critic so free from fastidi- 
ousness. He loved the old poets, especially 
Shakspeare. He admired the ingenuity which 
Donne and Cowley had so wildly abused. He 
did justice, amidst the general silence, to the 
memory of Milton. He praised to the skies 
the schoolboy lines of Addison. Always look- 
ing on the fair side of every object, he admired 
extravagance on account of the invention 
which he supposed it to indicate ; he excused 
affectation in favour of wit ; he tolerated even 
tameness for the sake of the correctness which 
was its concomitant. 

It was probably to this turn of mind, rather 
than to the more disgraceful causes which 
Johnson has assigned, that we are to attribute 
the exaggeration which disfigures the pane- 
gyrics of Drydpn. No writer, it must be 



DKYDEN. 



4* 



owned, has carried the flattery of dedication to 
a greater length. Bat this was not, we sus- 
pect, merely interested servility; it was the 
overflowing of a mind singularly disposed to 
admiration, — of a mind which diminished 
vices, and magnified virtues and obligations. 
The most adulatory of his addresses is that in 
which he dedicates the State of Innocence to 
Mary of Modena. . Johnson thinks it strange 
that any man should use such language with- 
out self-detestation. But he has not re- 
marked that to the very same work is pre- 
fixed an eulogium on Milton, which certainly 
could not have been acceptable at the court 
of Charles the Second. Many years later, 
when Whig principles were in a great mea- 
sure triumphant, Sprat refused to admit a mo- 
nument of John Philips into Westminster Ab- 
bey, because, in the epitaph, the name of Mil- 
ton incidentally occurred. The walls of his 
church, he declared, should not be polluted by 
the name of"a republican ! Dryden was at- 
tached, both by principle and interest to the 
court. But nothing could deaden his sensibi- 
lity to excellence. We are unwilling to accuse 
him severely, because the same disposition, 
which prompted him to pay so generous a 
tribute to the memory of a poet whom his pa- 
trons detested, hurried him into extravagance 
when he described a princess, distinguished by 
the splendour of her beauty, and the gracious- 
ness of her manners. 

This is an amiable temper ; but it is not the 
temper of great men. Where there is eleva- 
tion of character, there will be fastidiousness. 
It is only in novels, and on tombstones, that 
we meet with people who are indulgent to the 
faults of others, and unmerciful to their own ; 
and Dryden, at all events, was not one of 
these paragons. His charity was extended 
most liberally to others, but it certainly began 
at home. In taste he was by no means defi- 
cient. His critical works are, beyond all com- 
parison, superior to any which had, till then, 
appeared in England. They -were generally 
intended as apologies for his own poems, ra- 
ther than as expositions of general principles; 
he, therefore, often attempts to deceive the 
reader by sophistry, which could scarcely have 
deceived himself. His dicta are the dicta, not 
of a judge, but of an advocate ; often of an 
advocate in an unsound cause. Yet, in the 
very act of misrepresenting the laws of com- 
position, he shows how well he understands 
them. But he was perpetually acting against 
his better knowledge. His sins were sins against 
light. He trusted, that what was bad would 
be pardoned for the sake of what was good. 
What was good, he took no pains to make bet- 
ter. He was not, like most persons who rise 
.0 eminence, dissatisfied even with his best 
productions. He had set up no unattainable 
standard of perfection, the contemplation of 
which might at once improve and mortify him. 
His path wa> not attended by an unapproach- 
able , mirage of excellence, forever receding 
and forever pursued. He was not disgusted 
by the negligence of others, and he extended 
the same toleration to himself. His mind was 
of a slovenly character — fond of splendour, 
but indifferent to neatness. Hence most of 



his writings exhibit the sluggish magni'ccnce 
of a Russian noble, all vermin and diamonds, 
dirty linen and inestimable sables. Those 
faults which spring from affectation, t me and 
thought in a great measure removed from his 
poems. But his carelessness he retained to 
the last. If towards the close of his life h 
less frequently «vent wrong from negligence, 
it was only because long habits of composition 
rendered it more easy to go right. In his best 
pieces, we find false rhymes — triplets, in which 
the third line appears to be a mere intruder, 
and, while it breaks the music, adds nothing to 
the meaning — gigantic Alexandrines of four 
teen and sixteen syllables, and truncated verses 
for which he never troubled himself to find a 
termination or a partner. 

Such are the beauties and the faults which 
may be found in profusion throughout the later 
works of Dryden. A more just and complete 
estimate of his natural and acquired powers, 
of the merits of his style and of its blemishes, 
may be formed from the Hind and Panther, 
than from any of his other writings. As a 
didactic poem, it is far superior to the Religio 
Laici. The satirical parts, particularly the 
character of Burnet, are scarcely inferior to 
the best passages in Absalom and AchitopheL 
There are, moreover," occasional touches of a 
tenderness which affects us more, because it 
is decent, rational, and manly, and reminds us 
of the best scenes in his tragedies. His versi- 
fication sinks and swells in happy unison with 
the subject ; and his wealth of language seems 
to be unlimited. Yet the carelessness with 
which he has constructed his plot, and the in- 
numerable inconsistencies into which he ia 
every moment falling, detract much from the 
pleasure which such varied excellence affords. 

In Absalom and Achitophel he hit upon a new 
and rich vein, which he worked with signal 
success. The ancient satirists were the sub- 
jects of a despotic government. They were 
compelled to abstain from political topics, and 
to confine their attention to the frailties of pri- 
vate life. They might, indeed, sometimes ven- 
ture to take liberties with public men, 

" Quorum Flaminia tegitur cinis atque Latina." 

Thus Juvenal immortalized the obsequious 
senators, who met to decide the fate of the 
memorable turbot. His fourth satire frequently 
reminds us of the great political poem of Dry- 
den ; but it was not written till Domitian had 
fallen, and it wants something of the peculiar 
flavour which belongs to contemporary invec 
tive alone. His anger has stood so long, that, 
though the body is not impaired, the efferves- 
cence, the first cream, is gone. Boileau lay 
under similar restraints ; and, if he had been 
free from all restraint, would have been no 
match for our countryman. 

The advantages which Dryden derived from 
the nature of his subject he improved to the 
very utmost. His manner is almost perfect. 
The style of Horace and Boileau is fit only for 
light subjects. The Frenchman did indeed 
attempt to turn the theological reasonings of 
the Provincial Letters into verse, but with 
very indifferent success. The glitter of Pope 
is cold. The ardour of Persius is withou' 



50 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



brilliancy. Magnificent versification and in- 
genious combinations rarely harmonize with 
the expression of deep feeling. In Juvenal and 
Dryden alone we have the sparkle and the heat 
together. Those great satirists succeeded in 
communicating the fervour of their feelings 
to materials the most incombustible, and kin- 
dled the whole mass into a blaze at once 
dazzling and destructive. We cannot, indeed, 
think, without regret, of the part which so emi- 
nent a writer as Dryden took in the disputes 
of that period. There was, no doubt, madness 
and wickedness on both sides. But there was 
liberty on the one, and despotism on the other. 
On this point, however, we will not dwell. At 
Talavera the English and French troops for a 
moment suspended their conflict, to drink of a 
stream which flowed between them. The 
shells were passed across from enemy to ene- 
my without apprehension or molestation. We, 
in the same manner, would rather assist our 
political adversaries to drink with us of that 
fountain of intellectual pleasure which should 
be the common refreshment of both parties, 
than disturb and pollute it with the havoc of 
unseasonable hostilities. 

Macflecnoe is inferior to Absalom and 
Achitophel, only in the subject. In the execu- 
tion it is even superior. But the greatest work 
of Dryden was the last, the Ode on Saint Ce- 
cilia's day. It is the masterpiece of the second 
class of poetry, and ranks but just below the 
great models of the first. It reminds us of the 
Pedasus of Achilles, 

os, Kai Svriros scov, Errs-S' «7nroij aSavaroKTi. 

By comparing it with the impotent ravings 
of the heroic tragedies, we may measure the 
progress which the mind of Dryden had made. 
He had learned to avoid a too audacious com- 
petition with higher natures, to keep at a dis- 
tance from the verge of bombast or nonsense, 
to venture on no expression which did not 
convey a distinct idea to his own mind. 
There is none of that " darkness visible" of 
style which he had formerly affected, and in 
which the greatest poets only can succeed. 
Every thing is definite, significant, and pic- 
turesque. His early writings resembled the 
gigantic works of those Chinese gardeners 
who attempt to rival nature herself, to form 
cataracts of terrific height and sound, to raise 
precipitous ridges of mountains, and to imi- 
tate in artificial plantations the vastness and 
the gloom of some primeval forest. This man- 
ner he abandoned , nor did he ever adopt the 
Dutch taste which Pope affected, the trim 



parterres and the rectangular waiks. At 
rather resembled our Kents and Brc wns, 
who, imitating the great features of land- 
scape without emulating them, consulting the 
genius of the place, assisting nature and care- 
fully disguising their art, produced, not a 
Chamouni nor a Niagara, but a Stowe or a 
Hagley. 

We are, on the whole, inclined to regret tha: 
Dryden did not accomplish his purpose of 
writing an epic poem. It certainly would not 
have been a work of the highest rank. It 
would not have rivalled the Iliad, the Odyssey, 
or the Paradise Lost ; but it would have been 
superior to the productions of Apollonius, 
Lucan, or Statius, and not inferior to the Jeru- 
salem Delivered. It would probably have been 
a vigorous narrative, animated with something 
of the spirit of the old romances, enriched with 
much splendid description, and interspersed 
with fine declamations and disquisitions. The 
danger of Dryden would have been from aim- 
ing too high ; from dwelling too much, for ex 
ample, on his angels of kingdoms, and attempt- 
ing a competition with that great writer, who 
in his own time had so incomparably succeed- 
ed in representing to us the sights and sounds 
of another world. To Milton, and to Milton 
alone, belonged the secrets of the great deep, 
the beach of sulphur, the ocean of fire ; the 
palaces of the fallen dominations, glimmer- 
ing through the everlasting shade, the silent 
wilderness of verdure and fragrance where 
armed angels kept watch over the sleep of the 
first lovers, the portico of diamond, the sea of 
jasper, the sapphire pavement empurpled vith 
celestial roses, and the infinite ranks of the 
Cherubim, blazing with adamant and gold. 
The council, the tournament, the procession, 
the crowded cathedral, the camp, the guard- 
room, the chase, were the proper scenes for 
Dryden. 

* But we have not space to pass in review all 
the works which Dryden wrote. We, there- 
fore, will not speculate longer on those which 
he might possibly have written. He may, on 
the whole, be pronounced to have been a man 
possessed of splendid talents, which he often 
abused, and of a sound judgment, the admoni- 
tions of which he often neglected ; a man who 
succeeded only in an inferior department of 
his art, but who, in that department, succeeded 
pre-eminently; and who, with a raoii inde- 
pendent spirit, a more anxious desire i£ excel 
lence, and more respect for hims<:lf, voukl, in 
his own walk, have attained to ajsorit* ow 
fection 



HISTORY 



51 



history; 



[Edinburgh Review, 1828-] 



To write history respectably — that is, to ab- 
breviate despatches, and make extracts from 
speeches, to intersperse in due proportion 
epithets of praise and abhorrence, to draw up 
antithetical characters of great men, setting 
forth how many contradictory virtues and 
vices they united, and abounding in withs and 
tvithouts; all this is very easy. But to be a 
really great historian is perhaps the rarest of 
intellectual distinctions. Many Scientific works 
are, in their kind, absolutely perfect. There 
are Poems which we should be inclined to 
designate as faultless, or as disfigured only by 
blemishes which pass unnoticed in the general 
blaze of excellence. There are Speeches, 
some speeches of Demosthenes particularly, 
in which it would be impossible to alter a 
word, without altering it for the worse. But 
we are acquainted with no History which ap- 
proaches to our notion of what a history ought 
to be ; with no history which does not widely 
depart, either on the right hand or on the left, 
from the exact line. 

The cause may easily be assigned. This 
province of literature is a debatable land. It 
lies on the confines of two distinct territories. 
It is. under the jurisdiction of two hostile 
powers ; and, like other districts similarly 
situated, it is ill defined, ill cultivated, and ill 
tegulated. Instead of being equally shared 
between its two rulers, the Reason and the 
Imagination, it falls alternately under the sole 
and absolute dominion of each. It is some- 
times fiction. It is sometimes theory. 

History, it has been said, is philosophy 
teaching by examples. Unhappily what the 
philosophy gains in soundness and depth, the 
examples generally lose in vividness. A per- 
fect historian must possess an imagination 
sufficiently powerful to make his narrative 
affecting and picturesque. Yet he must con- 
trol it so absolutely as to content himself with 
the materials which he finds, and to refrain 
from supplying deficiencies by additions of his 
own. He must be a profound and ingenious 
reasoner. Yet he must possess sufficient self- 
command to abstain from casting his facts in 
the mould of his hypothesis. Those who can 
justly estimate these almost insuperable diffi- 
culties will not think it strange that every 
writer should have failed, either in the narra- 
tive or in the speculative department of his- 
tory. 

It may be laid down as a general rule, though 
fcubjsct to considerab'e qualifications and ex- 
ceptions, that histery oegins in Novel and ends 
in Essay. Of the romantic historians Herodo- 
tus is the earliest and the best. His animation, 
his simple-hearted tenderness, his wonderful 



* 77ie Romance of History. England. By Henry 
Neele. London, 18U8. 



talent for description and dialogue, and the 
pure sweet flow of his language, place him at 
the head of narrators. He reminds us of a 
delightful child. There is a grace beyond the 
reach of affectation in his awkwardness, a 
malice in his innocence, an intelligence in his 
nonsense, an insinuating eloquence in his lisp. 
We know of no writer who makes such in- 
terest for himself and his book in the heart of 
the reader. At the distance of three-and-twenty 
centuries, we feel for him the same sort of 
pitying fondness which Fontaine and Gay are 
said to have inspired in society. He has 
written an incomparable book. He has writ- 
ten something better perhaps than the best 
history; but he has not written a good history; 
he is, from the first to the last chapter, an in- 
ventor. We do not here refer merely to those 
gross fictions with which he has been reproach- 
ed by the critics of later times. We speak of 
that colouring which is equally diffused over 
his whole narrative, and which perpetually 
leaves the most sagacious reader in doubt 
what to reject and what to receive. The most 
authentic parts of his work bear the same re- 
lation to his wildest legends, which Henry the 
Fifth bears to the Tempest. There was an 
expedition undertaken by Xerxes against 
Greece; and there was an invasion of France. 
There was a battle at Platcea ; and there was 
a battle at Agincourt. Cambridge and Exeter, 
the Constable and the Dauphin, were persons 
as real as Demaratus and Pausanias. The 
harangue of the Archbishop on the Salic Law 
and the Book of Numbers differs much less 
from the orations which have in all ages pro- 
ceeded from the Right Reverend bench, than 
the speeches of Mardonius and Artabanus, 
from those which were delivered at the Coun- 
cil-board of Susa. Shakspeare gives us enu- 
merations of armies, and returns of killed and 
wounded, which are not, we suspect, much 
less accurate than those of Herodotus. There 
are passages in Herodotus nearly as long as 
acts of Shakspeare, in which every thing is 
told dramatically, and in which the narrative 
serves only the purpose of stage-directions. It 
is possible, no doubt, that the substance of some 
real conversations may have been reported 
to the historian. But events which, if they 
ever happened, happened in ages and nations 
so remote that the particulars could never 
have been known to him, are related with the 
greatest minuteness of detail. We have all 
that Candaules said to Gyges, and all that 
passed between Aslyages andHarpagus. We 
are, therefore, unable to judge whether, in the 
account which he gives of transactions, re- 
specting which he might possibly have been, 
well informed, we can trust to any thing dp 
yond the naked outline ; whether, for example, 
the answer of Gelon to the ambassadors of fh* 



52 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Grecian confederacy, or the expressions which 
passed between Aristides and Themistocles at 
their famous interview, have been correctly 
transmitted to us. The great events are, no 
doubt, faithfully related. So, probably, are 
many of the slighter circumstances ; but which 
of them it is impossible to ascertain. The fic- 
tions are so much like the facts, and the facts 
so much like the fictions, that, with respect to 
many mcst interesting particulars, our belief 
is neither given nor withheld, but remains in 
an uneasy and interminable state of abeyance. 
We know that there is truth, but we cannot 
exactly decide where it lies. 

Tne faults of Herodotus are the faults of a 
simple and imaginative mind. Children and 
servants are remarkably Hercjdotean in their 
style of narration. They tell every thing dra- 
matically. Their says hes and says shes are 
proverbial. Every person who has had to 
settle their disputes knows that, even when 
they have no intention to deceive, their reports 
of conversation always require to be carefully 
sifted. If an educated man were giving an 
account of the late change of administration, 
he would say, " Lord Goderich resigned ; and 
the king in consequence sent for the Duke of 
Wellington." A porter tells the story as if he 
had been hid behind the curtains of the royal 
bed at Windsor. " So Lord Goderich says, ' I 
cannot manage this business ; I must go out.' 
So the king says, says he, ' Well, then, I must 
send for the Duke of Wellington, that's all.' " 
This is the very manner of the father of his- 
tory. 

Herodotus wrote as it was natural that he 
should write. He wrote for a nation suscepti- 
ble, curious, lively, insatiably desirous of no- 
velty and excitement ; for a nation in which 
the fine arts had attained their highest excel- 
lence, but in which philosophy was still in its 
infancy. His countrymen had but recently 
begun to cultivate prose composition. Public 
transactions had generally been recorded in 
verse. The first historians might therefore in- 
dulge, without fear of censure, in the license 
allowed to their predecessors the bards. Books 
were few. The events of former times were 
learned from tradition and from popular bal- 
lads; the manners of foreign countries from 
the reports of travellers. It is well known that 
the mystery which overhangs what is distant, 
either in space or time, frequently prevents us 
from censuring as unnatural what we perceive 
to be impossible. We stare at a dragoon who 
has killed three French cuirassiers as a pro- 
digy; yet we read, without the least disgust, 
how Godfrey slew his thousands, and Rinaldo 
his ten thousands. Within the last hundred 
years stories about China and Bantam, which 
oughi; not to have imposed on an old nurse, 
were gravely laid down as foundations of po- 
litical theories by eminent philosophers. What 
the time of the Crusades is to us, the genera- 
tion of Croesus and Solon was to the Greeks 
of the time of Herodotus Babylon was to 
ihem what Pekin was to the French academi- 
cians of the last century. 

For such a people was the book of Herodo- 
itis composed ; and if we may trust to a report, 
uot sanctioned, indeed, by writers of high au- 



thority, but in itself not improbab e, it waj 
composed not to be read, but to be heard. It 
was not to the slow circulation of a few copies, 
which the rich only could possess, that the as- 
piring author looked for his reward. The 
great Olympian festival — the solemnity which 
collected multitudes, proud of the Grecian 
name, from the wildest mountains of Dons 
and the remotest colonies of Italy and Lybia — 
was to witness his triumph. The interest of 
the narrative and the beauty of the style were 
aided by the imposing effect of recitation — by 
the splendour of the spectacle — by the powerful 
influence of sympathy. A critic who could have 
asked for authorities in the midst of such a scene 
must have been of a cold and sceptical nature, 
and few such critics were there. As was the 
historian, such were the auditors — inquisitive, 
credulous, easily moved by religious awe or 
patriotic enthusiasm. They were the very men 
to hear with delight of strange beasts, and 
birds, and trees ; of dwarfs, and giants, and 
cannibals ; of gcds whose very names it wus 
impiety to utter ; of ancient dynasties which 
had left behind them monuments surpassing 
all the works of later times ; of towns like pro- 
vinces ; of rivers like seas ; of stupendous 
walls, and temples, and pyramids ; of the rites 
which the Magi performed at daybreak on the 
tops of the mountains ; of the secrets inscribed 
on the eternal obelisks of Memphis. With 
equal delight they would have listened to the 
graceful romances of their own country. They 
now heard of the exact accomplishment of ob- 
scure predictions ; of the punishment of crimes 
over which the justice of Heaven had seemed 
to slumber ; of dreams, omens, warnings from 
the dead ; of princesses for whom noble suit- 
ors contended in every generous exercise of 
strength and skill ; of infante strangely pre- 
served from the dagger of the assassin to fulfil 
high destinies. 

As the narrative approached their own times 
the interest became still more absorbing. The 
chronicler had now to tell the story of that 
great conflict from which Europe dates its in- 
tellectual and political supremacy — a story 
which, even at this distance of time, is the 
most marvellous and the most touching in the 
annals of the human race — a story abounding 
with all that is wild and wonderful, with all 
that is pathetic and animating; with the gigan 
tic caprices of infinite wealth and despotic 
power ; with the mightier miracles of wisdom, 
of virtue, and of courage. He told them of 
rivers dried up in a day, of provinces famished 
for a meal ; of a passage for ships hewn through 
the mountains ; of a road for armies spread upon 
the waves ; of monarchies and commonwealths 
swept away; of anxiety, of terror, of confusion, 
of despair ! — and then of proud and stubborn 
hearts tried in that extremity of evil and not 
found wanting ; of resistance long maintained 
against desperate odds ; of lives dearly sold 
when resistance could be maintained no more ; 
of signal deliverance, and of unsparing re- 
venge. Whatever gave a stronger air of reality 
to a narrative so well calculated to inflame the 
passions and to flatter national pride was cer- 
tain to be favourably received. 

Between the time at which Herodotus is said 



HISTORY. 



63 



to have compjsed his history and the close 
of the Peloponnesian war about forty years 
elapsed — forty years crowded with great mili- 
tary and political events. The circumstances 
of that period produced a great effect on the 
Grecian character; and nowhere was this effect 
iO remarkable as in the illustrious democracy 
of Athens. An Athenian, indeed, even in the 
time of Herodotus, would scarcely have writ- 
ten a book so romantic and garrulous as that of 
Herodotus. As civilization advanced, the citi- 
zens of that famous republic became still less 
visionary and still less simple-hearted. They 
aspired to know where their ancestors had 
been content to doubt; they began to doubt 
where their ancestors had thought it their duty 
to believe. Aristophanes is fond of alluding 
to this change in the temper of his country- 
men. The father and son, in the Clouds, are 
evidently representatives of the generations to 
which they respectively belonged. Nothing 
more clearly illustrates the nature of this mo- 
ral revolution than the change which passed 
upon tragedy. The wild sublimity of ^Eschy- 
lus became the scoff of every young Phidippi- 
des. Lectures on abstruse points of philoso- 
phy, the fine distinctions of casuistry, and the 
dazzling fence of rhetoric, were substituted for 
poetry. The language lost something of that 
infantine sweetness which had characterized 
it. It became less like the ancient Tuscan, and 
more like the modern French. 

The fashionable logic of the Greeks was, 
indeed, far from strict. Logic never can be 
strict where books are scarce, and where in- 
formation is conveyed orally. We are all 
aware how frequently fallacies which, when 
set down on paper, are at once detected, pass 
for unanswerable' arguments when dexterously 
and volubly urged in parliament, at the bar, or 
in private conversation. The reason is evi- 
dent. We cannot inspect them closely enough 
to perceive their inaccuracy. We cannot rea- 
dily compare them with each other. We lose 
sight of one part of the subject before another, 
which ought to be received in connection with 
it, comes before us ; and as there is no im- 
mutable record of What has been admitted and 
of what has been denied, direct contradictions 
pass muster with little difficulty. Almost all 
the education of a Greek consisted in talking 
and listening. His opinions on governments 
Were picked up in the debates of the assembly. 
If he wished to study metaphysics, instead of 
shutting himself up with a book, he walked 
down to the market-place to look for a sophist. 
So completely were men formed to these ha- 
bits, that even writing acquired a conversa- 
tional air. The philosophers adopted the form 
of dialogue as the most natural mode of com- 
municating knowledge. Their reasonings have 
the merits and the defects which belong to that 
species of composition ; and are characterize d 
rather by quickness and. subtilty than by deptn 
and precision.. Truth is exhibited in parts and 
by glimpses. Innumerable clever hints are 
given ; but n > sound and durable system is 
erected. The argumentum ad hominem, a kind 
of argument most efficacious in debatr, but 
utterly useless for the investigation of general 
j-rinciples, is among their favourite resources. 



Hence, though nothing can be more admirable 
than the skill which Socrates displays in the 
conversations which Plato has reported or in 
vented, his victories for the most part seem to 
us unprofitable. A trophy is set up, but no 
new province is added to the dominions of the 
human mind. 

Still, where thousands of keen and ready 
intellects were constantly employed in specu- 
lating on the qualities of actions and on the 
principles of government, it was impossible 
that history should retain its old character. It 
became less gossipping and less picturesque ; 
but much more accurate, and somewhat more 
scientific. 

The history of Thucydides differs from that 
of Herodotus as a portrait differs from the re- 
presentation of an imaginary scene; as the 
Burke or Fox of Reynolds differs from his 
Ugolino or his Beaufort. In the former case, 
the archetype is given : in the latter it is cre- 
ated. The faculties which are required for the 
latter purpose are of a higher and rarer order 
than those which suffice for the former, and 
indeed necessarily comprise them. He who 
is able to paint what he sees with the eye of 
the mind, will surely be able to paint what he 
sees with the eye of the body. He who can 
invent a story and tell it well, will also be able 
to tell, in an interesting manner, a story which 
he has not invented. If, in practice, some of 
the best writers of fiction have been among 
the worst writers of history, it has been be- 
cause one of their talents had merged in 
another so completely, that it could not be 
severed ; because, having long been habituated 
to invent and narrate at the same time, they 
found it impossible to narrate without inventing. 

Some capricious and discontented artists 
have affected to "consider portrait-painting as 
unworthy of a man of genius. Some critics 
have spoken in the same contemptuous man- 
ner of history. Johnson puts the case thus : 
The historian tells either what is false or what 
is true. In the former case he is no historian. 
In the latter, he has no opportunity for display- 
ing his abilities. For truth is one: and all 
who tell the truth must tell it alike. 

It is not difficult to elude both the horns of 
this dilemma. We will recur to the analo- 
gous art of portrait-painting. Any man with 
eyes and hands may be taught to take a like- 
ness. The process, up to a certain point, is 
merely mechanical. If this were all, a man 
of talents might justly despise the occupation. 
But we could mention portraits which are re- 
semblances, but not mere resemblances ; faith- 
ful, but much more than faithful; portraits 
which condense into one point of time, and 
exhibit, at a single glance, the whole history 
of turbid and eventful lives — in which the eye 
seems to scrutinize us, and the moutn to com- 
mand us — in which the brow menaces, and the 
lip almost quivers with scorn — in which ev ery 
wrinkle is a comment on some important 
transaction. The account which Thucydides 
has given of the retreat from Syracuse is, 
among narratives, what Vandyck's Lcrd Straf- 
ford is among paintings. 

Diversity, it is said, implies error; truth it 
one, and admits of no degree. We answer. 



64 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



(hat this principle holds good only in abstract 
reasonings. When we talk of the truth of 
imitation in the fine arts, we mean an imper- 
fect and a graduated truth. No picture is ex- 
actly like the original: nor is a picture good 
in proportion as it is like the original. When 
Sir Thomas Lawrence paints a handsome 
peeress, he does not contemplate her through 
a powerful microscope, and transfer to the 
canvass the pores of the skin, the blood-vessels 
cf the eye, and all the other beauties which 
Gulliver discovered in the Brobdignaggian 
maids of honour. If he were to do this, the 
effect would not merely be unpleasant, but 
unless the scale of the picture were propor- 
tionably enlarged, would be absolutely false. 
And, after all, a microscope of greater power 
than that which he had employed would con- 
vict him of innumerable omissions. The same 
may be said'of history. Perfectly and abso- 
lutely true, it cannot be ; for, to be perfectly 
and absolutely true, it ought to record all the 
slightest particulars of the slightest transac- 
tions — all the things done, and all the words 
uttered, during the time of which it treats. 
The omission of any circumstance, how- 
ever insignificant, would be a defect. If his- 
tory were written thus, the Bodleian library 
would not contain the occurrences of a week. 
What is told in the fullest and most accurate 
annals bears an infinitely small proportion to 
what is suppressed. The difference between 
the copious work of Clarendon, and the ac- 
count of the civil wars in the abridgment of 
Goldsmith, vanishes, when compared with the 
immense mass of facts respecting which both 
are equally silenf. 

No picture, then, and no history, can present 
us with the whole truth : but those are the best 
pictures and the best histories which exhibit 
such parts of the truth as most nearly produce 
the effect of the whole. He who is deficient 
in the art of selection may, by showing no- 
thing but the truth, produce all the effect of the 
grossest falsehood. It perpetually happens 
that one writer tells less truth than another, 
merely because he tells more truths. In the 
imitative arts we constantly see this. There 
are lines in the human face, and objects in 
landscape, which stand in such relations to 
each other, that they ought either to be all in- 
troduced into a painting together, or all omitted 
together. A sketch into which none of them 
enters maybe excellent; but if some are given 
and others left out, though there are more 
points of likeness, there is less likeness. An 
outline scrawled with a pen, which seizes the 
marked features of a countenance, will give 
a much stronger idea of it than a bad painting 
in oils. Yet the worst painting in oils that 
ever hung in Somerset House resembles the 
original in many more particulars. A bust 
of white marble may give an excellent idea 
of a blooming face. Colour the lips and 
cheeks of the bust, leaving the hair and eyes 
unaltered, and the similarity, instead of being 
mor& striking, will be less so. 

History has its foreground and its back- 
ground, nnd it is principally in the manage- 
ment of its perspective, that one artist differs 
from another. Some, events must be repre- 






sented on a large scale, others diminished 
.he great majority will be lost in the dimness 
of the horizon ; and a general ic ea of theif 
joint effect will be given by a few slight 
touches. 

In this respect no writer has ever equalled 
Thucydides. He was a perfect master of the 
art of gradual diminution. His history is some- 
times as concise as a chronological chart ; yet 
it is always perspicuous. It is sometimes as 
minute as one of" Lovelace's letters ; yet it is 
never prolix. He never fails to contract and 
to expand it in the right place. 

Thucydides borrowed from Herodotus the 
practice of putting speeches of his own into 
the mouths of his characters. In Herodotus 
this usage is scarcely censurable. It is of a 
piece with his whole manner. But it is al- 
together incongruous in the work of his suc- 
cessor ; and violates, not only the accuracy of 
history, but the decencies of fiction. When 
once Ave enter into the spirit of Herodotus, we 
find no inconsistency. The conventional pro- 
bability of his drama is preserved from the 
beginning to the end. The deliberate orations 
and the familiar dialogues are in strict keeping 
with each other. But the speeches of Thucy- 
dides are neither preceded nor followed by 
any thing with which they harmonize. They 
give to the whole book something of the gro- 
tesque character of those Chinese pleasure- 
grounds, in which perpendicular rocks of 
granite start up in the midst of a soft green 
plain. Invention is shocking, where truth is 
in such close juxtaposition with it. 

Thucydides honestly tells us that some of 
these discourses are purely fictitious. He 
may have reported the substance of others 
correctly. But it is clear from the internal 
evidence that he has preserved no more than 
the substance. His own peculiar habits of 
thought and expression are everywhere dis- 
cernible. Individual and national peculiarities 
are seldom to be traced in the sentiments, and 
never in the diction. The oratory of the Co- 
rinthians and Thebans is not less Attic, either 
in matter or in manner, than that of the 
Athenians. The style of Cleon is as pure, as j 
austere, as terse, and as significant, as that 
of Pericles. 

In spite of this great fault, it must be allow- 
ed that Thucydides has surpassed all his rivals 
in the art of historical narration, in the art of 
producing an effect on the imagination, by 
skilful selection and disposition, without in- 
dulging in the license of invention. But nar- 
ration, though an important part of the busi- 
ness of an historian, is not the whole. To 
append a moral to a work of fiction, is either 
useless or superfluous. A fiction may give a 
more impressive effect to what is already 
known, but it can teach nothing new. If it 
presents to us characters and trains of eventi 
to which our experience furnishes us with no- 
thing similar, instead of deriving instruction 
from it, we pronounce it unnatural. We do 
not form our opinions from it ; but we try it 
by our preconceived opinions. Fiction, there- 
fore, is essentially imitative. Its merit con- 
sists in its resemblance to a model with which 
we are already familiar, or to which at least 



HIS'l ORY. 



56 



we can instantly refer. Hence it is that the 
anecdotes, which interest us most strongly in 
authentic narrative, are offensive when intro- 
duced into novels ; that what is called the ro- 
mantic part of history is in fact the least 
romantic. It is delightful as history, because 
it contradicts our previous notions of human 
nature, and of the connection of causes and 
effects. It is, on that very account, shocking 
and incongruous in fiction. In fiction, the 
principles are given to find the facts ; in his- 
tory, the facts are given to find the principles ; 
and the writer who does not explain the phe- 
nomena as well as state them, performs only 
one-half of his office. Facts are the mere dross 
of history. It is from the abstract truth which 
interpenetrates them, and lies latent among 
them, like gold in the ore, that the mass de- 
rives its whole value ; and the precious parti- 
cles are generally combined with the baser in 
such a manner that the separation is a task of 
the utmost difficulty. 

Here Thucydides is deficient. The defi- 
ciency, indeed, is not discreditable to him. It 
was the inevitable effect of circumstances. It 
was in the nature of things necessary that, in 
rome part of its progress through political 
science, the human mind should reach that 
point which it attained in his time. Know- 
ledge advances by steps, and not by leaps. 
The axioms of an English debating club would 
have been startling and mysterious paradoxes 
to the most enlightened statesman of Athens. 
But it would be as absurb to speak contempt- 
uously of the Athenian on this account, as to 
ridicule Strabo for not having given us an ac- 
count of Chili, or to talk of Ptolemy as we 
talk of Sir Richard Phillips. Still, when we 
wish for solid geographical information, we 
must prefer the solemn coxcombry of Pinker- 
ton to the noble work of Strabo. If we wanted 
instruction respecting the solar system, we 
should consult the silliest gir. from a board- 
ing-school rather than Ptolemy. 

Thucydides was undoubtedly a sagacious 
and reflecting man. This clearly appears 
from the ability with which he discusses prac- 
tical questions. But the talent of deciding on 
the circumstances of a particular case' is often 
possessed in the highest perfection by persons 
destitute of the power of generalization. Men, 
skilled in the military tactics ,of civilized na- 
tions, have been amazed at the far-sightedness 
and penetration which a Mohawk displays in 
concerting his stratagems, or in discerning 
those of his enemies. In England, no class 
possesses so much of that peculiar ability 
which is required for constructing ingenious 
schemes, and for obviating remote difficulties, 
as the thieves and the thief-takers. Women 
have more of this dexterity than men. Law- 
yers have more of it than statesmen states- 
men have more of it than philosophers. Monk 
had more of it than Harrington and all his 
club. Walpole had more of it than Adam 
Smith or Beccaria. Indeed, the species of 
discipline by which this dexterity is acquired 
tends to contract the mind, and to render it in- 
capable of abstract reasoning. 

The Grecian statesmen of the age of Thu- 
cydides were distinguished by their practical 



sagacity, their insight into motives, their skil! 
in devising means for the attainment of thcii 
ends. A state of society in which the rich 
were constantly planning the oppression of 
the poor, and the poor the spoliation of the 
rich, in which the ties of party had superseded 
those of country, in which revolutions and 
counter-revolutions were events of daily oc« 
currence, was naturally prolific in desperate 
and crafty political adventurers. This was 
the very school in which men were likely to 
acquire the dissimulation of Mazarine, the judi- 
cious temerity of Richelieu, the penetration, 
the exquisite tact, the almost instinctive pre- 
sentiment of approaching events, which gave 
so much authority to the counsel of Shaftes- 
bury, that " it was as if a man had inquired of 
the oracle of God." In this school Thucydides 
studied ; and his wisdom is that which such a 
school would naturally afford. He judges bet- 
ter of circumstances than of principles. The 
more a question is narrowed, the better he rea- 
sons upon it. His work suggests many most 
important considerations respecting the first 
principles of government and morals, the 
growth of factions, the organization of armies, 
and the mutual relations of communities. Yet 
all his general observations on these subjects 
are very superficial. His most judicious re- 
marks differ from the remarks of a really phi- 
losophical historian, as a sum correctly cast up 
by a book-keeper, from a general expression 
discovered by an algebraist. The former is 
useful only in a single transaction ; the latter 
may be applied to an infinite number of 
cases. 

This opinion will, we fear, be considered as 
heterodox. For, not to speak of the illusion 
which the sight of a Greek type, or the sound 
a Greek diphthong, often produces, there are 
some peculiarities in the manner of Thuyci- 
dides, which in no small degree have tended 
to secure to him the reputation of profundity. 
His book is evidently the book of a man and a 
statesman; and in this respect presents a re- 
markable contrast to the delightful childish- 
ness of Herodotus. Throughout it there is an 
air of matured power, of grave and melan- 
choly reflection, of impartiality and habitual 
self-command. His feelings are rarely in> 
dulged, and speedily repressed. Vulgar pre- 
judices of every kind, and particularly vulgar 
superstitions, he treats with a cold and sober 
disdain peculiar to himself. His style is 
weighty, condensed, antithetical, and not un- 
frequently obscure. But when we look at his 
political philosophy. Wiithout regard to these 
circumstances, we find him to have been, what 
indeed it would have been a miracle if he had 
not been, simply an Athenian of the fifth een- 
tury before Christ. 

Xenophon is commonly placed, out we think 
without much reason, in the same rank with 
Herodotus and Thucydides. He resembles 
them, indeed, in the purity and sweetness of 
his style ; but in spirit, he rather resembles 
that later school of historians, whose works 
seem to be fables, composed for a moral, and 
who, in their eagerness to give us warnings 
and example, forget to give us men and wo- 
men. The life of Cyrus, whether we look upon 



6S 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WHITINGS. 



it as a history or as a romance, seems to us a 
very wretched performance. The Expedition 
of the Ten Thousand, and the History of Gre- 
cian Affairs, are certainly pleasant reading ; 
but they indicate no great power of mind. In 
truth, Xenophon, though his taste was elegant, 
his dispositions amiable, and his intercourse 
with the world extensive, had, we suspect, ra- 
ther a weak head. Such was evidently the 
opinion of that extraordinary man to whom he 
early attached himself, and for whose memory 
he entertained an idolatrous veneration. He 
came in only for the milk with which Socrates 
nourished his babes in philosophy. A few 
saws of morality, and a few of the simplest 
doctrines of natural religion, were enough for 
the good young man. The strong meat, the 
bold speculations on physical and metaphysi- 
cal science, were reserved for auditors of a 
different description. Even the lawless habits 
of a captain of mercenary troops, could not 
change the tendency which the character of 
Xenophon early acquired. To the last, he 
seems to have retained a sort of heathen Pu- 
ritanism. The sentiments of piety and virtue, 
which abound in his works, are those of a 
well-meaning man, somewhat timid and nar- 
row-minded, devout from constitution rather 
than from rational conviction. He was as 
superstitious as Herodotus, but in a way far 
more offensive. The very peculiarities which 
charm us in an infant, the toothless mumbling, 
the stammering, the tottering, the helplessness, 
the causeless tears and laughter, are disgust- 
ing in old age. In the same manner, the ab- 
surdity which precedes a period of general 
intelligence, is often pleasing ; that which fol- 
lows it is contemptible. The nonsense of 
Herodotus is that of a baby. The nonsense 
of Xenophon is that of a dotard. His stories 
about dreams, omens, and prophecies, present 
a strange contrast to the passages in which 
the shrewd and incredulous Thucydides men- 
tions the popular superstitions. It is not quite 
clear that Xenophon was honest in his credu- 
lity ; his fanaticism was in some degree politic. 
He would have made an excellent member of 
the Apostolic Comarilla. An alarmist by na- 
ture, ar. aristocrat by party, he carried to an 
unreasonable excess his horror of popular 
turbulence. The quiet atrocity of Sparta did 
not shock him in the same manner; for he 
hated tumult more thaj crimes. He was de- 
sirous to find restraints which might curb the 
passions of the multitude; and he absurdly 
fancied that he had found them in a religion 
without evidences or sanction, precepts or 
example, in a frigid system of Theophilan- 
thropy, supported by nursery tales. 

Polybius and Arrian have given us authen- 
tic accounts of facts, and here their merit ends. 
They were not men of comprehensive minds ; 
they had not the art of telling a story in an in- 
teresting manner. They have in consequence 
been thrown into the shade by writers, who, 
though less studious of truth than themselves, 
understood far better the art of producing ef- 
fect, by Livy and Quintus Curtius. 

Yet Polybius and Arrian deserve high praise, 
when compared with the writers of that school 
"f which Plutarch may be considered as the 



head. For the historians of this class we mu? 
confess that we entertain a peculiar aversion. 
They seem to have been pedants, who, though 
destitute of those valuable qualities which are 
frequently found in conjunction with pedantry 
thought themselves great philosophers and great 
politicians. They not only mislead their read 
ers in every page, as to particular facts, but 
they appear to have altogether misconceived 
the whole character of the times of which they 
write. They were inhabitants of an empire 
bounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the Euphra- 
tes, by the.ice of Scythia and the sands of Mau- 
ritania ; composed of nations whose manners, 
whose languages, whose religion, whose coun- 
tenances and complexions, were widely differ- 
ent, governed by one mighty despotism, which 
had risen on the ruins of a thousand common- 
wealths and kingdoms. Of liberty, such as it 
is in small democracies, of patriotism, such as 
it is in small independent communities of any 
kind, they had, and they could have, no experi- 
mental knowledge. But they had read of men 
who exerted themselves in the cause of their 
country, with an energy unknown in later 
times, who had violated the dearest of domestic 
charities, or voluntarily devoted themselves to 
death for the public good; and they wondered 
at the degeneracy of their contemporaries. It 
never occurred to them, that the feelings which 
they so greatly admired sprung from local and 
occasional causes ; that they will always grow 
up spontaneously in small societies ; and that, 
in large empires, though they may be forced 
into existence for a short time by peculiar cir- 
cumstances, they cannot be general or perma- 
nent. It is impossible that any man should feel 
for a fortress on a remote frontier, as he feels 
for his own house ; that he should grieve for a 
defeat in which ten thousand people whom he 
never saw have fallen, as he grieves for a de- 
feat which has half unpeopled the street in 
which he lives ; that he should leave his home 
for a military expedition, in order to preserve 
the balance of power, as cheerfully as he would 
leave it to repel invaders who had begun to 
burn ail the cornfields in his neighbourhood. 

The writers of whom we speak should have 
considered this. They should have considered 
that, in patriotism, such as it existed amongst 
the Greeks, there was nothing essentially and 
eternally good ; that an exclusive attachment to 
a particular society, though anatural, and, under 
certain restrictions, a most useful sentiment, 
implies no extraordinary attainments in wis- 
dom or virtue ; that where it has existed in an 
intense degree, it has turned states into gangs 
of robbers, whom their mutual fidelity has ren- 
dered more dangerous, has given a character 
of peculiar atrocity to war, and has generated 
that worst of all political evils, the tyranny of 
nations over nations. 

Enthusiastically attached to the name of li- 
berty, these historians troubled themselves lit 
tie about its definition. The Spartans, tor- 
mented by ten thousand absurd restraints, un« 
able to please themselves in the choice of their 
wives, their suppers, or their company, com- 
pelled to assume a peculiar manner, and to 
talk in a peculiar style, gloried in their liberty 
The aristocracy of Rome repeatedly made li« 



HISTORY. 



67 



Deri/ a plea for cutting off the favourites of the 
people. In almost all the little commonwealths 
of antiquity, liberty was used as a pretext for 
measures directed against every thing which 
makes liberty valuable, for measures which 
stifled discussion, corrupted the administration 
of justice, and discouraged the accumulation 
of property. The writers, whose works we 
are considering, confounded the sound with the 
substance, and the means with the end. Their 
imaginations were inflamed by mystery. They 
conceived of liberty as monks conceive of love, 
as Cockneys conceive of the happiness and in- 
nocence of rural life, as novel-reading semp- 
stresses conceive of Almack's and Grosvenor 
Square, accomplished Marquesses and hand- 
some Colonels of the Guards. In the relation 
of events, and the delineation of characters, 
they have paid little attention to facts, to the 
costume of the times of which they pretend to 
treat, or to the general principles of human na- 
ture. They .have been faithful only to their 
own puerile and extravagant doctrines. Gene- 
rals and Statesmen are metamorphosed into 
magnanimous coxcombs, from whose fulsome 
virtues we turn away with disgust. The fine 
sayings and exploits of their heroes reminds 
us of the insufferable perfections of Sir Charles 
Grandison, and affect us with a nausea similar 
to that which we feel when an actor, in one of 
Morton's or Kotzebue's plays, lays his hand on 
his heart, advances to the ground-lights, and 
mouths a moral sentence for the edification of 
the gods. 

These writers, men who knew not what it 
was to have a country, men who had never en- 
joyed political rights, brought into fashion an 
offensive cant about patriotism and zeal for 
freedom. What the English Puritans did, for 
the language of Christianity, what Scuderi did 
for the language of love, they did for the lan- 
guage of public spirit. By habitual exaggera- 
tion they made it mean. By monotonous em- 
phasis they made it feeble. They abused it 
till it became scarcely possible to use it with 
effect. 

Their ordinary rules of morality are deduced 
from extreme cases. The common regimen 
which they prescribe for society is made up of 
those desperate remedies, which only its most 
desperate distempers require. They look with 
peculiar complacency on actions, which even 
those who approve them consider as excep- 
tions to laws of almost universal application — 
which bear so close an affinity to the most atro- 
cious crimes, that even where it may be unjust 
to censure them, it is unsafe to praise them. It 
is not strange, therefore, that some flagitious 
instances of perfidy and cruelty should have 
been passed unchallenged in such company, 
that grave moralists, with no personal interest 
at stake, should have extolled, in the highest 
terms, deeds of which the atrocity appalled 
even the infuriated factions in whose cause 
they were perpetrated. The part which Timo- 
leon took in the assassination of his brother 
shocked many of his own partisans. The re- 
collection of it preyed long on his own mind. 
But it was reserved for historians who lived 
some centuries later to discover that his con- 
duct was a glorious display of virtue, and to 



lament that, from the frailty of human nature 
a man who could perform so great an exploit 
could repent of it. 

The writings of these men, and of their mo- 
dern imitators, have produced effects which 
deserve some notica. The English have been 
so long accustomed to political speculation, 
and have enjoyed so large a measure of prac- 
tical liberty, that such works have produced 
little effect on their minds. We have classical 
associations and great names of our own, 
which we can confidently oppose to the most 
splendid of ancient times. Senate has not to 
our ears a sound so venerable as Parliament. 
We respect the Great Charter more than the 
laws of Solon. The Capitol and the Forum 
impress us with less awe than our own West- 
minster Hall and Westminster Abbey, the 
place where the great men of twenty genera- 
tions have contended, the place where they 
sleep together! The list of warriors and 
statesmen by whom our constitution was found- 
ed or preserved, from De Monfort down to Fox, 
may well stand a comparison with the Fasti 
of Rome. The dying thanksgiving of Sidney 
is as noble as the libation which Thrasea 
poured to Liberating Jove: and we think with 
far less pleasure of Cato tearing out his entrails, 
than of Russel saying, as he turned away from 
his wife, that the bitterness of death was past. 
— Even those parts of our history, over which, 
on some accounts, we would gladly throw a 
veil, may be proudly opposed to those on which 
the moralists of antiquity loved most to dwell. 
The enemy of English liberty was not mur- 
dered by men whom he had pardoned and 
loaded with benefits. He was not stabbed in 
the back by those who smiled and cringed 
before his face. He was vanquished on fields 
of stricken battle ; he was arraigned, sen- 
tenced, and executed in the face of heaven 
and earth. Our liberty is neither Greek nor 
Roman; but essentially English. It has a 
character of its own — a character which has 
taken a tinge from the sentiments of the chi- 
valrous ages, and which accords with the 
peculiarities of our manners and of our insu- 
lar situation. It has a language, too, of its 
own, and a language singularly idiomatic, full 
of meaning to ourselves, scarcely intelligible 
to strangers. 

Here, therefore, the effect of books, such as 
those which we have been considering, has 
been harmless. They have, indeed, given cur 
rency to many very erroneous opinions with 
respect to ancient history. They have heated 
the imagination of boys. They have misled 
the judgment, and corrupted the taste of some 
men of letters, such as Akenside and Sir Wil- 
liam Jones. But on persons engaged in pub 
lie affairs they have had very little influence. 
The foundations of our constitution were laid 
by men who knew nothing of the Greeks, bu* 
that they denied the orthodox procession, and 
cheated the Crusaders ; and nothing of Rome, 
but that the Pope lived there. Those who fol- 
lowed, contented themselves with improving 
on the original plan. They found models at 
home ; and therefore they did not look for them 
abroad. But when enlightened men on the 
continent began to think about oolitical rr. 



58 



MAC AUL AY'S MISCELLANEOUS WR1JTNGS. 



formation, having no patterns before their 
eyes in their domestic history, they naturally 
had recourse to those remains of antiquity, 
the study of which is considered throughout 
Europe as an important part of education. 
The historians of whom we have been speak- 
ing had been members of large communities, 
and subjects of absolute sovereigns. Hence 
i; is, as we have already said, that they com- 
mit such gross errors in speaking of the little 
republics of antiquity. Their works were now 
read in the spirit in which they had been writ- 
ten. They were read by men placed in cir- 
cumstances closely resembling their own, un- 
acquainted with the real nature of liberty, but 
inclined to believe every thing good which 
could be told respecting it. How powerfully 
these books impressed thes« speculative re- 
formers, is well known to all who have paid 
any attention to the French literature of the 
last century. But, perhaps, the writer on 
whom they produced the greatest effect, was 
Vittorio Alfieri. In some of his plays, particu- 
larly in Virginia, Timoleon, and Brutus the 
Younger, he has even caricatured the extrava- 
gance of his masters. 

It was not strange that the blind, thus led 
by the blind, should stumble. The transactions 
of the French Revolution, in some measure, 
took their character from these works. With- 
out the assistance of these works, indeed, a 
revolution would have taken place — a revolu- 
tion productive of much good and much evil, 
tremendous, but short-lived evil, dearly pur- 
chased, but durable good. But it would not 
kave been exactly such a revolution. The 
style, the accessories, would have been in ma- 
ny respects different. There would have been 
less of bombast in language, less of affectation 
in manner, less of solemn trifling and ostenta- 
tious simplicity. The acts of legislative as- 
semblies, and the correspondence of diploma- 
tists, would not have been disgraced by rants 
worthy only of a college of declamation. The 
government of a great and polished nation 
would not have rendered itself ridiculous by 
attempting to revive the usages of a world 
which had long passed away, or rather of a 
world which had never existed except in the 
description of a fantastic school of writers. 
These second-hand imitations resembled the 
originals about as much as the classical feasts 
with which the Doctor in Peregrine Pickle 
turned the stomachs of all his guests, resem- 
bled one of the suppers of Lucullus in the 
Hall of Apollo. 

These were mere follies. But the spirit ex- 
cited by these writers produced more serious 
effects. The greater part of the crimes which 
disgraced the revolution, sprung indeed from 
the relaxation of law, from popular ignorance, 
from the remembrance of past oppression, 
from the fear of foreign conquest, from rapa- 
city, from ambition, from party spirit. But 
many atrocious proceedings must, doubtless, 
oe ascribed to heated imagination, to perverted 
principle, to a distaste for what was vulgar in 
morals, and a passion for what was startling 
and dubious. Mr. Burke has touched on this 
mbject with great felicity of expression : 
• The gradation of their republic," says he, 



"is laid in moral paradoxes. All those in 
stances to be found in history, whether rea.. or 
fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, at which 
morality is perplexed, reason is staggered, and 
from which affrighted nature recoils, are their 
chosen and almost sole examples for the in- 
struction of their youth." This evil, we be- 
lieve, is to be directly ascribed to the influence 
of the historians whom we have mentioned, 
and their modern imitators. 

Livy had some faults in common with these 
writers. But an the whole he must be consi- 
dered as forming a class by himself. No his- 
torian with whom we are acquainted has 
shown so complete an indifference to truth. 
He seems to have cared only about the pictu- 
resque effect of his book and the honour of his 
country. On the other hand, we do not know, 
in the whole range of literature, an instance 
of a bad thing so well done. The painting of 
the narrative is beyond description vivid and 
graceful. The abundance of interesting senti- 
ments and splendid imagery in the speeches is 
almost miraculous. His mind is a soil which 
is never overteemed, a fountain which never 
seems to trickle. It pours forth profusely ; yet 
it gives no sign of exhaustion. It was proba- 
bly to this exhuberance of thought and lan- 
guage, always fresh, always sweet, always 
pure, no sooner yielded than repaired, that the 
critics applied that expression which has been 
so much discussed, lactea ubertas. 

All the merits and all the defects of Livy 
take a colouring from the character of his na- 
tion. He was a writer peculiarly Roman ; the 
proud citizen of a commonwealth which had 
indeed lost the reality of liberty, but which 
still sacredly preserved its forms — in fact the 
subject of an arbitrary prince, but in his own 
estimation one of the masters of the world, 
with a hundred kings below him, and only the 
gods above him. He, therefore, looked back 
on former times with feelings far different from 
those which were naturally entertained by his 
Greek contemporaries, and which at a later 
period became general among men of letters 
throughout the Roman Empire. He contem- 
plated the past with interest and delight, not 
because it furnished a contrast to the present, 
but because it had led to the present. He re- 
curred to it, not to lose in proud recollections 
the sense of national degradation, but to trace 
the progress of national glory. It is true that 
his veneration for antiquity produced on him 
some of the effects which it produced on those 
who arrived at it by a very different road. He 
has something of their exaggeration, some- 
thing of their cant, something of their fondness 
for anomalies and lusus natures in morality. 
Yet even here we perceive a difference. They 
talk rapturously of patriotism and liberty in 
the abstract. He does not seem to think any 
country but Rome deserving of love ; nor is it 
for liberty, as liberty, but for liberty as a part 
of the Roman institutions, th&t he is zealous. 

Of the concise and elegant accounts of the 
campaigns of Caesar little can be said. They 
are incomparable models for military de- 
spatches. But histories they are not, and dc 
not pretend to be. 

The ancient critics placed Sallust in th« 



HISTORY 



69 



same rank with Livy ; and unquestionably the 
small portion of his works which has come 
down to us, is calculated to give a high opi- 
nion of his talents. But his style is not very 
pleasant ; and his most powerful work, the ac- 
count of the Conspiracy of Catiline, has ra- 
ther the air of a clever party pamphlet than 
thai of a history. It abounds with strange in- 
consistencies, which, unexplained as they are, 
necessarily excite doubts as to the fairness of 
the narrative. It is true, that many circum- 
stances now forgotten may have been familiar 
to his contemporaries, and may have rendered 
passages clear to them which to us appear du- 
bious and perplexing. But a great historian 
should remember that he writes for distant 
generations, for men who will perceive the ap- 
parent contradictions, and will possess no 
means of reconciling them. We can only vin- 
dicate the fidelity of Sallust at the expense of 
his skill. But in fact all the information 
which we hajfe from contemporaries respect- 
ing this famous plot is liable to the same ob- 
jection, and is read by discerning men with 
the same incredulity. It is all on one side. 
No answer has reached our times. Yet, on the 
showing of the accusers, the accused seem en- 
titled to acquittal. • Catiline, we are told, in- 
trigued with a Vestal virgin, and murdered his 
own son. His house was a den of gamblers 
and debauchees. No young man could cross 
his threshold without danger to his fortune and 
reputation. Yet this is the man with whom 
Cicero was willing to coalesce in a contest 
for the first magistracy of the republic ; and 
whom he described, long after the fatal termi- 
nation of the conspiracy, as an accomplished 
hypocrite, by whom he had himself been de- 
ceived, and who had acted with consummate 
skill the character of a good citizen and a good 
friend. We are told that the plot was the most 
wicked and desperate ever known, and almost 
in the same breath, that the great body of the 
people, and many of the nobles favoured it : 
that the richest citizens of Rome were eager 
for the spoliation of all property, and its high- 
est functionaries for the destruction of all or- 
der ; that Crassus, Ccesar, the praetor Lentulus, 
one of the consuls of the year, one of the con- 
suls elect, were proved or suspected to be en- 
gaged in a scheme for subverting institutions 
to which they owed the highest honours, and 
introducing universal anarchy. We are told, 
that a government which knew all this suffered 
the conspirator, whose rank, talents, and cou- 
rage rendered him most dangerous, to quit Rome 
without molestation. We are told, that bond- 
men and gladiators were to be armed against 
ehe citizens. Yet we find that Catiline rejected 
the slaves who crowded to enlist in his army, 
*est, as. Sallust himself expresses it, "he should 
seem to identify their cause with that of the 
citizens." Finally, we are told that the magis- 
trate, who was universally allowed to have 
saved all classes of his countrymen from con- 
flagration and massacre, rendered himself so 
unpopular by his conduct, that a marked in- 
sult was offered to him at the expiration of his 
office, and a severe punishment inflicted on 
him shortly after. 

Sallust tel.s us, what, indeed, the letters and 



speeches of Cicero sufficiently prove, that some 
persons considered the shocking and atrocious 
parts of the plot as mere inventions of the go- 
vernment, designed to excuse its unconstitu- 
tional measures. We must confess ourselves 
to be of that opinion. 1 here was, undoubtedly, 
a strong party desirous to change the adminis- 
tration. While Pompey held the command of 
an army, they could not effect their purpose 
without preparing means for repelling force, 
if necessary, by force. In all this there is no- 
thing different from the ordinary practice of 
Roman factions. The other charges brought 
against the conspirators are so inconsistent 
and improbable, that we give no credit what- 
ever to them. If our readers think this skep- 
ticism unreasonable, let them turn to the con- 
temporary account of the Popish plot. Let 
them look over the votes of Parliament, and 
the speeches of the king; the charges of 
Scroggs, and the harangues of the managers 
employed against Strafford. A person, who 
should form his judgment from these pieces 
alone, would believe that London was set on 
fire by the Papists, and that Sir Edmondbury 
Godfrey was murdered for his religion. Yet 
these stories are now altogether exploded. 
They have been abandoned by statesmen to 
aldermen, by aldermen to clergymen, by cler- 
gymen to old women, and by old women to 
Sir Harcourt Lees. 

Of the Latin historians, Tacitus was cer- 
tainly the greatest. His style indeed is no! 
only faulty in itself, but is, in some respects, 
peculiarly unfit for historical composition. He 
carries his love of effect far beyond the limits 
of moderation. He tells a fine story finely : 
but he cannot tell a plain story plainly. He 
stimulates till all stimulants lose their power. 
Thucydides, as we have already observed, re- 
lates ordinary transactions with the unpre- 
tending clearness and succinctness of the 
gazette. His great powers of painting he 
reserves for events, of which the slightest 
details are interesting. The simplicity of the 
setting gives additional lustre to the brilliants 
There are passages in the narrative of Tacitus 
superior to the best which can be quoted from 
Thucydides. But they are not enchased and 
relieved with the same skill. They are far 
more striking when extracted from the body 
of the work to which they belong, than when 
they occur in their place, and are read in con- 
nection with what precedes and follows. 

In the delineation of character, Tacitus is 
unrivalled among historians, and has very few 
superiors among dramatists and novelists. By 
the delineation of character, we do not mean 
the practice of drawing up epigrammatic cata- 
logues of good and bad qualities, and append 
ing them to the names of eminent men. No 
writer, indeed, has done this more skilfully 
than Tacitus; but this is not his peculiar 
glory. All the persons who occupy a large 
space in his works have an individuality of 
character which seems to pervade an their 
words and actions. We know them as if wo 
had lived with them. Claudius, Nero, Oiho, 
both the Agrippinas, are masterpieces. Bui 
Tiberius is a still higher miracle of art. Th« 
historian undertook to make us intimately ac- 



60 



MAC AUL AY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



quainted with a man singularly dark and 
inscrutable— with a man whose real disposi- 
tion long remained swathed up in intricate 
folds of factitious virtues; and over whose 
actions the hypocrisy of his youth and the se- 
clusion of his old age threw a singular mys- 
tery. He was to exhibit the specious qualities 
of the tyrant in a light which might render 
them transparent, and enable us at once to 
perceive the covering and the vices which it 
concealed. He was to trace the gradations by 
which the first magistrate of a republic, a 
senator mingling freely in debate, a noble as- 
sociating with his brother nobles, was trans- 
formed into an Asiatic sultan ; he was to 
exhibit a character distinguished by courage, 
self-command, and profound policy, yet defiled 
by all 

"th' extravagancy , 
And crazy ribaldry of fancy." 

He was to mark the gradual effect of advanc- 
ing age and approaching death on this strange 
compound of strength and weakness ; to exhi- 
bit the old sovereign of the world sinking into 
a dotage which, though it rendered his appe- 
tites eccentric and his temper savage, never 
impaired the powers of his stern and penetrat- 
ing mind, conscious of failing strength, raging 
with capricious sensuality, yet to the last the 
keenest of observers, the most artful of dis- 
semblers, and the most terrible of masters. 
The task was one of extreme difficulty. The 
execution is almost perfect. 

The talent which is required to write history 
thus, bears a considerable affinity to the talent 
of a great dramatist. There is one obvious 
distinction. The dramatist creates, the histo- 
rian only disposes. The difference is not in 
the mode of execution, but in the mode of con- 
ception. Shakspeare is guided by a model 
which exists in his imagination ; Tacitus, by a 
model furnished from without. Hamlet is to 
Tiberius what the Laocoon is to the Newton 
of Roubilliac. 

In this part of his art Tacitus certainly had 
neither equal nor second among the ancient 
historians. Herodotus, though he wrote in a 
dramatic form, had little of dramatic genius. 
The frequent dialogues which he introduces 
give vivacity and movement to the narrative ; 
but are not strikingly characteristic. Xenophon 
is fond of telling his readers, at considerable 
length, what he thought of the persons whose ad- 
ventures he relates. But he does not show 
them the men, and enable them to judge for 
themselves. The heroes of Livy are the most 
insipid of all beings, real or imaginary, the 
heroes of Plutarch always excepted. Indeed, 
the manner of Plutarch in this respect reminds 
us of the cookery of those continental inns, the 
horror of English travellers, in which a certain 
nondescript broth is kept constantly boiling, 
and copiously poured, without distinction, over 
every dish as it comes up to table. Thucy- 
dides, though at a wide interval, comes next to 
Tacitus. His Pericles, hits Nicias, his Cleon, 
his Brasidas, are happily discriminated. The 
lines are few, the colouring faint; but the ge- 
neral air and expression is caught. 
We begin, like the priest in Don Quixote's 



library, to be tired with taking down books one 
after another for separate judgment, and feel 
inclined to pass sentence on them m masses. 
We shall, therefore, instead of pointing out the 
defects and merits of the different modern his- 
torians, state generally in what particulars they 
have surpassed their predecessors, and in what 
we conceive them to have failed. 

They have certainly been, in one sense, far 
more strict in their adherence to truth than 
most of the Greek and Roman writers. They 
do not think themselves entitled to render their 
narrative interesting by introducing descrip- 
tions, conversations, and harangues, which 
have no existence but in their own imagina- 
tion. This improvement was gradually intro- 
duced. History commenced among the modern 
nations of Europe, as it had commenced among 
the Greeks, in romance. Froissart was our 
Herodotus. Italy was to Europe what Athens 
was to Greece. In Italy, therefore, a more ac- 
curate and manly mode of narration was early 
introduced. Machiavelli and Guicciardini, in 
imitation of Livy and Thucydides, composed 
speeches for their historical personages. But 
as the classical enthusiasm which distinguish- 
ed the age of Lorenzo and Leo gradually sub- 
sided, this absurd practice was abandoned. In 
France, we fear, it still, in some degree, keeps 
its ground. In our own country, a writer who 
should venture on it would be laughed to 
scorn. Whether the historians of the last twc 
centuries tell more truth than those of anti' 
quity, may perhaps be doubted. But it is quite 
certain that they tell fewer falsehoods. 

In the philosophy of history, the moderns 
have very far turpassed the ancients. It is 
not, indeed, strange that the Greeks and Ro 
mans should not have carried the science of 
government, or any other experimental science, 
so far as it has been carried in our time ; for 
the experimental sciences are generally in a 
state of progression. They were better under- 
stood in the seventeenth century than in the 
sixteenth, and in the eighteenth century than 
in the seventeenth. But this constant improve 
ment, this natural growth of knowledge, will 
not altogether account for the immense superi- 
ority of the modern writers. The difference is 
a difference, not in degree, but of kind. It is 
not merely that new principles have been dis- 
covered, but that new faculties seem to be ex- 
erted. It is not that at one time the human in- 
tellect should have made but small progress, 
and at another time have advanced far; but 
that at one time it should have been station- 
ary, and at another time constantly proceeding. 
In taste and imagination, in the graces of style, 
in the arts of persuasion, in the magnificence 
of public works, the ancients were at least our 
equals. They reasoned as justly as ourselves 
on subjects which required pure demonstra- 
tion. But in the moral sciences they made 
scarcely any advance. During the long period 
which elapsed between the fifth century before 
the Christian era and the fifth century after it, 
little perceptible progress was made. All the 
metaphysical discoveries of all the philoso- 
phers, from the time of Socrates to the northern 
invasion, are not to be compared in importance 
with those which have been madf> in England 



HISTORY 



01 



every fifty years since the time of Elizabeth. 
There is not the. least reason to believe that the 
I principles of government, legislation, and po- 
litical economy, were better understood in the 
time of Augustus Ccesar than in the time of 
Pericles. In our own country, the sound doc- 
trines of trade and jurisprudence have been, 
within the lifetime of a single generation, dimly 
hinted, boldly propounded, defended, systema- 
tized, adopted by all reflecting men of all 
parties, quoted in legislative assemblies, incor- 
porated into laws and treaties. 

To what is this change to be attributed? 
j Partly, no doubt, to the discovery of printing, 
-a discovery which has not only diffused 
knowledge widely, but, as we have already ob- 
served, has also introduced into reasoning a 
i precision unknown in those ancient communi- 
j ties, in which information was, for the most 
part, conveyed orally. There was, we suspect, 
another cause less obvious, but still more pow- 
j erful. • . 

The spirit of the two most famous nations 
of antiquity was remarkably exclusive. In the 
i time of Homer, the Greeks had not begun to 
■ consider themselves as a distinct race. They 
| still looked with something of childish wonder 
j and awe on the riches and wisdom of" Sidon 
i an( i Egypt. From what causes, and by what 
I gradations, their feelings underwent a change, 
I it is not easy to determine. Their history, from 
! the Trojan to the Persian war, is covered with 
\ an obscurity broken only by dim and scattered 
I gleams of truth. But it is certain that a great 
•alteration took place. They regarded them- 
i; selves as a separate people. They had com- 
| mon religious rites, and common principles of 
public law, in which foreigners had no part. 
| In all their political systems, monarchical, aris- 
| tocratical, and democratical, there was a strong 
I family likeness. After the retreat of Xerxes 
*nd the fall of Mardonius, national pride ren- 
dered the separation between the Greeks and 
the Barbarians complete. The conquerors con- 
sidered themselves men of a superior breed, 
men who, in their intercourse with neighbour- 
I ing nations, were to teach, and not to learn. 
IThey looked for nothing out of themselves. 
They borrowed nothing. They translated no- 
thing. We cannot call to mind a single ex- 
pression of any Greek writer earlier than the 
age of Augustus, indicating an opinion that 
[any thing worth reading could be written in 
jany language except his own. The feelings 
[which sprung from national glory were not 
altogether extinguished by national degrada- 
tion. They were fondly cherished through 
i ages of slavery and shame. The literature of 
Rome herself was regarded with contempt by 
those who had fled before her arms, and who 
bowed beneath her fasces. Voltaire says, in 
me of his six thousand pamphlets, that he was 
he first person who told the French that Eng- 
land had produced eminent men besides the 
Duke of Marlborough. Down to a very late 
P* rio( Mhe Greeks seem to have stood in need 
bf similar information with respect to their 
masters. With Paulus J3milius, Sylla, and 
Caesar, they were well acquainted. But the 
jaotions which they entertained respecting Ci- 
sero and Virgil were, probably, not unlike 
5 



those which Boileau may have formed about 
Shakspeare. Dionysius lived in the most 
splendid age of Latin poetry and eloquence. 
He was a critic, and, after the manner of his 
age, an able critic. He studied the language 
of Rome, associated with its learned men, and 
compiled its history. Yet he seems to have 
thought its literature valuable only for the pur- 
pose of illustrating its antiquities. His read- 
ing appears to have been confined to its public 
records, and to a few old annalists. Once, and 
but once, if we remember rightly, he quotes 
Ennius, to solve a question of etymology. He 
has written much on the art of oratory ;"yet he 
has not mentioned the name of Cicero. 

The Romans submitted to the pretensions of 
a race which they despised. Their epic poet, 
while he claimed for them pre-eminence in the 
arts of government and war, acknowledged 
their inferiority in taste, eloquence, and science. 
Men of letters affected to understand the Greek 
language better than their own. Pomponius 
preferred the honour of becoming an Athenian, 
by intellectual naturalization, to all the distinc- 
tions which were to be acquired in the politi- 
cal contests of Rome. His great friend com- 
posed Greek poems and memoirs. It is well 
known that Petrarch considered that beautiful 
language in which his sonnets are written, as 
a barbarous jargon, and intrusted his fame tc 
those wretched Latin hexameters, which, lur- 
ing the last four centuries, have scarcely found 
four readers. Many eminent Romans appear 
to have felt the same contempt for their native 
tongue as compared with' the Greek. The pre- 
judice continued to a very late period. Julian 
was as partial to the Greek language as Fre- 
derick the Great to the French ; and it seems 
that he could not express himself with ele- 
gance in the dialect of the state which he ruled. 
Even those Latin writers, who did not carry 
this affectation so far, looked on Greece as the 
only fount of knowledge. From Greece they 
derive the measures of their poetry, and indeed, 
all of poetry that can be imported. From 
Greece they borrowed the principles and the 
vocabulary of their philosophy. To the litera- 
ture of other nations they do not seem to have 
paid the slightest attention. The sacred books 
of the Hebrews, for example, books which, con- 
sidered merely as human compositions, are in- 
valuable to the critic, the antiquary, and the 
philosopher, seem to have been utterly unno- 
ticed by them. The peculiarities of Judaism, 
and the rapid growth of Christianity, attracted 
their notice. They made war against the Jews. 
They made laws against the Christians. But 
they never opened the books of Moses. Juve- 
nal quotes the Pentateuch with censure. The 
author of the treatise on the " Sublime" quotes 
it with praise : but both of them quote it erro- 
neously. When we consider what sublime 
poetry, what curious history, what striking and 
peculiar views of the divine nature, and of the 
social duties of men, are to be found in the 
Jewish Scriptures ; when we consider the two 
sects on which the attention of the government 
■was constantly fixed, appealed to those Scrip- 
tures as the rule of their faith and practice, 
this indifference is astonishing. The faci 
seems to be, that the Greeks admired only them- 



b3 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



selves, and that the Romans admired only them- 1 a stormy democracy in the quiet and listless 



selves and the Greeks. Literary men turned 
away with disgust from modes of thought and 
expression so widely different from all that 
they had been accustomed to admire. The ef- 
fect was narrowness and sameness of thought. 
Their minds, if we may so express ourselves, 
bred in and in, and were accordingly cursed 
with barrenness, and degeneracy. No extra- 
neous beauty or vigour was engrafted on the 
decaying stock. By an exclusive attention to 
one class of phenomena, by an exclusive taste 
for one species of excellence, the human intel- 
lect was stunted. Occasional coincidences 
were turned into general rules. Prejudices 
were confounded with i-nstincts. On man, as 
he was found in a particular state of society, 
on government, as it had existed in a particu- 
lar corner of the world, many just observations 
were made ; but of man as man, or government 
as government, little was known. Philosophy 
remained stationary. Slight changes, some- 
times for the worse and sometimes for the bet- 
ter, were made in the superstructure. But no- 
body thought of examining the foundations. 

The vast despotism of the Caesars, gradually 
effacing all national peculiarities, and assimu- 
lating the remotest provinces of the Empire to 
each other, augmented the evil. At the close 
of the third century after Christ, the prospects 
of mankind were fearfully dreary. A system 
of etiquette, as pompously frivolous as that of 
the Escurial, had been established. A sove- 
reign almost invisible ; a crowd of dignitaries 
minutely distinguished by badges and titles ; 
rhetoricians who said nothing but what had 
been said ten thousand times ; schools in which 
nothing was taught but what had been known 
for ages — such was the machinery provided 
for Ihe government and instruction of the most 
enlightened part of the human race. That great 
community was then in danger of experienc- 
ing a calamity far more terrible than any of 
the quick, inflammatory, destroying maladies, to 
which nations are liable — a tottering, drivelling, 
paralytic longevity, the immortality of the Struld- 
bruga, a Chinese civilization. It would be 
easy to indicate many points of resemblance 
between the subjects of Diocletian and the 
people of that Celestial Empire, where, during 
many centuries, nothing has been learned or 
unlearned; where government, where educa- 
tion, where the whole system of life is a cere- 
mony; where knowledge forgets to increase 
and multiply, and, like the talent buried in the 
earth, or the pound wrapped up in the napkin, 
experiences neither waste nor augmentation. 
The torpor was broken by two great revolu- 
tions, the one moral, the other political; the 
one from within, the other from without. The 
victory of Christianity over Paganism, consi- 
dered with relation to this subject only, was 
of great importance. It overthrew the old 
system of morals, and with it much of the old 
system of metaphysics. It furnished the ora- 
tor with new topics of declamation, and the lo- 
gician with new points of controversy. Above 
all, it introduced a new principle, of which the 
operation was constantly felt in every part of 
society. It stirred the stagnant mass from the 
niiic't iepths. It excited all the passions of 



population of an overgrown empire. The fear 
of heresy did what the sense of oppression 
could not do ; it changed men, accustomed ti 
be turned over like sheep from tyrant to tyrant^ 
into devoted partisans and obstinate rebels. 
The tones of an eloquence which had been 
silent for ages resounded from the pulpit of 
Gregory. A spirit which had been extinguished 
on the plains of Philippi revived in Athanasius 
and Ambrose. 

Yet even this remedy was not sufficiently 
violent for the disease. It did not prevent the 
empire of Constantinople from relapsing, after 
a short paroxysm of excitement, into a state of 
stupefaction to which history furnishes scarce- 
ly any parallel. We there find that a polished 
society, a society in which a most intricate 
and elaborate system of jurisprudence was es- 
tablished, in which the arts of luxury were 
well/understood, in which the works of the great 
ancient writers were preserved and studied, 
existed for nearly a thousand years without 
making one great discovery in science, or pro- 
ducing one book which is read by any but 
curious inquirers. There were tumults, too, 
and controversies, and wars in abundance, 
and these things, bad as they are in tnom 
selves, have generally been favourable to ihe 
progress of the intellect. But here they tor 
mented without stimulating. The waters were 
troubled, but no healing influence descended. 
The agitations resembled the grinnings and 
writhings of a galvanized corpse, not the 
struggles of an athletic man. 

From this miserable state the Western Em 
pire was saved by the fiercest and most de- 
stroying visitation with which God has ever 
chastened his creatures— the invasion of the 
northern nations. Such a cure was required 
for such a distemper. The Fire of London, it 
has been observed, was a blessing. It burned 
down the city, but it burned out the plague. 
The same may be said of the tremendous de- 
vastation of the Roman dominions. It anni- 
hilated the noisome recesses in which lurked 
the seeds of great moral maladies ; it cleared 
an atmosphere fatal to the health and vigoui 
of the human mind. It cost Europe a thou- 
sand years of barbarism to escape the fate of 
China. 

At length the terrible purification was ac- 
complished; and the second civilization of 
mankind commenced, under circumstances 
which afforded a strong security that it would 
never retrograde and never pause. Europe 
was now a great federal community. Her 
numerous states were united by the easy ties 
of international law and a common religion. 
Their institutions, their languages, their man- 
ners, their tastes in literature, their modes of 
education, were widely different. Their con- 
nection was close enough to allow of mutual 
observation and improvement, yet not so close 
as to destroy the idioms of natural opinion and 
feeling. 

The balance of moral and intellectual influ- 
ence, thus established between the nations ot 
Europe, is far more important than the balance 
of political power. Indeed, we are inclined f 
think that the latter is valuable principally be- 



HISTORY. 



03 



i cause it tends to maintain the former. The 
! civilized world has thus been preserved from 
, a uniformity of character fatal to all improve- 
ment. Every part of it has been illuminated 
i with light reflected from every other. Compe- 
; tition has produeed activity where monopoly 
would have produced sluggishness. The num- 
ber of experiments in moral science which the 
speculator has an opportunity of witnessing 
has been increased beyond all calculation, 
i Society and human nature, instead of being 
: seen in a single point of view, are presented 
to him under ten thousand different aspects. 
I By observing the manners of surrounding na- 
tions, by studying their literature, by compar- 
ing it with that of his own country and of the 
! ancient republics, he is enabled to correct 
those errors into which the most acute men must 
fall when they reason from a single species to 
a genus. He learns to distinguish what is 
local from.what is universal ; what is transi- 
' tory from what is eternal ; to discriminate be- 
tween exceptions and rules ; to trace the ope- 
ration of disturbing causes ; to separate those 
general principles which are always true and 
everywhere applicable, from the accidental 
circumstances with which in every community 
they are blended, and with which, in an iso- 
I lated community, they are confounded by the 
most philosophical mind. 
Hence it is that, in generalization, the writ- 
I ers of modern times have far surpassed those 
i of antiquity. The historians of our own coun- 
try are unequalled in depth and precision of 
| reason; and even in the works of our mere 
j: compilers we often meet with speculations be- 
yond the reach of Thucydides or Tacitus. 
But it must at the same time be admitted 
| : that they have characteristic faults, so closely 
I connected with their characteristic merits and 
I of such magnitude that it may well be doubted 
j whether, on the whole, this department of lite- 
rature has gained or lost during the last two- 
and-twenty centuries. 

The best nistorians of later times have been 
seduced from truth, not by their imagination, 
but by their reason. They far excel their pre- 
decessors in the art of deducing general, prin- 
ciples from facts. But unhappily they have 
fallen into the error of distorting facts to suit 
general principles. They arrive at a theory 
I from looking at some of the phenomena, and 
j the remaining phenomena they strain or cur- 
j.tail to suit the theory. For this purpose it is 
not necessary that they should assert what is 
I absolutely false, for all questions in morals 
and politics are questions of comparison and 
iegree. Any proposition which does not in- 
t'oive a contradiction in terms may, by possi- 
bility, be true ; and if all the circumstances 
f which raise a probability in its favour be stated 
1 md enforced, and those which lead to an op- 
i posite conclusion be omitted or lightly passed 
>ver, it may appear to be demonstrated. In 
;very human character and transaction there 
I ;.s a mixture of good and evil; — a little exagge- 
ration, a little suppression, a judicious use of 
;pithets, a watchful and searching skepticism 
with respect to the evidence on one side, a con- 
renient credulity with respect to every report 
>r tradition on the other, may easily make a 



saint of Laud, or a tyrant of Henry the 

Fourth. 

This species of misrepresentation abounds 
in the most valuable works of modern histo- 
rians. Herodotus tells his story like a slovenly 
witness, who, heated by partialities and preju- 
dices, unacquainted with the established rules 
of evidence, and uninstructed as to the obliga- 
tions of his oath, confounds what he imagines 
with what he has seen and heard, and brings 
out fact's, reports, conjectures, and fancies, in 
one mass. Hume is an accomplished advo- 
cate. Without positively asserting much more 
than he can prove, he gives prominence to all 
the circumstances which support his case ; he 
glides lightly over those which are unfavour- 
able to it; his own witnesses are applauded 
and encouraged; the statements which seem 
to throw discredit on them are controverted ; 
the contradictions into which they fall are ex- 
plained away; a clear and connected abstract 
of their evidence is given. Every thing that 
is offered on the other side is scrutinized with 
the utmost severity; every suspicious circum- 
stance is a ground for comment and invective ; 
what cannot be denied is extenuated or passed 
by without notice; concessions even are some- 
times made; but this insidious candour only in- 
creases the effect of the vast mass of sophistry. 
We have mentioned Hume as the ablest and 
most popular writer of his class; but the charge 
which we have brought against him is one tc 
which all our most distinguished historians are 
in some degree obnoxious. Gibbon, in particu- 
lar, deserves very severe censure. Of all the nil. 
merous culprits, however, none is more deeply 
guilty than Mr. Mitford. We willingly acknow- 
ledge the obligations which are due to his ta- 
lents and industry. The modern historians of 
Greece had been in the habit of writing as ii 
the world had learned nothing new during th^ 
last sixteen hundred years. Instead of illus- 
trating the events which they narrated by the 
philosophy of a more enlightened age, they 
judged of antiquity by itself alone. They 
seemed to think that notions, long driven from 
every other corner of literature, had a pre- 
scriptive right to occupy this last fastness. 
They considered all the ancient historians as 
equally authentic. They scarcely made any 
distinction between him who related events al 
which he had himself been present, and him 
who five hundred years after composed a phi 
losophical romance, for a society which hac 
in the interval undergone a complete change 
It was all Greek, and all true ! The centuries 
which separated Plutarch from Thucydjdes 
seemed as nothing to men who lived ir. an age 
so remote. The distance of time produced an 
error similar to that which is sometimes pro- 
duced by distance of place. There are many 
good ladies who think that a<?l the people in 
India live together, and who charge a friend 
setting out for Calcutta with kind messages to 
Bombay. To Rollin and Barthelemi, in the 
same manner, all the classics were contem- 
poraries. 

Mr. Mitford cei tainly introduced great im ■ 
provements ; he showed us that men who 
wrote in Greek and Latin sometimes told lies ; 
he showed us that ancient history might fc 



64 



MAC AUI. AY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



relate. I in such a manner as to furnish not 
only allusions to schoolboys, but important 
lessons to statesmen. From that love of the- 
atrical effect and high flown sentiment which 
had poisoned almost every other work on the 
same subject, his book is perfectly free. But 
his passion for a theory as false, and far more 
ungenerous, led him substantially to violate 
truth in every page. Statements unfavour- 
able to democracy are made with unhesitating 
confidence, and with the utmost bitterness of 
language. Every charge brought against a 
monarch, or an aristocracy, is sifted with the 
utmost care. If it cannot be denied, some 
palliating supposition is suggested, or we are 
at least reminded that some circumstances 
now unknown may have justified what at pre- 
sent appears unjustifiable. Two events are 
reported by the same author in the same sen- 
tence ; their truth rests on the same testimony ; 
but the one supports the darling hypothesis, 
and the other seems inconsistent with it. The 
one is taken and the other is left. 

The practice of distorting narrative into a 
conformity with theory, is a vice not so unfa- 
vourable, as at first sight it may appear, to 
the interest of political science. We have 
compared the writers who indulge in it to 
advocates ; and we may add, that their con- 
flicting fallacies, like those of advocates, cor- 
rect each other. It has always been held, in 
the most enlightened nations, that a tribunal 
will decide, a judicial question most fairly, 
when it has heard two able men argue, as un- 
fairly as possible, on the two opposite sides of 
it ; and we are inclined to think that this opi- 
nion is just. Sometimes, it is true, superior 
eloquence and dexterity will make the worse 
appear the better reason; but it is at least 
certain that the judge will be compelled to 
contemplate the case under two different 
aspects. It is certain that no important con- 
sideration will altogether escape notice. 

This is at present the state of history. The 
poet laureate appears for the Church of Eng- 
land, Lingard for the Church of Rome. Brodie 
has moved to set aside the verdicts obtained 
by Hume; and the cause in which Mitford 
succeeded is, we understand, about to be re- 
heard. In the midst of these disputes, how- 
ever, history proper, if we may use the- term, 
is disappearing. The high, grave, impartial 
summing up of Thucydides is nowhere to be 
"bund. 

While our historians are practising all the 
arts of controversy, they miserably neglect the 
art of narration, the art of interesting the affec- 
tions, and presenting pictures to the imagina- 
tion. That a writer may produce these effects 
without violating truth is sufficiently proved 
by many excellent biographical works. The 
immense popularity which well-written books 
of this kind have acquired, deserves the serious 
consideration of historians. Voltaire's Charles 
the Twelfth, Marmontel's Memoirs, Boswell's 
Life of Johnson, Southey's account of Nelson, 
are perused with delight by the most frivolous 
and indolent. Whenever any tolerable book 
of the same description makes its appearance, 
the circulating libraries are mobbed; the book 
societies are in commotion the new novel lies 



uncut ; the magazines and newspapers fill theii 
columns with extracts. In the mean time his. 
tories of great empires, written by men of 
eminent ability, lie unread on the shelves of 
ostentatious libraries. 

The writers of history seem to entertain an 
aristocratical contempt for the writers of me- 
moirs. They think it beneath the dignity of 
men who describe the revolutions of nations, 
to dwell on the details which constitute the 
charm of biography. They have imposed on 
themselves a code of conventional decencies 
as absurd as that which has been the bane of 
the French drama. The most characteristic 
and interesting circumstances are omitted or 
softened down, because, as we are told, they 
are too trivial for the majesty of history. The 
majesty of history seems to resemble the ma- 
jesty of the poor King of Spain, who died a 
martyr to ceremony, because the proper digni- 
taries were not at hand to render him assist- 
ance. 

That history would be more amusing if this 
etiquette were relaxed, will, we suppose, be 
acknowledged. But would it be less dignified, 
or less useful 1 What do we mean, when we 
say that one past event is important, and an- 
other insignificant] No past event has any 
intrinsic importance. The knowledge of it is 
valuable only as it leads us to form just cal- 
culations with respect to the future. A history 
which does not serve this purpose, though it 
may be filled with battles, treaties, and com- 
motions, is as useless as the series of turn- 
pike-tickets collected by Sir Mathew Mite. 

Let us suppose that Lord Clarendon, instead 
of filling hundreds of folio pages with copies 
of state papers, in which the same assertions 
and contradictions are repeated, till the reader 
is overpowered with weariness, had conde- 
scended to be the Boswell of the Long Parlia- 
ment. Let us suppose that he had exhibited 
to us the wise and lofty self-government of 
Hampden, leading while he seemed to follow, 
and propounding unanswerable arguments in 
the strongest forms, with the modest air of an 
inquirer anxious for information; the delu- 
sions which misled the noble spirit of Vane; 
the coarse fanaticism which concealed the yet 
loftier genius of Cromwell, destined to control 
a mutinous army and a factious people, to abase 
the flag of Holland, to arrest the victorious 
arms of Sweden, and to hold the balance firm 
between the rival monarchies of France and 
Spain. Let us suppose that he had made his 
Cavaliers and Roundheads talk in their own 
style •, that he had reported some of the ribal- 
dry of Rupert's pages, and some of the cant 
of Harrison and Fleetwood. Would not his 
work in that case have been more interesting 1 
Would it not have been more accurate 1 

A history in which every particular incident 
may be true, may on the whole be false. The 
circumstances which have most influence on 
the happiness of mankind, the changes of 
manners and morals, the transition of com- i 
munities from poverty to wealth, from know- 
ledge to ignorance, from ferocity to humanity 
— these are, for the most part, noiseless revo 
lutions. Their progress is rarely indicated by 
what historians are pleased to call important 



events They are not achieved by armies, or 
enacted by senates. They are sanctioned by 
no treaties, and recorded in no archives. They 
are carried on in every school, in every church, 
behind ten thousand counters, at ten thousand 
firesides. The upper current of society pre- 
sents no certain criterion by which we can 
judge of the direction in which the under cur- 
rent flows. We read of defeats and victories. 
But we know that nations may be miserable 
amidst victories, and prosperous amidst de- 
feats. We read of the fall of wise ministers, 
and of the rise of profligate favourites. But 
we must remember how small a proportion 
the good or evil effected by a single statesman 
can bear to the good or evil of a great social 
system. 

Bishop Watson compares a geologist to a 
gnat mounted on an elephant, and laying down 
theories as to the whole internal structure of 
the vast animal, from the phenomena of the 
hide. The comparison is unjust to the geolo- 
gists; but it is very applicable to those his- 
torians who write as if the body politic were 
homogeneous, who look only on the surface 
of affairs, and never think of the mighty and 
various organization which lies deep below. 

In the works of such writers as these, Eng- 
land, at the close of the Seven Years' War, is 
in the highest state of prosperity. At the 
close of the American War, she is in a mise- 
rable and degraded condition ; as if the people 
were not on the whole as rich, as well go- 
verned, and as well educated, at the latter 
period as at the former. We have read 
books called Histories of England, under the 
reign of George the Second, in which the rise 
of Methodism is not even mentioned. A hun- 
dred years hence this breed of authors will, we 
hope, be extinct. If it should still exist, the 
late ministerial interregnum will be described 
in terms which will seem to imply that all go- 
vernment was at an end ; that the social con- 
tract was annulled, and that the hand of every 
i man was against his neighbour, until the wis- 
dom and virtue of the new cabinet educed 
order out of the chaos of anarchy. We are 
! quite certain that misconceptions as gross 
prevail at this moment, respecting many im- 
portant parts of our annals. 

The effect of historical reading is analogous, 
'• m many respects, to that produced by foreign 
travel. The student, like the tourist, is trans- 
ported into a new state of society. He sees 
■ new fashions. He hears new modes of ex- 
pression. His mind is enlarged by contem- 
plating the wide diversities of laws, of morals, 
and of manners. But men may travel farj 
and return with minds as contracted as if they 
had never stirred from their own market-town. 
Ih the same manner, men may know the dates 
of many battles, and the genealogies of many 
royal houses, and yet be no wiser. Most peo- 
ple look at past times, as princes look at 
foreign countries. More than one illustrious 
stranger has landed on our island amidst the 
shouts of a mob, has dined with the King, has 
hunted with the master of the stag-hounds, has 
seen the Guards reviewed, and a knight of the 
'garter installed; has cantered along Regent 
Street: has visited St. Paul's, and noted down 



HISTORY 66 

its dimensions, and has then departed, think 
ing that he has seen England. He has, in fact, 
seen a few public buildings, public men, and 
public ceremonies. But of the vast and com 
plex system of society, of the fine shades of 
national character, of the practical operation 
of government and laws, he knows nothing. 
He who would understand these things rightly 
must not confine his observations to palaces 
and solemn days. He must see ordinary men 
as they appear in their ordinary business and 
in their ordinary pleasures. He must mingle 
in the crowds of the exchange and the coffee- 
house. He must obtain admittance to the 
convivial table and the domestic hearth. He 
must bear with vulgar expressions. He must 
not shrink from exploring even the »etreats of 
misery. He who wishes to understand the 
condition of mankind in former ages, must 
proceed on the same principle. If he attends 
only to public transactions, to wars, con- 
gresses, and debates, his studies will be as un- 
profitable as the travels of those imperial, 
royal, and serene sovereigns, who form their 
judgment of our island from having gone in 
state to a few fine sights, and from having held 
formal conferences with a few great officers. 

The perfect historian is he in whose work 
the character and spirit of an age is exhibited 
in miniature. He relates no fact, he attributes 
no expression to his characters, which is not 
authenticated by sufficient testimony. But by 
judicious selection, rejection, and arrange- 
ment, he gives to truth those attractions which 
have been usurped by fiction. In his narra- 
tive, a due subordination is observed ; some 
transactions are prominent, others retire. But 
the scale on which he represents then is in- 
creased or diminished, not according to the 
dignity of the persons concerned in them, but 
according to the degree in which they eluci- 
date the condition of society and the nature of 
man. He shows us the court, the camp, and 
the senate. But he shows us also the nation 
He considers no anecdote, no peculiarity of 
manner, no familiar saying, as too insignifi- 
cant for his notice, which is not too insigni- 
ficant to illustrate the operation of laws, of 
religion, and of education, and to mark the 
progress of the human mind. Men will no: 
merely be described, but will be made inti 
mately known to us. The changes of man- 
ners will be indicated, not merely by a few 
general phrases, or a few extracts from sta- 
tistical documents, but by appropriate images 
presented in every line. 

If a man, such as we are supposing, should 
write the history of England, he would as- 
suredly not omit the battles, the sieges, the 
negotiations, the seditions, the ministerial 
changes. But with these he wcuid intersperse 
the details which are the charm of historical 
romances. At Lincoln Cathedral there is a 
beautiful painted window, which was made by 
an apprentice out of the pieces of glass which 
had been rejected by his master. It is so far 
superior to every other in the church, that, 
according to the *radition, the vanquished 
artist killed himselt from mortification. Sir 
Walter Scott, in the same manner, has used 
those fragments of truth which historians have 



66 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



scornfully thrown behind them, in a manner 
which may well excite their envy. He has 
constructed out of their gleanings works 
which, even considered as histories, are scarce- 
ly less valuable than theirs. But a truly great 
historian would reclaim those materials which 
the novelist has appropriated. The history 
of the government and the history of the peo- 
ple would be exhibited in that mode in which 
alone they can be exhibited justly, in insepa- 
rable conjunction and intermixture. We should 
not then have to look for the Avars and votes 
of the Puritans in Clarendon, and for their 
phraseology in Old Mortality ; for one half of 
King James in Hume, and for the other half 
in the Fortunes of Nigel. 

The early part of our imaginary history 
would be rich with colouring from romance, 
ballad, and chronicle. We should find our- 
selves in the company of knights such as 
those of Froissart, and of pilgrims such as 
those who rode with Chaucer from the Tabard. 
Society would be shown from the highest to 
the lowest — from the royal cloth of state to the 
den of the sutlaw ; from the throne of the le- 
gate to the chimney-corner where the begging 
friar regaled himself. Palmers, minstrels, 
crusaders — the stately monastery, with the 
good cheer in its refectory, and the high-mass 
in its chapel — the manor-house, with its hunt- 
ing and hawking — the tournament, with the 
heralds and ladies, the trumpets and the cloth 
of gold — would give truth and life to the re- 
presentation. We should perceive, in a thou- 
sand slight touches, the importance of the pri- 
vileged burgher, and the fierce and haughty 
spirit which swelled under the collar of the 
degraded villain. The revival of letters would 
not merely be described in a few magnificent 
periods. We should discern, in innumerable 
particulars, the fermentation of mind, the eager 
appetite for knowledge, which distinguished 
the sixteenth from the fifteenth century. In 
the Reformation we should see, not merely a 
schism which changed the ecclesiastical con- 
stitution of England, and the mutual relations 
of the European powers, but a moral war 
which raged in every family, which set the 
father against the son, and the son against the 
father, the mother against the daughter, and 
the daughter against the mother. Henry 
would be painted with the skill of Tacitus. 
We should have the change of his character 
from his profuse and joyous youth to his 
savage and imperious old age. We should 
perceive the gradual progress of selfish and 
tyrannical passions, in a mind not naturally 
insensible or ungenerous ; and to the last we 
should detect some remains of that open and 
noble temper which endeared him to a people 
whom he oppressed, struggling with the hard- 
ness of despotism and the irritability of dis- 
ease. We should see Elizabeth in all her 
weakness, and in all her strength, surrounded 
by the handsome favourites whom she never 
trusted, and the wise old statesmen, whom she 
never dismissed, uniting in herself the most 
contradictory, qualities of both her parents — 
the coquetry, the caprice, the petty malice of 
Anne — the haughty and resolute spirit of 
Henry. We have no hesitation in saying, that 



a great artist might produce a portrait of this 
remarkable woman, at least as striking as that 
in the novel of Kenilworth, without employing 
a single trait not authenticated by ample tes- 
timony. In the mean time, we should see 
arts cultivated, wealth accumulated, the conve- 
niences of life improved. We should see the 
keeps, where nobles, insecure themselves 
spread insecurity around them, gradually 
giving place to the halls of peaceful opulence, 
to the oriels of Longleat, and the stately pin- 
nacles of Burleigh. We should see towns ex- 
tended, deserts cultivated, the hamlets of fish- 
ermen turned into wealthy havens, the meal 
of the peasant improved, and his hut more 
commodiously furnished. We should see 
those opinions and feelings which produced 
the great struggle against the house of Stuart, 
slowly growing up in the bosom of private 
families, before they manifested themselves in 
Parliamentary debates. Then would come 
the Civil War. Those skirmishes, on which 
Clarendon dwells so minutely, would be told, 
as Thucydides would have told them, with 
perspicuous conciseness. They are merely 
connecting links. But the great character- 
istics of the age, the loyal enthusiasm of the 
brave English gentry, the fierce licentiousness 
of the swearing, dicing, drunken reprobates, 
whose excesses disgraced the royal cause — 
the austerity of the Presbyterian Sabbaths in 
the city, the extravagance of the Independent 
preachers in the camp, the precise garb, the 
severe countenance, the petty scruples, the 
affected accent, the absurd names and phrases 
which marked the Puritans — the valour, the 
policy, the public spirit, which lurked beneath 
these ungraceful disguises, the dreams of the 
raving Fifth Monarchyman, the dreams, scarce 
ly less wild, of the philosophic republican — all 
these would enter into the representation, and 
render it at once more exact and more strik- 
ing. 

The instruction derived from history thus 
written would be of a vivid and practical cha- 
racter. It would be received by the imagina- 
tion as well as by the reason. It would be not 
merely traced on the mind, but branded into 
it. Many truths, too, would be learned, which 
can be learned in no other manner. As the 
history of states is generally written, the great- 
est and most momentous revolutions seem to 
come upon them like supernatural inflictions, 
without warning or cause. But the fact is, that 
such revolutions are almost always the conse- 
quences of moral changes, which have gra- 
dually passed on the mass of the community, 
and which ordinarily proceed far, before their 
progress is indicated by any public measure. 
An intimate knowledge of the domestic history 
of nations is therefore absolutely necessary to 
the prognosis of political events. A narrative, 
defective in this respect, is as useless as a me- 
dical treatise which should pass by all the 
symptoms attendant on the early stage of a 
disease, and mention only what occurs when 
the patient is beyond the reach of remedies. 

An historian, such as we have been attempt- 
ing to describe, would indeed be an intellectual 
prodigy. In his mind, powers, scarcely com« 
patible with each other, must be tempered int 



I 



HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 



67 



an exquis'te harmony. We shall sooner see ment of the mind. .It cannot indeed produce 



another Shakspeare or another Homer. The 
highest" excellence, to which any single faculty 
can be brought, would be less surprising than 
such a happy and delicate combination of 
qualities. Yet the contemplation of imaginary 
models is not an unpleasant or useless employ- 



perfection, but it produces improvement, and 
nourishes that generous and liberal fastidious 
ness, which is not inconsistent with the strong- 
est sensibility to merit, and which, while it ex 
alts our conceptions of the art, does not renclei 
us unjust to the artist. 



HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTOEY.* 



[Edinburgh Review, 1828.] 



History, at least in its state of imaginary 
perfection, is a compound of poetry and philo- 
sophy. It impresses general truths on the 
mind by a vivid representation of particular 
charactersfrnd incidents. But, in fact, the two 
hostile elements of which it consists have 
never been known to form a perfect amalgama- 
tion ; and at length, in our own time, they have 
been completely and professedly separated. 
Good histories, in the proper sense of the word, 
we have not. But we have good historical ro- 
mances and good historical essays. The ima- 
gination and the reason, if we may use a legal 
metaphor, have made partition of a province 
sf literature of which they were formerly 
seised per my et pour tout ; and now they hold 
their respective portions in severalty, instead 
cf holding the whole in common. 

To make the past present, to bring the dis- 
tant near, to place us in the society of a great 
man, or on the eminence which overlooks the 
field of a mighty battle, to invest with the reali- 
ty of human flesh and blood beings whom we 
are too much inclined to consider as personi- 
fied qualities in an allegory, to call up our ances- 
tors before us with all their peculiarities of 
language, manners, and garb, to show us over 
their houses, to seat us at their tables, to rum- 
mage their old-fashioned wardrobes, to explain 
the uses of their ponderous furniture — these 
parts of the duty which properly belongs to the 
historian have been appropriated by the histo- 
rical novelist. On the other hand, to extract 
the philosophy of history — to direct our judg- 
ment of events and men — to trace the connec- 
tion of causes and effects, and to draw from the 
occurrences of former times general lessons of 
moral and political wisdom, has become the 
business of a distinct class of writers. 

Of the two kinds of composition into which 
history has been thus divided, the one may be 
compared to a map, the other to a painted land- 
scape. The picture, though it places the ob- 
ject before us, does not enable us to ascertain 
with accuracy the form and dimensions of its 
component parts, the distances, and the angles. 
The map is not a work of imitative art. It 
presents no scene to the imagination ; but it 
gives us exact information as to the bearings 
of the various points, and is a more useful 

* The Constitutional History of England, from the rfc- 
teision of Henry VII. to the Death of Gvrire II. By 
Henry Hallam. In 2 vols. 1827. 



companion to the traveller or the general than 
the painting could be, though it were the grand- 
est that ever Rosa peopled with outlaws, or the 
sweetest over which Claude ever poured the 
mellow effulgence of a setting sun. 

It is remarkable that the practice of separat 
ing the two ingredients of which history is 
composed has become prevalent on the Conti- 
nent as well as in this country. Italy has al- 
ready produced an historical novel, of high merit 
and of still higher promise. In France, the 
practice has been carried to a length some- 
what whimsical. M. Sismondi publishes a 
grave and stately history, very valuable, and a 
little tedious. He then sends forth as a com- 
panion to it a novel, in which he attempts tc 
give a lively representation of characters and 
manners. This course, as it seems to us, has 
all the disadvantages of a division of labour, 
and none of its advantages. We understand 
the expediency of keeping the functions of 
cook and coachman distinct — the dinner will 
be better dressed, and the horses better ma- 
naged. But where the two situations are united, 
as in the Maitre Jaques of Moliere, we do not 
see that the matter is much mended by the so- 
lemn form with which the pluralist passes from 
one of his employments to the other. 

We manage these things better in England. 
Sir Walter Scott gives us a novel ; Mr. Hallam 
a critical and argumentative history. Both are 
occupied with the same matter. But the for- 
mer looks at it with the eye of a sculptor. His 
intention is to give an express and lively 
image of its external form. The latter is an 
anatomist. His task is to dissect the subject to 
its inmost recesses, and to lay bare before us all 
the springs of motion and all the causes of de- 
cay. 

Mr. Hallam is, on the whole, far better quali- 
fied than any other writer of our time for the 
office which he has undertaken. He has great 
industry and great acuteness. His knowledge 
is extensive, various, and profound. His mind 
is equally distinguished by the amplitude of 
its- grasp and by the delicacy of its tact. His 
speculations have none of that vagueness 
which is the common fault of political philoso 
phy. On the contrary, they are strikingly 
practical. They teach us not only the general 
rule, but the mode of applying it to solve par. 
ticular cases. In this respect they often re 
mind us of the Discourses of Machiave>.?i 



08 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



The style is sometimes harsh, and sometimes 
obscure. We have also here and there remark- 
ed a little of that unpleasant trick which Gib- 
bon brought into fashion — the trick, we mean, 
of narrating by implication and allusion. Mr. 
Hallam, however, has an excuse which Gib- 
bon had not. His work is designed for readers 
who are already acquainted with the ordinary 
books on English history, and who can there- 
fore unriddle these little enigmas without dif- 
ficulty. The manner of the book is, on the 
whole, not unworthy of the matter. The lan- 
guage, even where most faulty, is weighty and 
massive, and indicates strong sense in every 
line. It often rises to an eloquence, not florid 
or impassioned, but high, grave, and sober ; 
such as would become a state paper, or a judg- 
ment delivered by a great magistrate, a Somers, 
or a D'Aguesseau. 

In this respect the character of Mr. Hallam's 
mind corresponds strikingly with that of his 
style. His work is eminently judicial. Its 
whole spirit is that of the bench, not of the 
bar. He sums up with a calm, steady impar- 
tiality, turning neither to the right nor to the 
left, glossing over nothing, exaggerating no- 
thing, while the advocates on both sides are al- 
ternately biting their lips to hear their conflict- 
ing mis-statements and sophisms exposed. On 
a general survey, we do not scruple to pro- 
nounce the Constitutional History the most 
impartial book that we ever read. We think 
it the more incumbent on us to bear this testi- 
mony strongly at first setting out, because, in 
the course of our remarks, we shall think it 
right to dwell principally on those parts of it 
from which we dissent. 

There is one peculiarity about Mr. Hallam, 
which, while it adds to the value of his writings, 
will, we fear, take away something from their 
popularity. He is less of a worshipper than 
any historian whom we can call to mind. 
Every political sect has its esoteric and its 
exoteric school ; its abstract doctrines for the 
initiated, its visible symbols, its imposing 
forms, its mythological fables for the vulgar. 
It assists the devotion of those who are unable 
to raise themselves to the contemplation of 
pure truths, by all the devices of Pagan or 
Papal superstition. It has its altars and its 
deified heroes, its relics and pilgrimages, its 
canonized martyrs and confessors, its festivals 
ind its legendary miracles. Our pious ances- 
tors, we are told, deserted the High Altar of 
Canterbury, to lay all their oblations on the 
shrine of St. Thomas. In the same manner the 
great and comfortable doctrines of the Tory 
creed, those particularly which 'relate to re- 
f. irictions on worship and on trade, are adored 
by squires and rectors, in Pitt Clubs, under the 
name of a minister, who was as bad a repre- 
sentative of the system which has been chris- 
uaed after him, as Becket of the spirit of the 
Gospel. And, on the other hand, the cause for 
which Hampden bled on the field, and Sidney 
on the scaffold, is enthusiastically toasted by 
many an honest radical, who would be puzzled 
to explain the difference between Ship-money 
and the Habeas Corpus act. It may be added, 
ihat, as in religion, so in politics, few, even of 
"^1%? Tho are enlightened, enough to compre- 



hend the meaning latent under the emblems ol 
their faith, can resist the contagion of the 
popular superstition. Often, when they flatter 
themselves that they are merely feigning a 
compliance with the prejudices of the vulgar, 
they are themselves under the influence cf 
those very prejudices. It probably was not 
altogether on grounds of expediency, that So- 
crates taught his followers to honour the gods 
whom the state honoured, and bequeathed a 
cock to Esculapius with his dying breath. So 
there is often a portion of willing credulity and 
enthusiasm in the veneration which the most 
discerning men pay to their political idols. 
From the very nature of man it must be so. 
The faculty by which we inseparably associate 
ideas which have often been presented to us 
in conjunction, is not under the absolute con- 
trol of the will. It may be quickened into 
morbid activity. It may be reasoned into 
sluggishness. But in a certain degree it will 
always exist. The almost absolute mastery 
which Mr. Hallam has obtained over feelings 
of this class, is perfectly astonishing to us ; 
and will, we believe, be not only astonishing, 
but offensive to many of his readers. It must 
particularly disgust those people who, in their 
speculations on politics, are not reasoners, but 
fanciers ; whose opinions, even when sincere, 
are not produced, according to the ordinary 
law of intellectual births, by induction and in- 
ference, but are equivocally generated by the 
heat of fervid tempers out of the overflowings 
of tumid imaginations. A man of this class is 
always in extremes. He cannot be a friend tc 
liberty without calling for a community of 
goods, or a friend to order without taking under 
his protection the foulest excesses of tyranny. 
His admiration oscillates between the most 
worthless of rebels and the most worthless of 
oppressors ; between Marten, the scandal of 
the High Court of Justice, and Laud, the scan- 
dal of the Star-Chamber. He can forgive any 
thing but temperance and impartiality. He 
has a certain sympathy with the violence of 
his opponents, as well as with that of his as- 
sociates. In every furious partisan he sees 
either his present self or his former self, the 
pensioner that is or the Jacobin that has been. 
But he is unable to comprehend a writer who, 
steadily attached to principles, is indifferent 
about names and badges ; who judges of cha- 
racters with equable severity, not altogether 
untinctured with cynicism, but free from the 
slightest touch of passion, party spirit, or ca- 
price. 

We should probably like Mr. Hallam's book 
more, if instead of pointing out, with strict 
fidelity, the bright points and the dark spots 
of both parties, he had exerted himself to 
whitewash the one and to blacken the other. 
But we should certainly prize it far less. 
Eulogy and invective may be had for the 
asking. But for cold rigid justice — the one 
weight and the one measure — we know not 
where else we can look. 

No portion of our annals has been more per 
plexed and misrepresented by writers of dif 
ferent parties, than the history of the Reforma- 
tion. In this labyrinth of falsehood and so 
phistry, the guidance of Mr Hallam is peca 



IIALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 



69 



liarly valuable. It is impossible not to admire 
the evenhanded justice with which he deals 
out castigation to right and left on the rival 
persecutors. 

It is vehemently maintained by some writers 
of the present day, that the government of 
Elizabeth persecuted neither Papists nor Puri- 
tans as such; and occasionally that the severe 
measures which it adopted were dictated, not 
by religious intolerance, but by political ne- 
cessity. Even the excellent account of those 
times, which Mr. Hallam has given, has not 
altogether imposed silence on the authors of 
this fallacy. The title of the Queen, they say, 
was annulled by the Pope ; her throne was 
given to another; her subjects were incited to 
rebellion; her life was menaced; every Ca- 
tholic was bound in conscience to be a traitor ; 
it was therefore against traitors, not against 
Catholics, that the penal laws were enacted. 

That our readers may be the better able to 
appreciate the merits of this defence, we will 
state, as concisely as possible, the substance 
of some of these laws. 

As soon as Elizabeth ascended the throne, 
and before the least hostility to her govern- 
ment had been shown by the Catholic popula- 
tion, an act passed, prohibiting the celebration 
of the rites of the Romish church, on pain of 
forfeiture for the first offence, a year's impri- 
sonment for the second, and perpetual impri- 
sonment for the third. 

A law was next made, in 1562, enacting, that 
all who had ever graduated at the Universities, 
or received holy orders, all lawyers, and all ma- 
gistrates, should take the oath of supremacy 
when tendered to them, on pain of forfeiture, 
and imprisonment during the royal pleasure. 
After the lapse of three months, it might again be 
tendered to them ; and, if it were again refused, 
the recusant was guilty of high treason. A 
prospective law, however severe, framed to 
exclude Catholics from the liberal professions, 
would have been mercy itself compared with 
this odious act. It is a retrospective statute ; 
it is a retrospective penal statute ; it is a retro- 
spective penal statute against a large class. 
We will not positively affirm that a law of this 
description must always, and under all circum- 
stances, be unjustifiable. But the presumption 
against it is most violent ; nor do we remem- 
ber any crisis, either in our own history, or in 
the history of any other country, which would 
have rendered such a provision necessary. 
But in the present, what circumstances called 
for extraordinary rigour] There might be 
disaffection among the Catholics. The prohi- 
bition of their worship would naturally pro- 
duce it. But it is from their situation, not from 
dieir conduct; from the wrongs which they 
had suffered, not from those which they had 
committed, that the existence of discontent 
among them must be inferred. There were 
libels, no doubt, and prophecies, and rumours, 
and suspicions ; strange grounds for a law in- 
flicting capital penalties, ex post facto, on a 
large order of men. 

Eight years later, the bull of Pius deposing 
Elizabeth produced a third law. This law, to 
which alone, as we conceive, the defence now 
under on r consideration can apply, j rovides, 



that if any Catholic shall convert a Protestara 
to the Romish church, they shall both suffe? 
death, as for high treason. 

We believe that we might safely content 
ourselves with stating the fact, and leaving it 
to the judgment of t every plain Englishman. 
Recent controversies have, however, given so 
much importance to this subject, that we will 
offer a few remarks on it. 

In the first place, the arguments which are 
urged in favour of Elizabeth, apply with much 
greater force to the case of her sister Mary. 
The Catholics did not, at the time of Eliza- 
beth's accession, rise in arms to seat a Pre- 
tender on her throne. But before Mary had 
given, or could give provocation, the most dis- 
tinguished Protestants attempted to set aside 
her rights in favour of the Lady Jane. That 
attempt, and the subsequent insurrection of 
Wyatt, furnished at least as good a plea for 
the burning of Protestants as the conspiracies 
against Elizabeth furnish for the hanging and 
embowelling of Papists. 

The fact is, that both pleas are worthless 
alike. If such arguments are to pass current, 
it will be easy to prove that there was never 
such a thing as religious persecution since 
the creation. For thare never was a religious 
persecution, in which some odious crime was 
not justly or unjustly said to be obviously de- 
ducible from the doctrines of the persecuted 
party. We might say that the Caesars did not 
persecute the Christians ; that they only pu- 
nished men who were charged, rightly or 
wrongly, with burning Rome, and with com 
mitting the foulest abominations in their as 
semblies ; that the refusal to throw frankin- 
cence on the altar of Jupiter was not the 
crime, but only evidence of the crime. We 
might say that the massacre of St. Bartholemew 
was intended to extirpate, not a religious sect, 
but a political party. For, beyond all doubt, 
the proceedings of the Huguenots, from the 
conspiracy of Amboise to the battle of Mon- 
coutour, had given much mort trouble to the 
French monarchy than the Catholics have 
ever given to England since the Reformation ; 
and that too with much less excuse. 

The true distinction is perfectly obvious. 
To punish a man because he has committed a 
crime, or is believed, though unjustly, to have 
committed a crime, is not persecution. To 
punish a man because we infer from the na« 
ture of some doctrine which he holds, or from 
the conduct of other persons who hold the same 
doctrines with him, that he will commit a crime, 
is persecution ; and is, in' every case, foolish 
and wicked. 

When Elizabeth put Ballard and Babington 
to death, she was not persecuting. Nor should 
we have accused her government of persecu- 
tion for passing any law, however severe, 
against overt acts of sedition. But to argue 
that because a man is a Catholic he must 
think it right to murder an heretical sovereign, 
and that because he thinks it right he will at- 
tempt to do it, and then to found on this con« 
elusion a law for punishing him as if he had 
done it, is plain persecution. 

If, indeed, all men reasoned in the same 
manner on the same data, aucl ihvays did what 



70 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Ihey thought it their duty to do, this mode of 
dispensing punishment might be extremely 
judicious. But as people who agree about 
premises often disagree about conclusions, and 
as no man in the world acts up to his own 
standard of right, there are two enormous gaps 
in the logic by which alone penalties for opi- 
nions can be defended. The doctrine of repro- 
bation, in the judgment of many very able 
men, follows by syllogistic necessity from the 
doctrine of election. Others conceive that the 
Antinomian and Manichean heresies directly 
follow from the doctrine of reprobation ; and 
it is very generally thought that licentiousness 
and cruelty of the worst description are likely 
to be the fruits, as they often have been the 
fruits, of Antinomian and Manichean opinions. 
This chain of reasoning, we think, is as per- 
fect in all its parts as that which makes out 
a Papist to be necessarily a traitor. Yet it 
would be rather a strong measure to hang the 
Calvinists, on the ground that if they were 
spared they would infallibly commit all the 
atrocities of Matthias and Knipperdoling. For, 
reason the matter as we may, experience shows 
us that a man may believe in election without 
believing in reprobation, that he may believe 
in reprobation without being an Antinomian, 
and that he may be an Antinomian without 
being a bad citizen. Man, in short, is so in- 
consistent a creature, that it is impossible to 
reason from his belief to his conduct, or from 
one part of his belief to another. 

We do not believe that every Englishman 
who was reconciled to the Catholic church 
would, as a necessary consequence, have 
thought himself justified in deposing or assas- 
sinating Elizabeth. It is not sufficient to say 
that the convert must have acknowledged the 
authority of the Pope, and that the Pope had 
issued a bull against the queen. We know 
through what strange loopholes the human 
mind contrives to escape, when it wishes to 
avoid a disagreeable inference from an admit- 
ted proposition. We know how long the Jan- 
senists contrived to believe the Pope infallible 
in matters of doctrine, and at the same time to 
believe doctrines which he pronounced to be 
heretical. Let it pass, however, that every 
Catholic in the kingdom thought that Eliza- 
beth might be lawfully murdered. Still the 
old maxim, that what is the business of every 
body is the business of nobody, is particularly 
likely to hold good in a case in which a cruel 
death is the almost inevitable consequence of 
making any attempt. 

Of the ten thousand clergymen of the Church 
of England, there is scarcely one who would 
not say that a man who should leave his coun- 
try and friends to preach the gospel among 
savages, and who should, after labouring inde- 
fatigably without any hope of reward, termi- 
nate his life by martyrdom, would deserve the 
warmest admiration. Yet we doubt whether 
ten of the ten thousand ever thought of going 
on such an expedition. Why should we sup- 
pose that conscientious motives, feeble as they 
are constantly found to be in a good cause, 
should be omnipotent for evil? Doubtless 
there was many a jolly Popish priest in the 
old manor-houses of the northern counties, 



who would have admitted in theoi/ the depos* 
ing power of the Pope, but who would not hava 
been ambitious to be stretched on the rack 
even though it were to be used, according tc 
the benevolent proviso of Lord Burleigh, "as 
charitably as such a thing can be ;" or to be 
hanged, drawn, and quartered, even though, by 
that rare indulgence which the queen, of hei 
especial grace, certain knowledge, and mere 
motion, sometimes extended to very mitigated 
cases, he were allowed a fair time to choke 
before the hangman began to grabble in his 
entrails. 

But the laws passed against the Puritans 
had not even the wretched excuse which we 
have been considering. In their case the cruel- 
ty was equal, the danger infinitely less. In fact 
the danger was created solely by the cruelty, 
But it is superfluous to press the argument. By 
no artifice of ingenuity can the stigma of perse- 
cution, the worst blemish of the English church, 
be effaced or patched over. Her doctrines we 
well know do not tend to intolerance. She 
admits the possibility of salvation out of hei 
own pale. But this circumstance, in itself ho- 
nourable to her, aggravates the sin and the 
shame of those who persecuted in her name. 
Dominic and De Monfort did not at least mur- 
der and torture for differences of opinion which 
they considered as trifling. It was to stop an 
infection which, as they believed, hurried tc 
perdition every soul which it seized that they 
employed their fire and steeL The measures 
of the English government with respect to the 
Papists and Puritans sprang from a widely 
different principle. If those who deny that the 
supporters of the Established Church were 
guilty of religious persecution mean only that 
they were not influenced by religious motives, 
we perfectly agree with them. Neither the 
penal code of Elizabeth, nor the more hateful 
system by which Charles the Second attempt- 
ed to force Episcopacy on the Scotch, had an 
origin so noble. Their cause is to be sought 
in some circumstances which attended the Re- 
formation in England — circumstances of which 
the effects long continued to be felt, and may 
in some degree be traced even at the present 
day. 

In Germany, in France, in Switzerland, and 
in Scotland, the contest against the Papal 
power was essentially a religious contest. In 
all these 'countries, indeed, the cause of the 
Reformation, like every other great cause, at- 
tracted to itself many supporters influenced by 
no conscientious principle, many who quitted 
the Established Church only because they 
thought her in danger, many who were weary 
of her restraints, and many who were greedy 
for her spoils. But it was not by these ad- 
herents that the separation was there conduct- 
ed. They were welcome auxiliaries ; their sup- 
port was too often purchased by unworthy 
compliances ; but, however exalted in rank or 
power, they were not the leaders in the enter- 
prise. Men of a widely different description, 
men who redeemed great infirmities and errors 
by sincerity, disinterestedness, energy, and cou- 
rage ; men who, with many of the vices of re- 
volutionary chiefs and of polemic divines, unit« 
ed some of the highest qualities of apostle^ 



HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 



71 



were the real directors. They might be vio- 
ent in innovation, and scurrilous in contro- 
versy. They might sometimes act with inex- 
cusable severity towards opponents, and some- 
times connive disreputably at the vices of 
powerful allies. But fear was not in them, 
nor hypocrisy, nor avarice, nor any petty self- 
ishness. Their one great object was the de- 
molition of the idols, and the purification of the 
sanctuary. If they were too indulgent to the 
failings of eminent men, from whose patronage 
they expected advantage to the church, they 
never flinched before persecuting tyrants and 
hostile armies. If they set the lives of others 
at nought in comparison of their doctrines, 
they were equally ready to throw away their 
own. Such were the authors of the great 
schism on the continent and in the northern 
part of this island. The Elector of Saxony 
and the Landgrave of Hesse, the Prince of 
Conde and the King of Navarre, Moray and 
Morton, njight espouse the Protestant opinions, 
or might pretend to espouse them ; but it was 
from Luther, from Calvin, from Knox, that the 
Reformation took its character. 

England has no such names to show; not 
that she wanted men of sincere piety, of deep 
learning, of steady and adventurous courage. 
But these were thrown into the back-ground. 
Elsewhere men of this character were the prin- 
cipals. Here they acted a Secondary part. 
Elsewhere worldliness was the tool of zeal. 
Here zeal was the tool of worldliness. A king, 
whose character may be best described by say- 
ing that he was despotism itself personified, 
unprincipled ministers, a rapacious aristocra- 
cy, a servile parliament — such were the instru- 
ments by which England was delivered from 
the yoke of Rome. The work which had been 
begun by Henry, the murderer of his wives, 
was continued by Somerset, the murderer of 
his brother, and completed by Elizabeth, the 
murderer of her guest. Sprung from brutal 
passion, nurtured by selfish policy, the Refor- 
mation in England displayed little of what had 
in other countries distinguished it — unflinch- 
ing and unsparing devotion, boldness of speech, 
and singleness of eye. These were indeed to 
be found ; but it Was in the lower ranks of the 
party which opposed the authority of Rome, in 
such men as Hooper, Latimer, Rogers, and 
Taylor. Of those who had any important 
share in bringing the alteration about, the ex- 
cellent Ridley was perhaps the only person 
who did not consider it as a mere political job. 
Even Ridley did not play a very prominent 
part. Among the statesmen and prelates who 
principally give the tone to the religious 
changes there is one, and one only, whose 
conduct partiality itself can attribute to any 
othe* than interested motives. It is not strange, 
therefore, that his character should have been 
the subject of fierce controversy. We need not 
say that we speak of Cranmer. 

Mr. Hallam has been severely censured for 
saying, with his usual placid severity, that " if 
we weigh the character of this prelate in an 
equal balance, he will appear far indeed re- 
moved from the turpitude imputed to him by 
his enemies ; yet not entitled to any extraordi- 
nary veneration." We will venture to expand 



the sense of Mr. Hallam, and to comment on 
it thus : If we consider Cranmer merely as a 
statesman, he will not appear a much worse 
man than Wolsey, Gardiner, Cromwell, or So- 
merset. But when an attempt is made to set 
him up as a saint, it i s scarcely possible for 
any man of sense, who knows the history of 
the times well, to preserve his gravity. If the 
memory of the archbishop had been left to 
find its own place, he would soon have been 
lost among the crowd which is mingled 

" A quel cattivo coro 
Degli' angeli, che non furon ribelli, 
Ne fur fedeli a Dio, ma per se furo." 

And the only notice which it would have been 
necessary to take of his name, would have 
been 

" Non ragioniam di lui ; ma guarda, e passa." 

But when his admirers challenge for him a 
place in the noble army of martyrs, his claims 
require fuller discussion. 

The shameful origin of his history, common 
enough in the scandalous chronicles of courts, 
seems strangely out of place in a hagiology. 
Cranmer rose into favour by serving Henry in 
a disgraceful affair of his first divorce. He 
promoted the marriage of Anne Boleyn with 
the king. On a frivolous pretence he pro- 
nounced it null and void. On a pretence, if 
possible, still more frivolous, he dissolved the 
ties which bound the shameless tyrant to 
Anne of Cleves. He attached himself to 
Cromwell, while the fortunes of Cromwell 
flourished. He voted for cutting off his head 
without a trial, when the tide of royal favour 
turned. He conformed backwards and for- 
wards as the king changed his mind. While 
Henry lived, he assisted in condemning to the 
flames those who denied the doctrine of tran- 
substantiation. When Henry died, he found 
out that the doctrine was false. He was, how- 
ever, not at a loss for people to burn. The 
authority of his station, and of his gray hairs, 
was employed to overcome the disgust with 
which an intelligent and virtuous child re- 
garded persecution. 

Intolerance is always bad. But the san- 
guinary intolerance of a man who thus wa- 
vered in his creed, excites a loathing to which 
it is difficult to give vent without calling foul 
names. Equally false to political and to re- 
ligious obligations, he was first the tool of 
Somerset, and then the tool of Northumber- 
land. When the former wished to put his 
own brother to death, without even the form 
of a trial, he found a ready instrument in 
Cranmer. In spite of the canon law, which 
forbade a churchman to take any part in mat- 
ters of blood, the archbishop signed the war- 
rant for the atrocious sentence. When So 
merset had been in his turn destroyed, his de- 
stroyer received the support of Cranmer in his 
attempt to change the course of the succes^ 
sion. 

The apology made for him by his admirers 
only renders his conduct more contemptible. 
He complied, it is said, against his better judg- 
ment, because he could not resist the entrea- 
ties of Edward! A holy prelate of sixty, one 
would think, might be better employed bv thf 



72 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



bedside of a dying child, than committing 
crimes at the request of his disciple. If he 
had shown half as much firmness when Ed- 
ward requested him to commit treason, as he 
had before shown when Edward requested him 
not to commit murder, he might have saved 
the country from one of the greatest misfor- 
tunes that it ever underwent. He became, 
from whatever motive, the accomplice of the 
worthless Dudley. The virtuous scruples of 
another young and amiable mind were to be 
overcome. As Edward had been forced into 
persecution, Jane was to seduced into usurpa- 
tion. No transaction in our annals is more 
unjustifiable than this. If a hereditary title 
were to be respected, Mary possessed it. If a 
parliamentary title were preferable, Mary pos- 
sessed that also. If the interest of the Pro- 
testant religion required a departure from the 
ordinary rule of succession, that interest would 
have been best served by raising Elizabeth to 
the throne. If the foreign relations of the 
kingdom were considered, still stronger rea- 
sons might be found for preferring Elizabeth 
to Jane. There was great doubt whether Jane 
or the Queen of Scotland had the better claim ; 
and that doubt would, in all probability, have 
produced a war, both with Scotland and with 
France, if the project of Northumberland had 
not been blasted in its infancy. That Eliza- 
beth had a better claim than the Queen of 
Scotland was indisputable. To the part which 
Cranmer, and unfortunately some better men 
than Cranmer, took in this most reprehensible 
scheme, much of the severity, with which the 
Protestants were afterwards treated, must in 
fairness be ascribed. 

The plot failed; popery triumphed; and 
Cranmer recanted. Most people look on his 
recantation as a single blemish on an honour- 
able life, the frailty of an unguarded moment. 
But, in fact, it was in strict accordance with 
the system on which he had constantly acted. 
It was part of a regular habit. It was not the 
first recantation that he had made ; and, in all 
probability, if it had answered its purpose it 
would not have been the last. We do not 
blame him for not choosing to be burned alive. 
It is no very severe reproach to any person, 
that he dees not possess heroic fortitude. But 
surely a man who liked the fire so little, should 
have had some sympathy for others. A per- 
secutor who inflicts nothing which he is not 
ready tc endure deserves some respect. But 
when a man, who loves his doctrines more 
than the lives of his neighbours, loves his own 
little finger better than his doctrines, a very 
simple argument, a fortiori, will enable us to 
estimate the amount of his benevolence. 

But his martyrdom, it is said, redeemed 
every thing. It is extraordinary that so much 
ignorance should exist on this subject. The 
fact is, that if a martyr be a man who chooses 
to die rather than to renounce his opinions, 
Cranmer was no more a martyr than Dr. Dodd. 
He died solely because he could not help it. 
He never retracted his recantation, till he found 
he had made it in vain. The queen was fully 
resolved that, Catholic or Protestant, he should 
burn. Then he spoke out, as people generally 
spp ak out when they are at the point of death, 



and have nothing to hope or to fear on earth. 
If Mary had suffered him to live, we suspect 
that he would have heard mass, and received 
absolution, like a good Catholic, till the acces 
sion of "Elizabeth; and that he would then 
have purchased, by another apostasy, the power 
of burning men better and braver than him- 
self. 

We do not mean, however, to represent him 
as a monster of wickedness. He was not 
wantonly cruel or treacherous. He was mere- 
ly a supple, timid, interested courtier, in times 
of frequent and violent change. That which 
has always .been represented as his distinguish- 
ing virtue, the facility with which he forgave 
his enemies, belongs to the character. Those 
of his class are never vindictive, and never 
grateful. A present interest effaces past ser- 
vices and past injuries from their minds to- 
gether. Their only object is self-preservation ; 
and for this they conciliate those who wrong 
them, just as they abandon those who serve 
them. Before we extol a man for his forgiv- 
ing temper, we should inquire whether he is 
above revenge, or below it. 

Somerset, with as little principle as his co- 
adjutor, had a firmer and more commanding 
mind. Of Henry, an orthodox Catholic, ex- 
cepting that he chose to be his own Pope, and 
of Elizabeth, who certainly had no] objection 
to the theology of Rome, we need say nothing. 
But these four persons were the great authors 
of the English Reformation. Three of them 
had a direct interest in the extension of the 
royal prerogative. The fourth was the ready 
tool of any who could frighten him. It is not 
difficult to see from what motives, and on what 
plan, such persons would be inclined to remo- 
del the Church. The scheme was merely to 
rob the Babylonian enchantress of her orna- 
ments, to transfer the full cup of her sorceries 
to other hands, spilling as little as possible by 
the way. The Catholic doctrines and rites 
were to be retained in the Church of England. 
But the king was to exercise the control which 
formerly belonged to the Roman Pontiff. In 
this Henry for a time succeeded. The extra- 
ordinary force of his character, the fortunate 
situation in which he stood with respect to 
foreign powers, and the vast resources which 
the suppression of th« monasteries placed at 
his disposal, enabled him to oppress both the 
religious factions equally. He punished with 
impartial severity those who renounced the 
doctrines of Rome, and those who acknow- 
ledged her jurisdiction. The basis, however, 
on which he attempted to establish his power, 
was too narrow. It would have been impossi- 
ble even for him long to persecute both persua- 
sions. Even under his reign there had been 
insurrections on the part of the Catholics, and 
signs of a spirit which was likely soon to pro- 
duce insurrection on the part of the Protest- 
ants. It was plainly necessary therefore that 
the government should form an alliance with 
one or the other side. To recognise the Papal 
supremacy, would have been to abandon its 
whole design. Reluctantly and sullenly it at 
last joined the Protestants. In forming this 
junction, its object was to procure as much 
aid as possible for its selfish undertaking, ani 



HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY 



7j 



lo make the smallest possible concessions to 
the spirit of religious innovation. 

From this compromise the Church of England 
sprung. In many respects, .indeed, it has been 
well for her, that in an age of exuberant zeal, 
her principal founders were mere politicians. 
To this circumstance she owes her moderate 
articles, her decent ceremonies, her noble and 
pathetic liturgy. Henvorship is not disfigured 
by mummery. Yet she has preserved, in a 
far greater degree than any of her Protestant 
sisters, that art of striking the senses, and fill- 
ing the imagination, in which the Catholic 
Church so eminently excels. But on the other 
hand, she continued to be, for more than a 
hundred and fifty years, the servile handmaid 
of monarchy, the steady enemy of public liber- 
ty. The divine rights of kings, and the duty 
of passively obeying all their commands, were 
her favourite tenets. She held them firmly 
through times of oppression, persecution, and 
licentiousness ; while law was trampled down ; 
while judgment was perverted; while the peo- 
ple were eaten as though they were bread. 
Once and but once — for a moment, and but for 
a moment — when her own dignity and property 
were touched, she forgot to practise the sub- 
mission which she had taught. 

Elizabeth clearly discerned the advantages 
which were to be derived from a close connec- 
tion between the monarchy and the priesthood. 
At the time of her accession, indeed, she evi- 
dently meditated a partial reconciliation with 
Rome. And throughout her whole life, she 
leaned strongly to some of the most obnoxious 
parts of the Catholic system. But her impe- 
rious temper, her keen sagacity, and her pecu- 
liar situation, soon led her to attach herself 
completely to a church which was all her own. 
On the same principle on which she joined it, 
she attempted to drive all her people within 
its pale by persecution. She supported it by 
severe penal laws, not because she thought 
conformity to its discipline necessary to salva- 
tion, but because it was the fastness which ar- 
bitrary power was making strong for itself; 
because she expected a more profound obedi- 
ence from those who saw in her both their 
civil and their ecclesiastical head, than from 
those who, like the Papists, ascribed spiritual 
authority to the Pope, or from those who, like 
some of the Puritans, ascribed it only to Hea- 
ven. To dissent from her establishment was 
to dissent from an institution founded with an 
express view to the maintenance and extension 
of the royal prerogative. 

This great queen and her successors, by 
considering conformity and loyalty as identi- 
cal, at ength made them so. With respect to 
the Catholics, indeed, the rigour of persecu- 
tion abated after her death. James soon found 
that they were unable to injure him ; and that 
the animosity which the Puritan party felt 
towards them, drove them of necessity to take 
refuge under his throne. During the subse- 
quent conflict, their fault was any thing but 
disloyalty. On the other hand, James hated 
the Puritans with far more than the hatred of 
Elizabeth. Her aversion to them was politi- 
cal ; his was personal. The sect had plagued 
him in Scotland where he was weak: and he 



was determined to be even with them in Eng 
land, where he was powerful. Persecution 
gradually changed a sect into a faction. That 
there was any thing in the religious opinions 
of the Puritans, which rendered them hostile 
to monarchy, has never been proved to our 
satisfaction. After our civil contests, it be« 
came the fashion to say that Presbyterianisin 
was connecied with Republicanism ; just as 
it has been the fashion to say, since the time 
of the French Revolution, that Infidelity is con- 
nected with Republicanism. It is perfectly 
true, that a church constituted on the Calvin- 
istic model will not strengthen the hands of 
the sovereign so much as a hierarchy, which 
consists of several ranks, differing in dignity 
and emolument, and of which all the members 
are constantly looking to the government for 
promotion. But experience has clearly shown 
that a Calvinistic church, like every other 
church, is disaffected when it is persecuted, 
quiet when it is tolerated, and actively lpyal 
when it is favoured and cherished. Scotland 
has had a Presbyterian establishment during 
a century and a half. Yet her General As- 
sembly has not, during that period, given half 
so much trouble to the government as the 
Convocation of the Church of England gave 
to it during the thirty years which followed the 
Revolution. That James and Charles should 
have been mistaken on this point, is not sur- 
prising. But we are astonished, we must con- 
fess, when writers of o"r own time, men who 
have before them the proof of what toleration 
can effect, men who may see with their own 
eyes that the Presbyterians are no such mon- 
sters, when government is wise enough to let 
them alone, should defend the old persecutions, 
on the ground that they were indispensable 
to the safety of the church and the throne. 

How persecution protects churches ant. 
thrones was soon made manifest. A system- 
atic political opposition, vehement, daring, and 
inflexible, sprang from a schism about trifles, 
altogether unconnected with the real interests 
of religion or of the state. Before the close 
of the reign of Elizabeth it began to show 
itself. It broke forth on the question of the 
monopolies. Even the imperial Lioness was 
compelled to abandon her prey, and slowly ana 
fiercely to recede before the assailants. The 
spirit of liberty grew with the growing wealth 
and intelligence of the people. The feeble 
struggles and insults of James irritated instead 
of suppressing it. And the events which im- 
mediately followed the accession of his son, 
portended a contest of no common severity, 
between a king resolved to be absolute, and a 
people resolved to be free. 

The famous proceedings of the third Parlia- 
ment of Charles, and the tyrannical measures 
which followed its dissolution, are extremely 
well described by Mr. Hallam. No writer, we 
think, has shown, in so clear and satisfactory 
a manner, that at that time the government en- 
tertained a fixed purpose of destroying the old 
parliamentary Constitution of England, or at 
least of reducing it to a mere shadow. We 
hasten, however, to a pan of his work, which, 
though it abounds invaluable information, an3. 
in remarks well deserving to be attentive 1 * 



74 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, 



considered ; and though it is, like the rest, evi- 
dently written in a spirit of perfect imparti- 
ality, appears to us, in many points, objection- 
able. 

We pass to the year 1640. The fate of the 
short Parliament held in that year already in- 
dicated the views of the king. That a parlia- 
ment so moderate in feeling should have met 
after so many years of oppression, is truly 
wonderful. Hyde extols its loyal and concili- 
atory spirit. Its conduct, we are told, made 
the excellent Falkland in love with the very 
name of parliament. We think, indeed, with 
Oliver St. John, that its moderation was carried 
too far, and that the times required sharper 
and more decided councils. It was fortunate, 
however, that the king had another opportunity 
of showing that hatred of the liberties of his 
subjects, which was the ruling principle of all 
nis conduct. The sole crime of this assembly 
was that, meeting after a long intermission of 
parliaments, and after a long series of cruelties 
and illegal imposts, they seemed inclined to 
examine grievances before they would vote 
supplies. For this insolence, they were dis- 
solved almost as soon as they met. 

Defeat, universal agitation, financial embar- 
rassments, disorganization in every part of the 
government, compelled Charles again to con- 
vene the Houses before the close of the same 
year. Their meeting was one of the great eras 
in the history of the civilized world. What- 
ever of political freedom exists either in Eu- 
rope or in America, has sprung, directly or in- 
directly, from those institutions which they se- 
cured and reformed. We never turn to the 
annals of those times, without feeling increased 
admiration of the patriotism, the energy, the de- 
cision, the consummate wisdom, which marked 
the measures of that great parliament, from the 
day on which it met, to the commencement of 
civil hostilities. 

The impeachment of Strafford was the first, 
and perhaps the greatest blow. The whole con- 
duct of that celebrated man proved that he had 
formed adeliberate scheme to subvert the funda- 
mental laws of England. Those parts of his cor- 
respondence which have been brought to light 
since his death, place the matter beyond a 
doubt. One of his admirers has, indeed, offer- 
ed to show, "that the passages which Mr. 
Hallam has invidiously extracted from the cor- 
respondence between Laud and Strafford, as 
proving their design to introduce a thorough 
tyranny, refer not to any such design, but to a 
thorough reform in the affairs of state, and the 
thorough maintenance of just authority !" We 
will recommend two or three of these passages 
to the especial notice of our readers. 

All who know any thing of those times, know 
that the conduct of Hampden in the affair of 
the ship-money met with the warm approbation 
of every respectable royalist in England. It 
drew forth the ardent eulogies of the cham- 
pions of the prerogative, and even of the crown 
lawyers themselves. Clarendon allows his de- 
meanour through the whole proceeding to have 
been such, that even those who watched for an 
occasion against the defender of the people, 
were compelled to acknowledge themselves 
unable to find any fault in hirii. That he was 



right in the point of law, is now universally 
admitted. Even had it beer otherwise, he ha<( 
a fair case. Five of the judges, servile as oui 
courts then were, pronounced in his favour 
The majority against him was the smallest 
possible. In no country retaining the slightest 
vestige of constitutional liberty, can a modest 
and decent appeal to the laws be treated as a 
crime. Strafford, however, recommends that, 
for taking the sense of a legal tribunal on a 
legal question, Hampden should be punished, 
and punished severely — " whipt," says the in 
solent apostate, " whipt into his senses. If the 
rod," he adds, "be so used that it smarts not, 
I am the more sorry." This is the maintenance 
of just authority. 

In civilized nations, the most arbitrary go- 
vernments have generally suffered justice to 
have a free course in private suits. Strafford 
wished to make every cause in every court 
subject to the royal prerogative. He com- 
plained, that in Ireland he was not permitted 
to meddle in cases between party and party. 
" I know very well," says he, " that the common 
lawyers will be passionately against it, who 
are wont to put such a prejudice upon all 
other professions, as if none were to be trusted, 
or capable to administer justice but themselves : 
yet how well this suits with monarchy, when 
they monopolize all to be governed by their 
year-books, you in England have a costly ex- 
ample." We are really curious to know by 
what arguments it is to be proved, that the 
power of interfering in the lawsuits of indi- 
viduals is part of the just authority of the exe- 
cutive government. 

It is not strange that a man so careless of 
the common civil rights, which even despots 
have generally respected, should treat with 
scorn the limitations which the constitution 
imposes on the royal perogative. We might 
quote pages : but we will content ourselves 
with a single specimen : " The debts of the 
crown being taken off, you may govern as you 
please : and most resolute I am that may be 
done without borrowing any help forth of the 
king's lodgings." 

Such was the theory of that thorough reform 
in the state which Strafford meditated. His 
whole practice, from the day on which he sold 
himself to the court, was in strict conformity 
to his theory. For his accomplices various 
excuses may be urged ; ignorance, imbecility, 
religious bigotry. But Wentworth had no 
such plea. His intellect was capacious. His 
early prepossessions Were on the side of popu- 
lar rights. He knew the whole beauty and 
vaJue of the system which he attempted to de- 
face. He was the first of the Eats ; the first 
of those statesmen whose patriotism has been 
only the coquetry of political prostitution; 
whose profligacy has taught governments to 
adopt the old maxim of the slave-market, that 
it is cheaper to buy than to breed, to import 
defenders from an opposition, than to rear 
them in a ministry. He was the first English- 
man to whom a peerage was not an addition 
of honour, but a sacrament of infamy — a bap- 
tism into the communion of corruption. As 
he was the earliest of the hateful list, so was 
he also by far the greatest — eloquent, saga* 



HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 



cj.ous, adventurous, intrepid, ready of inven- 
ts, immutable of purpose, in every talent 
which exalts or destroys nations, pre-eminent, 
the lost Archangel, the Satan of the apostasy. 
The title for which, at the time of his deser- 
tion, he exchanged a name honourably distin- 
guished in the cause of the people, reminds us 
of the appellation which, from the moment of 
the first treason, fixed itself on the fallen Son 
of the Morning — 

" So call him now. — His former name 

Is heard no more in heaven." 

Th3 lefection of Strafford from the popular 
party contributed mainly to draw on him the 
hatred of his contemporaries. It has since 
made him an object of peculiar interest to those 
whose lives have been spent, like his, in prov- 
ing that there is no malice like the malice of 
a renegade. Nothing can be more natural or 
becoming, than that one turn-coat should eulo- 
gize anothe*. 

Many enemies of public liberty have been 
distinguished by their private virtues. But 
Strafford was the same throughout. As was 
the statesman, such was the kinsman and such 
the lover. His conduct towards Lord Mount- 
morris is recorded by Clarendon. For a word 
which can scarcely be called rash, which 
could not have been. made the subject of an 
crdinary civil action, he dragged a man of high 
rank, married to a relative of that saint about 
whom he whimpered to the Peers, before a tri- 
bunal of his slaves. Sentence of death was 
passed. Every thing but death was inflicted. 
Yet the treatment which Lord Ely experienced 
was still more disgusting. That nobleman 
was thrown into prison, in order to compel him 
to settle his estate in a manner agreeable to 
his daughter-in-law, whom, as there is every 
reason to believe, Strafford had debauched. 
These stories do not rest on vague report. 
The historians most partial to the minister ad- 
rait their truth, and censure them in terms 
which, though too lenient for the occasion, are 
still severe. These facts are alone sufficient 
to justify the appellation with which Pym 
branded him — " the wicked earl." 

In spite of all his vices, in spite of all his 
dangerous projects, Strafford was certainly en- 
titled to the benefit of the law ; but of the law 
in all its rigour ; of the law according to the 
utmost strictness of the letter which killeth. 
He was not to be torn in pieces by a mob, or 
stabbed in the back by an assassin. He was 
not to have punishment meted out to him from 
his own iniquitous measure. But if justice, 
in the who^e range of its wide armory, con- 
tained one weapon which could pierce him, 
that weapon his pursuers were bound, before 
God and man, to employ. 

"If he may 
Find mercy in the law, 'tis his; if none, 
Let him not seek 't of us." 

Such was the language which the Parliament 
might justly use. 

Did then the articles against Strafford strict- 
fy amount to high treason 1 Many people who 
know neither what the articles were, nor what 
high treason is, will answer in the negative, 
•imp.)' because the accused person, speaking 



for his life, took that ground of defence. Tha 
Journals of the Lords show that the Judges 
were consulted. They answered with one ac« 
cord, that the articles on which the earl was 
convicted amounted to high treason. This 
judicial opinion, even if we suppose it to have 
been erroneous, goes far to justify the Parlia- 
ment. The judgment pronounced in the Ex- 
chequer Chamber has always been urged by 
the apologists of Charles in defence of his con- 
duct respecting, ship-money. Yet on that oc- 
casion there was but a bare majority in favour 
of the party, at whose pleasure all the magis- 
trates composing the tribunal were removable. 
The decision in the case of Strafford was 
unanimous ; as far as we can judge, it was un- 
biassed ; and though there may be room for 
hesitation, we think, on the whole, that it was 
reasonable. " It may be remarked," says Mr. 
Hallam, " that the fifteenth article of the im- 
peachment charging Strafford with raising mo- 
ney by his own authority, and quartering troops 
on the people of Ireland, in order to compel 
their obedience to his unlawful requisitions, 
upon which, and upon one other arucle, not 
upon the whole matter, the Peers voted him 
guilty, does, at least, approach very nearly, if 
we may not say more, to a substantive treason 
within the statute of Edward III., as a levying 
of war against the king." This most sound 
and just exposition has provoked a very ridicu- 
lous reply. " It should seem to be an Irish 
construction this," says an assailant of Mr 
Hallam, "which makes the raising money for 
the king's service, with his knowledge, and by 
his approbation, to come under the head of 
levying war on the king, and therefore tc be 
high treason." Now, people who undertake to 
write on points of constitutional law should 
know, what every attorney's clerk and every 
forward schoolboy on an upper form knows, 
that, by a fundamental maxim of our polity, 
the king can do no wrong ; that every court 
is bound to suppose his conduct and his senti- 
ments to be, on every occasion, such as they 
ought to be ; and that no evidence can be re- 
ceived for the purpose of setting aside this 
loyal and salutary presumption. The Lords, 
therefore, were bound to take it for granted, 
that the king considered arms which were un- 
lawfully directed against his people, as directed 
against his own throne. 

The remarks of Mr. Hallam on the bill of at- 
tainder, though, as usual, weighty and acute, 
do not perfectly satisfy us. He defends the 
principle, but objects to the severity of the 
punishment. That, on great emergencies, the 
state may justifiably pass a retrospective act 
against an offender, we have no doubt what- 
ever. We ar? acquainted with only one argu 
ment on the other side, which has in it enough 
of reason to bear an answer. Warning, it is. 
said, is the end of punishment. But a punish 
ment inflicted, not by a general rule, but by an 
arbitrary discretion, cannot serve the purpose 
of a warning; it is therefore useless; and use- 
less pain ought not to be inflicted. This so- 
phism has found its way into several books on 
penal legislation. It admits, however, of a very 
simple refutation. In the first place, punish- 
ments ex post facto are not altogether useless 



76 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



even as warnings. They are -warnings to a 
particular class, which stands in great need of 
warnings — to favourites and ministers. They 
remind persons of this description, that there 
may be a day of reckoning for those who ruin 
and enslave their country in all the forms of 
law. But this is not all. Warning is, in or- 
dinary cases, the principal end of punishment; 
but it is not the only end. To remove the of- 
fender, to preserve society from those dangers 
which are to be apprehended from his incorri- 
gible depravity, is often one of the ends. In the 
case of such a knave as Wild, or such a ruffian 
as Thurtell, it is a very important end. In the 
case of a powerful and wicked statesmen, it is 
infinitely more important; so important, as 
alone to justify the utmost severity, even 
though it were certain that his fate would not 
deter others from imitating his example. At 
present, indeed, we should think it extremely 
pernicious to take such a course, even with a 
worse minister than Strafford, if a worse could 
exist ; for, at present, Parliament has only to 
withhold its support from a cabinet, to produce 
an immediate change of hands. The case was 
widely different in the reign of Charles the First. 
That prince had governed for eleven years 
without any Parliament; and even when Par- 
liament was sitting, had supported Bucking- 
ham against its most violent remonstrances. 

Mr. Hallam is of opinion that a bill of pains 
and penalties ought to have been passed 
against Strafford ; but he draws a distinction 
less just, we think, than his distinctions usual- 
ly are. His opinion, so far as we can collect 
it, is this ; that there are almost insurmounta- 
ble objections to retrospective laws for capital 
punishment; but that where the punishment 
stops short of death, the objections are compa- 
ratively trifling. Now the practice of taking 
the severity of the penalty into consideration, 
when the question is about the mode of proce- 
dure and the rules of evidence, is no doubt suf- 
ficiently common. We often see a man con- 
victed of a simple larceny, on evidence on 
which he would not be convicted of a burglary. 
It sometimes happens that a jury, when there 
is strong suspicion, but not absolute demon- 
stration, that an act, unquestionably amounting 
to murder, was committed by the prisoner be- 
fore them, will find him guilty of manslaughter ; 
but this is surely very irrational. The rules 
of evidence no more depends on the magnitude 
of the interests at stake than the rules of 
arithmetic. We might as well say, that we have 
a greater chance of throwing a size when we are 
playing for a penny than when we are playing 
for a thousand pounds, as that a form of trial 
which is sufficient for the purposes of justice, 
in a matter affecting liberty and property, is in- 
sufficient in a matter affecting life. Nay, if a 
mode of proceeding be too lax for capital 
cases, 'tis, a fortiori, to'"* lax for all others ; for, 
in capital cases, the principles of human na- 
ture will always afford considerable security. 
No judge is so cruel as he who indemnifies 
himself for scrupulosity in cases of blood, by 
license in affairs cf smaller importance. The 
difference in taie on the one side far more than 
makes up for the difference in weight on the 
ither. 



If there be any universal objection to retro 
spective punishment, there is no more to be 
said. But such is not the opinion of Mr. Hal- 
lam. He approves of the mode of proceeding. 
He thinks that a punishment not previously 
affixed by law to the offences of Strafford, 
should have been inflicted ; that he should have 
been degraded from his rank, and condemned 
to perpetual banishment, by act of Parliament; 
but he sees strong objections to the taking 
away of his life. Our difficulty would have 
been at the first step, and there only. Indeed, 
we can scarcely conceive that any case, which 
does not call for capital punishment, can call 
for retrospective punishment. We can scarce- 
ly conceive a man so wicked and so dangerous, 
that the whole course of law must be disturb- 
ed in order to reach him ; yet not so wicked as 
to deserve the severest sentence, nor so danger- 
ous as to require the last and surest custody — 
that of the grave. If we had thought that Straf- 
ford might be safely suffered to live in France, 
we should have thought it better that he should 
continue to live in England, than that he should 
be exiles' by a special act. As to degradation, it 
was not the earl, but the general and the states- 
man, whom the people had to fear. Essex said, 
on that occasion, with more truth than elo- 
quence, "Stone-dead hath no fellow." And 
often during the civil wars the Parliament had 
reason to rejoice, that an irreversible law and 
an impassable barrier protected them from the 
valour and capacity of Strafford. 

It is remarkable that neither Hyde nor Falk- 
land voted against the bill of attainder. There 
is, indeed, reason to believe that Falkland 
spoke in favour of it. In one respect, as Mr 
Hallam has observed, the proceeding was ho- 
nourably distinguished from others of the same 
kind. An act was passed to relieve the child- 
ren of Strafford from the forfeiture and cor- 
ruption of blood, which were the legal conse- 
quences of the sentence. The crown had never 
shown equal generosity in a case of treason. 
The liberal conduct of the Commons has been 
fully and most appropriately repaid. The house 
of Wentworth has since been as much distin- 
guished by public spirit as by power and splen- 
dour ; and may at the present time boast of 
members, with whom Say and Hampden would 
have been proud to act. 

It is somewhat curious that the admirers of 
Strafford should also be, without a single ex- 
ception, the admirers of Charles ; for whatever 
we may think of the conduct of the Parliament 
towards the unhappy favourite, there can be no 
doubt that the treatment which he received 
from his master was disgraceful. Faithless 
alike to his people and his tools, the king did 
not scruple to play the part of the cowardly ap- 
prover, who hangs his accomplice. It is good 
that there should be such men as Charles in 
every league of villany. It is for such men 
that the offers of pardon and reward, which ap- 
pear after a murder, are intended. They are 
indemnified, remunerated, and despised. The 
very magistrate who avails himself of their as- 
sistance looks on them as wretches more de- 
graded than the criminal whom they betray 
Was Strafford innocent 7 was he a meritorious 
servant of the crown 1 If so, what shall w« 



HAL^AM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 



fhink of Ihe prince, who, having solemnly pro- 
mised him that not a hair of his head should 
be hurt, and possessing an unquestioned con- 
stitutional right to save him, gave him up to 
the vengeance of his enemies ] There were 
some points which we know that Charles 
would not concede, and for which he was will- 
ing to risk the chances of civil war. Ought 
not a king, who will make a stand for any- 
thing, to make a stand for the innocent blood ? 
Was Strafford guilty 1 Even on this supposi- 
tion, it is difficult not to feel disdain for the 
partner of his guilt — the tempter turned pun- 
isher. If, indeed, from that time forth, the con- 
duct of Charles had been blameless, it might 
have been said that his eyes were at last open- 
ed to the errors of his former conduct, and that 
in sacrificing to the wishes of his Parliament, 
a minister whose crime had been a devotion too 
zealous to the interests of his prerogative, he 
gave a painful and deeply humiliating proof 
of the sincerity of his repentance. We may 
describe his behaviour on this occasion in 
terms resembling those which Hume has em- 
ployed, when speaking of the conduct of 
Churchill at the Revolution. It required ever 
after the most rigid justice and sincerity in his 
dealings with his people to vindicate it. His 
subsequent dealings with his people, however, 
clearly showed, that it was not from any re- 
spect for the constitution, or from any sense of 
the deep criminalty of the plans in which Straf- 
ford and himself had been engaged, that he gave 
up his minister to the axe. It became evident 
that he had abandoned a servant who, deeply 
guilty as to all others, was guiltless to him 
alone, solely in order to gain time for maturing 
other schemes of tyranny, and purchasing the 
aid of other Wentworths. He who would not 
avail himself of the power which the laws gave 
him to save a friend, to whom his honour was 
pledged, soon showed that he did not scruple to 
break every law and forfeit every pledge, in 
order to work the ruin of his opponents. 

" Put not your trust in princes !" was the 
expression of the fallen minister, when he 
neard that Charles had consented to his death. 
The whole history of the times is a sermon on 
that bitter text. The defence of the Long Par- 
liament is comprised in the dying words of its 
victim. 

The early measures of that Parliament, Mr. 
Hallam in general approves. But he consi- 
ders the proceedings which took place after 
the recess in the summer of 1641, as mischie- 
vous and violent. He thinks, that from that 
time, the demands of the Houses were not war- 
ranted by any imminent danger to the consti- 
tution, and that in the war which ensued they 
were clearly the aggressors. As this is one 
of the most interesting questions in our his- 
tory, we will venture to state, at some length, 
the reasons which have led us to form an opi- 
nion on it contrary to that of a writer whose 
judgment we so highly respect. 

We will premise, that we think worse of 
King Charles the First than even Mr. Hallam 
appears to do. The fixed hatred of liberty, 
which was the principle of all his public con- 
duct; the unscrupulousness with which he 
adopted any means which might enable him 
6 



77 

to attain his ends ; the readiness with which 
he gave promises ; the impudence with which 
he broke them ; the cruel indifference with 
which he threw away his useless or damaged 
tools, rendered him, at least till his character 
was fully exposed, and his power shaken to its 
foundations, a more dangerous enemy to the 
constitution than a man of far greater talents 
and resolution might have been. Such princes 
may still be seen— the scandals of the south- 
ern thrones of Europe ; princes false alike to 
the accomplices who have served them, and 
to the opponents who have spared them; 
princes who, in the hour of danger, concede 
every thing, swear every thing, hold out their 
cheeks to every smiter, give up to punishment 
every minister of their tyranny, and await 
with meek and smiling implacability the bless- 
ed clay of perjury and proscription. 

We will pass by the instances of oppression 
and falsehood which disgraced the early years 
of the reign of Charles. We will leave out 
of the question the whole history of his third 
Parliament, the price which he exacted for 
assenting to the Petition of Right, the perfidy 
with which he violated his engagements, the 
death of Eliot — the barbarous punishments in- 
flicted by the Star Chamber, the ship-money, 
and all the measures, now universally con 
demned, which disgraced his administration 
from 1630 to 1640. We will admit, that it 
might be the duty of the Parliament, after 
punishing the most guilty of his creatures, 
after abolishing the inquisitorial tribunals, 
which had been the instruments of his ty- 
ranny, after reversing the unjust sentences of 
his victims, to pause in its course. The con- 
cessions which had been made were great, the 
evils of civil war obvious, the advantages even 
of victory doubtful. The former errors of the 
king might be imputed to youth, to the pres- 
sure of circumstances, to the influence of evil 
counsel, to the undefined state of the law. 
We firmly believe, that if, even at this eleventh 
hour, Charles had acted fairly towards his 
people, if he had even acted fairly towards his 
own partisans, the House of Commons would 
have given him a fair chance of retrieving the 
public confidence. Such was the opinion of 
Clarendon. He distinctly states, that the fury 
of opposition had abated ; that a reaction had 
begun to take place ; that the majority of those 
who had taken part against the king were de- 
sirous of an honourable and complete recon- 
ciliation ; and that the more violent, or, as it 
soon appeared, the more judicious members 
of the party were fast declining in credit. The 
remonstrance had been carried with great dif- 
ficulty. The uncompromising antagonists of 
the court, such as Cromwell, had begun to 
talk of selling their estates and leaving Eng- 
land. The event soon showed that they were 
the only men who really understood how much 
inhumanity and fraud lay hid under the con- 
stitutional language and gracious demeanour 
of the king. 

The attempt to seize the five members was 
undoubtedly the real cause of the war. From 
that moment, the loyal confidence with which 
most of the popular party were beginning tc 
regard the king, was turned into hatred anr 5 



78 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



incurable suspicion. From that moment, the 
Parliament was compelled to surround itself 
with defensive arms ; from that moment, the 
city assumed the appearance of a garrison ; 
trom that moment, it was that, in the phrase 
of Clarendon, the carriage of Hampden became 
fiercer, that he drew the sword and threw away 
the scabbard. For, from that moment, it must 
have been evident to every impartial obser- 
ver, that in the midst of professions, oaths, and 
emiles, the tyrant was constantly looking for- 
ward to an absolute sway, and to blooCy re- 
renge. 

The advocates of Charles have very dex- 
terously contrived to conceal from their read- 
ers the real nature of this transaction. By 
making concessions apparently candid and 
ample, they elude the great accusation. They 
allow that the measure was weak, and even 
frantic, an absurd caprice of Lord Digby, ab- 
surdly adopted by the king. And thus they 
save their client from the full penalty of his 
transgression, by entering a plea of guilty to 
the minor offence. To us his conduct appears 
at this day, as at the time it appeared to the 
Parliament and the city. We think it by no 
means so foolish as it pleases his friends to 
represent it, and far more wicked. 

In the first place, the transaction was illegal 
fiom beginning to end. The impeachment 
was illegal. The process was illegal. The 
service was illegal. If Charles wished to pro- 
secute the five members for treason, a bill 
against them should have been sent to a grand 
jury That a commoner cannot be tried for 
high treason by the Lords at the suit of the 
crown, is part of the very alphabet of our law. 
That no man can be arrested by a message or 
a verbal summons of the king, with or without 
a warrant from a responsible magistrate, is 
equally clear. This was an established maxim 
of our jurisprudence in the time of Edward the 
Fourth. " A subject," said Chief Justice 
Markham to that prince, "may arrest for trea- 
son: the king cannot; for if the arrest be il- 
legal, the party has no remedy against the 
king." 

The time at which Charles took this step 
also deserves consideration. We have already 
said, that the ardour which the parliament had 
displayed at the time of its first meeting had 
considerably abated ; that the leading oppo- 
nents of the court were desponding, and that 
their followers were in general inclined to mild- 
er and more temperate measures than those 
which had hitherto been pursued. In every 
country, and in none more than in England, 
there is a disposition to take the part of those 
who are unmercifully run down, and who seem 
destitute of all means of defence. Every man 
who has observed the ebb and flow of public 
feeling in our own time, will easily recall ex- 
amples to illustrate this remark. An English 
statesman ought to pay assiduous worship to 
Nemesis, to be most apprehensive of ruin when 
he is ar the height of power and popularity, 
and to dread his enemy most, when most com- 
pletely t>rx-.trated. The fate of the Coalition 
Ministry, in 1784, is perhaps the strongest i-n- 
tance in our history of the operation of this 
'rinciple. A *ew weeks turned the ablest and 



most extended ministry that ever existed, intt 
a feeble opposition, and raised a king who was 
talking of retiring to Hanover, to a height of 
power which none of his predecessors had en- 
joyed since the Revolution. A crisis of this 
description was evidently approaching in 1642, 
At such a crisis, a prince of a really honest 
and generous nature, who had erred, who had 
seen his error, who had regretted the lost af- 
fections of his people, who rejoiced in the 
dawning hope of regaining them, would be 
peculiarly careful to take no step which could 
give occasion of offence, even to the unreason- 
able. On the other hand, a tyrant, whose 
whole life was a lie, who hated the constitution 
the more because he had been compelled to 
feign respect for it, to whom his honour and 
the love of his people were as nothing, would 
select such a crisis for some appalling viola- 
tion of law, for some stroke which might re- 
move the chiefs of an opposition, and intimi- 
date the herd. This Charles attempted. He 
missed his blow: but so narrowly, that it 
would have been mere madness in those at 
whom it was aimed to trust him again. 

It deserves to be remarked, that the king 
had, a short time before, promised the most 
respectable royalists in the House of Commons, 
Falkland, Colepepper, and Hyde, that he would 
take no measure in which that House was 
concerned, without consulting them. On this 
occasion he did not consult them. His con- 
duct astonished them more than any other 
members of the assembly. Clarendon says 
that they were deeply hurt by this want of 
confidence, and the more hurt, because, if 
they had been consulted, they would have done 
their utmost to dissuade Charles from so im- 
proper a proceeding. Did it never occur to 
Clarendon, will it not at least occur to men less 
partial, that there was good reason for this 1 
When the danger to the throne seemed immi- 
nent, the king was ready to put himself for a 
time into the hands of those who, though they 
had disapproved of his past conduct, thought 
that the remedies had now become worse than 
the distempers. But we believe, that in heart 
he regarded both the parties in the Parliament 
with feelings of aversion, which differed only 
in the degree of their intensity; and that the 
lawful warning which he proposed to give by 
immolating the principal supporters of the 
remonstrance, was partly intended for the in- 
struction of those who had concurred in cen- 
suring the ship-money, and in abolishing the 
Star Chamber. 

The Commons informed the king that their 
members should be forthcoming to answer 
any charge legally brought against them. The 
Lords refused to assume the unconstitutional 
offices with which he attempted to invest them. 
And what then was his conduct 1 He went, 
attended by hundreds of armed men, to seize- 
the objects of his hatred in the House itself! 
The party opposed to him more than insinu- 
ated that his purpose was of the most atrocious 
kind. We will not condemn him merely on their 
suspicions ; we will not hold him answerable 
for the sanguinary expressions of the lcose 
brawlers who composed his train. We will 
judge of his conduct by itself alono. And we 



HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 



79 



»ay, without hesitation, that it is impossible to 
acquit him of having meditated violence, and 
violence which might probably end in blood. 
, He knew that the legality of his proceedings 
was denied ; he must have known that some 
of the accused members were not men likely 
to submit peaceably to an illegal arrest. There 
was every reason to expect that he would find 
them in their places, that they would refuse to 
obey his summons, and that the House would 
support them in their refusal. What course 
would then have been left to him 1 Unless we 
suppose that he went on this expedition for the 
sole purpose of making himself ridiculous, 
we must believe that he would have had re- 
course to force. There would have been a 
scuffle; and it might not, under such circum- 
stances, have been in his power, even if it 
were in his inclination, to prevent a scuffle 
from ending in a massacre. Fortunately for his 
fame, unfortunately, perhaps, for what he prized 
far more, the^nterests of his hatred and his am- 
bition, the affair ended differently. The birds, 
as he said, were floivn, and his plan was dis- 
concerted. Posterity is not extreme to mark 
abortive crimes. And thus his advocates have 
found it easy to represent a step which, but for 
a trivial accident, might have filled England 
with mourning and dismay, as a mere error 
of judgment, wild and foolish, but perfectly 
innocent. Such was not, however, at the time, 
the opinion of any party. The most zealous 
royalists were so much disgusted and ashamed, 
that they suspended their opposition to the po- 
pular party, and, silently, at least, concurred 
in measures of precaution so strong as almost 
to amount to resistance. 

From that day, whatever of confidence and 
loyal attachment had survived the misrule of 
seventeen years, was, in the great body of the 
people, extinguished, and extinguished forever. 
As soon as the outrage had failed, the hypo- 
crisy recommenced. Down to the very eve 
of his flagitious attempt, Charles had been 
talking of his respect for the privileges of 
Parliament and the liberties of his people. 
He began again in the same style on the mor- 
row ; but it was too late. To trust him now 
would have been, not moderation, but insanity. 
What common security would suffice against 
a prince who was evidently watching his sea- 
son with that cold and patient hatred which, 
in the long run, tires out every other pas- 
sion 1 ? 

It is certainly from no admiration of Charles 
that Mr. Hallam disapproves of the conduct 
of the House in resorting to arms. But he 
thinks, that any attempt on the part of that 
prince to establish a despotism would have 
been as strongly opposed by his adherents as 
by his enemies ; that the constitution might 
be considered as out of danger; or, at least, 
that it had -more to apprehend from war than 
from the king. On this subject Mr. Hallam 
dilates at length ; and with conspicuous ability. 
We will offer a few considerations, which lead 
us to incline to a different opinion. 

The constitution of England was only one 
of a large family. In all the monarchies of 
western Europe, during the middle ages, there 
existed restraints on the roya authority, fun- 



damental laws, and representative assemblies 
In the fifteenth century, the government of 
Castile seems to have been as free as that of 
our own country. That of Arragon was beyond 
all question far more so. In France, the sove- 
reign was more absolute. Yet, even in France, 
the States-general alone could constitutionally 
impose taxes ; and at the very time when the 
authority of those assemblies was beginning 
to languish, the Parliament of Paris received 
such an .accession of strength, as enabled it, 
in some measure, to perform the functions of 
a legislative assembly. Sweden and Denmark 
had constitutions of a similar'description. 

Let us overleap two or three hundred years, 
and contemplate Europe at the commencement 
of the eighteenth century. Every free consti- 
tution, save one, had gone down. That of 
England had weathered the danger ; and was 
riding in full security. In Denmark and 
Sweden, the kings had availed themselves of 
the disputes which raged between the nobles 
and the commons, to unite all the powers of 
government in their own hands. In France 
the institution of the states was only main- 
tained by lawyers, as a part of the ancient 
theory of their government. It slept a deep 
sleep — destined to be broken by a tremen- 
dous waking. No person remembered the sit- 
tings of the three orders, or expected ever to 
see them renewed. Louis the Fourteenth had 
imposed on his Parliament a patient silence 
of sixty years. His grandson, after the war 
of the Spanish succession, assimilated the 
constitution of Arragon to that of Castile, and 
extinguished the last feeble remains of liberty 
in. the: Peninsula. I n England, on the other 
hand, the Parliament was infinitely more pow 
erful than it had ever been. Not only was its 
legislative authority fully established, but its 
right to interfere, by advice almost equivalent 
to command, in every department of the ex- 
ecutive government, was recognised. The 
appointment of ministers, the relations with 
foreign powers, the conduct of a war or a ne- 
gotiation, depended less on the pleasure of the 
prince than on that of the two Houses. 

What then made us to differ 1 Why was it 
that, in that epidemic malady of constitutions, 
ours escaped the destroying influence ; or ra- 
ther that, at the very crisis of the disease, a 
favourable turn took place in England, and in 
England alone 1 It was not surely without a 
cause that so many kindred systems of govern- 
ment, having flourished together so long, lan- 
guished and expired at almost the same time. 
It is the fashion to say, that the progress 
of civilization is favourable to liberty. The 
maxim, though on the whole true, must be 
limited by many qualifications and exceptions. 
Wherever a poor and rude nation, in which 
the form of government is a limited monai'chy, 
receives a great accession of wealth and 
knowledge, it is in imminent danger of falling 
under arbitrary power. 

In such a state of society as that which ex- 
isted all over Europe during the middle ages, 
it was not from the king, but from the nobles, 
that there was danger. Very slight checks 
sufficed to keep the sovereign in order. His 
means of corruption and intimidation veiv 



80 



MAOAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



very scanty. He had little money, little pa- 
tronage, no m ilitary establishment. His armies 
resembled juries. They were draughted out 
of the mass of the people ; they soon returned 
to it again ; and the character which was ha- 
bitual prevailed over that which was occa- 
sional. A campaign of forty days was too 
short, the discipline of a national militia toe 
lax, to efface from their minds the feelings of 
civil life. As they carried to the camp the 
sentiments and interests of the farm and the 
shop, so they carried back to the farm and the 
shop the military accomplishments which they 
had acquired in the camp. At home they 
learned how to value their rights — abroad how 
1o defend them. 

Such a military force as this was a far 
stronger restraint on the regal power than [the 
legislative assemblies. Resistance to an esta- 
blished government, in modern times so diffi- 
cult and perilous an enterprise, was, in the 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the simplest 
and easiest matter in the world. Indeed, it 
was far too simple and easy. An insurrection 
was got up then almost as easily as a petition 
is got up now. In a popular cause, or even in 
an unpopular cause favoured by a few great 
nobles, an army was raised in a week. If the 
king were, like our Edward the Second and 
Richard the Second, generally odious, he could 
not procure a single bow or halbert. He fell 
at once and without an effort. In such times 
a sovereign like Louis the Fifteenth, or the 
Emperor Paul, would have been pulled down 
before his misgovernment had lasted for a 
month. We find that all the fame and influ- 
ence of our Edward the Third could not save 
his Madame de Pompadour from the effects of 
the public hatred. 

Hume, and many other writers, have hastily 
concluded, that in the fifteenth century the 
English Parliament was altogether servile, 
because it recognised, without opposition, 
every successful usurper. That it was not 
servile, its conduct on many occasions of in- 
ferior importance is sufficient to prove. But 
surely it was not strange, that the majority of 
the nobles, and of the deputies chosen by the 
commons, should approve of revolutions which 
the nobles and commons had effected. The 
Parliament did not blindly follow the event of 
war; but participated in those changes of pub- 
lic sentiment, on which the event of war de- 
pended. The legal check was secondary and 
auxiliary to that which the nation held in its 
own hands. There have always been mo- 
narchies in Asia, in which the royal authority 
has been tempered by fundamental laws, 
though no legislative body exists to watch over 
them. The guarantee is the opinion of a com- 
munity, of which every individual is a soldier. 
Thus the king of Caubul, as Mr. Elphinstone 
informs us, cannot augment the land revenue, 
or interfere with the jurisdiction of the ordinary 
tribunals. 

In the European kingdoms of this descrip- 
tion, there were representative assemblies. 
But it was not necessaiy that those assemblies 
should meet very frequently, that they should 
interfere with all the operations of the execu- 
tive government, that they should watch with 



jealousy, and resent with prompt indignation, 
every violation of the laws which tne sovereign 
might commit. They were so strong, that they 
might safely be careless. He was so feeble, 
that he might safely be suffered to encroach. 
If he ventured too far, chastisement and ruin 
were at hand. In fact, the people suffered more 
from his weakness than from his authority. 
The tyranny of wealthy and powerful subjects 
was the characteristic evil of the times. The 
royal prerogatives were not even sufficient for 
the defence of property and the maintenance 
of police. 

The progress of civilization introduced a 
great change. War became a science ; and, 
as a necessary consequence, a separate trade. 
The great body of the people grew every day 
more reluctant to undergo the inconveniences 
of military service, and better able to pay 
others for undergoing them. A new class of 
men, therefore — dependent on the crown alone ; 
natural enemies of those popular rights, 
which are to them as the dew to the fleece of 
Gideon ; slaves among freemen ; freemen 
among slaves— grew into importance. That 
physical force, which in the dark ages had be- 
longed to the nobles and the commons, and 
had, far more than any charter or any assem- 
bly, been the safeguard of their privileges, was 
transferred entire to the king. Monarchy 
gained in two ways. The sovereign was 
strengthened, the subjects weakened. The 
great mass of the population, destitute of all 
military discipline and organization, ceased to 
exercise any influence by force on political 
transactions. There have, indeed, during the 
last hundred and fifty years, been many popu- 
lar insurrections in Europe : but all have 
failed, except those in which the regular army 
has been induced to join the disaffected. 

Those legal checks, which had been ade- 
quate to the purpose for which they were 
designed while the sovereign remained de- 
pendent on his subjects, were now found 
wanting. The dykes, which had been sufficient 
while the waters were low, were not high 
enough to keep out the spring tide. The deluge 
passed over them ; and, according to the ex- 
quisite illustration of Butler, the formal bound- 
aries which had excluded it now held it in. 
The old constitutions fared like the old shields 
and coats of mail. They were the defences of 
a rude age ; and they did well enough against 
the weapons of a rude age. But new and more 
formidable means of destruction were invent- 
ed. The ancient panoply became useless; 
and it was thrown aside to rust in lumber- 
rooms, or exhibited only as part of an idle 
pageant. 

Thus absolute monarchy was established on 
the Continent. England escaped ; but she es- 
caped very narrowly. Happily, our insular 
situation and the pacific policy of James ren- 
dered standing armies unnecessary here, till 
they had been for some time kept up in the 
neighbouring kingdoms. Our public men had 
therefore an opportunity of watching the effects 
produced by this momentous change, in forms 
of government which bore a close analogy to 
that established in England. Everywhere 
they saw the power of the monarch increasing. 



HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 



81 



the resistance of assemblies, which were no 
longer supported by a national force, gradually- 
becoming more and more feeble, and at length 
altogether ceasing. The friends and the ene- 
mies of liberty perceived with equal clearness 
the causes of this general decay. It is the 
favourite theme of Strafford. He advises the 
king to procure from the judges a recognition 
of his right to raise an army at his pleasure. 
" This piece, well fortified," says he, " forever 
vindicates the monarchy at home from under 
the conditions and restraints of subjects." We 
firmly believe that he was in the right. Nay ; 
we believe that, even if no deliberate scheme 
of arbitrary government had been formed by 
the sovereign and his ministers, there was 
great reason to apprehend a natural extinction 
of the constitution. If, for example, Charles 
had played the part of Gustavus Adolphus; if 
he had carried on a popular war for the de- 
fence of the Protestant cause in Germany; if 
he had gratified the national pride by a series 
of victories ; if he had formed an army of forty 
or fifty thousand devoted soldiers, we do not 
see what chance the nation would have had 
of escaping from despotism. The judges 
would have given as strong a decision in 
favour of camp-money as they gave in favour 
of ship-money. If they had scrupled, it 
would have made little difference. An indivi- 
dual who resisted would have been treated as 
Charles treated Eliot, and as Strafford wished to 
treat Hampden. The Parliament might have 
been summoned once in twenty years, to con- 
gratulate a king on his accession, or to give 
solemnity to some great measure of state. 
Such had been the fate of legislative assem- 
blies as powerful, as much respected, as high- 
spirited, as the English Lords and Commons. 

The two Houses, surrounded by the ruins of 
so many free constitutions, overthrown or 
japped by the new military system, were re- 
quired to intrust the command of an army, and 
the conduct of the Irish war, to a king who 
nad proposed to himself the destruction of 
iberty as the great end of his policy. We are 
decidedly of opinion that it would have been 
fatal to comply. Many of those who took the 
.side of the king on this question would have 
•ursed their own loyalty if they had seen him 
return from war at the head of twenty thou- 
sand troops, accustomed to carnage and free 
quarters in Ireland. 

We think with Mr. Hallam, that many of the 
royalist nobility and gentry were true friends 
to the constitution ; and that, but for the solemn 
protestations by which the king bound himself 
to govern according to the law for the future, 
they never would have joined his standard. 
But surely they underrated the public danger. 
Falkland is commonly selected as the most re- 
spectable specimen of this class. He was 
indeed a man of great talents, and of great 
virtues ; but, we apprehend, infinitely too fas- 
tidious for public life. He did not perceive 
that in such times as those on which his lot 
nad fallen, the duty of a statesman is to choose 
the better cause, and to stand by it, in spite of 
those excesses by which every cause, however 
good in itself, will be disgraced. The present 
Pvil always seemed to him the worst. He was 



always going backward and forward; U;t i 
should be remembered to his honour, that il 
was always from the stronger to the weaker 
side that he deserted. While Charles was op- 
pressing the people, Falkland was a resolute 
champion of liberty. He attacked Strafford. 
He even concurred in strong measures against 
Episcopacy. But the violence of his party 
annoyed him, and drove him to the other party, 
to be equally annoyed there. Dreading the 
success of the cause which he had espoused, 
sickened by the courtiers of Oxford, as he had 
been sickened by the patriots of Westminster, 
yet bound by honour not to abandon them, he 
pined away, neglected his person, went about 
moaning for peace, and at last rushed despe- 
rately on death as the best refuge in such mi- 
serable times. If he had lived through the 
scenes that followed, we have little doubt that 
he would have condeznned himself to share the 
exile and beggary of the royal family ; that he 
would then have returned to oppose all their 
measures ; that he would have been sent to the 
Tower by the Commons as a disbeliever in the 
Popish Plot, and by the king as an accomplice 
in the Rye-House Plot ; and that, if he had es- 
caped being hanged, first by Scroggs, and then 
by Jeffries, he would, after manfully opposing 
James the Second through his whole reign, 
have been seized with a fit of compassion at 
the very moment of the Revolution, have voted 
for a regency, and died a nonjuror. 

We do not dispute that the royal party con- 
tained many excellent men and excellent citi- 
zens. But this we say — that they did not dis- 
cern those times. The peculiar glory of the 
Houses of Parliament is, that, in the great 
plague and mortality of constitutions, they 
took their stand between the living and the 
dead. At the very crisis of our destiny, at the 
very moment when the fate which had passed 
on every other nation was about to pass on 
England, they arrested the danger. 

Those who conceive that the parliamentary 
leaders were desirous merely to maintain the 
old constitution, and those who represent them 
as conspiring to subvert it, are equally in error. 
The old constitution, as we have attempted to 
show, could not be maintained. The progress 
of time, the increase of wealth, the diffusion 
of knowledge, the great change in the Euro- 
pean system of war, rendered it impossible 
that any of the monarchies of the middle ages 
should [ continue to exist on the old footing. 
The prerogative of the crown was constantly 
advancing. If the privileges of the people 
were to remain absolutely stationary, they 
would relatively retrograde. The monarchical 
and democratical parts of the government were 
placed in a situation not unlike that of the two 
brothers in the Fairy Queen, one of whom saw 
the soil of his inheritance daily washed away 
by the tide, and joined to that of his rival. 
The portions had at first been fairly meted out : 
by a natural and constant transfer, the one had 
been extended; the other had dwindled to no- 
thing. A new partition or a compensation 
was necessary to restore the original equality. 
It was now absolutely necessary to violate 
the formal part of the constitution, in order to 
preserve its spirit. This might have >w 



82 



MACA'JLAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



done, as it was done at the Revolution, by ex- 
pelling the reigning family, and calling to the 
throne princes, who, relying solely on an elect- 
ive title, would find it necessary to respect the 
privileges and follow the advice of the assem- 
blies to which they owed every thing, to pass 
every bill which the legislature strongly 
pressed upon them, and to fill the offices of 
state with men in whom it confided. But as 
the two Houses did not choose to change the 
dynasty, it was necessary that they should do 
directly what at the Revolution was done indi- 
rectly. Nothing is more usual than to hear it 
said, that if the Long Parliament had content- 
ed itself with making such a reform in the 
government under Charles as was afterwards 
made under William, it would have had the 
highest claim to national gratitude ; and that 
in its violence it overshot the mark. But how 
was it possible to make such a settlement un- 
der Charles 1 Charles was not, like William 
and the princes of the Hanoverian line, bound 
by community of interests and dangers to the 
two Houses. It was therefore necessary that 
they should bind him by treaty and statute. 

Mr. Hallam reprobates, in language which 
has a little surprised us, the nineteen proposi- 
tions into which the Parliament has digested 
its scheme. We will ask him whether he does 
not think that, if James the Second had re- 
mained in the island, and had been suffered, as 
he probably would in that case have been suf- 
fered, to keep his crown, conditions to the full 
as hard would have been imposed on him"! 
On the other hand, if the Long Parliament had 
pronounced the departure of Charles from 
London an abdication, and had called Essex 
or Northumberland to the throne, the new 
prince might have's afely been suffered to reign 
without such restrictions ; his situation would 
have been a sufficient guarantee, in the nine- 
teen propositions, we see very little to blame 
except the articles against the Catholics. 
These, however, were in the spirit of that age ; 
and to some sturdy churchmen in our own, 
that may seem to palliate even the good which 
the Long Parliament effected. The regulation 
with respect to new creations of Peers is the 
only other article about which we entertain 
any doubt. 

One of the propositions is, that the judges 
shall hold their offices during good behaviour. 
To this surely no exception will be taken. 
The right of directing the education and mar- 
riage of the princes was most properly claimed 
by the Parliament on the same ground on 
which, after the Revolution, it was enacted, 
that no king, on pain of forfeiting his throne, 
should espouse a papist. Unless we condemn 
the statesmen of the Revolution, who conceived 
that England could not safely be governed by 
a sovereign married to a Catholic queen, we 
can scarcely condemn the Long Parliament, 
because, having a sovereign so situated, they 
thought it necessary to place him under strict 
restraints. The influence of Henrietta Maria 
had alreadv been deeply felt in political affairs. 
In the regulation of her family, in the educa- 
lion and marriage of her children, it was still 
more likely to be feb There might be another 
Catholic queen ; possibly, a Catholic king. 



Little as we are disposed to join in the vu.ga* 
clamour on this subject, we think that such an 
event ought to be, if possible, averted; and 
this could only be done, if Charles was to be 
left on the throne, by placing his domestic ar- 
rangements under the control of Parliament 

A veto on the appointment of ministers was 
demanded. But this veto Parliament had vir- 
tually possessed ever since the Revolution. It 
is no doubt very far better that this power of 
the legislature should be exercised, as it is now 
exercised, when any great occasion calls for in- 
terference, than that at every change it should 
have to signify its approbation or disapproba- 
tion in form. But, unless a new family had 
been placed on the throne, we do not see how this 
power could have been exercised as it is now 
exercised. We again repeat, that no restraints 
which could be imposed on the princes who 
reigned after the Revolution could have added 
to the security which their title afforded. They 
were compelled to court their parliaments. 
But from Charles nothing was to be expected 
which was not set down in the bond. 

It was not stipulated that the king should 
give up his negative on acts of Parliament 
But the Commons had certainly shown a 
strong disposition to exact this security also. 
"Such a doctrine," says Mr. Hallam, "was in 
this country as repugnant to the whole history 
of our laws as it was incompatible with the 
subsistence of the monarchy in any thing more 
than a nominal pre-eminence." Now this ar- 
ticle has been as completely carried into effect 
by the Revolution, as if it had been formally 
inserted in the Bill of Rights and the Act of 
Settlement. We are surprised, we confess, 
that Mr. Hallam should attach so much import- 
ance to a prerogative which has not been exer- 
cised for a hundred ana thirty years, which 
probably will never be exercised again, and 
which can scarcely, in any conceivable case, 
be exercised for a salutary purpose. 

But the great security, that without which 
every other would have been insufficient, wa? 
the power of the sword. This both parties 
thoroughly understood. The Parliament in- 
sisted on having the command of the militia, 
and the direction of the Irish war. " By God, 
not for an hour !" exclaimed the king. " Keep 
the militia," said the queen after the defeat 
of the . royal party, " keep the militia ; that 
will bring back eveiy thing." - That, by 
the old constitution, no military authority was 
lodged in the Parliament, Mr. Hallam has 
clearly shown. That it is a species of power 
which ought not to be permanently lodged in 
large and divided assemblies, must, we think, 
in fairness be conceded. Opposition, publicity, 
long discussion, frequent compromise, these 
are the characteristics jf the proceedings in 
such bodies. Unity, secrecy, decision, are the 
qualities which military arrangements require. 
This undoubtedly was an evil. But, on the 
other hand, at such a crisis to trust such a king 
with the very weapon which, in hands less 
dangerous, had destroyed so many free consti 
tutions, would have been the extreme of rash 
ness. The jealousy with which the oligarchy 
of Venice and the States of Holland regarded 
their generals and armies induced them per 



HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 



83 



petually to interfere in matters of which they 
were incompetent to judge. This policy se- 
cured them against military usurpation, but 
placed them under great disadvantages in war. 
The uncontrolled power which the king of 
France exercised over his troops enabled him 
to conquer his enemies, but enabled him also 
to oppress his people. Was there any interme- 
diate course? None, we confess, altogether 
free from objection. But, on the whole, we 
conceive that the best measure would have 
been that which the Parliament over and over 
proposed ; that for a limited time the power of 
the sword should be left to the two Houses, and 
that it should revert to the crown when the 
constitution should be firmly established ; when 
the new securities of freedom should be so far 
strengthened by prescription, that it would be 
difficult to employ even a standing army for 
the purpose of subverting them. 

Mr. Hallam thinks that the dispute might 
easily have^been compromised, by enacting 
that the king should have no power to keep a 
standing army on foot without the consent of 
Parliament. He reasons as if the question had 
been merely theoretical — as if at that time no 
army had been wanted. " The kingdom," he 
. says, " might have well dispensed, in that age, 
with any military organization." Now, we 
think that Mr. Hallam overlooks the most im- 
portant circumstance in the whole case. Ire- 
land was at that moment in rebellion ; and a 
great expedition would obviously be necessary 
to reduce that kingdom to obedience. The 
Houses had, therefore, to consider, not an ab- 
stract question of law, but an urgent practical 
question, directly involving the safety of the 
state. They had to consider the expediency 
of immediately giving a great army to a king, 
who was at least as desirous to put down the 
Parliament of England as to conquer the insur- 
gents of Ireland. 

Of course, we do not mean to defend all their 
measures. Far from it. There never was a 
perfect man ; it would, therefore, be the height 
of absurdity to expect a perfect party or a per- 
fect assembly. For large bodies are far more 
likely to err than individuals. The passions 
are inflamed by sympathy; the fear of punish- 
ment and the sense of shame are diminished 
by partition. Every day we see men do for 
their faction what they would die rather than 
do for themselves. 

No private quarrel ever happens, in which 
the right and wrong are so exquisitely divid- 
ed, that all the right lies on one side, and all 
the wrong on the other. But here was a schism 
which separated a great nation into two parties. 
Of these parties, each was composed of many 
smaller parties. Each contained many mem- 
bers, who differed far less from their moderate 
opponents than from their violent allies. Each 
**;ckoned among its supporters many who 
were determined in their choice, by some acci- 
dent of birth, of connection, or of local situa- 
tion. Each of them attracted to itself in multi- 
tudes those fierce and turbid spirits, to whom 
the clouds and whirlwinds of the political hur- 
ricane are the atmosphere of life. A party, 
like a camp, has its sutlers and camp-follow- 
srs, as well as its soldiers. In its progress it 



collects round it a vast retinue, composed of 
people who thrive by its custom, or are amused 
by its display, who may be sometimes reckon- 
ed, in an ostentatious enumeration, as forming 
a part of it, but who give no aid to its opera- 
tions, and take but a languid interest in its 
success : who relax its discipline and disho- 
nour its flag, by Jheir irregularities ; and who, 
after a disaster, are perfectly ready to cut the 
throats and rifle the baggage of their com- 
panions. 

Thus it is in every great division : and thus 
it was in our civil war. On both sides there 
was, undoubtedly, enough of crime and enough 
of error, to disgust any man who did not re- 
flect that the whole history of the species is 
nothing but a comparison of crimes and errors. 
Misanthropy is not the temper which qualifies 
a man to act in great affairs, or to. judge of 
them. 

" Of the Parliament," says Mr. Hallam, " it 
may be said, I think, with not greater severity 
than truth, that scarce two or three public acts 
of justice, humanity, or generosity, and very 
few of political wisdom or courage, are record- 
ed of them, from their quarrel with the king to 
their expulsion by Cromwell." Those who 
may agree with us in the opinion which we 
have expressed as to the original demands of 
the Parliament, will scarcely concur in this 
strong censure. The propositions which the 
Houses made at Oxford, at Uxbridge, and at 
Newcastle, were in strict accordance with 
these demands. In the darkest period of the 
war, they showed no disposition to concede 
any vital principle. In the fulness of their 
success, they showed no disposition to en- 
croach beyond these limits. In this respect 
we cannot but think that they showed justice 
and generosity, as well as political wisdom and 
courage. 

The Parliament was certainly far from fault- 
less. We fully agree with Mr. Hallam in re- 
probating their treatment of Laud. For the 
individual, indeed, we entertain a more unmi- 
tigated contempt than for any other character 
in our history. The fondness with which a 
portion of the church regards his memory, can 
be compared only to that perversity of affection 
which sometimes leads a mother to select the 
monster or the idiot of the family as the object 
of her especial favour. Mr. Hallam has inci- 
dentally observed, that in the correspondence 
of Laud with Strafford, there are no indica- 
tions of a sense of duty towards God or man. 
The admirers of the archbishop have, in con- 
sequence, inflicted upon the public a crowd of 
extracts, designed to prove the contrary. Now, 
in all those passages, we see nothing which a 
prelate as wicked as Pope Alexander or Car- 
dinal Dubois might not have written. They 
indicate no sense of duty to God or man ; but 
simply a strong interest in the prosperity and 
dignity of the order to which the writer be 
longed ; an interest which, when kept within 
certain limits, does not deserve censure, but 
which can never be considered as a virtue. 
Laud is anxious to accommodate satisfactorily 
the disputes in the University of Dublin. He 
regrets to hear that a church is used as a stable, 
and that the benefices of Irelani are very poor 



84 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



He is desirous that, however small a congre- 
gation may be, service should be regularly 
performed. He expresses . a wish that the 
judges of the court before which questions of 
tithe are generally brought, should be selected 
with a view to the interest of the clergy. All 
this may be very proper; and it may be very 
proper that an alderman should stand up for 
the tolls of his borough, and an East Indian 
director for the charter of his company. But 
it is ridiculous to say that these things indicate 
piety and benevolence. No primate, though 
he were the most abandoned of mankind, 
would wish to see the body, with the conse- 
quence of which his own consequence was 
identical, degraded in the public estimation by 
internal dissensions, by the ruinous state of its 
edifices, and the slovenly performance of its 
rites. We willingly acknowledge that the par- 
ticular letters in question have very little harm 
in them ; — a compliment which cannot often 
be paid either to the writings or to the actions 
of Laud. 

Bad as the archbishop was, however, he 
was not a traitor within the statute. Nor was 
he by any means so formidable as to be a pro- 
per subject for a retrospective ordinance of the 
legislature. His mind had not expansion 
enough to comprehend a great scheme, good or 
bad. His oppressive acts were not, like those 
of the Earl of Strafford, parts of an extensive 
system. They were the luxuries in which a 
mean and irritable disposition indulges itself 
from day to day — the excesses natural to a 
little mind in a great place. The severest 
punishment which the two Houses could have 
inflicted on him would have been to set him at 
liberty, and send him to Oxford. There he 
might have stayed, tortured by his own diaboli- 
ical temper, hungering for Puritans to pillory 
and mangle, plaguing the Cavaliers, for want 
of somebody else to plague, with his peevish- 
ness and absurdity, performing grimaces and 
antics in the cathedral, continuing that incom- 
parable diary, which we never see without for- 
getting the vices of his heart in the abject 
imbecility of his intellect ; minuting down his 
dreams, counting the drops of blood which fell 
from his nose, watching the direction of the 
salt, and listening for the note of the screech- 
owl! Contemptuous mercy was the only 
vengeance which it became the Parliament to 
take on such a ridiculous old bigot. 

The Houses, it must be acknowledged, com- 
mitted great errors in the conduct of the war; 
or rather one great error, which brought their 
affairs into a condition requiring the most 
perilous expedients. The Parliamentary lead- 
ers of what may be called the first generation, 
Essex, Manchester, Northumberland, Hollis, 
even Pym — all the most eminent men, in short, 
Hampden excepted, were inclined to half-mea- 
sures. They dreaded a decisive victory 
almost as much as a decisive overthrow. 
They wished to bring the king into a situation 
which might render it necessary for him to 
grant their just and wise demands ; but not to 
subvert the constitution or to change the dy- 
nasty. They were afraid of serving the pur- 
poses of those fiercer and more determined 
- enemies of monarchy, who now began to show 



themselves in the lower ranks of the party 
The war was, therefore, conducted in a languid 
and inefficient manner. A resolute leadei 
might have brought it to a close in a month. 
At the end of three campaigns, however, th« 
event was still dubious ; and that it had not 
been decidedly unfavourable to the cause of 
liberty, was principally owing to tha skill 
and energy which the more violent Round- 
heads had displayed in subordinate situations. 
The conduct, of Fairfax and Cromwell at 
Marston had exhibited a remarkable contrast 
to that of Essex at Edgehill, and Waller at 
Lansdown. 

If there be any truth established by the uni- 
versal experience of nations, it is this ; that to 
carry the spirit of peace into war is a weak 
and cruel policy. The time of negotiation is 
the time for deliberation and delay. But when 
an extreme case calls for that remedy, which 
is in its own nature most violent, and which, in 
such cases, is a remedy only because it is vio- 
lent, it is idle to think of mitigating and dilut- 
ing. Languid war can do nothing which 
negotiation or submission will not do better: 
and to act on any other principle is not to save 
blood and money, but to squander them. 

This the Parliamentary leaders found. The 
third year of hostilities was drawing to a close: 
and they had not conquered the king. They 
had not obtained even those advantages which 
they had expected, from a policy obviously 
erroneous in a military point of view. They 
had wished to husband their resources. They 
now found that, in enterprises like theirs, par^ 
simony is the worst profusion. They had 
hoped to effect a reconciliation. The even, 
taught them that the best way to conciliate is 
to bring the work of destruction to a speedj 
termination. By their moderation many live? 
and much property had been wasted. The 
angry passions which, if the contest had becw 
short, would have died away almost as soon aj 
they appeared, had fixed themselves in the 
form of deep and lasting hatred. A military 
caste had grown up. Those who had been 
induced to take up arms by the patriotic feel- 
ings of citizens, had begun to entertain the 
professional feelings of soldiers. A Dove all, 
the leaders of the party had forfeited its confi- 
dence. If they had, by their valour and abili- 
ties, gained a complete victory, tncir influence 
might have been sufficient to prevent their 
associates from abusing it. h is now neces 
sary to choose more resolute and uncompro- 
mising commanders. Unhappily the illustrious 
man who alone united in himself all the talents 
and virtues which the crisis required, who 
alone could have saved his country from the 
present dangers without plunging her into 
others, who alone could have united all the 
friends of liberty in obedience to his com- 
manding genius and his venerable name, was 
no more. Something might still be done. The 
Houses might still avert that worst of all evils, 
the triumphant return of an imperious and un- 
principled master. They might still preserve 
London from all the horrors of rapine, mas- 
sacre, and lust. But their hopes of a victory 
as spotless as their cause, of a reconciliation 
which might knit together the hearts of all 



HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 



85 



*cnest Englishmen for the defence of the pub- 
lic good, of durable tranquillity, of temperate 
freedom, were buried in the grave of Hamp- 
den. 

The self-denying ordinance was passed, and 
the army was remodelled. These measures 
were undoubtedly full of danger. But all that 
was left to the Parliament was to take the less 
of two dangers. And we think that, even if 
they could have accurately foreseen all that 
followed, their decision ought to have been the 
same. Under any circumstances, we should 
have preferred Cromwell to Charles. But 
there could be no comparison between Crom- 
well and Charles victorious — Charles restored, 
Charles enabled to feed fat all the hungry 
grudges of his smiling rancour,'and his cringing 
pride. The next visit of his majesty to his 
faithful Commons would have been more se- 
rious than that with which he last honoured 
them ; more serious than that which their own 
general paid, them some years after. The 
king would scarce have been content with col- 
laring Marten, and praying that the Lord would 
deliver him from Vane. If, by fatal misman- 
agement, nothing was left to England but a 
choice of tyrants, the last tyrant whom she 
should have chosen was Charles. 

From the apprehension of this worst evil the 
Houses were soon delivered by their new lead- 
ers. The armies of Charles were everywhere 
routed ; his fastnesses stormed ; his party hum- 
bled and subjugated. The king himself fell 
into the hands of the Parliament ; and both the 
king and the Parliament soon fell into the 
hands of the army. The fate of both the cap- 
tives was the same. Both were treated alter- 
nately with respect and with insult. At length 
the natural life of the one, and the political 
life of the other, were terminated by violence ; 
and the power for which both had struggled 
was united in a single hand. Men naturally 
sympathize with the calamities of individuals ; 
but they are inclined to look on a fallen party 
with contempt rather than with pity. Thus 
misfortune turned the greatest of Parliaments 
into the despised Rump, and the worst of kings 
into the Blessed Martyr. 

Mr. Hallam decidedly condemns the execu- 
tion of Charles ; and in all that he says on 
that subject, we heartily agree. We fully con- 
cur with him in thinking that a great social 
schism, such as the civil war, is not to be con- 
founded with an ordinary treason; and that 
the vanquished ought to be treated according 
to the rules, not of municipal, but of interna- 
tional law. In this case the distinction is of 
the less importance, because both international 
and municipal law were in favour of Charles. 

He was a prisoner of war by the former, a 
king by the latter. By neither was he a trai- 
tor. If he had been successful, and had put 
his leading opponents to death, he would have 
deserved severe censure ; and this without re- 
.erence to the justice or injustice of his cause. 
Yet the opponents of Charles, it must be ad- 
mitted were technically guilty of treason. He 
might have sent them to the scaffold without 
violating any established principle of jurispru- 
dence. He would not have been compelled to 
«--verlurn the whole constitution in order t<> 



reach them. Here his own case differed widely 
from theirs. Not only was his condemnation 
in itself a measure which only the strongest 
necessity could vindicate, but it could not b* 
procured without taking several previous 
steps, every one of which would have re* 
quired the strongest necessity to vindicate it. 
It could not be procured without dissolving 
the government by military force, Avithout es- 
tablishing precedents of the most dangerous 
description, without creating difficulties which 
the next ten years were spent in removing, 
without pulling down institutions which it 
soon became necessary to reconstruct, and 
setting up others which almost every man was 
soon impatient to destroy. It was necessary 
to strike the House of Lords out of the consti- 
tution, to exclude members of the House of 
Commons by force, to make a new crime, a 
new tribunal, a new mode of procedure. The 
whole legislative and judicial systems were 
trampled down for the purpose of taking a sin- 
gle head. Not only those parts of the consti- 
tution which the republicans were desirous to 
destroy, but those which they wished to retain 
and exalt, were deeply injured by these trans- 
actions. High courts of justice began to usurp 
the functions of juries. The remaining dele- 
gates of the people were soon driven from 
their seats, by the same military violence 
v/hich had enabled them to exclude their col- 
leagues. 

If Charles had been the last of his line, there 
would have been an intelligible reason for put- 
ting him to death. But the blow which termi- 
nated his life, at once transferred the allegiance 
of every royalist to an heir, and an heir who 
was at liberty. To kill the individual, was 
truly, under such circumstances, not to de- 
stroy, but to release the king. 

We detest the character of Charles ; but a 
man ought not to be removed by a law ex post 
facto, even constitutionally procured, merely 
because he is detestable. He must also be 
very dangerous. We can scarcely conceive 
that any danger which a state can apprehend 
from any individual, could justify the violent 
measures which were necessary to procure a 
sentence against Charles. But in fact the 
danger amounted to nothing. There was in- 
deed danger from the attachment of a large 
party to his office. But this danger, his execu- 
tion only increased. His personal influencf 
was little indeed. He had lost the confidence 
of every party. Churchmen, Catholics, Presby- 
terians, Independents, his enemies, his friends, 
his tools, English, Scotch, Irish, all divisions 
and subdivisions of his people had been de- 
ceived by him. His most attached councillors 
turned away with shame and anguish from his 
false and hollow policy ; plot intertwined with 
plot, mine sprung beneath mine, agents dis« 
owned, promises evaded, one pledge given m 
private, another in public. — " Oh, Mr. Secreta 
ry," says Clarendon, in a letter to Nicholas, 
"those stratagems have given me more sa„ 
hours than all the misfortunes in war which 
have befallen the king; and look like tha 
effects of God's anger towards us." 

The abilities of Charles were not form-'da 
ble. His taste in the fine arts was indeed e* 



86 



MAC AULA Y'S MISCELI ANEOUS WRITING!-. 



quisite. He was as good a writer and speaker 
as any modern sovereign has been. But he 
was not fit for active life. In negotiation he 
was always trying to dupe others, and duping 
only himself. As a soldier, he was feeble, 
dilatory, and miserably wanting, not in perso- 
nal courage, but in the presence of mind which 
his station required. His delay at Gloucester 
saved the parliamentary party from destruc- 
tion. At Naseby, in the very crisis of his for- 
tune, his want of self-possession spread a fatal 
panic through his army. The story which 
Clarendon tells of that affair, reminds us of 
the excuses by which Bessus and Bobadil ex- 
plain their cudgellings. A Scotch nobleman, 
it seems, begged the king not to run upon his 
death, took hold of his bridle, and turned his 
horse round. No man who had much value 
for his life would have tried to perform the 
same friendly office on that day for Oliver 
Cromwell. 

One thing, and one alone, could make Charles 
dangerous — a violent death. His tyranny could 
not break the high spirit of the English people. 
His arms could not conquer, his arts could not 
deceive them; but his humiliation and his 
execution melted them into a generous com- 
passion. Men who die on a scaffold for politi- 
cal offences almost always die well. The eyes 
of thousands are fixed upon them. Enemies 
and admirers are watching their demeanour. 
Every tone of voice, every change of colour, 
is to go down to posterity. Escape is impos- 
sible. Supplication is vain. In such a situa- 
tion pride and despair have often been known 
to nerve the weakest minds with fortitude ade- 
quate to the occasion. Charles died patiently 
and bravely; not more patiently or bravely, 
indeed, than many other victims of political 
rage ; not more patiently or bravely than his 
own judges, who were not only killed, but tor- 
tured ; or than Vane, who had always been 
considered as a timid man. However, his con- 
duct during his trial and at his execution made 
a prodigious impression. Hir subjects began 
to love his memory as heartily as they had 
hated his person ; and posterity has estimated 
his character from his death rather than from 
his life. 

To/ represent Charles as a martyr in the 
cause of Episcopacy is absurd. Those who 
put him to death cared as little for the Assem- 
bly of Divines as for the Convocation ; and 
would in all probability only have hated him 
the more if he had agreed to set up the Pres- 
byterian discipline ; and, in spite of the opinion 
of Mr. Hallam, we are inclined to think that 
the attachment of Charles to the Church of 
England was altogether political. Human na- 
ture is indeed so capricious that there may be 
a single sensitive point in a conscience which 
everywhere else is callous. A man without 
truth or humanity may have some strange 
scruples about a trifle. There was one devout 
warrior in the royal camp whose piety bore a 
great resemblance to that which is ascribed to 
the king. We mean Colonel Turner. That 
gallant cavalier was hanged after the Restora- 
tion for a flagitious burglary. At the gallows 
he told the crowd that his mind received great 
consolation from one reflection — he had al- 



ways taken off his hqt when he went into a 
church! The character of Charles would 
scarcely rise in our estimation, if we believed 
that he was pricked in conscience after the 
manner of this worthy loyalist ; and that, while 
violating all the first rules of Christian morali 
ty, he was sincerely scrupulous about church- 
government. But we acquit him of such weak* 
ness*. In 1641, he deliberately confirmed the 
Scotch declaration, which stated that the go» 
vernment of the church by archbishops and 
bishops was contrary to the word of God. In 
1645, he appears to have offered to set up 
Popery in Ireland. That a king who had es 
tablished the Presbyterian religion in onr 
kingdom, and who was willing to establish the 
Catholic religion in another, should have in 
surmountable scruples about the ecclesiasti- 
cal constitution of the third, is altogether incre- 
dible. He himself says in his letters that he 
looks en Episcopacy as a stronger support 
of monarchical power than even the army. 
From causes which we have already consi- 
dered, the Established Church had been, since 
the Reformation, the great bulwark of the pre- 
rogative. Charles wished, therefore, to pre- 
serve it. He thought himself necessary both 
to the Parliament and to the army. He did 
not foresee, till too late, that by paltering with 
the Presbyterians he should put both them ami 
himself into the power of a fiercer and more dar- 
ing party If he had foreseen it, we suspect 
that the r jyal blood, which still cries to Heaven 
every thirtieth of January for judgments only 
to be averted by salt fish and egg-sauce, would 
never have been shed. One who had swal- 
lowed the Scotch Declaration would scarcely 
strain at the Covenant. 

The death of Charles, and the strong mea- 
sures which led to it, raised Cromwell to a 
height of power fatal to the infant common- 
wealth. No men occupy so splendid a place 
in history as those who have founded mo- 
narchies on the ruins of republican institu- 
tions. Their glory, if not of the purest, is as- 
suredly of the most seductive and dazzling 
kind. In nations broken to the curb, in na- 
tions long accustomed to be transferred from 
one tyrant to another, a man without eminent 
qualities may easily gain supreme power. The 
defection of a troop of guards, a conspiracy of 
eunuchs, a popular tumult, might place an in- 
dolent senator or a brutal soldier on the throne 
of the Roman world. Similar revolutions have 
often occurred in the despotic states of Asia. 
But a community which has heard the voice 
of truth and experienced the pleasures of liber- 
ty, in which the merits of statesmen and of 
syscsms are freely canvassed, in which obe- 
dience is paid not to persons but to laws, in 
which magistrates are regarded not as the 
lords but as the servants of the public, in 
which the excitement of party is a necessary 
of life, in which political warfare is reduced 
to a system of tactics ; — such a community is 
not easily reduced to servitude. Beasts of bur- 
den may easily be managed by a new master ; 
but will the wild ass submit to the bonds 1 will 
the unicorn serve and abide by the crib? will 
leviathan hold out his nostrils tc the hook? 
The mythological conqueror of ths East, whose. 






HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 



8-r 



enchantments reduced the wild beasts to the 
tameness of domestic cattle, and who har- 
nessed lions and tigers to his chariot, is but 
an imperfect type of those extraordinary minds 
which have thrown a spell on the fierce spirits 
of nations unaccustomed to control, and have 
compelled raging factions to obey their reins, 
and swell their triumph. The enterprise, be it 
good or bad, is one which requires a truly 
great man. It demands courage, activity, ener- 
gy, wisdom, firmness, conspicuous virtues, or 
vices so splendid and alluring as to resemble 
virtues. 

Those who have succeeded in this arduous 
undertaking form a very small and a very re- 
markable class. Parents of tyranny, but heirs 
of freedom, kings among citizens, citizens 
among kings, they unite in themselves the 
characteristics of the system which springs 
from them, and of the system from which they 
have sprung. Their reigns shine with a dou- 
ble light, thfi last and dearest rays of depart- 
ing freedom, mingled with the first and bright- 
est glories of empire in its dawn. Their high 
qualities lend to despotism itself a charm 
drawn from the institutions under which they 
were formed, and which they have destroyed. 
They resemble Europeans who settle within 
the tropics, and carry thither the strength and 
the energetic habits acquired in regions more 
propitious to the constitution. They differ as 
widely from princes nursed in the purple of 
imperial cradles as the companions of Gama 
from their dwarfish and imbecile progeny, 
which, born in a climate unfavourable to its 
groAvth and beauty, degenerates more and more 
at every descent from the qualities of the ori- 
ginal conquerors. 

In this class three men stand pre-eminent ; 
Ccesar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte. The high- 
est place in this remarkable triumvirate be- 
longs undoubtedly to Ccesar. He united the 
talents of Bonaparte to those of Cromwell ; 
and he possessed also what neither Cromwell 
nor Bonaparte possessed, learning, taste, wit, 
eloquence, the sentiments and the manners of 
an accomplished gentleman. 

Between Cromwell and Napoleon Mr. Hal- 
lam has instituted a parallel scarcely less in- 
genious than that which Burke has drawn be- 
tween Richard Coeur de Lion and Charles the 
Twelfth of Sweden. In this parallel, however, 
and indeed throughout his work, we think 
that he hardly gives Cromwell fair measure. 
" Cromwell," says he, " far unlike his anti- 
type, never showed any signs of a legislative 
mind, or any desire to place his renown on 
that noblest basis, the amelioration of social 
institutions." The difference in this respect, 
we conceive, was not in the characters of the 
men, but in the characters of the revolutions 
by means of which they rose to power. The 
civil war in England had been undertaken to 
defend and restore ; the republicans of France 
set themselves to destroy. In England the 
principles of the common law had never been 
disturbed, and most even of its forms had been 
held sacred. In France the law and its minis- 
ters had been swept away together. In France, 
therefore, legislation necessarily became the 
first business of the first settled government 



which rose en the ruins of the old system, 
The admirers of Inigo Jones have always 
maintained that his works are inferior to those 
of Sir Christopher Wren onl} because the great 
fire of London gave to the iatter such a field 
for the display of his powers as no architect 
in the history of the world ever possessed. 
Similar allowance must be made for Cromwell. 
If he erected little that was new, it was because 
there had been no general devastation to clear 
a space for him. As it was, he reformed the 
representative system in a most judicious 
manner. He rendered the administration of 
justice uniform throughout the island. We 
will quote a passage from his speech to the 
Parliament in September, 1656, which contains, 
we think, stronger indications of a legislative 
mind than are to be found in the whole range 
of orations delivered on such occasions before 
or since. 

"There is one general grievance in the na- 
tion. It is the law 1 think, I may say it, I 

have as eminent judges in this land as have 
been had, or that the nation has had for these 
many years. Truly, I could be particular as to 
the executive part, to the administration ; but 
that would trouble you. But the truth of it is, 
there are wicked and abominable laws that will 
be in your power to alter. To hang a man for 
sixpence, threepence, I know not what — to hang 
for a trifle and pardon murder, is in the minis- 
tration of the law through the ill-framing of it. 
I have known in my experience abominable 
murders quitted; and to see men lose their 
lives for petty matters ! This is a thing that 
God will reckon for ; and I wish it may not lie 
upon this nation a day longer than you have 
an opportunity to give a remedy ; and I hope I 
shall cheerfully join with you in it." 

Mr. Hallam truly says, that though it is im 
possible to rank Cromwell with Napoleon as a 
general, yet "his exploits were as much above 
the level of his contemporaries, and more the 
effects of an original uneducated capacity." 
Bonaparte was trained in the best military 
schools ; the army which he led to Italy was 
one of the finest that ever existed. Cromwell 
passed his youth and the prime of his manhood 
in a civil situation. He never looked on war, 
till he was more than forty years old. He had 
first to form himself; and then to form his 
troops. Out of raw levies he created an army, 
the bravest and the best disciplined, the most 
orderly in peace, and the most terrible in war, 
that Europe had seen. He called .his body 
into existence. He led it to conquest. He never 
fought a battle without gaining a victory. He 
never gained a victory without annihilating the 
force opposed to him. Yet his triumphs were 
not the highest glory of his military system. 
The respect which his troops paid to property, 
their attachment to the laws and religion of 
their country, their submission to the civil 
power, their temperance, their intelligence, 
their industry, are without parallel. It was 
after the Restoration that the spirit which their 
great leader had infused into them was most 
signally displayed. At the command of the es- 
tablished government, a government which had 
no means of enforcing obedience, fifty thou 
sand soldiers, whose backs no enemy had eve- 



88 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



seen, either in domestic or continental war, 
laid down their arms, and retired into the mass 
of the people , thenceforward to be distinguish- 
ed only by superior diligence, sobriety, and 
regularity in the pursuits of peace, from the 
other members of the community which they 
had saved. 

In the general spirit and character of his ad- 
ministration we think Cromwell far superior 
to Napoleon. " In civil government," says Mr. 
Hallam, "there can be no adequate parallel be- 
tween one who had sucked only the dregs of 
a besotted fanaticism, and one to whom the 
stores of reason and philosophy were open." 
These expressions, it seems to us, convey the 
highest eulogium on our great countryman. 
Reason and philosophy did not teach the con- 
queror of Europe to command his passions,' or 
to pursue, as a first object, the happiness of the 
people. They did not prevent him from risk- 
ing his fame and his power in a frantic contest 
against the principles of human nature and the 
laws of the physical world, against the rage of 
the winter and the liberty of the sea. They did 
not exempt him from the influence of that most 
pernicious of superstitions, a presumptuous fa- 
talism. They did not preserve him from the 
inebriation of prosperity, or restrain him from 
indecent querulousness and violence in adver- 
sity. On the other hand, the fanaticism of 
Cromwell never urged him on impracticable 
undertakings, or confused his perception of the 
public good. Inferior to Bonaparte in inven- 
tion, he was far superior to him in wisdom. 
The French Emperor is among conquerors 
what Voltaire is among writers, a miraculous 
child. His splendid genius was frequently 
clouded by fits of humour as absurdly perverse 
as those of the pet of the nursery, who quar- 
rels with his food, and dashes his playthings to 
pieces. Cromwell was emphatically a man. 
He possessed, in an eminent degree, that mas- 
culine and full-grown robustness of mind, that 
equally diffused intellectual health, which, if 
our national partiality does not mislead us, 
has peculiarly characterized the great men of 
England. Never was any ruler so conspicu- 
ously born for sovereignty. The cup which 
has intoxicated almost all others, sobered him. 
His spirit, restless from its buoyancy in a lower 
sphere, reposed in majestic placidity as soon 
as it had reached the level congenial to it. He 
had nothing in common with that large class 
of men who distinguished themselves in lower 
posts, and whose incapacity becomes obvious 
as soon as the public voice summons them to 
take the lead. Rapidly as his fortunes grew, 
his mind expanded more rapidly still. Insigni- 
ficant as a private citizen, he was a great gene- 
ral ; he was a still greater prince. The manner 
of Napoleon was a theatrical compound, in 
which the coarseness of a revolutionary guard- 
room was blended with the ceremony of the old 
court of Versailles. Cromwell, by the confes- 
sion even of his enemies, exhibited in his de- 
meanour the simple and natural nobleness of a 
man neither ashamed of his origin nor vain of 
his elevation ; of a man who had found his pro- 
per place in society, and who felt secure that 
he was competent to fill it. Easy, even to fa- 
miliarity, where his own dignity was concern- 



ed, he was punctilious only for his country. 
His own character he left to take care of itself; 
he left it to be defended by his victories in war 
and his reforms in peace. But he was a jealous 
and implacable guardian of the public honour. 
He suffered a crazy Quaker to insult him in the 
midst of Whitehall, and revenged himself only 
by liberating him and giving him a dinner. But 
he was prepared to risk the chances of war to 
avenge the blood of a private Englishman. 

No sovereign ever carried to the throne so 
large a portion of the best qualities of the mid- 
dling orders, so strong a sympathy with the 
feelings and interests of his people. He was 
sometimes driven to arbitrary measures ; but 
he had a high, stout, honest, English heart. 
Hence it was that he loved to surround his 
throne with such men as Hale and Blake. 
Hence it was that he allowed so large a share 
of political liberty to his subjects, and that, even 
when an opposition, dangerous to his power 
and to his person, almost compelled him to go- 
vern by the sword, he was still anxious to leave 
a germ from which, at a more favourable sea- 
son, free institutions might spring. We firmly 
believe, that if his first parliament had not com- 
menced its debates by disputing his title, his 
government would have been as mild at home 
as it was energetic and able abroad. He was 
a soldier — he had lisen by war. Had his am- 
bition been of an impure or selfish kind, it 
would have been easy for him to plunge his 
country into continental hostilities on a large 
scale, and to dazzle the restless factions which 
he ruled by the splendour of his victories. 
Some of his enemies have sneeringly remark- 
ed, that in the successes obtained under his 
administration, he had no personal share ; as 
if a man who had raised himself from obscuri- 
ty to empire, solely by his military talents, 
could have any unworthy reason for shrinking 
from military enterprise. This reproach is his 
highest glory. In the success of the English 
navy he could have no selfish interests. Its 
triumphs added nothing to his fame ; its in- 
crease added nothing to his means of over- 
awing his enemies ; its great leader was not 
his friend. Yet he took a peculiar pleasure in 
encouraging that noble service, which, of all the 
instruments employed by an English govern- 
ment, is the most impotent for mischief, and the 
most powerful for good. His administration 
was glorious, but with no vulgar glory. It was 
not one of those periods of overstrained and 
convulsive exertion which necessarily produce 
debility and languor. Its energy was natural, 
healthful, temperate. He placed England at 
the head of the Protestant interest, and in the 
first rank of Christian powers. He taught 
every nation to value her friendship and to 
dread her enmity. But he did not squander her 
resources in a vain attempt to invest her with 
that supremacy which no power, m the modern 
system of Europe, can safely affect, or can 
long retain. 

This noble and sober wisdom had its re« 
ward. If he did not carry the banners of the 
Commonwealth in triumph to distant capitals ; 
if he did not adorn Whitehall with the spoils 
of the Stadthouse and the Louvre ; if he did not 
portion out Flanders and Germany into prirci 



HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 



80 



palities for his kinsmen and his generals ; he 
did not, on the other hand, see his country- 
overrun by the armies of rations which his 
ambition had provoked. He did not drag out 
the last years of his life in exile and a prisoner, 
in an unhealthy climate and under an ungener- 
ous jailor ; raging with the impotent desire of 
vengeance, and brooding over visions of de- 
parted glory. He went down to his grave in 
the fulness of power and fame ; and left to his 
son an authority which any man of ordinary 
firmness and prudence would have retained. 

But for the weakness of that foolish Ish- 
bosheth, the opinions which we have been ex- 
pressing would, we believe, now have formed 
,he orthodox creed of good Englishmen. We 
might now be writing under the government 
f his Highness Oliver the Fifth, or Richard 
he Fourth, Protector, by the Grace of God, of 
ne Commonwealth of England, Scotland and 
reland, and the dominions thereto belonging. 
The form of -the great founder of the dynasty, 
on horseback, as when he led the charge at 
Naseby, or on foot, a? when he took the mace 
frcm the table of the Commons, would adorn 
all our squares, and overlook our pubJic of- 
fices from Charing-Cross ; and sermons in his 
praise would be duly preached on his lucky 
day, the third of September, by court-chaplains, 
guiltless of the abominations of the surplice. 

But, though his memory has not been taken 
under the patronage of any party, though every 
device has been used to blacken it, though to 
praise him would long have been a punishable 
crime, yet truth and merit at last prevail. 
Cowards, who had trembled at the very sound 
of his name, tools of office, who, like Downing, 
had been proud of the honour of lacqueying his 
coach, might insult him in loyal speeches and 
addresses. Venal poets might transfer to the 
king the same eulogies, little the worse for 
wear, which they had bestowed on the Pro- 
tector. A fickle multitude might crowd to 
shout and scoff round the gibbeted remains of 
the greatest Prince and Soldier of the age. 
But when the Dutch cannon startled an effemi- 
nate tyrant in his own palace, when the con- 
quests which had been made by the armies of 
Cromwell were sold to pamper the harlots of 
Charles, when Englishmen were sent to fight, 
under the banners of France, against the inde- 
pendence of Europe and the Protestant reli- 
gion, many honest hearts swelled in secret at 
the thought of one who had never suffered his 
country to be ill-used by any but himself. It 
must indeed have been difficult for any Eng- 
lishman to see the salaried Viceroy of France, 
at the most important crisis of his fate, saun- 
tering through his harem, yawning and talking 
nonsense over a despatch, or beslobbering his 
brothers and his courtiers in a fit of maudlin 
aff action,* without a respectful and tender re- 
membrance of him, before whose genius the 
young pride of Louis, and the veteran craft of 
Mazarin, had stood rebuked; who had hum- 
bled Spain on the land, and Holland on the 
sea; and whose imperial voice had arrested 
the victorious arms of Sweden, and the perse- 



» These particulars, and many more of the same kind, 
ice recorded by Fepya. 



cuting fires of Rome. Even to the present day 
his character, though constantly attacked, and 
scarcely ever defended, is popular with the 
great body of our countrymen. 

The most questionable act of his life was 
the execution of Charles. We have already 
strongly condemned that proceeding ; but we 
by no means consider it as one which attaches 
any peculiar stigma of infamy to the names of 
those who participated in it. It was an unjust 
and injudicious display of violent party spirit ; 
but it was not a cruel or perfidious measure. 
It had all those features which distinguish the 
errors of magnanimous and intrepid spirits 
from base and malignant crimes. 

We cannot quit this interesting topic with- 
out saying a few words on a transaction, 
which Mr. Hallam has made the subjec "of a 
severe accusation against Cromwel. and 
which has been made by others the subject of 
a severe accusation against Mr. Hallam. We 
conceive that both the Protector and the his- 
torian may be vindicated. Mr. Hallam tells 
us. that Cromwell sold fifty English gentlemen 
as slaves in Barbadoes. For making this 
statement he has been charged with two high 
literary crimes. The first accusation is, that, 
from his violent prejudice against Oliver, he 
has calumniated him falsely. The second, 
preferred by the same accuser, is, that from 
his violent fondness for the same Oliver, he 
has hidden his calumnies against him at the 
fag end of a note, instead of putting them into 
the text. Both these imputations cannot pos- 
sibly be true, and it happens that neither is so 
His censors will find, when they take the trou- 
ble to read his book, that the story is mentioned 
in the text as well as in the notes ; and they 
will also find, when they take the trouble to 
read some other books, with which speculators 
on English history ought to be acquainted, that 
the story is true. If there could have been 
any doubt about the matter, Burton's Diary 
must have set it at rest. But, in truth, there 
was abundant and superabundant evidence, 
before the appearance of that valuable publi- 
cation. Not to mention the authority to which 
Mr. Hallam refers, and which alone is per- 
fectly satisfactory, there is Slingsby Bethel's 
account of the proceedings of Richard Crom- 
well's Parliament, published immediately after 
its dissolution. He was a member : he must 
therefore have known what happened: and 
violent as his prejudices were, he never could 
have been such an idiot as to state positive 
falsehoods with respect to public transactions 
which had taken place only a few days before. 
It will not be quite so easy to defend Crom- 
well against Mr. Hallam, as to defend Mr. 
Hallam against those who attack his history. 
But the story is certainly by no means so bad 
as he takes it to be. In the first place, this 
slavery was merely the compulsory labour to 
which every transported convict is liable. 
Nobody acquainted with the language of the 
last century can be ignorant that such con 
victs were generally termed slaves ; until dis- 
cussions about another species of slavery, far 
more miserable and altogether -anniented, ren 
dered the word too odious to be applied even 
to felons of English origin. These persons 



yu 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



enjoyed the protection of the law during the 
term of their service, which was only five years. 
The punishment of transportation has been 
inflicted, by almost every government that 
England has ever had, for political offences. 
After Monmouth's insurrection, and after the 
rebellions in 1715 and 1745, great numbers 
of the prisoners were sent to America. These 
considerations ought, we think, to free Crom- 
well from the imputation of having inflicted 
on his enemies any punishment which in it- 
self is of a shocking and atrocious character. 

To transport fifty men, however, without a 
trial, is bad enough. But let us consider, in 
the first place, that some of these men were 
taken in arms against the government, and 
that it is not clear that they were not all so 
taken. In that case, Cromwell or his officers 
might, according to the usages of those un- 
happy times, have put them to the sword, or 
turned them over to the provost-marshal at 
once. This, we allow, is not a complete vin- 
dication ; for execution by martial law ought 
never to take place but under circumstances 
which admit of no delay ; and, if there is time 
to transport men, there is time to try them. 

The defenders of the measure stated in the 
House of Commons, that the persons thus 
transported not only consented to go, but went 
with remarkable cheerfulness. By this, we 
suppose, it is to be understood, not that they had 
any very violent desire to be bound apprentices 
in Barbadoes, but that they considered them- 
selves as, on the whole, fortunately and leni- 
ently treated, in the situation in which they 
had placed themselves. 

When these considerations are fairly esti- 
mated, it must, we think, be allowed, that this 
selling into slavery was not, as it seems at first 
sight, a barbarous outrage, unprecedented in 
our annals, but merely a very arbitrary pro- 
ceeding, which, like most of the arbitrary pro- 
ceedings of Cromwell, was rather a violation 
of positive law than of any great principle of 
justice and mercy. When Mr. Hallam declares 
it to have been more oppressive than any of 
the measures of Charles the Second, he forgets, 
we imagine, that under the reign of that prince, 
and during the administration of Lord Claren- 
den, many of the Roundheads were, without 
any trial, imprisoned at a distance from Eng- 
land, merely in order to remove them beyond 
the reach of the great liberating writ of our 
law. But, in fact, it is not fair to compare the 
cases. The government of Charles was per- 
fectly secure. The " res dura et regni novitas" 
is the great apology of Cromwell, 

From the moment that Cromwell is dead and 
buried, we go on in almost perfect harmony 
with Mr. Hallam to the end of his book. The 
times which followed the Restoration peculiarly 
require that unsparing impartiality which is 
his most distinguishing virtue. No part of 
our history, during the last three centuries, 
presents a spectacle of such general dreari- 
ness. The whole breed of our statesmen seem 
to have degenerated ; and their moral and in- 
tellectual littleness strikes us with the more 
disgust, because we see it placed in immediate 
contrast with the high and majestic qualities of 
th* race which they succeeded. In the great civil 



war, even the bad cause had been rendered res 
pectable and amiable, by the purity and eleva. 
tion of mindwhich manyof its friends displayed, 
Under Charles the Second, the best and nobles 
of ends was disgraced by means the most 
cruel and sordid. The rage of faction sue 
ceeded to the love of liberty. Loyalty died 
away into servility. We look in vain among 
the leading politicians of either side for steadi- 
ness of principle, or even for that vulgar 
fidelity to party, which, in our time, it is es- 
teemed infamous to violate. The inconsist- 
ency, perfidy, and baseness, which the leaders 
constantly practised, which their followers de- 
fended, and which the great body of the people 
regarded, as it seems, with little disapproba- 
tion, appear in the present age almost incredi- 
ble. In the age of Charles the First, they 
would, we believe, have excited as much as- 
tonishment. ... 

Man, however, is always the same. And 
when so marked a difference appears between 
two generations, it is certain that the solution 
may be found in their respective circum- 
stances. The principal statesmen of the reign 
of Charles the Second were trained during the 
civil war, and the revolutions which followed 
it. Such a period is eminently favourable to 
the growth of quick and active talents. It 
forms a class of men, shrewd, vigilant, in- 
ventive, of men whose dexterity triumphs over 
the most perplexing combinations of circum- 
stances, whose presaging instinct, no sign of 
the times, no incipient change of public feel- 
ings, can elude. But it is an unpropitious 
season for the firm and masculine virtues. 
The statesman who enters on his career at 
such a time, can form no permanent connec- 
tions — can make no accurate observations on 
the higher parts of political science. Before 
he can attach himself to a party, it is scat- 
tered ; before he can study the nature of a 
government, it is overturned. The oath of 
abjuration comes close on the oath of alle- 
giance. The association which was subscribed 
yesterday, is burned by the hangmen to-day. 
In the midst of the constant eddy and change, 
self-preservation becomes the first object of 
the adventurer. It is a task too hard for the 
strongest head, to keep itself from becoming 
giddy in the eternal whirl. Public spirit is 
out of the question; a laxity of principle, 
without which no public man can be eminent, 
or even safe, becomes too common to be scan- 
dalous ; and the whole nation looks coolly on 
instances of apostasy, which would startle the 
foulest turncoat of more settled times. 

The history of France since the revolution 
affords some striking illustrations of these 
remarks. The same man was minister of the 
republic, of Bonaparte, of Louis the Eight- 
eenth, of Bonaparte again after his return from 
Elba, of Louis again after his return from 
Ghent. Yet all these manifold treasons by no 
means seemed to destroy his influence, or even 
to fix any peculiar stain of infamy on his cha- 
racter. We, to be sure, did not know what to 
make of him; but his countrymen did not 
seem to be shocked ; and in truth they had 
little right to be shocked: for there was 
scarcely one Frenchman distinguished j- tV 



HA1, LAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 



91 



state or in the army, who had not, according 
to the best cf his talents and opportunities, 
emulated the example. It was natural, too, 
that this should be the case. The rapidity and 
violence with which change followed change 
in the affairs of France towards the close of 
the last century, had taken away the reproach 
of inconsistency, unfixed the principles of 
public men, and produced in many minds a 
general skepticism and indifference about 
principles of government. 

No Englishman who has studied attentively 
the reign of Charles the Second, will think 
himself entitled to indulge in any feelings of 
national .superiority over the Dictionnaire Jes 
Girouettes. Shaftesbury was surely a far less 
respectable man than Talleyrand; and it 
would be injustice even to Fouche to compare 
him with Lauderdale. Nothing, indeed, can 
more clearly show how low the standard of 
political morality had fallen in this country 
than the fortunes of the men whom we have 
named. The government wanted a ruffian to 
carry on the most atrocious system of misgo- 
rernment with which any nation was ever 
cursed — to extirpate Presbyterianism by fire 
and sword, the drowning of women, and the 
frightful torture of the boot. And they found 
him among the chiefs of the rebellion, and the 
subscribers of the Covenant ! The opposition 
looked for a chief to head them in the most 
desperate attacks ever made, under the forms 
of the constitution, on any English administra- 
tion : and they selected the minister who had 
the deepest share in the worst parts of that 
administration; the soul of the cabal; the 
counsellor who had shut up the Exchequer, 
and urged on the Dutch war. The whole 
political drama was of the same cast. No 
unity of plan, no decent propriety of character 
and costume, could be found in the wild and 
monstrous harlequinade. The whole was 
made up of extravagant transformations and 
burlesque contrasts ; Atheists turned Puritans ; 
Puritans turned Atheists ; republicans defend- 
ing the divine right of kings ; prostitute cour- 
tiers clamouring for the liberties of the people ; 
judges inflaming the rage of mobs ; patriots 
pocketing bribes from foreign powers ; a 
popish prince torturing Presbyterians into 
Episcopacy in one part of the island; Pres- 
byterians cutting off the heads of popish no- 
blemen and gentlemen in the other. Public 
opinion has its natural flux and reflux. After 
a violent burst, there is commonly a reaction. 
But vicissitudes as extraordinary as those 
which marked the reign of Charles the 
Second, can only be explained by supposing 
an utter want of principle in the political 
world. On neither side was there fidelity 
enough to face a reverse. Those honourable 
retreats from power, which, in later days, par- 
ties have often made, with loss, but still in 
good order, in firm union, with unbroken spi- 
rit and formidable means of annoyance, were 
utterly unknown. As soon as a check took 
place, a total rout followed ; arms and colours 
>ere .thrown away. The vanquished troops, 
like the Italian mercenaries of the fourteenth 
and fifteenth centuries, enlisted, on the very 
field of battle, in the service of the conquerors. 



In a nation proud of its sturdy justice and! 
plain good sense, no party could be found to 
take a firm middle stand between the wcrst of 
oppositions and the worst of courts. When, 
on charges as wild as Mother Goose's tales, 
on the testimony of wretches who proclaimed 
themselves to be spies and traitors, and whom 
everybody now believes to have been also 
liars and murderers, the offal of jails and 
brothels, the leavings of the hangman's whip 
and shears, Catholics guilty of nothing but 
their religion were led like sheep to the Pro- 
testant shambles, where were the royal Tory 
gentry and the passively obedient clergy 1 
And where, when the time of retribution 
came, when laws were strained and juries 
packed, to destroy the leaders of the Whigs, 
when charters were invaded, when Jeffries 
and Kirke were making Somersetshire what 
Lauderdale and Graham had made Scotland, 
where were the ten thousand brisk boys of 
Shaftesbury, the members of ignoramus juries, 
the wearers of the Polish medal 1 All powerful 
to destroy others, unable to save themselves, 
the members of the two parties oppressed 
and were oppressed, murdered and were mur- 
dered, in their turn. No lucid interval occurred 
between the frantic paroxysms of two contra- 
tradictory illusions. 

To the frequent changes of the government 
during the twenty years which had preceded 
the revolution, this unsteadiness is in a great 
measure to be attributed. Other causes had 
also been at work. Even if the country had 
been governed by the house of Cromwell, or 
the remains of the Long Parliament, the ex« 
treme austerity of the Puritans would neces- 
sarily have produced a revulsion. Towards 
the close of the Protectorate, many signs indi- 
cated that a time of license was at hand. But 
the restoration of Charles the Second rendered 
the change wonderfully rapid and violent. 
Profligacy became a test of orthodoxy and 
loyalty, a qualification for rank and office. A 
deep and general taint infected the morals cf 
the most influential classes, and spread itself 
through every province of letters. Poetry 
inflamed the passions ; philosophy undermined 
the principles; divinity itself, inculcating an 
an abject reverence for the court, gave addi- 
tional effect to its licentious example. We 
look in vain for those qualities which give a 
charm to the errors of high and ardent natures, 
for the generosity, the tenderness, the chival- 
rous delicacy, which ennoble appetites into 
passions and impart to vice itself a portion of 
the majesty of virtue. The excesses of the 
age remind us of the humours of a gang of 
footpads, revelling with their favourite beauties 
at a flash-house. In the fashionable libertinism 
there is a hard, cold ferocity, an impudence, a 
lowness, a dirtiness, which can be paralleled 
only among the heroes and heroines of thai 
filthy and heartless literature which encou- 
raged it. One nobleman of great abilities 
wanders about as a Merry-Andrew. Another 
harangues the mob stark-naked f.-om a win- 
dow. A third lays an ambusb to cudgel a 
man who has offended him. A knot of gen- 
tlemen of high rank and influence combine to 
push their fortunes at court, by circulating 



92 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



stories intended to ruin an innocent girl, sto- 
ries which had no foundation, and which, if 
they had been true, would never have passed 
the lips of a man of honour.* A dead child 
is found in the palace, the offspring of some 
maid of honour, by some courtier, or perhaps 
by Charles himself. The whole flight of pan- 
ders and buffoons pounce upon it, and carry it 
in triumph to the royal laboratory, where his 
majesty, after a brutal jest, dissects it for the 
amusement of the assembly, and probably of 
its father among the rest! The favourite 
duchess sfjamps about Whitehall, cursing and 
swearing. The ministers employ their time 
at the council-board in making mouths at each 
other, and taking off each other's gestures for 
the amusement of the king. The peers at a 
conference begin to pommel each other, and 
to tear collars and periwigs. A speaker in 
the House of Commons gives offence to the 
court. He is waylaid by a gang of bullies, 
and his nose is cut to the bone. This igno- 
minious dissoluteness, or rather, if we may 
venture to designate it by the only proper 
word, blackguardism of feelings and manners, 
could not but spread from private to public 
life. The cynical sneers, the epicurean so- 
jjhistry, which had driven honour and virtue 
from one part of the character, extended their 
influence over every other. The second ge- 
neration of the statesmen of this reign were 
worthy pupils of the schools in which they 
had been trained, of the gaming-table of 
Grammont, and the tiring-room of Nell. In 
no other age could such a trifler as Bucking- 
ham have exercised any political influence. 
In no other age could the path to power and 
glory have been thrown open to the manifold 
infamies of Churchill. 

The history of that celebrated man shows, 
more clearly perhaps than that of any other 
individual, the malignity and extent of the cor- 
ruption which had eaten into the heart of the 
public morality. An English gentleman of 
family attaches himself to a prince who has 
seduced his sister, and accepts rank and 
wealth as the price of her shame and his own. 
He then repays by ingratitude the benefits 
which he has purchased by ignominy, betrays 
his patron in a manner which the best cause 
cannot excuse, and commits an act, not only 
of private treachery, but of distinct military 
desertion. To his conduct at the crisis of the 
fate of James, no service in modern times has, 
as far as we remember, furnished any parallel. 
The conduct of Ney, scandalous enough no 
doubt, is the very fastidiousness of honour in 
comparison of it. The perfidy of Arnold ap- 
proaches it most nearly. In our age and 
country no talents, no services, no party at- 
tachments, could bear any man up under such 
mountains of infamy. Yet, even before 
Churchilj had performed those great actions, 
which in some degree redeem his character 
with poslerit}'-, the load lay very lightly on him. 
He had others in abundance to keep him coun- 
tenance. Godolphin, Oxford, Danby, the trim- 

* The manner in which Hamilton relates the circum- 
tiances of the atrocious plot against poor Ann Hyde is, 
f possible, more disgraceful to the court, of which he 
wey be considered as a specimen, than the plot itself. 



mer Halifax, the renegade Sunderland, wer* 
all men of the same class. 

Where such was the political morality of the 
noble and the wealthy, it may easily be con- 
ceived that those professions which, even in 
the best times, are peculiarly liable to corrup- 
tion, were in a frightful state. Such a bench 
and such a bar England has never seen. 
Jones, Scroggs, Jeffries, North, Wright, Saw- 
yer, Williams, Shower, are to this day the spots 
and blemishes of our legal chronicles. Differ- 
ing in constitution and in situation, whether 
blustering or cringing, whether persecuting 
Protestants or Catholics, they were equally 
unprincipled and inhuman. The part which 
the church played was not equally atrocious ; 
but it must have been exquisitely diverting tt 
a scoffer. Never were principles so loudl" 
professed, and so flagrantly abandoned. The 
royal prerogative had been magnified to the 
skies in theological works ; the doctrine of 
passive obedience had been preached from in 
numerable pulpits. The University of Oxford 
had sentenced the works of the most moderate 
constitutionalists to the flames. The accession 
of a Catholic king, the frightful cruelties com- 
mitted in the West of England, never shook 
the steady loyalty of the clergy. But did they 
serve the king for naught? He laid his hand 
on them, and they cursed him to his face. He 
touched the revenue of a college and the 
liberty of some prelates, and the whole pro- 
fession set up a yell worthy of Hugh Peters 
himself. Oxford sent its plate to an invader 
with more alacrity than she had shown when 
Charles the First requested it. Nothing was 
said about the wickedness of resistance till 
resistance had done its work, till the anointed 
vicegerent of heaven had been driven away, 
and it had become plain that he would never 
be restored, or would be restored at least 
under strict limitations. The clergy went 
back, it must be owned, to their old theory, as 
soon as they found that it would do them no 
harm. 

To the general baseness and profligacy of 
the times, Clarendon is principally indebted 
for his high reputation. He was, in every 
respect, a man unfit for his age, at once too 
good for it and too bad for it. He seemed to 
be one of the statesmen of Elizabeth, trans- 
planted at once to a state of society widely 
different from that in which the abilities of 
such statesmen had been serviceable. In the 
sixteenth century, the royal prerogative had 
scarcely been called in question. A minister 
who held it high was in no danger, so long as 
he used it well. The attachment to the crown, 
that extreme jealousy of popular encroach- 
ments, that love, half religious, half political, 
for the church, which, from the beginning of 
the Long Parliament, showed itself in Claren- 
don, and which his sufferings, his long resi- 
dence in France, and his high station in the 
government, served to strengthen, would, a 
hundred years earlier, have secured to him the 
favour of his sovereign without rendering him 
odious to the people. His probity, his correct- 
ness in private life, his decency of deportment, 
and his general ability, would not have misbe- 
come a colleague of Walsingham and Bur- 



HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 



03 



leigh. But in the tinw on which he was cast, 
his errors and his virtues were alike out of 
place. He imprisoned men without trial. He 
was accused of raising unlawful contributions 
on the people for the support of the army. The 
abolition of the Triennial Act was one of his 
favourite objects. He seems to have meditated 
the revival of the Star-Chamber and the High 
Commission Court. His zeal for the preroga- 
tive made him unpopular; but it could not 
secure to him the favour of a master far more 
desirous of ease and pleasure than of power. 
Charles would rather have lived in exile and 
privacy, with abundance of money, a crowd 
of mimics to amuse him, and a score of mis- 
tresses, than have purchased the absolute 
dominion of the world by the privations and 
exertions to which Clarendon was constantly 
urging him. A councillor who was always 
bringing him papers and giving him advice, 
and who stoutly refused to compliment Lady 
Castlemaine -end to carry messages to Miss 
Stewart, soon became more hateful to him 
than ever Cromwell had been. Thus consi- 
dered by the people as an oppressor, by the 
court as a censor, the minister fell from his 
high office, with a ruin more violent and 
destructive than could ever have been his fate, 
if he had either respected the principles of the 
constitution, or flattered the vices of the king. 

Mr. Hallam has formed, we think, a most 
correct estimate of the character and adminis- 
tration of Clarendon. But he scarcely makes 
sufficient allowance for the wear and tear 
which honesty almost necessarily sustains in 
the friction of political life, and which, in 
times so rough as those through which Claren- 
don passed, must be very considerable. When 
these are fairly estimated, we think that his 
integrity may be allowed to pass muster. A 
highminded man he certainly was not, either 
in public or in private affairs. His own ac- 
count of his conduct in the affair of his daugh- 
ter is the most extraordinary, passage in auto- 
biography. We except nothing even in the 
Confessions of Rousseau. Several writers 
have taken a perverted and absurd pride in 
representing themselves as detestable ; but no 
other ever laboured hard to make himself des- 
picable and ridiculous. In one important 
particular, Clarendon showed as little regard 
to the honour of his country as he had shown 
to that of his family. He accepted a subsidy 
from France for the relief of Portugal. But 
this method of obtaining money was afterwards 
practised to a much greater extent, and for 
objects much less respectable, both by the 
Court and by the Opposition. 

These pecuniary transactions are commonly 
considered as the most disgraceful part of the 
history of those times ; and they were no doubt 
highly reprehensible. Yet, in justice to the 
Whigs, and to Charles himself, we must admit 
that they were not so shameful or atrocious 
as at the present day they appear. The effect 
of violent animosities between parties has 
always been an indifference to the general 
welfare and honour of the state. A politician, 
where factions run high, is interested, not for 
the whole people, but for his own section of it. 
The rest are, in his view, strangers, enemies, 
7 



or rather pirates. The strongest aversion 
which he can feel to any foreign power is the 
ardour of friendship, compared with the loath- 
ing which he entertains towards those domes- 
tic foes with whom he is cooped up in a narrow 
space, with whom he lives in a constant inter- 
change of petty injuries and insults, and from 
whom, in the day of their success, he has to 
expect severities far beyond any that a con 
queror from a distant country would inflict. 
Thus, in Greece, it was a point of honour fcr a 
man to leave his country and cleave to his 
party. No aristocratical citizen of Samos ot 
Corcyra would have hesitated to call in the aid 
of Lacedsemon. The multitude, on the con- 
trary, looked to Athens. In the Italian states 
of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, from 
the same cause, no man was so much a Flo- 
rentine or a Pisan, as a Ghibeline or a Guelf. 
It may be doubted whether there was a single 
individual who would have scrupled to raise 
his party from a state of depression, by open- 
ing the gates of his native city to a French or 
an Arragonese force. The Reformation, di- 
viding almost every European country into 
two parts, produced similar effects. The Ca- 
tholic was too strong for the Englishman: the 
Huguenot for the Frenchman. The Protestant 
statesmen of Scotland and France accordingly 
called in the aid of Elizabeth ; and the Papists 
of the League brought a Spanish army into the 
very heart of France. The commotions to 
which the French Revolution gave rise have 
been followed by the same consequences. The 
republicans in every part of Europe were 
eager to see the armies of the National Con- 
vention and the Directory appear among them; 
and exulted in defeats which distressed and 
humbled those whom they considered as their 
worst enemies, their own rulers. The princes 
and nobles of France, c a the other hand, did 
their utmost to bring foreign invaders to Paris. 
A very short time has elapsed since the Apos- 
tolical party in Spain invoked, too success- 
fully, the support of strangers. 

The great contest, which raged in England 
during the seventeenth century and the earlier 
part of the eighteenth, extinguished, not indeed 
in the body of the people, but in those classes 
which were most actively engaged in politics, 
almost all national feelings. Charles the Se- 
cond and many of his courtiers had passed a 
large part of their lives in banishment, serv- 
ing in foreign armies, living on the bounty 
of foreign treasuries, soliciting foreign aid to 
re-establish monarchy in their native country. 
The oppressed Cavaliers in England constant- 
ly looked to France and Spain for deliverance 
and revenge. Clarendon censures the Conti- 
nental governments with great bitterness for 
not interfering in our internal dissensions. 
During the protectorate, not only the royalists, 
but the disaffected of all parties, appear to have 
been desirous of assistance from abroad. It 
is not strange, therefore, that amidst the fu- 
rious contests which followed the Restoration, 
the violence of party feeling should produce 
effects, which would probably have attended 
it even in an age less distinguished by laxittr 
of principle and indelicacy of sentiment. It 
was not till a natural death had terminated the 



M 



MAC AUL AY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



paralytic old age of the Jacobite party, that the 
evil was completely at an end. The Whigs 
looked to Holland ; the High Tories to France. 
The former concluded the Barrier Treaty; 
some of the latter entreated the court of Ver- 
sailles to send an expedition to England. 
Many men who, however erroneous their poli- 
tical notions might be, were unquestionably 
honourable in private life, accepted money 
without scruple from the foreign powers fa- 
vourable to the Pretender. 

Never was there less of national feeling 
among the higher orders, than during the reign 
of Charles the Second. That prince, on the 
one side, thought it better to be the deputy of 
an absolute king, than the king of a free peo- 
ple. Algernon Sydney, on the other hand, 
would gladly have aided France in all her 
ambitious schemes, and have seen England 
reduced to the condition of a province, in the 
wild hope that a foreign despot would assist 
him to establish his darling republic. The 
king took the money of France to assist him 
in the enterprise which he meditated against 
the liberty of his subjects, with as little scru- 
ple as Frederic of Prussia or Alexander of 
Russia accepted our subsidies in time of war. 
The leaders of the Opposition no more thought 
themselves disgraced by the presents of Louis, 
than a gentleman of our own time thinks him- 
self disgraced by the liberality of a powerful 
find wealthy member of his party who pays 
his election bill. The money which the king 
received from France had been largely em- 
ployed to corrupt members of Parliament. The 
enemies of the court might think it fair, or 
even absolutely necessary, to encounter bribe- 
ry with bribery. Thus they took the French 
gratuities, the needy among them for their« 
own use, the rich probably for the general 
purposes of the party, without any scruple. If 
we compare their conduct, not with that of 
English statesmen in our own time, but with 
that of persons in those foreign countries 
which are now situated as England then was, 
we shall probably see reason to abate some- 
thing of the severity of censure with which it 
has been the fashion to visit those proceed- 
ings. Yet, when every allowance is made, 
the transaction is sufficiently offensive. It is 
satisfactory to find that Lord Russel stands free 
from any imputation of personal participation in 
the spoil. An age, so miserably poor in all the 
moral qualities which render public characters 
respectable, can ill spare the credit which it 
derives from a man, not indeed conspicuous 
for talents or knowledge, but honest even in 
his errors, respectable in every relation of life, 
rationally pious, steadily and placidly brave. 

The great improvement which took place in 
our breed of public men is principally to be 
ascribed to the Revolution. Yet that memo- 
rable event, in a great measure, took its cha- 
racter from the very vices which it was the 
means of reforming. It was, assuredly, a hap- 
py revolution, and a useful revolution; but it 
vas not, what it has often been called, a glo- 
rious revolution. William, and William alone, 
derived glory from it. The transaction was, 
in almost every part, discreditable to England. 
That a tyrant, who had violated the fundamen- 



tal laws of the country, who had attacked the 
rights of its greatest corporations, who had 
begun to persecute the established religion of 
the state, who had never respected the law 
either in his superstition or in his revenge, 
could not be pulled down without the aid of a 
foreign army, is a circumstance not very 
grateful to our national pride. Yet this is the 
least degrading part of the story. The shame- 
less insincerity, the warm assurances of gene- 
ral support which James received down to 
the moment of general desertion, indicate a 
meanness of spirit and a looseness of morali- 
ty most disgraceful to the age. That the en- 
terprise succeeded, at least that it succeeded 
without bloodshed or commotion, was princi- 
pally owing to an act of ungrateful perfidy, 
such as no soldier had ever before committed, 
and to those monstrous fictions respecting the 
birth of the Prince of Wales, which persons of 
the highest rank were not ashamed to circu- 
late. In all the proceedings of the Conven- 
tion, in the conference particularly, we see 
that littleness of mind which is the chief cha- 
racteristic of the times. The resolutions on 
which the two Houses at last agreed were as 
bad as any resolutions for so excellent a pur- 
pose could be. Their feeble and contradictory 
language was evidently intended to save the 
credit of the Tories, who were ashamed to 
name what they were not ashamed to do. 
Through the whole transaction, no command- 
ing talents were displayed by any Englishman; 
no extraordinary risks were run ; no sacrifices 
were made, except the sacrifice which Church- 
ill made of honour, and Anne of natural affec- 
tion. 

It was in some sense fortunate, as we have 
already said, for the Church of England, that 
the Reformation in this country was effected 
by men who cared little about religion. And, 
in the same manner, it was fortunate for our 
civil government that the Revolution was in a 
great measure effected by men who cared little 
about their political principles. At such a 
crisis, splendid talents and strong passions 
might have done more harm than good. There 
was far greater reason to fear that too much 
would be attempted, and that violent move- 
ments would produce an equally violent reac- 
tion, than that too little would be done in the 
way of change. But narrowness of intellect 
and flexibility of principles, though they may 
be serviceable, can never be respectable. 

If in the Revolution itself there was little that 
can properly be called glorious, there was still 
less in the events which followed. In a church 
which had as one man declarad the doctrine 
of resistance unchristian, only four hundred 
persons refused to take the oath of allegiance 
to a government founded on resistance! In 
the preceding generation, both the Episcopal 
and the Presbyterian clergy, rather than con- 
cede points of conscience not more important, 
had resigned their livings by thousands. 

The churchmen, at the time of the Revolu* 
tion, justified their conduct by all those profli- 
gate sophisms which are cabled Jesuitical, and 
which are commonly reckoned among the p& 
culiar sins of Popery ; but which in fact are 
everywhere the anodynes employed by minds 






HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 



rather subtle than strong, to quiet those inter- 
nal twinges which they cannot but feel, and 
which they will not obey. As their oath was 
in the teeth of their principles, so was their 
conduct in the teeth of their oath. Their con- 
stant machinations against the government to 
which they had sworn fidelity, brought a re- 
proach on their order, ar.d on Christianity 
itself. A distinguished churchman has not 
scrupled to say, that the rapid increase of infi- 
delity at that time was principally produced by 
the disgust, which the faithless conduct of his 
brethren excited, in men not sufficiently can- 
did or judicious, to discern the beauties of the 
system amidst the vices of its ministers. 

But the reproach was not confined to the 
church. In every political party, in the cabi- 
net itself, duplicity and perfidy abounded. The 
very men whom William loaded with benefits, 
and in whom he reposed most confidence, with 
his seals of office in their hands, kept up a 
correspondence with the exiled family. Ox- 
ford, Carmarthen, and Shrewsbury were guilty 
of this odious treachery. Even Devonshire is 
not altogether free from suspicion. It may 
well be conceived that at such a time such a 
nature as that of Marlborough would riot in 
the very luxury of baseness. His former trea- 
son, thoroughly furnished with all that makes 
infamy exquisite, placed him indeed under the 
disadvantage which attends every artist from 
the time that he produces a masterpiece. Yet 
his second great stroke may excite wonder, 
even in those who appreciate all the merit of 
the first. Lest his admirers should be able to 
say that at the time of the Revolution he had 
betrayed his king from any other than selfish 
motives, he proceeded to betray his country. 
He sent intelligence to the French court of a 
secret expedition intended to attack Brest. The 
consequence was that the expedition failed, and 
that eight hundred British soldiers lost their 
lives from the abandoned villany of a British 
general. Yet this man has been canonized by 
so many eminent writers, that to speak of him 
as he deserves may seem scarcely decent. To 
us he seems to be the very San Ciappelletto 
of the political calendar. 

The reign of William the Third, as Mr. Hal 
lam happily says, was the nadir of the nation 
al prosperity. It was also the nadir of the 
national character. During that period was 
gathered in the rank harvest of vices sown 
during thirty years of Jicentiousness and con- 
fusion ; but it was also the seed-time of great 
virtues. 

The press was emancipated from the cen- 
sorship soon after the Revolution, and the go- 
vernment fell immediately under the censor- 
ship of the [ ress. Statesmen had a scrutiny 
to endure wrhch was every day becoming more 
and more severe. The extreme violence of 
opinions abated. The Whigs learned modera- 
tion in office; the Tories learned the principles 
ot liberty in opposition. The parties almost 
constantly approximated, often met, sometimes 
erossed each other. There were occasional 
bursts of violence ; but from the time of the Re- 
volution those bursts were constantly becom- 
ing less and less terrible. The severities with 
which the Tories, at the close of the rei-n o; 



Anne, treated some of those who had diret ted 
public affairs during the war of the Grand Al- 
liance, and the retaliatory measures of the 
Whigs after the accession of the house of H a - 
nover, cannot be justified ; but they were by 
no means in the style of the infuriated partes 
whose alternate murders had disgraced our 
history towards the close of the reign of Charles 
the Second. At the fall of Walpole far greater 
moderation was displayed. And from that time 
it has been the practice— a practice not strict- 
ly according to the theory of our constitution 
but still most salutary— to consider the loss of 
office and the public disapprobation as punish- 
ments sufficient for errors in the administration 
not imputable to personal corruption. Nothing 
I we believe, has contributed more than this le- 
nity to raise the character of public men. Am- 
bition is of itself a game sufficiently hazardous 
and sufficiently deep to inflame the passions, 
without adding property, life, and liberty to the 
stake. Where the play runs so desperately 
high as in the seventeenth century, honour is 
at an end. Statesmen, instead of being as they 
should be, at once mild and steady, are at once 
ferocious and inconsistent. The axe is forever 
before their eyes. A popular outcry some- 
times unnerves them, and sometimes makes 
them desperate; it drives them to unworthy 
compliances, or to measures of vengeance as 
cruel as those which they have reason to expect. 
A minister in our times need not fear either to 
be firm or to be merciful. Our old policy in 
this respect was as absurd as that of the king 
in the Eastern Tales, who proclaimed that any 
physician who pleased might come to court 
and prescribe for his disease, but that if the 
remedies failed the adventurer should lose his 
head. It is easy to conceive how many able 
men would refuse to undertake the cure or 
such conditions ; how much the sense of ex- 
treme danger would confuse the perceptions 
and^ cloud the intellect of the practitioner at 
the very crisis which most called for self-pos- 
session, and how strong his temptation would 
be, if he found that he had committed a blun- 
der, to escape the consequences of it by poi- 
soning his patient. 

But in fact it would have been impossible, 
since the Revolution, to punish any minister 
for the general course of his policy with the 
slightest semblance of justice ; for since that 
time no minister has been able to pursue any 
general course of policy without the approba- 
tion of the Parliament. The most important ef- 
fects of that great change were, as Mr. Hallara 
has most truly said and most ably shown, those 
which it indirectly produced. Thenceforward 
it became the interest of the executive govern- 
ment to protect those very doctrines which aa 
executive government is in genera, inclined 
to persecute. The sovereign, the ministers, 
the courtiers, at last even the universities and 
the clergy, were changed into advocates of 
the right of resistance. In the theory o[ th* 
Whigs, in the situation of the Tories, hi the 
common interest of all public men, the Parlia 
mentary constitution of the country found per- 
fect security. The power of the House ot 
Commons, in particular, has been steadily on 
the increase. By the practice of granting sup 



06 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



plies for short terms, and appropriating them 
to particular services, it has rendered its ap- 
probation as necessary in practice to all the 
measures of the executive government as it is 
in theory to a legislative act. 

Mr. Hallam appears to have begun with the 
reign of Henry the Seventh, as the period at 
which what is called modern history, in con- 
tradistinction to the history of the middle ages, 
is generally supposed to commence. He has 
stopped at the accession of George the Third, 
"from unwillingness," as he says, "to excite 
the prejudices of modern politics, especially 
those connected with personal character." 
These two eras, we think, deserved the dis- 
tinction on other grounds. Our remote pos- 
terity, when looking back on our history in 
that comprehensive manner in which remote 
posterity alone can without much danger of 
error look back on it, will probably observe 
those points with peculiar interest. They are, 
if we mistake not, the beginning and the end 
of an entire and separate chapter in our an- 
nals. The period which lies between them 
is a perfect cycle, a great year of the public 
mind. 

In the reign of Henry the Seventh, all the 
political diiferences which had agitated Eng- 
land since the Norman conquest seemed to be 
set at rest. The long and fierce struggle be- 
tween the crown ana the barons had termi- 
nated. The grievances which had produced 
the rebellions of Tyler and Cade had disap- 
peared. Villanage was scarcely known. The 
two royal houses whose conflicting claims had 
long convulsed the kingdom were at length 
united. The claimants whose pretensions, just 
or unjust, had disturbed the new settlement 
were overthrown. In religion there was no open 
dissent, and probably very little secret heresy. 
The old subjects of contention, in short, had 
vanished ; those which were to succeed had 
not yet appeared. 

Soon, however, new principles were an- 
nounced ; principles which were destined to 
keep England during two centuries and a half 
in a state of commotion. The Reformation 
divided the people into two great parties. The 
Protestants were victorious. They again sub- 
divided themselves. Political systems were 
engrafted on theological doctrines. The mu- 
tual animosities of the two parties gradually 
emerged into the light of public life. First 
came conflicts in Parliament ; then civil war ; 
then revolutions upon revolutions, each at- 
tended by its appurtenance of proscriptions, 
and persecutions, and tests ; each followed by 
severe measures on the part of the conquer- 
ors ; each exciting a deadly and festering ha- 
tred in the conquered. During the reign of 
George the Second things were evidently tend- 
ing to repose. At the close of it the nation 
had completed the great revolution which com- 
menced in the early part of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, and was again at rest. The fury of sects 
had died away. The Catholics themselves 
practically enjoyed toleration ; and more than 
toleration they did not yet venture even to de- 
sire. Jacobitism was a mere name. Nobody 
was left to fight for that wretched cause, and 
very few to drink for it. The constitution, 



purchased so dearly, was on every side ex 
tolled and worshipped. Even those distinc 
tions of party, which must almost always be 
found in a free state, could scarcely be traced. 
The two great bodies which from the time of 
the Revolution had been gradually tending to 
approximation, were now united in emulous 
support of that splendid administration which 
smote to the dust both the branches of the 
house of Bourbon. The great battle for our 
ecclesiastical and civil polity had been fought 
ana won. The wounds had been healed. The 
victors and the vanquished were rejoicing to- 
gether. Every person acquainted with the po- 
litical writers of the last generation will recol- 
lect the terms in which they generally speak 
of that time. It was a glimpse of a golden age 
of union and glory — a short interval of rest 
which had been preceded by centuries of agi- 
tation, and which centuries of agitation were 
destined to follow. 

How soon faction again began to ferment, is 
well known. In the Letters of Junius, in 
Burke's Thoughts on the Cause of the Discon- 
tents, and in many other writings of less merit, 
the violent dissensions, which speedily con- 
vulsed the country, are imputed to the system 
of favouritism which George the Third intro- 
duced, to the influence of Bute, or the profli- 
gacy of those who called themselves the king's 
friends. With all deference to the eminent 
writers to whom we have referred, we may 
venture to say that they lived too near the 
events of which they treated, to judge of them 
correctly. The schism which was then ap- 
pearing in the nation, and which has been 
from that time almost constantly widening, had 
little in common with those which had divided 
it during the reigns of the Tudors and the 
Stuarts. The symptoms 'of popular feeling, 
indeed, will always in a great measure be the 
same ; but the principle which excited that 
feeling was here new. The support which 
was given to Wilkes, the clamour for reform 
during the American war, the disaffected con- 
duct of large classes of people at the time of 
the French Revolution, no more resembled the 
opposition which had been offered to the go- 
vernment of Charles the Second, than that op- 
position resembled the contest between the 
Roses. 

In the political as in the natural body, a sen- 
sation is often referred to a part widely differ- 
ent from that in which it really resides. A 
man, whose leg is cut off, fancies that he feels 
a pain in his toe. And in the same manner the 
people, in the earlier part of the late reign, sin- 
cerely attributed their discontent to grievances 
which had been effectually lopped off. They 
imagined that the prerogative was too strong 
for the constitution, that the principles of the 
Revolution were abandoned, and the system of 
the Stuarts restored. Every impartial man 
must now acknowledge that these charges 
were groundless. The proceedings of the 
government with respect to the Middlesex 
election would have been contemplated with 
delight by the first generation of Whigs. They 
would have thought it a splendid triumph cf 
the cause of liberty, that the King and th« 
Lords should resign to the House of Comn>o»t 



HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL PIISTCRY. 



97 



a portion of their legislative power, and allow 
it to incapacitate without their consent. This, 
indeed, Mr. Burke clearly perceived. " When 
the House of Commons," says he, " in an en- 
deavour to obtain new advantages at the ex- 
pense of the other orders of the state, for the 
benefit of the commons at large, have pursued 
strong measures, if it were not just, it was at 
least natural, that the constituents should con- 
nive at all their proceedings ; because we our- 
selves were ultimately to profit. But when this 
submission is urged to us in a contest between 
the representatives and ourselves, and where no- 
thing can be put into their scale which is not 
taken from ours, they fancy us to be children 
when they tell us that they are our representa- 
tives, our own flesh and blood, and that all the 
stripes they give us are for our good." These 
sentences contain, in fact, the whole explana- 
tion of the mystery. The conflict of the seven- 
teenth century was maintained by the Parlia- 
ment against the crown. The conflict which 
commence* in the middle of the eighteenth 
century, which still remains undecided, and in 
which our children and grandchildren will 
probably be called to act or suffer, is between 
a large portion of the people on the one side, 
and the crown and the Parliament united on 
the other. 

The privileges of the House>f Commons, 
those privileges which, in 1642, all London 
rose in arms to defend, which the people con- 
sidered as synonymous with their own liberties, 
and in comparison with which they took no 
account of the most precious and sacred prin- 
ciples of English jurisprudence, have now be- 
come nearly as odious as the rigours of mar 
tial law. That power of committing, which 
the people anciently loved to see the House of 
Commons exercise, is now, at least, when em- 
ployed against libellers, the most unpopular 
power in the constitution. If the Commons 
were to suffer the Lords to amend money-bills, 
we do not believe that the people would care 
one straw about the matter. If they were to 
suffer the Lords even to originate money-bills, 
we doubt whether such a surrender of their 
constitutional rights would excite half so 
much dissatisfaction as the exclusion of 
.strangers from a single important discussion. 
The gallery in which the reporters sit has be- 
come a fourth estate of the realm. The pub- 
lication of the debates, a practice which 
seemed to the most liberal statesmen of the old 
school full of danger to the great safeguards 
of public liberty, is now regarded by many 
persons as a safeguard, tantamount, and more 
than tantamount, to all the rest together. 

Burke, in a speech on parliamentary reform, 
which is the more remarkable because it was 
delivered long before the French Revolution, 
has described, in striking language, the change 
m public feeling of which we speak. " It sug- 
gests melancholy reflections," says he, "in 
consequence of the strange course we have 
long held, that we are now no longer quarrel- 
.mg about the character, or about the conduct 
of men, or the tenour of measures ; but we 
are grown out of humour with the English 
constitution itself; this is become the object of 
the animosity of Englishmen. This constitu- 



tion in former days used to be the envy of the 
world; it was the pattern for politicians; the 
theme of the eloquent ; the meditation of the 
philosopher in every part of the world. — As to 
Englishmen, it was their pride, their consola 
tion. By it they lived, and for it they were 
ready to die. Its defects, if it had any, were 
partly covered by partiality, and partly borne 
by prudence. Now all its excellencies are 
forgot, its faults are forcibly dragged into day, 
exaggerated by every artifice of misrepresenta- 
tion. It is despised and rejected of men ; and 
every device and invention of ingenuity or 
idleness is set up in opposition, or in prefer- 
ence to it." We neither adopt nor condemn 
the language of reprobation which the great 
orator here employs. We call him only as 
witness to the fact. That the revolution of 
public feeling which he described was then in 
progress is indisputable ; and it is equally in- 
disputable, we think, that it is in progress still 
To investigate and classify the cause of so 
great a change, would require far more thought, 
and far more space, than we at present have to 
bestow. But some of them are obvious. Dur- 
ing the contest which the Parliament carried 
on against the Stuarts, it had only to check a,nd 
complain. It has since had to govern. As an 
attacking body, it could select its points of at- 
tack, and it naturally chose those on which it 
was likely to receive public support. As a 
ruling body, it has neither the same liberty of 
choice, nor the same interest to gratify the 
people. With the power of an executive go- 
vernment, it has drawn to itself some of the 
vices and all the unpopularity of an executive 
government. On the House of Commons, 
above all, possessed as it is of the public purse, 
and consequently of the public sword, the na- 
tion throws all the blame of an ill-conducted 
war, of a blundering negotiation, of a disgrace- 
ful treaty, of an embarrassing commercial crises. 
The delays of the Court of Chancery, the mis- 
conduct of a judge at Van Dieman's land, any 
thing, in short, which in any part of the admi 
nistration any person feels as a grievance, is 
attributed to the tyranny, or at least to the 
negligence, of that all-powerful body. Private 
individuals pester it with their wrongs and 
claims. A merchant appeals to it from the courts 
of R'o Janeiro or St. Petersburg. A painter, 
who can find nobody to buy the acre of spoiled 
canvass, which he calls an historical picture, 
pours into its sympathizing ear the whole story 
of his debts and his jealousies. Anciently the 
Parliament resembled a member of opposition, 
from whom no places are expected, who is not 
required to confer favours and propose mea- 
sures, but merely to watch and censure ; and 
who may, therefore, unless he is grossly inju- 
dicious, be popular with the great body of the 
community. The Parliament now resembles 
the same person put into office, surrounded by 
petitioners, whom twenty times his patronage 
would not satisfy, stunned with complaints, 
buried in memorials, compelled by the duties 
of his station to bring forward measures, simi 
lar to those which he was formerly accustomed 
to observe and to check, and perpetually en- 
countered by objections similar to those which 
it was formerly his business to raise. 



08 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Perhaps it may be laid down as a general 
rule, that a legislative assembly, not constituted 
on democratic principles, cannot be popular 
long after it ceases to be weak. Its zeal for 
what the people, rightly or wrongly, conceive 
to he their interest, its sympathy with their 
mutable and violent passions, are merely the 
effects of the particular circumstances in which 
it is placed. As long as it depends for exist- 
ence on the public favour, it will employ all 
the means in its power to conciliate that favour. 
While this is the case, defects in its constitu- 
tion are of little consequence. But as the close 
union of such a body with the nation is the 
effect of an identity of interest, not essential, 
but accidental, it is in some measure dissolved 
from the time at which the danger which pro- 
duced it ceases to exist. 

Hence, before the Revolution, the question 
of parliamentary reform was of very little im- 
portance. The friends of liberty had no very 
ardent wish for it. The strongest Tories saw 
no objections to it. It is remarkable that Cla- 
rendon loudly applauds the changes which 
Cromwell introduced, changes far stronger 
than the Whigs of the present day would in 
general approve. There is no reason to think, 
however, that the reform effected by Cromwell 
made any great difference in the conduct of 
the Parliament. Indeed, if the House of Com- 
mons had, during the reign of Charles the Se- 
cond, been elected by universal suffrage, or if 
all the seats had been put up to sale, as in the 
French Parliaments, it would, we suspect, have 
acted very much as it did. We know how 
strongly the Parliament of Paris exerted itself 
in favour of the people on many important 
occasions ; and the reason is evident. Though 
it did not emanate from the people, its whole 
consequence depended on the support of the 
people. From the time of the Revolution the 
HeUise of Commons was gradually becoming 
what it now is — a great council of state, con- 
taining many members chosen freely by the 
people, and many others anxious to acquire 
the favour of the people ; but, on the whole, 
aristocratical in its temper and interest. It is 
very far from being an illtteral and stupid oli- 
garchy; but it is equally far from being an 
express image of the general feeling. It is 
influenced by the opinion of the people, and 
influenced powerfully, but slowly and circuit- 
ously. Instead of outrunning the public mind, 
as before the Revolution it frequently did, it 
now follows with slow steps and at a wide 
distance. It is therefore necessarily unpopu- 
lar ; and the more so, because the good which 
it produces is much less evident to common 
perception than the evil which it inflicts. It 
bears the blame of all the mischief which is 
done, or supposed to be done, by its authority 
or by its connivance. It does not get the 
credit, on the other hand, of having pre- 
vented those innumerable abuses which do 
not exist solely because the House of Com- 
mons exists. 

A large part of the nation is certainly de- 
sirous of a reform in the representative system. 
How large that part may be, and how strong 
'is desires on the subject may be, it is difficult 
in say. It is only at intervals that the clamour 



on the subject is loud and vehement. But i 
seems to us that, during the remissions, the 
feeling gathers strength, and that every suc- 
cessive burst is more violent than that which 
preceded it. The public attention may be fo* 
a time diverted to the Catholic claims or the 
mercantile code ; but it is probable that at no 
very distant period, perhaps in the lifetime of 
the present generation, all other questions will 
merge in that which is, in a certain degree, 
connected with them all. 

Already we seem to ourselves to perceive 
the signs of unquiet times, the vague presenti- 
ment of .something great and strange which 
pervades the community; the restless and tur- 
bid hopes of those who have every thing to 
gain, the dimly-hinted forebodings of those wh j 
have every thing to lose. Many indicationr: 
might be mentioned, in themselves indeed as 
insignificant as straws ; but even the direction 
of a straw, to borrow the illustration of Bacon, 
will show from what quarter the hurricane is 
setting in. 

A great statesman might, by judicious and 
timely reformations, by reconciling the two 
great branches of the natural aristocracy, the 
capitalists and the landowners, by so widening 
the base of the government as to interest in its 
defence the whole of the middling class, that 
brave, honest, and sound-hearted class, which 
is as anxious for the maintenance of order and 
the security of property as it is hostile to cor- 
ruption and oppression, succeed in averting a 
struggle to which no rational friend of liberty 
or of law can look forward without great ap- 
prehensions. There are those who will be 
contented with nothing but demolition; and 
there are those who shrink from all repair. 
There are innovators who long for a President 
and a National Convention ; and there are 
bigots who, while cities larger and richer than 
the capitals of many great kingdoms are call- 
ing out for representatives to watch over their 
interests, select some hackneyed jobber in bo- 
roughs, some peer of the narrowest and small- 
est mind, as the fittest depositary of a forfeited 
franchise. Between these extremes there lies 
a more excellent way. Time is bringing around 
another crisis analogous to that which occurred 
in the seventeenth century. We stand in a 
situation similar to that in which our ancestors 
stood under the reign of James the First. It 
will soon again be necessary to reform, that 
we may preserve ; to save the fundamental 
principles of the constitution, by alterations in 
the subordinate parts. It will then be possible, 
as it was possible two hundred years ago, to 
protect vested rights, to secure every useful 
institution — every institution endeared by an- 
tiquity and noble associations; and, at the 
same time, to introduce into the system im- 
provements harmonizing with thi original 
plan. It remains to be seen whether two hun« 
dred years have made us wiser. 

We know of no great revolution which might 
not have been prevented by compromise early 
and graciously made. Firmness is a grea 
virtue in public affairs, but it has its proper 
sphere. Conspiracies and insurrections in 
which tmall minorities are engaged, the out- 
breakings of popular violence unconnected 



SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 



99 



with any extensive project or any durable prin- 
ciple, are best repressed by vigour and decision. 
To shrink from them is to make them formida- 
ble. But no wise ruler will confound the per- 
vading taint with the slight local irritation. 
No wise ruler will treat the deeply-seated dis- 
contents of a great party as he treats the con- 
duct of a mob which destroys mills and power- 
looms. The neglect of this distinction has 
been fatal even to governments strong in the 
power of the sword. The present time is in- 
deed a time of peace and order. But it is at 
such a time that fools are most thoughtless, 
and wise men most thoughtful. That the dis- 



contents which have agitated the cc untry iui* 
ing the late and the present reign, and which, 
though not always noisy, are never wholly 
dormant, will again break forth with aggravated 
symptoms, is almost as certain as that the tides 
and seasons will follow their appointed course. 
But in all movements of the human mind 
which tend to great revolutions, there is a cri- 
sis at which moderate concession may amend, 
conciliate, and preserve. Happy will it be foi 
England if, at that crisis, her interests be con- 
fided to men for whom history has not recorded 
the long series of human crimes and follies in 
vain. 



SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY/ 



[Edinburgh Review, 1830.] 



It would be scarcely possible for a man of 
Mr. Southey's talents and acquirements to write 
two volumes so large as those before us, which 
should be wholly destitute of information and 
amusement. Yet we do not remember to have 
read with so little satisfaction any equal quan- 
tity of matter, written by any man of real abili- 
ties. We have, for some time past, observed 
with great regret the strange infatuation which 
.eads the Poet-laureate to abandon those de- 
partments of literature in which he might ex- 
cel, and to lecture the public on sciences of 
which he has still the very alphabet to learn. 
He has now, we think, done his worst. The sub- 
ject, which he has at last undertaken to treat, is 
one which demands all the highest intellectual 
and moral qualities of a philosophical states- 
man — an understanding at once comprehen- 
sive and acute — a heart at once upright and 
charitable. Mr. Southey brings to the task two 
faculties which were never, we believe, vouch- 
safed in measure so copious to any human be- 
ing ; the faculty of believing without a reason, 
and the faculty of hating without a provoca- 
tion. 

It is, indeed, most extraordinary that a mind 
like Mr. Southey's, a mind richly endowed in 
many respects by nature and highly cultivated 
by study, a mind which has exercised con- 
siderable influence on the most enlightened 
generation of the most enlightened people that 
ever existed, should be utterly destitute of the 
power of discerning truth from falsehood. Yet 
such is the fact. Government is to Mr. Southey 
one of the fine arts. He judges of a theory or 
a public measure, of a religion, a political 
party, a peace or a war, as men judge of a pic- 
ture or a statue, by the effect produced on his 
imagination. A chain of associations is to him 
what a chain of reasoning is to other men ; 
and what he calls his opinions, are in fact 
merely his tastes. 



* Sir Thomas More ; or Colloquies on the Progress and 
Prospects of Society. By Robert Southev, Ebq., LL.D. 
Poet Laureate. 2 vols. 8vo. London. 1829. 



Part of this description might, perhaps, 
apply to a much greater man, Mr. Burke. But 
Mr. Burke, assuredly possessed an understand- 
ing admirably fitted for the investigation of 
truth — an understanding stronger than that of 
any statesman, active or speculative, of the 
eighteenth century — stronger than every thing, 
except his own fierce and ungovernable sensi- 
bility. Hence, he generally chose his side like 
a fanatic, and defended it like a philosopher. 
His conduct, in the most important events of 
his life, at the time of the impeachment of 
Hastings, for example, and at the time of the 
French Revolution, seems to have been prompt- 
ed by those feelings and motives which Mr. 
Coleridge has so happily described : 

" Stormy pity, and the cherish'd lure 
Of pomp, and proud precipitance of soul." 

Hindostan, with its vast cities, its gorgeous 
pagodas, its infinite swarms of dusky popula- 
tion, its long-descended dynasties, its stately 
etiquette, excited in a mind so capacious, so 
imaginative, and so susceptible, the most in- 
tense interest. The peculiarities of the costume, 
of the manners, and of the laws, the very mys- 
tery which hung over the language and origin 
of the people seized his imagination. To plead 
in Westminster Hall, in the name of the English 
people, at the bar of the English nobles, for 
great nations and kings separated from him by 
half the world, seemed to him the height of hu- 
man glory. Again, it is not difficult to perceive, 
that his hostility to the French Revolution prin- 
cipally arose from the vexation which he felt, 
at having all his old political associations dis- 
turbed, at seeing the well-known boundary- 
marks of states obliterated, and the names and 
distinctions with which the history of Europe 
had been filled for ages, swept away. He felt 
like an antiquary whose shield had been 
scoured, or a connoisseur whe found his Ti 
tian retouched. But however he came ny an 
opinion, he had no sooner got it than he did his 
best to make out a legitimate title to it. Hi? 
reason, like a spirit in the service of an en- 



100 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



chanter, though spell-bound, was still mighty. 
It did whatever work his passions and his 
imagination might impose. But it did that 
work, however arduous, with marvellous dex- 
terity and vigour. His course was not de- 
termined by argument; but he could defend 
the wildest course by arguments more plausi- 
ble than those by which common men support 
©pinions which they have adopted, after the 
fullest deliberation. Reason has scarcely ever 
displayed, even in those well-constituted minds 
of which she occupies the throne, so much 
power and energy as in the lowest offices of 
that imperial servitude. 

Now, in the mind of Mr. Southey, reason has 
no place at all, as either leader or follower, as 
either sovereign or slave. He does not seem 
to know what an argument is. He never uses 
arguments himself. He never troubles himself 
to answer the arguments of his opponents. It 
has never occurred to him, that a man ought 
to be able to give some better account of the 
way in which he has arrived at his opinions, 
than merely that it is his will and pleasure to 
hold them, that there is a difference between 
assertion and demonstration, that a rumour 
does not always prove a fact, that a fact does 
aot always prove a theory, that two contradic- 
tory propositions cannot be undeaiable truths, 
that to beg the question is not the way to set- 
tle it, or that when an objection is raised, it 
ought to met with something more convincing 
than " scoundrel" and " blockhead." 

It would be absurd to read the works of such 
a writer for political instruction. The utmost 
that can be expected from any system promul- 
gated by him is, that it may be splendid and 
affecting, that it may suggest sublime and 
pleasing images. His scheme of philosophy is 
a mere daydream, a poetical creation, like the 
Domdaniel caverns, the Swerga, or Padalon ; 
and, indeed, it bears no inconsiderable resem- 
blance to those gorgeous visions. Like them 
it has something of invention, grandeur, and 
brilliancy. But, like them, it is grotesque and 
extravagant, and perpetually violates that con- 
ventional probability which is essential to the 
effect even of works of art. 

The warmest admirers of Mr. Southey will 
scarcely, we think, deny that his success has 
almost always borne an inverse proportion to 
the degree in which his undertakings have re- 
quired a logical head. His poems, taken in 
the mass, stand far higher than his prose 
works. The Laureate Odes, indeed, among 
which the Vision of Judgment must be classed, 
are, for the most part, worse than Pye's and as 
bad as Cibber's ; nor do we think him generally 
happy in short pieces. But his longer poems, 
though full of faults, are nevertheless very ex- 
traordinary productions. We doubt greatly 
whether they will be read fifty years hence ; 
but that if they are read, they will be admired, 
we have no doubt whatever. 

But though in general we prefer Mr. Sou- 
they's poetry to his prose, we must make one 
exception. The Life of Nelson is, beyond all 
doubt, the most perfect and the most delightful 
of his works. The fact is, as his poems most 
abundantly prove, that he is by no means so 
•skilful in designing as filling up. It was 



therefore an advantage to him to be furnished 
with an outline of characters and events, and 
to have no other task to perform than that of 
touching the cold sketch into life. No writer, 
perhaps, ever lived, whose talents so precisely 
qualified him to write the history of the great 
naval warrior. There were no fine riddles of 
the human heart to read, no theories to found, 
no hidden causes to develope, no remote con- 
sequences to predict. The character of the 
hero lay on the surface. The exploits were 
brilliant and picturesque. The necessity of 
adhering to the real course of events saved Mr. 
Southey from those faults which deform the 
original plan of almost every one of his poems, 
and which even his innumerable beauties of 
detail scarcely redeem. The subject did not re- 
quire the exercise of those reasoning powers 
the want of which is the blemish of his prose. 
It would not be easy to find, in all literary his- 
tory, an instance of a more exact hit between 
wind and water. John Wesley, and the Penin- 
sular War, were subjects of a very different 
kind, subjects which required all the qualities 
of a philosophic historian. In Mr. Southey's 
works on these subjects, he has, on the whole, 
failed. Yet there are charming specimens of 
the art of narration in both of them. The Life 
of Wesley will probably live. Defective as it 
is, it contains the only popular account of a 
most remarkable moral revolution, an d of a man 
whose eloquence and logical acuteness might 
have rendered him eminent in literature, whose 
genius for government was not inferior to that 
of Richelieu, and who, whatever his errors may 
have been, devoted all his powers, in defiance 
of obloquy and derision, to what he sincerely 
considered as the highest good of his species. 
The History of the Peninsular War is already 
dead: indeed the second volume was dead- 
born. The glory of producing an imperishable 
record of that great conflict seems to be re- 
served for Colonel Napier. 

The Book of the Church contains some sto- 
ries very prettily told. The rest is mere rub- 
bish. The adventure was manifestly one 
which could be achieved only by a profound 
thinker, and in which even a profound thinker 
might have failed, unless his passions had 
been kept under strict control. In all those 
works in which Mr. Southey has completely 
abandoned narration, and undertaken to argue 
moral and political questions, his failure has 
been complete and ignominious. On such 
occasions his writings are rescued from utter 
contempt and derision, solely by the beauty 
and purity of the English. We find, we cod 
fess, so great a charm in Mr. Southey's style, 
that, even when he writes nonsense, we ge- 
nerally read it with pleasure, except indeed 
when he tries to be droll. A more insuffera- 
ble jester never existed. He very often at- 
tempts to be humorous, and yet we do not 
remember a single occasion on which he has 
succeeded farther than to be quaintly and flip- 
pantly dull. In one of his works, he tells us 
that Bishop Sprat was very properly so called, 
inasmuch as he was a very small poet. And 
in the book now before us, he cannot quote 
Francis Bugg without a remark on his unsa- 
vory name. A man might talk folly like *hia 



SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 



10J 



1 9 his own fireside ; but that any human being, 
after having made such a joke, should write it 
down, and copy it out, and transmit it to the 
printer, and correct the proof-sheets, and send 
it forth into the world, is enough to make us 
ashamed of our species. 

The extraordinary bitterness of spirit which 
Mr. Sou they manifests towards his opponents 
is, no doubt, in a great measure to be attri- 
buted to the manner in which he forms his opi- 
nions. Differences of taste, it has often been 
remarked? produce greater exasperation than 
differences on points of science. But this is 
not all. A peculiar austerity marks almost 
all Mr. Southey's judgments of men and ac- 
tions. We are far from blaming him for fix- 
ing on a high standard of morals, and for 
applying that standard to every case. But 
rigour ought to be accompanied by discern- 
ment, and of discernment Mr. Southey seems 
to be utterly destitute. His mode of judging 
is monkish ; it is exactly what we should ex- 
pect from a "stern old Benedictine, who had 
been preserved from many ordinary ft ilties 
by the restraints of his situation. Nt, man 
out of a cloister ever wrote about love, lor ex- 
ample, so coldly and at the same time so 
grossly. His descriptions of it are just what 
wc should, hear from a recluse, who knew the 
passion only from the details of the confes- 
sional. Almost all his heroes make love 
either like seraphim or like cattle. He seems 
to have no notion of any thing between the 
Platonic passion of the Glendoveer, who gazes 
with rapture on his mistress's leprosy, and the 
brutal appetite of Arvalan and Roderick. In 
Roderick, indeed, the two characters are united. 
He is first all clay, and then all spirit, he goes 
forth a Tarquin, and comes back too ethereal 
to be married. The only love-scene, as far as 
we can recollect, in Madoc, consists of the 
delicate attentions which a savage, who has 
drunk too much of the Prince's metheglin, 
offers to Goervyl. It wouid be the labour of a 
week to find, in all the vast mass of Mr. Sou- 
they's poetry, a single passage indicating any 
sympathy with those feelings which have con- 
secrated the shades of Vaucluse and the rocks 
of Meillerie. 

Indeed, if we except some very pleasing 
images of paternal tenderness and filial duty, 
there is scarcely any thing soft or humane in 
Mr. Southey's poetry. What theologians call 
the spiritual sins are his cardinal virtues — 
hatred, pride, and the insatiable thirst of ven- 
geance. These passions he disguises under 
the name of duties ; he purifies them from the 
alloy of vulgar interests ; he ennobles them by 
uniting them with energy, fortitude, and a 
severe sanctity of manners, and then holds 
them up to the admiration of mankind. This 
is the spirit of Thalaba, of Ladurlad, of Ado- 
sinda, of Roderick after his regeneration. It is 
the spirit which, in all his writings, Mr. Sou- 
they appears to effect. " I do well to be angry," 
seems to be the predominant feeling of his 
mind. A. most the only mark of charity wl ich 
he vouchsafes to his opponents is to pray for 
their conversion, and this he does in terms not 
unlike those in which we can imagine a Por- 
tuguese priest interceding with Heaven for a 



Jew, delivered over to the secular arm after a 
relapse. 

We have always heard, and fully beMevei 
that Mr. Southey is a very amiable and hu- 
mane man ; nor do we intend to apply to him 
personally any of the remarks which we have 
made on the spirit of his writings. Such are 
the caprices of human nature. Even Uncle 
Toby troubled himself very little abcut the 
French grenadiers who fell on the glacis of 
Namur, And when Mr. Southey takes up his 
pen, he changes his nature as much as Cap- 
tain Shandy when he girt on his sword. The 
only opponents to whom he gives quarter are 
those in whom he finds something of his own 
character reflected. He seems to have an in- 
stinctive antipathy for calm, moderate men — 
for men who shun extremes, and who render 
reasons. He has treated Mr. Owen of Lanark, 
for example, with infinitely more respect than 
he has shown to Mr. Hallam or to Dr. Lin- 
gard ; and this for no reason than we can dis- 
cover except that Mr. Owen is more unrea- 
sonably and hopelessly in the wrong than any 
speculator of our time. 

Mr. Southey's political system is just what 
we might expect from a man who regards po 
litics, not as a matter of science, but as a mat 
ter of taste and feeling. All his schemes of 
government have been inconsistent with them- 
selves. In his youth he was a republican ; 
yet, as he tells us .in his preface to these Col- 
loquies, he was even then opposed to the Ca- 
tholic claims. He is now a violent Ultra- 
Tory. Yet while he maintains, with vehemence 
approaching to ferocity, all the sterner and 
harsher parts of the Ultra-Tory theory of go 
vernment, the baser and dirtier part of thai 
theory disgusts him. Exclusion, persecution, 
severe punishments for libellers and dema- 
gogues, proscriptions, massacres, civil war, if 
necessary, rather than any concession to a 
discontented people — these are the measures 
which he seems inclined to recommend. A 
severe and gloomy tyranny, crushing opposi- 
tion, silencing remonstrance, drilling the minds 
of the people into unreasoning obedience, has 
in it something of grandeur which delights his 
imagination. But there is nothing fine in the 
shabby tricks and jobs of office. And Mr. 
Southey, accordingly, has no toleration for 
them. When a democrat, he did not perceive 
that his system led logically, and would have 
led practically, to the removal of religious dis- 
tinctions. He now commits a similar error. 
He renounces the abject and paltry part of the 
creed of his party, without perceiving that it is 
also an essential part of that creed. He would 
have tyranny and purity together ; though the 
most superficial observation might have shown 
him that there can be no tyranny without cor- 
ruption. 

It is high time, however, that we should pro 
ceed to the consideration of the work, which is 
our more immediate subject, and which, in- 
deed, illustrates in almost every page our 
general remarks on Mr. Southey's writings. 
In the preface, we are informed that the author, 
notwithstanding some statements to the con 
trary, was always opposed to the Catholic 
claims. We fully believe this ; both because 



103 



MACAULAYS MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, 



we are sure that Mr. Southey is incapable of 
publishing a deliberate falsehood, and because 
his averment is in itself probable. It is ex- 
actly what we should have expected that, even 
in his wildest paroxysms of democratic enthu- 
siasm, Mr. Southey would have felt no wish to 
see a simple remedy applied to a great practical 
evil ; that the only measure, which all the great 
statesmen of two generations have agreed with 
each other in supporting, would be the only 
measure which Mr. Southey would have agreed 
with himself in opposing. He had passed 
from one extreme of political opinion to an- 
other, as Satan in Milton went round the globe, 
contriving constantly to " ride with darkness." 
Wherever the thickest shadow of the night 
may at any moment chance to fall, there is 
Mr. Southey. It is not everybody who could 
have so dexterously avoided blundering on the 
daylight in the course of a journey to the anti- 
podes. 

Mr. Southey has not been fortunate in the 
plan of any of his fictitious narratives. But he 
has never failed so conspicuously as in the 
work before us ; except, indeed, in the wretched 
Vision of Judgment. In November, 1817, it 
seems, the laureate was sitting over his news- 
paper, and meditating about the death of the 
Princess Charlotte. An elderly person, of 
very dignified aspect, makes his appearance, 
announces himself as a stranger from a dis- 
tant country, and apologizes very politely for 
not having provided himself with letters of in- 
troduction. Mr. Southey supposes his visiter 
to be some American gentleman, who has 
come to see the lakes and the lake-poets, and 
accordingly proceeds to perform, with that 
grace which only long experience can give, 
all the duties which authors owe to starers. 
He assures his guest that some of the most 
agreeable visits which he has. received have 
been from Americans, and that he knows men 
among them whose talents and virtues would 
do honour to any country. In passing, we may 
observe, to the honour of Mr. Southey, that, 
though he evidently has no liking for the Ame- 
rican institutions, he never speaks of the people 
of the United States with that pitiful affectation 
of contempt, by which some members of his 
party have done more than wars or tariffs can do 
to excite mutual enmity between two communi- 
ties formed for mutual friendship. Great as the 
faults of his mind are, paltry spite like this has 
no place in it. Indeed, it is scarcely conceiv- 
able that a man of his sensibility and his ima- 
gination should look without pleasure and 
national pride on the vigorous and splendid 
youth of a great people, whose veins are filled 
with our blood, whose minds are nourished 
with our literature, and on whom is entailed 
the rich inheritance of our civilization, our 
freedom, and our glory. 

But we must now return to Mr. Southey's study 
at Keswick. The visiter informs the hospitable 
poet that he is not an American, but a spirit. 
Mr. Southey, with more frankness than civility, 
tells hin that he is a very queer one. The 
s.traDger holds out his hand. It has neither 
weight nor substance. Mr. Southey upon this 
t«comes more serious ; his hair stands on end: 
nnd he adjures the spectre to tell him what he 



is, and why he comes. The ghost turns out t« 
be Sir Thomas More. The traces of martyr* 
dom, it seems, are worn in the other world, as 
stars and ribands are worn in this. Sir Thomas 
shows the poet a red streak round his neck, 
brighter than a ruby, and informs him that 
Cranmer wears a suit of flames in Paradise, 
the right-hand glove, we suppose, of peculial 
brilliancy. 

Sir Thomas pays but a short \ isit on this 
occasion, but promises to cultivate the new 
acquaintance which he has formed, and, after 
begging that his visit may be kept secret from 
Mrs. Southey, vanishes into air. 

The rest of the book consists of conversa- 
tions between Mr. Southey and the spirit about 
trade, currency, Catholic emancipation, peri- 
odical literature, female nunneries, butchers, 
snuff, book-stalls, and a hundred other subjects. 
Mr. Southey very hospitably takes an opportu- 
nity to lionize the ghost round the lakes, and 
directs his attention to the most beautiful points 
of view. Why a spirit was to be evoked for 
the purpose of talking over such matters, and 
seeing such sights, when the vicar of the parish, 
a blue-stocking from London, or an American, 
such as Mr. Southey supposed his aerial 
visiter to be, might not have done as well, we 
are unable to conceive. Sir Thomas tells 
Mr. Southey nothing about future events, and 
indeed absolutely disclaims the gift of pre- 
science. He has learned to talk modern English: 
he has read all the new publications, and loves 
a jest as well as when he jested with the execu- 
tioner, though we cannot say that the quality 
of his wit has materially improved in Paradise. 
His powers of reasoning, too, are by no means 
in as great vigour as when he sate on the wool- 
sack ; and though he boasts that he is " divested 
of all those passions which cloud the intellects 
and warp the understandings of men," we 
think him, we must confess, far less stoical 
than formerly. As to revelations, he tells Mr. 
Southey at the outset to expect none from him. 
The laureate expresses some doubts, which 
assuredly will not raise him in the opinion of 
our modern millenarians, as to the divine au 
thority of the Apocalypse. But the ghost pre- 
serves an impenetrable silence. As far as we 
remember, only one hint about the employ- 
ments of disembodied spirits escapes him. H« 
encourages Mr. Southey to hope that there is a 
Paradise Press, at which all the valuable pub- 
lications of Mr. Murray and Mr. Colburn are 
reprinted as regularly as at Philadelphia ; and 
delicately insinuates, that Thalaba and the 
Curse of Kehama are among the number. 
What a contrast does this absurd fiction pre- 
sent to those charming narratives which Plato 
and Cicero prefix to their dialogues ! What 
cost in machinery, yet what poverty of effect ! j 
A ghost brought in to say what any man might 
have said ! The glorified spirit of a great 
statesman and philosopher dawdling, like a I 
bilious old nabob at a watering-place, over ; 
quarterly reviews and novels, dropping in to . 
pay long calls, making excursions in search 
of the picturesque ! The scene of St. George 
and St. Denys in the Pucelle is hardly more 
ridiculous. We know what Voltaire meant 
Nobody, however, can suppose that Mr 

; 



SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 



103 



Southey means to make game of the mysteries 
of a higher state of existence. The fact is, 
that in the work before us, in the Vision of 
Judgment, and in some of his other pieces, his 
mode of treating the most solemn subjects 
differs from that of open scoffers, only as the 
extravagant representations of sacred persons 
and things in some grotesque Italian paintings 
differ from the caricatures which Carlisle ex- 
poses in the front of his shop. We interpret 
the particular act by the general character. 
What in the window of a convicted blasphe- 
mer we call blasphemous, we call only absurd 
and ill-judged in an altar-piece. 

We now come to the conversations which 
pass between Mr. Southey and Sir Thomas 
More, or rather between two Southeys equally 
eloquent, equally angry, equally unreasonable, 
and equally given to talking about what they 
do not understand. Perhaps we could not se- 
lect a better instance of the spirit which per- 
vades the whole book than the discussion 
ching butchers. These persons are repre- 
ted as castaways, as men whose employ- 

ent hebetates the faculties and hardens the 
heart. Not that the poet has any scruples 
about the use of animal food. He acknow- 
ledges that it is for the good of the animals 
themselves that men should feed upon them. 
"Nevertheless," says he, "I cannot but ac- 
knowledge, like good old John Fox, that the 
sight of a slaughter-house or shambles, if it 
does not disturb this clear conviction, excites 
in me uneasiness and pain, as well as loathing. 
And that they produce a worse effect upon the 
persons employed in them, is a fact acknow- 
ledged by the law or custom which excludes 
such persons from sitting on juries upon cases 
of life and death." 

This is a fair specimen of Mr. Southey's 
mode of looking at all moral questions. Here 
is a body of men engaged in an employment, 
which, by his own account, is beneficial, not 
only to mankind, but to the very creatures on 
whom we feed. Yet he represents them as 
men who are necessarily reprobates, as men 
who must necessarily be reprobates, even in 
the most improved state of society, even, to 
use his own phrase, in a Christian Utopia. 
And what reasons are given for a judgment so 
directly opposed to every principle of sound 
and manly morality 1 Merely this, that he can- 
not abide the sight of their apparatus; that, 
from certain peculiar associations, he is 
affected with disgust when he passes by their 
shops. He gives, indeed, another reason; a 
certain law or custom, which never existed but 
in the imaginations of old women, and which, 
if it had existed, would have proved just as 
much against butchers as the ancient preju- 
dice against the practice of taking interest for 
money proves against the merchants of Eng- 
land. Is a surgeon a castaway 1 We believe 
ihat nurses, when they instruct children in that 
venerable law or custom which Mr. Southey 
so highly approves, generally join the surgeon 
to the butcher. A dissecting-room would, we 
should think, affect the nerves of most people 
as much as a butcher's shambles. But the 
most amusing circumstance is, that Mr. 
Bouthey, who detests a butcher, should look. 



with special favour on a Jicdier. He seems 
highly to approve of the sentiment of General 
Meadows, who SAVore that a grenadier was the 
highest character in this world or in the next; 
and assures us, that a virtuous soldier is placed 
in the situation which most tends to his im- 
provement, and will most promote his eternal 
interests. Human blood, indeed, is by no 
means an object of so much loathing to Mr. 
Southey, as the hides and paunches of cattle. 
In 1814, he poured forth poetical maledictions' 
on all who talked of peace with Bonaparte. 
He went over the field of Waterloo, a field, be- 
neath which twenty thousand of the stoutest 
hearts that ever beat are mouldering, and came 
back in an ecstasy, which he mistook for poet- 
ical inspiration. In most of his poems, parti- 
cularly in his best poem, Roderick, and in most 
of his prose works, particularly in The History 
of the Peninsular War, he shows a delight in 
snuffing up carnage, which would not have 
misbecome a Scandinavian bard, but which 
sometimes seems to harmonize ill with the 
Christian morality. We do not, however, 
blame Mr. Southey for exulting, even a little 
ferociously, in the brave deeds of his country- 
men, or for finding -something "comely and 
reviving" in the bloody vengeance inflicted by 
an oppressed people on its oppressors. Now, 
surely, if we find that a man whose business is 
to kill Frenchmen may be humane, we may 
hope that means may be found to render a 
man humane whose business is to kill sheep. 
If the brutalizing effect of such scenes as the 
storm of St. Sebastian may be counteracted, 
we may hope that in a Christian Utopia, some 
minds might be proof against the kennels and 
dresses of Aldgate. Mr. Southey's feeling, 
however, is easily explained. A butcher's 
knife is by no means so elegant as a sabre, 
and a calf does not bleed with half the grace 
of a poor wounded hussar. 

It is in the same manner that Mr. Southey 
appears to have formed his opinions of the 
manufacturing system. There is nothing 
which he hates so bitterly. It is, according to 
him, a system more tyrannical than that of the 
feudal ages, a system of actual servitude, a 
system which destroys the bodies and de- 
grades the minds of those who are engaged 
in it. He expresses a hope that the competi- 
tion of other nations may drive us out of the 
field ; that our foreign trade may decline, and 
that we may thus enjoy a restoration of na- 
tional sanity and strength. But he seems to 
think that the extermination of the whole ma- 
nufacturing population would be a blessing, 
if the evil could be'Temoved in no other way. 

Mr. Southey does not bring forward a single 
fact in support of these views, and, as it seema 
to us, there are facts which lead to a very 
different conclusion. In the first place, the 
poor-rate is very decidedly lower in the manu 
facturing than in the agricultural districts. 
If Mr. Southey will look over the Parliament- 
ary returns on this subject, he wJll nnd that the 
amount of parish relief required by the la- 
bourers in the different counties of England, 
is almost exactly in inverse pioportion to the. 
degree in which the manufacturing system 
has been introduced into those counties. Tb? 



104 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



returns for the year ending in March, 1825, 
and in March, 1828, are now before us. In 
the former year, we find the poor-rates highest 
in Sussex — about 20s. to every inhabitant. 
Then come Buckinghamshire, Essex, Suffolk, 
Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Kent and Nor- 
folk. In all these the rate is above 15s. a head. 
We will not go through the whole. Even in 
Westmoreland, and the North Riding of York- 
shire, the rate is at more than 8s. In Cumber- 
land and Monmouthshire, the most fortunate 
of all the agricultural districts, it is at 6s. 
But in the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is as 
low as 5s. ; and when we come to Lancashire, 
we find it at 4s. — one-fifth of what it is in Sussex. 
The returns of the year ending in March, 1828, 
are a little, and but a little, more unfavourable to 
the manufacturing districts. Lancashire, even 
in that season of distress, required a smaller 
poor-rate than any other district, and little 
more than one-fourth of the poor-rate raised 
in Sussex. Cumberland alone, of the agricul- 
tural districts, was as well off as the West 
Riding of Yorkshire. These facts seem to in- 
dicate that the manufacturer is both in a more 
comfortable and in a less dependent situation 
than the agricultural labourer. 

As to the effect of the manufacturing system 
on the bodily health, we must beg leave to 
estimate it by a standard far too low and vul- 
gar for a mind so imaginative as that of Mr. 
Southey, the proportion of births and deaths. 
We know that, during the growth of this 
atrocious system, this new misery, (we use 
the phrase of Mr. Southey,) this new enormity, 
this birth of an portentous age, this pest, which 
no man can approve whose heart is not seared, 
or whose understanding has not been darkened, 
there has been a great diminution of mortality, 
and that this diminution has been greater in 
the manufacturing towns than anywhere else. 
The mortality still is, as it always was, greater 
in towns than in the country. But the differ- 
ence has diminished in an extraordinary de- 
gree. There is the best reason to believe, that 
the annual mortality of Manchester, about the 
middle of the last century, was one in twenty- 
eight. It is now reckoned at one in forty-five. 
In Glasgow and Leeds a similar improvement 
has taken place. Nay, the rate of mortality 
in those three- great capitals of the manufac- 
turing districts, is now considerably less than 
it was fifty years ago over England and Wales 
taken together, open country and all. We 
might with some plausibility maintain, that the 
people live longer because they are better fed, 
better lodged, better clothed, and better attend- 
ed in sickness ; and that these improvements 
are owing to that increase of national wealth 
which the manufacturing system has produced. 

Much more might be said on this subject. 
But to what end ? It is not from bills of mor- 
tality and statistical tables that Mr. Southey 
has learned his political creed. He cannot 
stoop to study the history of the system which 
he abuses, to strike the balance between the 
good and evil which it has produced, to com- 
paie district with district, or generation with 
generation. We will give his own reason for 
his opinion, the only reason which he gives 
for it, in his own words : 



"We remained a while in silence, looking 
upon the assemblage of dwellings ftelow. 
Here, and in the adjoining hamlet of Mil&eck, 
the effects of manufactures and of agriculture 
may be seen and compared. The old cottages 
are such as the poet and the painter equally 
delight in beholding. Substan'ially built of 
the native stone without mortar, dirtied with 
no white lime, and their long, low roofs covered 
with slate ; if they had been raised by the 
magic of some indigenous Amphion's music, 
the materials could not have adjusted them- 
selves more beautifully in accord with the 
surrounding scene ; and time has still further 
harmonized them with weather-stains, lichens, 
and moss, short grasses, and short fern, and 
stone-plants of various kinds. The orna- 
mented chimneys, round or square, less adorn- 
ed than those which, like little turrets, crest 
the houses of the Portuguese peasantry : and 
yet not less happily suited to their place, the 
hedge of dipt box beneath the windows, the 
rose bushes beside the door, the little patch of 
flower ground, with its tall hollyhocks in 
front ; the garden beside, the bee-hives, and 
the orchard with its bank of daffodils and 
snow-drops, the earliest and the profusest in 
these parts, indicate in the owners some por- 
tion of ease and leisure, some regard to neat- 
ness and comfort, some sense of natural, and 
innocent, and healthful enjoyment. The new 
cottages of the manufacturers are upon the 
manufacturing pattern — naked, and in a row. 
" How is it, said I, that every thing which is 
connected with manufactures presents such 
features of unqualified deformity 1 From the 
largest of Mammon's temples down to the 
poorest hovel in which his helotry are stalled, 
these edifices have all one character. Time 
will not mellow them ; nature will never clothe 
nor conceal them ; and they will remain al- 
ways as offensive to the eye as to the mind." 

Here is wisdom. Here are the principles 
on which nations are to be governed. Rose 
bushes and poor-rates, rather than steam-en- 
gines and independence. Mortality and cot- 
tages with weather-stains, rather than health 
and long life with edifices which time cannot 
mellow. We are told, that our age has in- 
vented atrocities beyond the imagination of 
our fathers ; that society has been brought into 
a state, compared with which extermination 
would be a blessing ; and all because the 
dwellings of cotton-spinners are naked and 
rectangular. Mr. Southey has found out a 
way, he tells us, in which the effects of manu- 
factures and agriculture may be compared. 
And what is this way 1 To stand on a hill, to 
look at a cottage and a manufactory, and to 
see which is the prettier. Does Mr. Southey 
think that the body of the English peasantry 
live, or ever lived, in substantial and orna- 
mented cottages, with box hedges, flower gar- 
dens, bee-hives, and orchards 1 If not, what is 
his parallel worth 7 We despise those filoso- 
fastri, who think that they serve the cause of 
science by depreciating literature and the fine 
arts. But if anything could excuse their nar- 
rowness of mind, it would be such a book as 
this. It is not strange that when one enthusi 
ast makes the picturesque the test of political 



SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 



K6 



good, another should feel inclined to proscribe 
altogether the pleasures of taste and imagina- 
tion. 

Thus it is that Mr. Southey reasons about 
matters with which he thinks himself perfectly- 
conversant. We cannot, therefore, be surprised 
to find that he commits extraordinary blunders 
when he writes on points of which he acknow- 
ledges himself to be ignorant. He confesses that 
he is not versed in political economy, thatfie has 
neither liking nor aptitude for it ; and he then 
proceeds to read the public a lecture concern- 
ing it, which fully bears out his confession. 

" All wealth," says Sir Thomas More, " in 
former times was tangible. Ijt consisted in 
land, money, or chattels, which were either of 
real or conventional value." 

Montesinos, as Mr. Southey somewhat affect- 
edly calls himself, answers : 

" Jewels, for example, and pictures, as in 
Holland — where indeed at one time tulip bulbs 
answered the same purpose." 

" That bub151e," says Sir Thomas, " was one 
of those contagious insanities to which com- 
munities are subject. All wealth was real, till 
the extent of commerce rendered a paper cur- 
rency necessary ; which differed from precious 
stones and pictures in this important point, 
that there was no limit to its production." 

" We regard it," says Montesinos, " as the 
representative of real wealth, and, therefore, 
limited always to the amount of what it repre- 
sents." 

"Pursue that notion," answers the ghost, 
" and you will be in the dark presently. Your 
provincial bank-notes, which constitute almost 
wholly the circulating medium of certain dis- 
tricts, pass current to-day. To-morrow, tidings 
may come that the house which issued them 
has stopped payment, and what do they repre- 
sent then ? You will find them the shadow of 
a shade." 

We scarcely know at which end to begin to 
disentangle this knot of absurdities. We might 
ask why it should be a greater proof of insanity 
in men to set a high value on rare tulips than on 
rare stones, which are neither more useful nor 
more beautiful 1 We might ask how it can be 
said that there is no limit to the production of 
paper-money, when a man is hanged if he 
issues any in the name of another, and is forced 
to cash what he issues in his own ? But Mr. 
Southey's error lies deeper still. " All wealth," 
says he, " was tangible and real, till paper cur- 
rency was introduced." Now, was there ever, 
since man emerged from a state of utter bar- 
barism, an age in which there were no debts ? 
Is not a debt, while the solvency of the debtor 
is undoubted, always reckoned as part of the 
wealth of the creditor ? Yet is it tangible and 
real wealtn ? Does it cease to be wealth, be- 
cause there is the security of a written acknow- 
ledgment for it ? And what else is paper cur- 
rency? Did Mr. Southey ever read a bank- 
note ? If he did, he would see that it is a writ- 
ten acknowledgment of a debt, and a promise 
to pay that debt. The promise may be violated, 
the debt may remain unpaid, those to whom it 
was due may suffer : but this is a risk not con- 
fined to cases of paper currency; it is a risk 
inseparable from the relation of debtor and 



creditor. Every man who sells goods for anj 
thing but ready money, runs the risk of finding 
that what he considered as part of his wealth 
one day, is nothing at all the next day. Mr. 
Southey refers to the picture-galleries of Hol- 
land. The pictures were undoubtedly real and 
tangible possessions. But surely it might hap- 
pen that a burgomaster might owe a picture- 
dealer a thousand guilders for a Teniers. 
What in this case corresponds to our paper- 
money is not the picture, which is tangible, 
but the claim of the picture-dealer on his cus- 
tomer for the price of the picture, which is not 
tangible. Now, would not the picture-dealer 
consider this claim as part of his wealth? 
Would not a tradesman who knew of it give 
credit to the picture-dealer the more readily on 
account of it? The burgomaster might be 
ruined. If so, would not those consequences 
follow which, as Mr. Southey tells us, were 
never heard of till paper-money came into use ? 
Yesterday this claim was worth a thousard 
guilders. To-day what is it? The shadow of 
a shade. 

It is true, that the more readily claims of 
this sort are transferred from hand to hand, the 
more extensive will be the injury produced by 
a single failure. The laws of all nations sanc- 
tion, in certain cases, the transfer of rights not 
yet reduced into possession. Mr. Southey 
would scarcely wish, we should think, that all 
endorsements of bills and notes should be de- 
clared invalid. Yet even if this were done, the 
transfer of claims would imperceptibly take 
place to a very great extent. When the baker 
trusts the butcher, for example, he is in fact, 
though not in form, trusting the butcher's cus- 
tomers. A man who owes large bills to trades- 
men, and fails to pay them, almost always pro- 
duces distress through a very wide 'circle of 
people whom he never dealt with. 

In short, what Mr. Southey takes for a differ- 
ence in kind, is only a difference of form and 
degree. In every society men have claims on 
the property of others. In every society there 
is a possibility that some debtors may not be 
able to fulfil their obligations. In every socie- 
ty, therefore, there is wealth which is not tan- 
gible, and which may become the shadow of a 
shade. 

Mr. Southey then proceeds to a dissertation 
on the national debt, which he considers in a 
new and most consolatory light, as a clear ad- 
dition to the income of the country. 

"You can understand," says Sir Thomas, 
" that it constitutes a great part of the national 
wealth." 

" So large a part," answers Montesinos, " that 
the interest amounted, during the prosperous 
time of agriculture, to as much as the rental 
of all the land in Great Britain ; and at present 
to the rental of all lands, all houses, and all 
other fixed property put together." 

The ghost and the laureate agree that it is 
very desirable that there should be so secure 
and advantageous a deposit for wealth as the 
funds afford. Sir Thomas then proceeds : 

" Another and far more momentous benefit 
must not be overlooked : the expenditure of an 
annual interest, equalling, as you have stated, 
the present rental of all fixed property." 



106 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



"That expenditure," quoth Montesinos, 
" gives employment to half the industry in the 
kingdom, and feeds half the mouths. Take, 
indeed, the weight of the national debt from 
this great and complicated social machine, 
and the wheels must stop." 

From this passage we should have been in- 
clined to think that Mr. Southey supposes the 
dividends to be a free gift periodically sent 
down from heaven to the fundholders, as quails 
and manna were sent to the Israelites, were it 
not that he has vouchsafed, in the following 
question and answer, to give the public some 
information which, we believe, was very little 
needed. 

"Whence comes the interest 1" says Sir 
Thomas. 

" It is raised," answers Montesinos, " by tax- 
ation." 

Now, has Mr. Southey ever considered what 
would be done with this sum, if it were not 
paid as interest to the national creditor 1 If 
he would think over this matter for a short 
time, we suspect that the " momentous benefit" 
of which he talks would appear to him to shrink 
strangely in amount. A fundholder, we will 
suppose, spends an income of five hundred 
pounds a year, and his ten nearest neighbours 
pay fifty pounds each to the tax-gatherer, for 
die purpose of discharging the interest of the 
national debt. If the debt were wiped out, (a 
measure, be it understood, which we by no 
means recommend,) the fundholder would 
cease to spend his five hundred pounds a year. 
He would no longer give employment to indus- 
try, or put food into the mouths of labourers. 
Tnis Mr. Southey thinks a fearful evil. But is 
there no mitigating circumstance 1 Each of 
his ten neighbours has fifty pounds more than 
formerly. Each of them will, as it seems to 
our feeble understandings, employ more indus- 
try and feed more mouths than formerly. The 
sum is exactly the same. It is in different 
hands. But on what grounds does Mr. Southey 
call upon us to believe that it is in the hands 
of men who will spend less liberally or less 
judiciously 1 He seems to think that nobody 
but a fundholder can employ the poor ; that if 
a tax is remitted, those who formerly used to 
pay it proceed immediately to dig holes in the 
earth, and bury the sum which the government 
had been accustomed to take ; that no money 
can set industry in motion till it has been taken 
by the tax-gatherer out of one man's pocket 
and put into another man's. We really wish 
that Mr. Southey would try to prove this prin- 
ciple, which is, indeed, the foundation of his 
whole theory of finance ; for we think it right 
to hint to him, that our hard-hearted and un- 
imaginative generation will expect some more 
satisfactory reason than the only one with 
which he has yet favoured it — a similitude 
touching evaporation and dew. 

Both the theory and the illustration, indeed, 
are old friends of ours. In every season of 
distress which we can remember, Mr. Southey 
lias been proclaiming that it is not from eco- 
nomy, but from increased taxation, that the 
country must expect relief; and he still, we 
find, places the undoubting faith of a political 
Dtatoirus in his 



"Resaignare, repurgare, et rec/ysterizare." 
"A people," he tells us, " may be too lich 
but a government cannot be so." 

" A state," says he, " cannot have more 
wealth at its command than may be employed 
for the general good, a liberal expenditure in 
national works being one of the surest means 
for promoting national prosperity, and the bo 
nefit being still more obvious of an expenditure 
directed to the purposes of national improve* 
ment. But a people may be too rich." 

We fully admit that a state cannot have at 
its command more wealth than may be employ* 
ed for the general good. But neither can indi- 
viduals or bodies of individuals have at their 
command more wealth than may be employed 
for the general good. If there be no limit to 
the sum which may be usefully laid out in 
public works and nationpl improvement, then 
wealth, whether in the hands of private men 
or of the government, may always, if the pos- 
sessor choose to spend it usefully, be usefully 
spent. The only ground, therefore, en which 
Mr. Southey can possibly maintain that a go- 
vernment cannot be too rich, but that a people 
may be too rich, must be this, that governments 
are more likely to spend their money on good 
objects than private individuals. 

But what is useful expenditure? "A libe- 
ral expenditure in national works," says Mr. 
Southey, "is one of the surest means for pro- 
moting national prosperity." What does he 
mean by national prosperity 1 Does he mean 
the wealth of the state 1 If so, his reasoning 
runs thus :— The more wealth a state has the 
better; for the more wealth a state has the 
more wealth it will have. This is surely 
something like that fallacy which is ungal- 
lantly termed a lady's reason. If by national 
prosperity he means the wealth of the people, 
of how gross a contradiction is he guilty! A, 
people, he tells us, may be too rich ; a govern- 
ment cannot; for a government can employ 
its riches in making the people richer. The 
wealth of the people is to be taken from them, 
because they have too much, and laid out in 
works which yield them more. 

We are really at a loss to determine whe- 
ther Mr. Southey's reason for recommending 
large taxation is that it will make the people 
rich, or that it will make them poor. But we 
are sure that if his object is to make them 
rich, he takes the wrong course. There are 
two or three principles respecting public 
works, which, as an experience of vast extent 
proves, may be trusted in almost every case. 

It scarcely ever happens that any private 
man, or body of men, will invest property ir 
canal, a tunnel, or a bridge, but from an ex- 
pectation that the outlay will be profitable to 
them. No work of this sort can be profitable 
to private speculators, unless the public be 
willing to pay for the use of it. The public 
will not pay of their own accord for what 
yields no profit or convenience to them. There 
is thus a direct and obvious connection be* 
tween the motive which induces individuals 
to undertake such a work, and the utility of 
the work. 

Can we find any such connection in the 
case of a public work executed by a govern • 



SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 



107 



meat. If it is useful, are the individuals who 
rule the country richer? If it is useless, are 
they poorer 1 A public man may be solicitous 
for his credit: but is not he likely to gain 
more credit by a useless display of ostenta- 
tious architecture in a great town, than by the 
best road or the best canal in some remote 
province? The fame of public works is a 
much less certain test of their utility, than the 
amount of toll collected at them. In a corrupt 
age, there will be a direct embezzlement. In 
the purest age, there will be abundance of 
jobbing. Never were the statesmen of any 
country more sensitive to public opinion, and 
more spotless in pecuniary transactions, than 
thost who have of late governed England. 
Yet we have only to look at the buildings re- 
cently erected in London for a proof of our 
rule. In a bad age, the fate of the public is to 
be robbed. In a good age, it is much milder 
— merely to have the dearest and the worst of 
every thing. 

Buildings Tor state purposes the state must 
erect. And here we think that, in general, the 
state ought to stop. We firmly believe, that 
five hundred thousand pounds subscribed by 
individuals for railroads or canals, would pro- 
duce more advantage to the public than five 
millions voted by Parliament for the same 
purpose. There are certain old saws about 
the master's eye, and about everybody's busi- 
ness, in which we place very great faith. 

There is, we have said, no consistency in 
Mr. Southey's political system. But if there 
be in it any leading principle, if there be any 
one error which diverges more widely and 
variously than any other, it is that of which 
his theory about national works is a rami- 
fication. He conceives that the business of 
the magistrate is, not merely to see that the 
persons and property of the people are secure 
from attack, but that he ought to be a perfect 
jack of all trades, architect, engineer, school- 
master, merchant, theologian, a Lady Boun- 
tiful in every parish, a Paul Pry in every 
house, spying, eaves-dropping, relieving, ad- 
monishing, spending our money for us, and 
choosing our opinions for us. His principle 
is, if we understand it rightly, that no man can 
do any thing so well for himself, as his rulers, 
be they who they may, can do it for him ; that 
a government approaches nearer and nearer 
to perfection, in proportion as it interferes 
more and more with the habits and notions of 
individuals. 

He seems to be fully convinced, that it is in 
the power of government to relieve the dis- 
tresses under which the lower orders labour. 
Nay, he considers doubt on this subject as im- 
pious. We cannot refrain from quoting his 
argument on this subject. It is a perfect jewel 
of logic. 

"Many thousands in your metropolis," says 
Sir Thomas More, " rise every morning with- 
out knowing how they are to subsist during 
She day ; as many of them, where they are to 
lay their heads at night. All men, even the 
vicious themselves, know that wickedness 
leads to misery; but many, even among the 
good and the wise, have yet to learn that mise- 
ry is almost as often the cause of wickedness." 



"There are many," says Momosinca, "who 
know this, but believe that it is not in the 
power of human institutions to prevent this 
misery. They see the effect, but regard the 
causes as inseparable from the condition of 
human nature." 

"As surely as God is good," replies Sir 
Thomas, " so surely there is no such thing aa 
necessary evil. For, by the religious mind, 
sickness, and pain, and death are not to be ac- 
counted evils." 

Now, if sickness, pain, and death are not 
evils, we cannot understand why it should be 
an evil that thousands should rise without 
knowing how they are to subsist. The only 
evil of hunger is, that it produces first pain, 
then sickness, and finally death. If it did not 
produce these, it would be no calamity. If 
these are not evils, it is no calamity. We 
cannot conceive why it should be a greater 
impeachment of the Divine goodness, that 
some men should not be able to find food to 
eat, than that others should have stomachs 
which derive no nourishment from food when 
they have eaten it. Whatever physical effects 
want produces, may also be produced by 
disease. Whatever salutary effects disease 
may produce, may also be produced by want. 
If poverty makes men thieves, disease and 
pain often sour the temper and contract the 
heart. 

We will propose a very plain dilemma* 
Either physical pain is an evil, or it is not ar 
evil. If it is an evil, then there is necessary 
evil in the universe : if it is not, why shoula 
the poor be delivered from it ? 

Mr. Southey entertains as exaggerated a 
notion of the wisdom of governments as of 
their power. He speaks with the greatest dis- 
gust of the respect now paid to public opinion. 
That opinion is, according to him, to be dis 
trusted and dreaded ; its usurpation ought to be 
vigorously resisted ; and the practice of yield- 
ing to it is likely to ruin the country. To 
maintain police is, according to him, only une 
of the ends of government. Its duties are pa- 
triarchal and paternal. It ought to consider 
the moral discipline of the people as its first 
object, to establish a religion, to train the 
whole community in that religion, and to con- 
sider all dissenters as its own enemies. 

" Nothing," says Sir Thomas, " is more cer 
tain than that religion is the basis upon which 
civil government rests ; that from religion 
power derives its authority, laws their efficacy, 
and both their zeal and sanction ; and it is ne- 
cessary that this religion be established for 
the security of the state and for the welfare of 
the people, who would otherwise be moved to 
and fro with every wind of doctrine. A state 
is secure in proportion as the people are at- 
tached to its institutions ; it is, therefore, the 
first and plainest rule of sound policy, that the 
people be trained up in the way they should 
go. The state that neglects this prepares its 
own destruction ; and they who train them up 
in any other way are undermining it. Nothing 
in abstract science can be more certain than 
these positions are." 

"All of which," answers Montesinos, "are 
nevertheless denied by our professors *»/ the 



108 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



arts Babblative and Scribblative, some in the 
audacity of evil designs, and others in the 
glorious assurance of impenetrable igno- 
rance." 

The greater part of the two volumes before 
us is merely an amplification of these absurd 
paragraphs. What does Mr. Southey mean 
by saying, that religion is demonstrably the 
basis of civil government 1 He cannot surely 
mean that men have no motives, except those 
derived from religion, for establishing and 
supporting civil government, that no temporal 
advantage is derived from civil government, 
that man would experience no temporal incon- 
venience from living in a state of anarchy. 
If he allows, as we think he must allow, that 
it is for the good of mankind in this world 
to have civil government, and that; the great 
majority of mankind have always thought it 
for their good in this world to have civil go- 
vernment, we then have a basis for govern- 
ment quite distinct from religion. It is true, 
that the Christian religion sanctions govern- 
ment, as it sanctions every thing which pro- 
motes the happiness and virtue of our species. 
But we are at a loss to conceive in what sense 
religion can be said to be the basis of govern- 
ment, in which it is not also the basis of the 
practices of eating, drinking, and lighting fires 
in cold weather. Nothing in history is more 
certain than that government has existed, has 
received some obedience and given some pro- 
tection, in times in which it derived no sup- 
port from religion, in times in which there 
was no religion that influenced the hearts and 
lives of men. It was not from dread of Tarta- 
rus, or belief in the Elysian fields, that an 
Athenian wished to have some institutions 
which might keep Orestes from filching his 
cloak, or Midias from breaking his head. "It 
is from religion," says Mr. Southey, "that 
power derives its authority, and laws their 
efficacy." From what religion does our power 
over the Hindoos derive its authority, or the 
law in virtue of which we hang Brahmins, its 
efficacy 1 For thousands of years civil go- 
vernment has existed in almost every corner 
of the world, in ages of priestcraft, in ages of 
fanaticism, in ages of epicurean indifference, 
in ages of enlightened piety. However pure 
or impure the faith of the people might be, 
whether they adored a beneficent or malignant 
power, whether they thought the soul mortal 
or immortal, they have, as soon as they ceased 
to be absolute savages, found out their need of 
civil government, and instituted it according- 
ly. It is as universal as the practice of cook- 
ery. Yet, it is as certain, says Mr. Southey, 
as any thing in abstract science, that govern- 
ment is founded on religion. We should like 
to know what notion Mr. Southey has of the 
demonstrations of abstract science. But a 
vague one, we suspect. 

The proof proceeds. As religion is the basis 
of government, and as the state is secure in 
proportion as the people are attached to its in- 
stitutions, it is, therefore, says Mr. Southey, the 
first rule of policy, that the government should 
train the people in the way in which they 
should go; and it is plain, that those who 



train them in any other way, are undermining 
the state. 

Now it does not appear to us to be the first 
object that people should always believe in the 
established religion, and be attached to the 
established government. A religion may be 
false. A government may be oppressive. And 
whatever support government gives to false 
religions, or religion to oppressive govern- 
ments, we consider as a clear evil. 

The maxim, that governments ought to train 
the people in the way in which they should go, 
sounds well. But is there any reason for 
believing that a government is more likely to 
lead the people in the right way, than ihe 
people to fall into the right way of themselves 1 
Have there not been governments which were 
blind leaders of the blind 1 Are there not still 
such governments ? Can it be laid down as a 
general rule that the movement of political and 
religious truth is rather downwards from the 
government to the people, than upwards from 
the people to the government ! These are 
questions which it is of importance to have 
clearly resolved. Mr. Southey declaims against 
public opinion, which is now, he tells us, 
usurping supreme power. Formerly, accord- 
ing to him, the laws governed ; now public 
opinion governs. What are laws but expres- 
sions of the opinion of some class which has 
power over the rest of the community ? By 
what was the world ever governed, but by the 
opinion of some person or persons ? By what 
else can it ever be governed? What are all 
systems, religious, political, or scientific, but 
opinions resting on evidence more or less sa- 
tisfactory 1 The question is not between hu- 
man opinion, and some higher and more cer- 
tain mode of arriving at truth, but between 
opinion and opinion, between the opinion of 
one man and another, or of one class and 
another, or of one generation and another 
Public opinion is not infallible ; but can Mr 
Southey construct any institutions which shall 
secure to us the guidance of an infallible opi- 
nion? Can Mr. Southey select any family, 
any profession, any class in short, distinguished 
by any plain badge from the rest of the com- 
munity, whose opinion is more likely to be 
just than this much abused public opinion ? 
Would he choose the peers, for example ! Or 
the two hundred tallest men in the country ! 
Or the poor Knights of Windsor? Or children 
who are born with cauls, seventh sons of se- 
venth sons! We cannot suppose that he 
would recommend popular election: for that 
is merely an appeal to public opinion. And 
to say that society ought to be governed by the 
opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is 
useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are 
the wisest and best 1 

Mr. Southey and many other respectable 
people seem to think that when they have once 
proved the moral and religious training of thfl 
people to be a most important object, it fol- 
lows, of course, that it is an object which the 
government ought to pursue. They forget that I 
we have to consider, not merely the goodness 
of the end, but also the fitness of the means. 
I Neither in the natural nor in the political bodf 



SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 



have all members the same office. There is 
surely no contradiction in saying that a certain 
section of the community may be quite com- 
petent to protect the persons and property of 
the rest, yet quite unfit to direct our opinions, 
or to superintend our private habits. 

So strong is the interest of a ruler to pro- 
tect his subjects against all depredations and 
outrages except his own, so clear and simple 
are the means by which this end is to be 
effected, that men are probably better off under 
the worst governments in the world than they 
would be in a state of anarchy. Even when 
the appointment of magistrates has been left 
to chance, as in the Italian republics, things 
have gone on better than they would have 
done, if there had been no magistrates at all, 
and every man had done what seemed right in 
his own eyes. But we see no reason for think- 
ing that the opinions of the magistrate are 
more likely to be right than those of any other 
man. None of the modes by which rulers are 
appointed, popular election, the accident of the 
lot, or the accident of birth, afford, as far as 
we can perceive, much security for their being 
wiser than any of their neighbours. The chance 
of their being wiser than all their neighbours 
together is still smaller. Now we cannot con- 
ceive how it can be laid down, that it is the 
duty and the right of one class to direct the 
opinions of another, unless it can be proved 
that the former class is more likely to form 
just opinions than the latter. 

The duties of government would be, as Mr. 
Southey says that they are, paternal, if a go- 
vernment were necessarily as much superior 
in wisdom to a people, as the most foolish 
father, for a time, is to the most intelligent 
child, and if a government loved a people as 
fathers generally love their children. But 
there is no reason to believe, that a govern- 
ment will either have the paternal warmth of 
affection or the paternal superiority of intel- 
lect. Mr. Southey might as well say, that the 
duties of the shoemaker are paternal, and that 
it is a usurpation in any man not of the craft 
to say that his shoes are bad, and to insist on 
having better. The division of labour would 
: be no blessing, if those by whom a thing is 
done were to pay no attention to the opinion 
; of those for whom it is done. The shoemaker, 
in the Relapse, tells Lord Foppington, that his 
! lordship is mistaken in supposing that his 
shoe pinches. "It does not pinch, it cannot 
I pinch; I know my business, and I never made 
; a better shoe." This is the way in which Mr. 
Southey would have a government treat a 
people who usurp the privilege of thinking. 
Nay, the shoemaker of Vanbrugh has the ad- 
vantage in the comparison. He contented 
himself with regulating his customer's shoes, 
about which he knew something, and did not 
presume to dictate about the coat and hat. 
ant Mr. Southey would have the rulers of a 
jcountry prescribe opinions to the people, not 
only about politics, but about matters concern- 
ing which a government has no peculiar 
sources of information, concerning which any 
man in the streets may know as much, and 
think as justly, as a king— religion and mo- 



109 

Men are never so likely to settle a question 
rightly as when they discuss it freely. A go- 
vernment can interfere in discussion, only by 
making it less free than it would otherwise be 
Men are most likely to form just opinions 
when they have no other wish than to know 
the truth, and are exempt from all influence, 
either of hope or fear. Government, as go- 
vernment, can bring nothing but the influence 
of hopes and fears to support its doctrines. It 
carries on controversy, not with reasons, but 
with threats and bribes. If it employs reasons, 
it does so not in virtue of any powers which 
belong to it as a government. Thus, instead 
of a contest between argument and argument, 
we have a contest between argument and 
force. Instead of a contest in which truth, 
from the natural constitution of the human 
mind, has a decided advantage over falsehood, 
we have a contest in which truth can be vic- 
torious only by accident. 

And what, after all, is the security which 
this training gives to governments ? Mr. Sou- 
they would scarcely recommend that discus- 
sion should be more effectually shackled, that 
public opinion should be more strictly disci- 
plined into conformity with established insti- 
tutions, than in Spain and Italy. Yet we know 
that the restraints which exist in Spain and 
Italy have not prevented atheism from spread- 
ing among the educated classes, and especially 
among those whose office it is to minister at 
the altars of God. All our readers know how, 
at the time of the French Revolution, priest 
after priest came forward to declare that his 
doctrine, his ministry, his whole life, had been 
a lie, a mummery during which he could 
scarcely compose his countenance sufficiently 
to carry on the imposture. This was the case 
of a false, or at least a grossly corrupted reli- 
gion. Let us take, then, the case of all others 
the most favourable to Mr. Southey's argu- 
ment. Let us take that form of religion which 
he holds to be the purest, the system of the Ar- 
minian part of the Church of England. Let us 
take the form of government which he most 
admires and regrets, the government of Eng- 
land in the time of Charles the First. Would 
he wish to see a closer connection between 
church and state than then existed ? Would 
he wish for more powerful ecclesiastical tri- 
bunals ? for a more zealous king ? for a more 
active primate'? Would he wish to see a more 
complete monopoly of public instruction given 
to the Established Church'? Could any govern- 
ment do more to train the people in the way 
in which he would have them go? And in 
what did all this training end? The Report 
of the state of the province of Canterbury, de- 
livered by Laud to his Master at the close of 
1639, represents the Church of England as in 
the highest and most palmy state. So effectu- 
ally had the government pursued that policy 
which Mr. Southey wishes to see revived, that 
there was scarcely the least appearance .if dis- 
sent. Most of the bishops stated that all was 
well among their flocks. Seven or eight per- 
sons of the diocese of Peterborough had seem- 
ed refractory to the church, but had made am- 
ple submission. In Norfolk and Suffolk all 
whom there had been reason U> suspect had 



no 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



made profession of conformity, and appeared 
to observe it strictly. It is confessed that 
there was a little difficulty in bringing some 
of the vulgar in Suffolk to take the sacrament 
at the rails in the chancel. This is the only 
open instance of nonconformity which the 
vigilant eye of Laud could find in all the dio- 
ceses of his twenty-one suffragans, on the 
very eve of a revolution in which primate and 
church, and monarch and monarchy, were to 
perish together. 

At which time would Mr. Southey pronounce 
the constitution more secure; in 1639, when 
Laud presented this report to Charles, or now, 
when thousands of meetings openly collect 
millions of dissenters, when designs against 
the tithes are openly avowed, when books at- 
tacking not only the Establishment, but the 
first principles of Christianity, are openly sold 
in the streets 1 The signs of discontent, he 
tells us, are stronger in England now than in 
France when the States-general met ; and 
hence he would have us infer that a revolu- 
tion like that of France may be at hand. Does 
he not know that the danger of states is to be 
estimated, not by what breaks out of the pub- 
lic mind, but by what stays in it 1 Can he 
conceive any thing more terrible than the situ- 
ation of a government which rules without ap- 
prehension over a people of hypocrites; which 
is flattered by the press, and cursed in the in- 
ner chambers ; which exults in the attachment 
and obedience of its subjects, and knows not 
that those subjects are leagued against it in a 
freemasonry of hatred, the sign of which is 
every day conveyed in the glance of ten thou- 
sand eyes, the pressure often thousand hands, 
and the tone of ten thousand voices 1 Pro- 
found and ingenious policy! Instead of cur- 
ing the disease, to remove those symptoms by 
which alone its nature can be known! To 
leave the serpent his deadly sting, and deprive 
him only of his warning rattle ! 

When the people whom Charles had so as- 
siduously trained in the good way had reward- 
ed his paternal care by cutting off his head, a 
new kind of training came into fashion. An- 
other government arose, which, like the for- 
mer, considered religion as its surest basis, 
and the religious discipline of the people as 
its first duty. Sanguinary laws were enacted 
against libertinism ; profane pictures were 
burned; drapery was put on indecorous sta- 
tues ; the theatres were shut up ; fast-days 
were numerous ; and the Parliament resolved 
that no person should be admitted into any 
public employment unless the House should 
be first satisfied of his vital godliness. We 
know what was the end of this training. We 
know tha* it ended in impiety, in filthy and 
hearties,* sensuality, 'n the dissolution of all 
ties of honour and morality. We know that 
at this very day scriptural phrases, scriptural 
names, perhaps some scriptural doctrines, ex- 
cite disgust and ridicule solely because they are 
associated with the austerity of that period. 

Thus has the experiment of training the 
tieople in established forms of religion been 
twice tried in England on a large scale ; once 
bv Charles and Laud, and once by the Puri- 
'auis. 1 he High Tories of our time still enter- 



tain many of the feelings and opinions o' 
Charles and Laud, though in a mitigated fonn 
nor is it difficult to see that the heirs of thg 
Puritans are still amongst us. It would be de« 
sirable that, each of these parties should re- 
member how little advantage or honour it fon 
merly derived from the closest alliance with 
power; that it fell by the support of rulers, and 
rose by their opposition ; that of the two sys- 
tems, that in which the people were at any time 
being drilled was always at that time the un- 
popular system ; that the training of the High 
Church ended in the reign of the Puritans, and 
the training of the Puritans in the reign of the 
harlots. 

This was qaite natural. Nothing is so gall- 
ing and detestable to a people not broken in 
from the birth, as a paternal, or, in other words, 
a meddling government — a government which 
tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and 
drink, and wear. Our fathers could not bear 
it two hundred years ago ; and we are not more . 
patient than they. Mr. Southey thinks that the 
yoke of the church is dropping off because it 
is loose. We feel convinced that it is borne 
only because it is easy, and that in the instant 
in which an attempt is made to tighten it, it 
will be flung away. It will be neither the first 
nor the strongest yoke that has been "broken 
asunder and trampled under foot in the day of 
the vengeance of England. 

How far Mr. Southey would have the govern- 
ment carry its measures for training the peo- 
ple in the doctrines of the church, we are un- 
able to discover. In one passage Sir Thomas 
More asks with great vehemence, 

" Is it possible that your laws should suffer 
the unbelievers to exist as a party! 

" Vetitum est adeo sceleris nihil f" 
Montesinos answers. "They avow them- 
selves in defiance of the laws. The fashion- 
able doctrine which the press at this time 
maintains is, that this is a matter in which the 
laws ought not to interfere, every man having 
a right both to form what opinion he pleases 
upon religious subjects and to promulgate that 
opinion." 

It is clear, therefore, that Mr. Southey would 
not give full and perfect toleration to infidelity. 
In another passage, however, he observes with 
some truth, though too sweepingly, that "any! 
degree of intolerance, short of that full extent 
which the Papal church exercises where it has 
the power, acts upon the opinions which it is 
intended to suppress like pruning upon vigo- 
rous plants, they grow the stronger for it." 
These two passages, put together, would lead 
us to the conclusion that, in Mr. Southey's 
opinion, the utmost severity ever employed by 
the Roman Catholic church in the days of its 
greatest power ought to be employed against 
unbelievers in England; in plain'words, that 
Carlile and his shopmen ought to be burned 
in Smithfield, and that every person who when 
called upon should decline to make a solemn 
profession of Christianity, ought to suffer the 
same fate. We do not, however, believe that 
Mr. Southey would recommend such a course, 
though his language Would, in the case of any 
other writer, justify us in supposing this to be 
his meaning. His opinions f jrm no system at 



SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 



Ill 



all. He never sees at one glance more of a 
question than will furnish matter for one flow- 
ing and well-turned sentence ; so that it would 
be the height of unfairness to charge him per- 
sonally with holding a doctrine merely because 
that doctrine is deducible, though by the closest 
and most accurate reasoning, from the pre- 
mises which he has laid down. We are, there- 
fore, .eft completely in the dark as to Mr. 
Southey's opinion about toleration. Imme- 
diately after censuring the government for not 
punishing infidels, he proceeds to discuss the 
question of the Catholic disabilities, now, thank 
God, removed, and defends them on the ground 
that the Catholic doctrines tend to persecution, 
and that the Catholics persecuted when they 
had power. 

" They must persecute," says he, " if they 
believe their own creed, for conscience' sake ; 
and if they do not believe it, they must perse- 
cute for policy; because it is only by intole- 
rance that so corrupt and injurious a system 
can be upheld." 

That unbelievers should not be persecuted, 
is an instance of national depravity at which 
the glorified spirit stands aghast. Yet a sect 
of Christians is to be excluded from power 
because those who formerly held the same 
opinions were guilty of persecution. We have 
said that we do not very well know what Mr. 
Southey's opinion about toleration is. But, on 
the whole, we take it to be this, that every- 
body is to tolerate him, and that he is to tole- 
rate nobody. 

We will not be deterred by any fear of mis- 
representation from expressing our hearty 
approbation of the mild, wise, and eminently 
Christian manner, in which the church and the 
government have lately acted with respect to 
blasphemous publications. We praise them 
for not having thought it necessary to encircle 
a religion pure, merciful, and philosophical — 
a religion, to the evidences of which the 
highest intellects have yielded — with the de- 
fences of a false and bloody superstition. The 
ark of God was never taken till it was sur- 
rounded by the arms of earthly defenders. In 
captivity, its sanctity was sufficient to vindicate 
it from insult, and to lay the hostile fiend pros- 
trate on the threshold of his own temple. 
The real security of Christianity is to be found 
in its benevolent morality, in its exquisite 
adaptation to the human heart, in the facility 
with which its scheme accommodates itself to 
the capacity of every human intellect, in the 
consolation which it bears to the house of 
mourning, in the light with which it brightens 
the great mystery of the grave. To such a system 
it can bring no addition of dignity or of 
.strength, that it is part and parcel of the com- 
non law. It is not now for the first time left 
: :o rely on the force of its own evidences and 
the attractions of its own beauty. Its sublime 
theology confounded the Grecian schools in the 
fair conflict of reason with reason. The 
bravest and wisest of the Cassars found their 
arms and their policy unavailing, when op- 
posed to the weapons that were not carnal, and 
the kingdom that was not of this world. The 
victory which Porphyry and Diocletian failed 
to gain is not, to all appearance, reserved for j 



any of those who have in this age directed 
their attacks against the last restraint of th< 
powerful, and the last hope of the wretched. 
The whole history of the Christian religion 
shows, that she is in far greater danger of 
being corrupted by the alliance of power than 
of being crushed by its opposition. Those 
who thrust temporal sovereignty upon her 
treat her as their prototypes treated her author. 
They bow the knee, and spit upon her; they 
cry Hail ! and smite her on the cheek ; they 
put a sceptre into her hand, but it is a fragile 
reed ; they crown her, but it is with thorns ; 
they cover with purple the wounds which their 
own hands have inflicted on her; and inscribe 
magnificent titles over the cross on which 
they have fixed her to perish in ignominy and 
pain. 

The general view which Mr. Southey takes 
of the prospects of society is very gloomy ; but 
we comfort ourselves with the consideration 
that Mr. Southey is no prophet. He foretold, 
we remember, on the very eve of the abolition 
of the Test and Corporation Acts, that .these 
hateful laws were immortal, and that pious 
minds would long be gratified by seeing the 
most solemn religious rite of the church pro- 
faned, for the purpose of upholding her politi- 
cal supremacy. In the book before us, he says 
that Catholics cannot possibly be admitted into 
Parliament, until those whom Johnson called 
"the bottomless Whigs" come into power. 
While the book was in the press, the prophecy 
was falsified, and a Tory of the Tories, Mr. 
Southey's own favourite hero, won and wore 
that noblest wreath, " Ob cives servatos." 

The signs of the times, Mr. Southey tells us, 
are very threatening. His fears for the country 
would decidedly preponderate over his hopes, 
but for his firm reliance on the mercy of God. 
Now, as we know that God has once suffered 
the civilized world to be overrun by savages, 
and the Christian religion to be corrupted by 
doctrines which made it, for some ages, almost 
as bad as Paganism, we cannot think it incon- 
sistent with his attributes that similar calami- 
ties should again befall mankind. 

We look, however, on the state of the world, 
and of this kingdom in particular, with much 
greater satisfaction, and with better hopes. 
Mr. Southey speaks with contempt of those 
who think the savage state happier than the 
social. On this subject, he says, Rousseau 
never imposed on him even in his youth. But 
he conceives that a community which has ad. 
vanced a little way in civilization is happier 
than one which has made greater progress. 
The Britons in the time of Cassar were happier, 
he suspects, than the English of the nineteenth 
century. On the whole, he selects the genera 
tion which preceded the Reformation as that 
in which the people of this country were bet- 
ter off than at any time before or since. 

This opinion rests on nothing, as far as wt 
can see, except his own individual associa- 
tions. He is a man of letters ; and a life des 
titute of literary pleasures seems insipid tc 
him. He abhors the spirit of the present gene 
ration, the severity of its studies, the Doldness 
of its inquiries, and the disdain with wnich i 
regards some old prejudice; by which his owi 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



mind is held in bondage. He dislikes an ut- 
terly unenlightened age ; he dislikes an inves- 
tigating and reforming age. The first twenty 
years of the sixteenth century would have ex- 
actly suited him. They furnished just the 
quantity of intellectual excitement which he 
requires. The learned few read and wrote 
largely. A scholar was held in high estima- 
tion ; but the rabble did not presume to think ; 
and even the most inquiring and independent 
of the educated classes paid more reverence to 
authority, and less to reason, than is usual in 
our time. This is a state of things in which 
Mr. Southey would have found himself quite 
comfortable ; and, accordingly, he pronounces 
it the happiest state of things ever known in 
the world. 

The savages were wretched, says Mr. Sou- 
they ; but the people in the time of Sir Thomas 
More were happier than either they or we. 
Now, we think it quite certain, that we have 
the advantage over the contemporaries of Sir 
Thomas More, in every point in which they 
had any advantage over savages. 

Mr. Southey does not even pretend to main- 
tain that the people in the sixteenth century 
were better lodged or clothed than at present. 
He seems to admit that in these respects there 
has been some little improvement. It is indeed 
a matter about which scarcely any doubt can 
exist in the most perverse mind, that the im- 
provements of machinery have lowered the 
price of manufactured articles, and have brought 
within the reach of the poorest some conve- 
niences which Sir Thomas More or his master 
could not have obtained at any price. 

The labouring classes, however, were, ac- 
cording to Mr. Southey, better fed three hun- 
dred years ago than at present. We believe 
that he is completely in error on this point. 
The condition of servants in noble and weal- 
thy families, and of scholars at the Universi- 
ties, must surely have been better in those 
times than that of common day-labourers ; and 
we are sure that it was not tetter than that of 
our workhouse paupers. From the house- 
hold book of the Northumberland family, we 
find that in one of the greatest establishments 
of the kingdom, the servants lived almost en- 
tirely on salt meat, without any bread at all. A 
more unwholesome diet can scarcely be con- 
ceived. In the reign of Edward the Sixth, the 
state of the students at Cambridge is described 
to us, on the very best authority, as most 
wretched. Many of them dined on pottage 
made of a farthing's worth of beef with a little 
salt and oatmeal, and literally nothing else. 
This account we have from a contemporary 
master of St. John's. Our parish poor now 
eat wheaten bread. In the sixteenth century 
the labourer was glad to get barley, and was 
often forced to content himself with poorer 
fare. In Harrison's introduction to Holinshed 
we have an account of the state of our working 
population in the "golden days," as Mr. Southey 
calls them, of good Queen Bess. "The genti- 
litie," says he, "commonly provide themselves 
sufficiency of wheat for their own tables, 
whylest their household and poore neighbours 
ir. some shires are inforced to content themselves 
w ith rice or barley; yea, and in time of dearth, 



many with bread madt eyther of beanes, pea 
son, or otes, or of altogether, and some acornes 
among. I will not say that this extremity is 
oft so well to be seen in time of plentie as of 
dearth ; but if I should I could easily bring 
my trial; for albeit there be much more 
grounde eared nowe almost in everye place 
then hath beene of late yeares, yet such a 
price of corne continueth in each town and 
markete, without any just cause, that the arti- 
ficer and poore labouring man is not able to 
reach unto it, but is driven to content himself 
with horse-corne ; I mean beanes, peason, otes, 
tares, and lintelles." We should like to see 
what the effect would be of putting any parish 
in England now on allowance of " horse- 
corne." The helotry of Mammon are not, in 
our day, so easily enforced to content them- 
selves as the peasantry of that happy period, 
as Mr. Southey considers it, which elapsed 
between the fall of the feudal and the rise of 
commercial tyranny. 

" The people," says Mr. Southey, " are worse 
fed than when they were fishers." And yet in 
another place he complains that they will not 
eat fish. "They have contracted," says he, 
"I know not how, some obstinate prejudice 
against a kind of food at once wholesome and 
delicate, and everywhere to be obtained 
cheaply and in abundance, were the demand 
for it as general as it ought to be." It is 
true that the lower orders have an obstinate 
prejudice against fish. But hunger has no 
such obstinate prejudices. If what was for- 
merly a common diet is now eaten only in times 
of severe pressure, the inference is plain. 
The people must be fed with what they at 
least think better food than that of their an- 
cestors. 

The advice and medicine which the poorest 
labourer can now obtain, in disease or alter 
an accident, is far superior to what Henry the 
Eighth could have commanded. Scarcely any 
part of the country is out of the reach of prac- 
titioners, who are probably not so far inferior 
to Sir Henry Halford as they are superior to 
Sir Anthony Denny. That there has been a 
great improvement in this respect Mr. Southey 
allows. Indeed, he could not well have denied 
it. " But," says he, " the evils for which the 
sciences are the palliative, have increased 
since the time of the Druids in a proportion 
that heavily outweighs the benefit of improved 
therapeutics."' We know nothing either of the 
diseases or the remedies of the Druids. But 
we are quite sure that the improvement of 
medicine has far more than kept pace with the 
increase of disease, during the last three cen- 
turies. This is proved by the best possible 
evidence. The term of human life is decided- 
ly longer in England than in any former age, 
respecting which we possess any information 
on which we can rely. All the rants in the 
world about picturesque cottages and temples 
of Mammon will not shake this argument. No 
test of the state of society can be named so 
decisive as that which is furnished by bills of 
mortality. That the lives of the people of this 
country have been gradually lengthening dur- 
[ ing the course of several generations, is as 
[ certain as any fact in statistics, an'd that th« 



SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 



113 



H7es of men should become longer and longer, 
while the physical condition, during life, is be- 
coming worse and worse, is utterly incredible. 
Let our readers think over these circum- 
stances. Let them take into the account the 
sweating sickness and the plague. Let them 
take into the account that fearful disease whiih 
first made its appearance in the generation to 
which Mr. Southey assigns the palm of feli- 
city, and raged through Europe with a fury at 
which the physician stood aghast, and before 
which the people were swept away by thou- 
sands. Let them consider the state of the 
northern counties, constantly the scene of rob- 
beries, rapes, massacres, and conflagrations. 
Let them add to all this the fact that seventy- 
two thousand persons suffered death by the 
hands of the executioner during the reign of 
Henry the Eighth, and judge between the nine- 
teenth and the sixteenth century. 

We do not say that the lower orders in Eng- 
land do n»t suffer severe hardships. But, in 
spite of Mr. Southey's assertions, and in spite 
of the assertions of a class of politicians, who, 
liffering from Mr. Southey in every other 
point, agree with him in this, we are inclined 
to doubt whether they really suffer greater 
physical distress than the labouring classes of 
the most flourishing countries of the Conti- 
nent. 

It will scarcely be maintained that the lazza- 
roni who sleep under the porticos of Naples, 
or the beggars who besiege the convents of 
Spain, are in a happier situation than the Eng- 
lish commonalty. The distress which has 
lately been experienced in the northern part of 
Germany, one of the best governed and most 
prosperous districts of Europe, surpasses, if 
we have been correctly informed, any thing 
which has of late years been known among 
us. In Norway and Sweden the peasantry are 
constantly compelled to mix bark with their 
bread, and even this expedient has not always 
preserved whole families and neighbourhoods 
from perishing together of famine. An expe- 
riment has lately been tried in the kingdom of 
the Netherlands, which has been cited to prove 
the possibility of establishing agricultural colo- 
nies on the waste-lands of England ; but which 
proves to our minds nothing so clearly as this, 
that the rate of subsistence to which the labour- 
ing classes are reduced in the Netherlands is 
miserably low, and very far inferior to that of 
the English paupers. No distress which the 
people here have endured for centuries, ap- 
proaches to that which has been felt by the 
French in our own time. The beginning of 
the year 1817 was a time of great distress in 
this island. But the state of the lowest classes 
here was luxury compared with that of the 
people of France. We find in Magendie's 
Journal de Physiologie Experimentale, a paper on 
a point of physiology connected with the dis- 
tress of that season. It appears that the inha- 
bitants of six departments, Aix, Jura, Doubs, 
Haute Saone, Vosges, and Saone et Loire, 
were reduced first to oatmeal and potatoes, and 
at last to nettles, bean-stalkn, and other kind 
of herbage fit only for cattle ; that when the 
next harvest enabled them to eat barley-bread, 
many of them died from intemperate indul 



gence in what they thought an exquisite repast 
and that a dropsy of a peculiar description 
was produced by the hard fare of the year 
Dead bodies were found on the roads and in 
the fields. A single surgeon dissected six of 
these, and found the stomachs shrunk, and 
filled with the unwholesome aliments which 
hunger had driven men to share with beasts. 
Such extremity of distress as this is nevei 
heard of in England, or even in Ireland 
We are, on the whole, inclined to think, though 
we would speak with diffidence on a point oe 
which it would be rash to pronounce a posi- 
tive judgment, without a much longer and 
closer investigation than we have bestowed 
upon it, that the labouring classes of this 
island, though they have their grievances and 
distresses, some produced by their own impro- 
vidence, some by the errors of their rulers, are 
on the whole better off, as to physical comforts, 
than the inhabitants of any equally extensive 
district of the old world. On this very account, 
suffering is more acutely felt and more loudly 
bewailed here than elsewhere. We must take 
into the account the liberty of discussion, and 
the strong interest which the opponents of a 
ministry always have to exaggerate the extent 
of the public disasters. There are many parts 
of Europe in which the people quietly endure 
distress that here would shake the foundations 
of the state ; in which the inhabitants of a 
whole province turn out to eat grass, with less 
clamour than one Spitalfields weaver would 
make here, if the overseers were to put him 
on barley-bread. In those new countries in 
which a civilized population had at its com- 
mand a boundless extent of the richest soil, 
the condition of the labourer is probably hap- 
pier than in any society which has lasted for 
many centuries. But in the old world we must 
confess ourselves unable to find any satisfac- 
tory record of any great nation, past or pre- 
sent, in which the working classes have been 
in a more comfortable situation than in Eng- 
land during the last thirty years. When this 
island was thinly peopled, it was barbarous. 
There was little capital ; and that little was in- 
secure. It is now the richest and the most 
highly civilized spot in the world; but the 
population is dense. Thus we have never 
known that golden age which the lower orders 
in the United States are now enjoying. We have 
never known an age of liberty, of order, and of 
education, an age in which the mechanical sci- 
ences were carried to a great height, yet in 
which the people were not sufficiently nume- 
rous to cultivate even the most fertile valleys. 
But when we compare our own condition with 
that of our ancestors, we think it clear that the 
advantages arising from the progress of civili- 
zation have far more than counterbalanced the 
disadvantages arising from the progress of 
population. While our numbers have in- 
creased tenfold, our wealth has increased a 
hundredfold. Though there are so many more 
people to share the wealth now existing in the 
country than there were in the sixteenth centu- 
ry, it seems certain that a greater share falls to 
almost every individual than fell to the shart 
of any of the corresponding class in the six- 
teenth century. The king keens a moie spleu 



114 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



4id court. The establishments of the nobles 
are more magnificent. The esquires are 
richer, the merchants are richer, the shopkeep- 
ers are richer. The serving-man, the artisan, 
and the husbandman have a more copious and 
palatable supply of food, better clothing, and 
better furniture. This is no reason for tole- 
rating abuses, or for neglecting any means of 
ameliorating the condition of our poorer coun- 
trymen. But it is a reason against telling 
them, as some of our philosophers are con- 
stantly telling them, that they are the most 
wretched people who ever existed on the face 
of the earth. 

We have already adverted to Mr. Southey's 
amusing doctrine about national wealth. A 
state, says he, cannot be too rich ; but a peo- 
ple may be too rich. His reason for thinking 
this, is extremely curious. 

" A people may be too rich, because it is the 
tendency of the commercial, and more espe- 
cially, of the manufacturing system, to collect 
wealth rather than to diffuse it. Where wealth 
is necessarily employed in any of the specula- 
tions of trade, its increase is in proportion to 
its amount. Great capitalists become like 
pikes in a fish-pond, who devour the weaker 
fish; and it is but too certain, that the poverty 
of one part of the people seems to increase in 
the same ratio as the riches of another. There 
are examples of this in history. In Portugal, 
when the high tide of wealth flowed in from 
the conquests in Africa and the East, the effect 
of that great influx was not more visible in the 
augmented splendour of the court, and the 
luxury of the higher ranks, than in the distress 
of the people." 

Mr. Southey's instance is not a very fortu- 
nate one. The wealth which did so little for 
the Portuguese was not the fruit either of 
manufactures or of commerce carried on by 
private individuals. It was the wealth, not of 
the people, but of the government and its crea- 
tures, of those who, as Mr. Southey thinks, 
never can be too rich. The fact is, that Mr. 
Southey's proposition is opposed to all history, 
and to the phenomena which surround us on 
every side. England is the richest country in 
Europe, the most commercial, and the most 
manufacturing. Russia and Poland are the 
poorest countries in Europe. They have 
scarcely any trade, and none but the rudest 
manufactures. Is wealth more diffused in 
Russia and Poland than in England? There 
are individuals in Russia and Poland whose 
incomes are probably equal to those of our 
richest countrymen. It may be doubted, whe- 
Iher there are not, in those countries, as many 
fortunes of eighty thousand a year as here. 
But are there as many fortunes of five thou- 
sand a year, or of one thousand a year 1 There 
are parishes in England which contain more 
people of between five hundred and three 
thousand pounds a year than could be found 
in all the dominions of the Emperor Nicholas. 
The neat and commodious houses which have 
been built in London and its vicinity, for peo- 
ple of this class, within the last thirty years, 
would of themselves form a city larger than 
'be capitals of seme European kingdoms. And 



this is the state of society in which the grtat 
proprietors have devoured the smaller ! 

The cure which Mr. Southey thinks that he 
has discovered is worthy of the sagacity which 
he has shown in detecting the evil. The ca- 
lamities arising from the collection of wealth 
in the hands of a few capitalists are to be re- 
medied by collecting it in the hands of one 
great capitalist, who has no conceivable mo- 
tive to use it better than other capitalists, — the 
all-devouring state. 

It is not strange that, differing so widely 
from Mr. Southey as to the past progress of 
society, we .should differ from him also as to 
its probable destiny. He thinks, that to all 
outward appearance, the country is hastening 
to destruction ; but he relies firmly on the 
goodness of God. We do not see either the 
piety or the rationality of thus confidently ex- 
pecting that the Supreme Being will interfere 
to disturb the common succession of causes 
and effects. We, too, rely on his goodness — 
on his goodness as manifested, not in extra- 
ordinary interpositions, but in those general 
laws which it has pleased him to establish in 
the physical and in the moral world. We rely 
on the natural tendency of the human intel- 
lect to truth, and on the natural tendency of 
society to improvement. We know no well 
authenticated instance of a people which has 
decidedly retrograded in civilization and pros- 
perity, except from the influence of violent and 
terrible calamities — such as those which laid 
the Roman empire in ruins, or those which, 
about the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
desolated Italy. We know of no country 
which, at the end of fifty years of peace and 
tolerably good government, has been less pros- 
perous than at the beginning of that period. 
The political importance of a state may de- 
cline, as the balance of power is disturbed by 
the introduction of new forces. Thus the 
influence of Holland and of Spain is much 
diminished. But are Holland and Spain poor- 
er than formerly 1 We doubt it. Other coun- 
tries have outrun them. But we suspect that 
they had been positively, though not relatively, 
advancing. We suspect that Holland is richer 
than when she sent her navies up the Thames ; 
that Spain is richer than when a French king 
was brought captive to the footstool of Charles 
the Fifth. 

History is full of the signs of this natural 
progress of society. We see in almost every 
part of the annals of mankind hoAv the indus- 
try of individuals, struggling up against wars, 
taxes, famines, conflagrations, mischievous 
prohibitions, and more mischievous protec- 
tions, creates faster than governments can 
squander, and repairs whatever invaders can 
destroy. We see the capital of nations increas- 
ing, and all the arts of life approaching nearer 
and nearer to perfection, in spite of the grossest 
corruption and the wildest profusion on the 
part of rulers. 

The present moment is one of great distress. 
But how small will that distress appear when 
we think over the history of the last forty 
years ; — a war, compared with which all other 
wars sink into insignificance ; taxation, such 



SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 



115 



as tne most heavily taxed people of former 
times could not have conceived ; a debt larger 
tnan all the public debts that ever existed in 
the world added together ; the food of the peo- 
ple studiously rendered dear; the currency 
imprudently debased, and imprudently restored. 
Yet is the country poorer than in 1790 1 We 
fully believe that, in spite of all the misgo- 
vernment of her rulers, she has been almost 
constantly becoming richer and richer. Now 
and then there has been a stoppage, now and 
then a short retrogression ; but as to the ge- 
neral tendency there can be no doubt. A sin- 
gle breaker may recede, but the tide is evi- 
dently coming in. 

If we were to prophesy that in the year 1930, 
a population of fifty millions, better fed, clad, 
and lodged than the English of our time, will 
cover these islands ; that Sussex and Hunting- 
donshire will be wealthier than the wealthiest 
parts of the West-Riding of Yorkshire now 
are ; that cultivation, rich as that of a flower- 
garden, wtiir be carried up to the very tops of 
Ben Nevis and Helvellyn ; that machines, con- 
structed on principles yet undiscovered, will 
be in every house ; that there will be no high- 
ways but railroads, no travelling but by steam ; 
and our debt, vast as it seems to us, will ap- 
pear to our great-grandchildren a trifling 
encumbrance, which might easily be paid off 
in a year or two, many people would think us 
insane. We prophesy nothing ; but this we 
say — If any person had told the Parliament 
which met in perplexity and terror after the 
crash in 1720, that in 1830 the wealth of Eng- 
land would surpass all their wildest dreams ; 
that the annual revenue would equal the prin- 
cipal of that debt which they considered as 
an intolerable burden ; that for one man of 
10,000Z. then living, there would be five men 
of 50.000J. ; that London would be twice as large 
and twice as populous, and that nevertheless the 
mortality would have diminished to one-half 
what it then was; that the postoflice would bring 
more into' the exchequer than the excise and cus- 
toms had brought in together under Charles II. ; 
that stage-coaches would run from London to 
York in twenty-four hours ; that men would 
sail without wind, and would be beginning to 
ride without horses, our ancestors would have 
given as much credit to the prediction as they 
gave to Gulliver's Travels. Yet the predic- 
tion would have been true ; and they would 
have perceived that it was not altogether ab- 
surd if they had considered that the country 
was then raising every year a sum which 
would have purchased the fee-simple of the 
revenue of the Plantagenets, ten times what 
supported the government of Elizabeth, three 



times what, in the time of Oliver Cromwell, 
had been thought intolerably oppressive. Tc 
almost all men the state of things under which 
they have been used to live seems to be the 
necessary state of things. We have heard it 
said that five per cent, is the natural interesi 
of money, that twelve is the natural numbei 
of a jury, that forty shillings is the natura 
qualification of a county voter. Hence it i; 
that, though in every age everybody knowi 
that up to his own time progressive improve- 
ment has been taking place, nobody seems tc 
reckon on any improvement during the next 
generation. We cannot absolutely prove that 
those are in error, who tell us that society has 
reached a turning point, — that we have seen 
our best days. But so said all who came be- 
fore us, and with just as much apparent rea- 
son. " A million a year will beggar us," said 
the patriots of 1640. " Two millions a year 
will grind the country to powder," was the cry 
in 1660. " Six millions a year, and a debt of 
fifty millions !" exclaimed Swift ; " the high 
allies have been the ruin of us." "A hundred 
and forty millions of debt !" said Junius ; 
" well may we say that we owe Lord Chatham 
more than we shall ever pay, if we owe him 
such a load as this." " Two hundred and 
forty millions of debt!" cried all the states- 
men of 1783 in chorus; "what abilities, or 
what economy on the part of a minister, can 
save a country so burdened 1 ?" We know that 
if, since 1783, no fresh debt had been incurred, 
the increased resources of the country would 
have enabled us to defray that burden at which 
Pitt, Fox, and Bui'ke stood aghast — to defray it 
over and over again, and that with much lighter 
taxation than what we have actually borne. 
On what principle is it, that when we see no- 
thing but improvement behind us, we are t*> 
expect nothing but deterioration before us 1 

It is not by the intermeddling of Mr. Sou- 
they's idol, the omniscient and omnipotent 
State, but by the prudence and energy of the 
people, that England has hitherto been carried 
forward in civilization ; and it is to the same 
prudence and the same energy that we now 
look with comfort and good hope. Our rulers 
will best promote the improvement of the 
people by strictly confining themselves to their 
own legitimate duties ; by leaving capital to 
find its most lucrative course, commodities 
their fair price, industry and intelligence their 
natural reward, idleness and folly their natura] 
punishment ; by maintaining peace, by defend* 
ing property, by diminishing the price of law 
and by observing strict economy in every de« 
partment of the state. Let the government dc 
this — the people will assuredly do the rest 



116 



MAC AULA r'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



MOORE'S LIFE OE LORD BYRON.* 



[Edinburgh Review, 1831.] 



We have read this book with the greatest 
pleasure. Considered merely as a composition, 
it deserves to be classed among the best spe- 
cimens of English prose which our age has 
produced. It contains, indeed, no single pas- 
sage equal to two or three which we could se- 
lect from the Life of Sheridan. But, as a 
whole, it is immeasurably superior to that 
work. The style is agreeable, clear, and manly ; 
and when it rises into eloquence, rises without 
effort or ostentation. Nor is the matter inferior 
to the manner. 

It would be difficult to name a book which 
exhibits more kindness, fairness, and modesty. 
It has evidently been written, not for the pur- 
pose of showing, what, however, it often shows, 
how well its author can write ; but for the pur- 
pose of vindicating, as far as truth will per- 
mit, the memory of a celebrated man who can 
no longer vindicate himself. Mr.Moore never 
thrusts himself between Lord Byron and the 
public. With the strongest temptations to 
egotism, he has said no more about himself 
than the subject absolutely required. A great 
part, indeed the greater part of these volumes, 
consists of extracts from the Letters and Jour- 
nals of Lord Byron ; and it is difficult to speak 
coo highly of the skill which has been shown 
in the selection and arrangement. We will 
not say that we have not occasionally remark- 
ed in these two large quartos an anecdote 
which should have been omitted, a letter 
which should have been suppressed, a name 
which should have been concealed by aste- 
risks ; or asterisks which do not answer the 
purpose of concealing the name. But it is 
impossible, on a general survey, to deny that 
the task has been executed with great judg- 
ment and great humanity. When we consider 
the life which Lord Byron had led, his petu- 
lance, his irritability, and his communicative- 
ness, we cannot but admire the dexterity with 
which Mr. Moore has contrived to exhibit so 
much of the character and opinions of his 
friend, with so little pain to the feelings of the 
living. 

The extracts from the journals and corres- 
pondence of Lord Byron are in. the highest de- 
gree valuable — not merely on account of the 
information which they contain respecting the 
distinguished man by whom they were written, 
but on account, also, of their rare merit as com- 
positions. The Letters, at least those which 
were sent from Italy, are among the best in our 
ianguage. They are less affected than those 
of Pope and Walpole ; they have more matter 
in them than those of Cowper. Knowing that 
many of them were not written merely for the 
person to whom they were directed, but were 

* Letters and Journals of Lord Byron ,' with Notices of 
lis Life. By Thomas Moure, Esq. 2 vols. 4to. Lon- 
don: 1830. 



general epistles, meant to be read by a large 
circle, we expected to find them clever and 
spirited, but deficient in ease. We looked 
with vigilance for instances of stiffness in the 
language, and awkwardness in the transitions. 
We have been agreeably disappointed ; and 
we must confess, that if the epistolary style of 
Lord Byron was artificial, it was a rare and 
admirable instance of that highest art, which 
cannot be distinguished from nature. 

Of the deep and painful interest which this 
book excites, no abstract can give a just no 
tion. So sad and dark a story is scarcely to be 
found in any work of fiction ; and we are littl 
disposed to envy the moralist who can read 
without being softened. 

The pretty fable by which the Duchess of 
Orleans illustrates the character of her son the 
regent, might, with little change, be applied to 
Byron. All the fairies, save one, had been bid- 
den to his cradle. All the gossips had been 
profuse of their gifts. One had bestowed no- 
bility, another genius, a third beauty. The 
malignant elf who had been uninvited came 
last, and, unable to reverse what her sisters had 
done for their favourite, had mixed up a curse 
with every blessing. In the rank of Lord 
Byron, in his understanding, in his character, 
in his very person, there was a strange union 
of opposite extremes. He was born to all that 
men covet and admire. But. in every one of 
those eminent advantages which he possessed 
6ver others, there was mingled something of 
misery and debasement. He was sprung from 
a house, ancient indeed and noble, but de- 
graded and impoverished by a series of crimes 
and follies, which had attained a scandalous 
publicity. The kinsman whom he succeeded 
had died poor, and, but for merciful judges, 
would have died upon the gallows. The young 
peer had great intellectual powers ; yet there 
was an unsound part in his mind. He had na- 
turally a generous and tender heart ; but his 
temper was wayward and irritable. He had 
a head which statuaries loved to copy, and a 
foot the deformity of which the beggars in the 
streets mimicked. Distinguished at once by the 
strength and by the weakness of his intellect, 
affectionate yet perverse, a poor lord, and a 
handsome cripple, he required, if ever man re- 
quired, the firmest and the most judicious train- 
ing. But, capriciously as nature had dealt 
with him, the relative to whom the office of 
forming his character was intrusted was more 
capricious still. She passed from paroxysms 
of rage to paroxysms of fondness. At one time 
she stifled him with her caresses, at another 
time she insulted his deformity. He came into 
the world, and the world treated him as his 
mother treated him — sometimes with kind- 
ness, sometimes with severity, never with 
justice. It indulged him without discrimina- 



MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 



117 



Hon, and punished him without discrimination. 
He was truly a spoiled child ; not merely the 
spoiled child of his parents, but the spoiled 
child of nature, the spoiled child of fortune, the 
spoiled child of fame, the spoiled child of so- 
ciety. His first poems were received with a 
contempt which, feeble as they were, they did 
no: absolutely deserve. The poem which he 
published on his return from his travels, was, 
on the other hand, extolled far above its merits. 
At twenty-four he found himself on the highest 
pinnacle of literary fame, with Scott, Words- 
worth, Soutbey, and a crowd of other distin- 
guished writers, beneath his feet. There is 
scarcely an instance in history of so sudden a 
rise to so dizzy an eminence. 

Every thing that could stimulate, and every 
thing that could gratify the strongest propensi- 
ties of our nature — the gaze of a hundred 
drawing-rooms, the acclamations of the whole 
nation, the applause of applauded men, the 
love of the loveliest women — all this world, 
and all the glory of it, were at once offered to 
a young man, to whom nature had given vio- 
lent passions, and whom education had never 
taught to control them. He lived as many men 
live who have no similar excuses to plead 
for their faults. But his countrymen and his 
countrywomen would love him and admire 
him. They were resolved to see in his ex- 
cesses only the flash and outbreak of that same 
fiery mind which glowed in his poetry. He 
attacked religion ; yet in religious circles his 
came was mentioned with fondness, and in 
many religious publications his works were 
censured with singular tenderness. He lam- 
pooned the Prince Regent; yet he could not 
alienate the Tories. Every thing, it seemed, 
was to be forgiven to youth, rank, and genius. 

Then came the reaction. Society, capricious 
in its indignation as it had been capricious in 
its fondness, flew into a rage with its froward 
and petted darling. He had been worshipped 
with an irrational idolatry. He was perse- 
cuted with an irrational fury. Much has been 
written about those unhappy domestic occur- 
rences which decided the fate of his life. Yet 
nothing ever was positively known to the 
public, but this — that he quarrelled with his 
lady, and that she refused to live with him. 
There have been hints in abundance, and 
shrugs and shakings of the head, and "Well, 
well, we know," and "We could an if we 
would," and " If we list to speak," and "There 
be that might an they list." But we are not 
aware that there is before the world, substan- 
tiated by credible, or even by tangible evi- 
dence, a single fact indicating that Lord Byron 
was more to blame than any other man who is 
son bad terms with his wife. The professional 
iinen whom Lady Byron consulted were un- 
doubtedly of opinion that she ought not to live 
with her husband. But it is to be remembered 
that they formed that opinion without hearing 
•both sides. We do not say, we do not mean 
Jlo insinuate that Lady Byron was in any re- 
jspect to blame. We think that those who con- 
demn her on the evidence which is now before 
|the public, are as rash as those who condemn 
jtier husband. We will not pronounce any 
judgment ; we cannot, even in our own nracts, 



form any judgment on a transaction which is 
so imperfectly known to us. It would have 
been well if, at the time of the separation, all 
those who knew as little about the matter then 
as we know about it now, had shown that for- 
bearance, which, under such circumstances, is 
but common justice. 

We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the 
British public in one of its periodical fits of 
morality. (In general, elopements, divorces, 
and family quarrels pass with little notice. 
We read the scandal, talk about it for a day ; 
and forget it. But once in six or seven years, 
our virtue becomes outrageous. We cannoJ 
suffer the laws of religion and decency to be 
violated. We must make a stand against vice. 
We must teach libertines, that the English 
people appreciate the importance of domestic 
ties. Accordingly, some unfortunate man, in 
no respect more depraved than hundreds whose 
offences have been treated with lenity, is 
singled out as an expiatory sacrifice. If he 
has children, they are to be taken from him. If 
he has a profession, he is to be driven from it, 
He is cut by the higher orders, and hissed by 
the lower. He is, in truth, a sort of whipping- 
boy, by whose vicarious agonies all the other 
transgressors of the same class are, it is sup- 
posed, sufficiently chastised. We reflect very 
complacently on our own severity, and com- 
pare with great pride the high standard of mo- 
rals established in England, with the Parisian 
laxity. At length our anger is satiated. Our 
victim is ruined and heart-broken. And our 
virtue goes quietly to sleep for seven years 
more. 

It is clear that those vices which destroy do- 
mestic happiness ought to be as much as pos- 
sible repressed. It is equally clear that they 
cannot be repressed by penal legislation. It is 
therefore right and desirable that public opi- 
nion should be directed against them. But it 
should be directed against them uniformly, 
steadily, and temperately, not by sudden fits 
and starts. There should be one weight and 
one measure. Decimation is always an ob- 
jectionable mode of punishment. It is the 
resource of judges too indolent and hasty to 
investigate facts, and to discriminate nicely 
between shades of guilt. It is an irrational 
practice, even when adopted by military tribu- 
nals. When adopted by the tribunal of public 
opinion, it is infinitely more irrational. It is 
good that a certain portion of disgrace should 
constantly attend on certain bad actions. But 
it is not good that the offenders merely have to 
stand the risks of a lottery of infamy; that 
ninety-nine out of every hundred should 
escape ; and that the hundredth, perhaps the 
most innocent of the hundred, should pay for 
all. We remember to have seen a mob assem 
bled in Lincoln's Inn to hoot a gentleman, 
against whom the most oppressive proceeding 
known to the English law was then in pro- 
gress. He was hooted because he had been an 
indifferent and unfaithful husband, as if some 
of the most popular men of the age, Lord Nel- 
son, for example, had not been indifferent and 
unfaithful husbands. We remember a still 
stronger case. . Will posterity believe, that m 
an age in which men, whose gallantries were 



118 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



universally known, and had been legally 
proved, filled some of the highest offices in the 
state, and in the army, presided at the meetings 
of religious and benevolent institutions, were 
the delight of every society, and the favourites 
of the multitude, a crowd of moralists went to 
the theatre, in order to pelt a poor actor for 
disturbing the conjugal felicity of an alder- 
man 1 What there was in the circumstances, 
either of the offender or of the sufferer, to vin- 
dicate the zeal of the audience, we could never 
conceive. It has never been supposed that the 
situation of an actor is peculiarly favourable 
to the rigid virtues, or that an alderman enjoys 
any special immunity from injuries such as 
that which on this occasion roused the anger 
of the public. But such is the justice of man- 
kind. 

In these cases, the punishment was exces- 
sive ; but the offence was known and proved. 
The case of Lord Byron was harder. True 
Jedwood justice was dealt out to him. First 
came the execution, then the investigation, and 
last of all, or rather not at ail, the accusation. 
The public, without knowing any thing what- 
ever about the transactions in his family, flew 
into a violent passion with him, and proceeded 
to invent stories which might justify its anger. 
Ten or twenty different accounts of the sepa- 
ration, inconsistent with each other, with 
themselves, and with common sense, circu- 
lated at the same time. What evidence there 
might be for any one of these, the virtuous 
people who repeated them neither knew nor 
cared. For in fact these stories were not the 
causes, but the effects of the public indigna- 
tion. They resembled those loathsome slanders 
which Goldsmith, and other abject libellers of 
the same class, were in the habit of publishing 
about Bonaparte — how he poisoned a girl with 
arsenic, when he was at the military school — » 
how he hired a grenadier to shoot Dessaix at 
Marengo — how he filled St. Cloud with all the 
pollutions of Caprece. There was a time when 
anecdotes like these obtained some credence 
from persons, who, hating the French Emperor 
without knowing why, were eager to believe 
any thing which might justify their hatred. 
Lord Byron fared in the same way. His 
countrymen were in a tad humour with him. 
His writings and his character had lost the 
charm of novelty. He had been guilty of the 
offence which, of all offences, is punished more 
severely; he had been over-praised ; he had 
excited too warm an interest ; and the public, 
with its usual justice, chastised him for its 
own folly. The attachments of the multitude 
bear no small resemblance to those of the 
wanton enchantress in the Arabian Tales, who, 
when the forty days of her fondness were over, 
was not content with dismissing her lovers, 
Dut condemned them to expiate, in loathsome 
shapes, and under severe punishments, the 
crime of having once pleased her too well. 

The obloquy which Byron had to endure 
was such as might well have shaken a more 
constant mind. The newspapers were filled 
wiih lampoons. The theatres shook with exe- 
crations. He was excluded from circles where 
be had lately been the observed of all observ- 
m All those creeping things that riot in the 



decay of nobler natures, hastened to their rs 
past ; and they were right ; they did after theii 
kind. It is not every day that the savage envy 
of aspiring dunces is gratified by the agonies 
of such a spirit and the degradation of such a 
name. 

The unhappy man left his country forever. 
The howl of contumely followed him across 
the sea, up the Rhine, over the Alps ; it gradu- 
ally waxed fainter ; it died away. Those who 
had raised it began to ask each other, what, 
after all, was the matter about which they had 
been so clamorous ; and wished to invite back 
the criminal whom they had just chased from 
them. His poetry became more popular than 
it had ever been ; and his complaints were read 
with tears by thousands and tens of thousands 
who had never seen his face. 

He had fixed his home on the shores of the 
Adriatic, in the most picturesque and interest- 
ing of cities, beneath the brightest of skies, 
and by the brightest of seas. Censoriousness 
was not the vice of the neighbours whom he 
had chosen. They were a race corrupted by 
a bad government and a bad religion ; long re- 
nowned for skill in the arts of voluptuousness, 
and tolerant of all the caprices of sensuality. 
From the public opinion of the country of his 
adoption he had. nothing to dread. With the 
public opinion of the country of his birth he 
was at open war. He plunged into wild and 
desperate excesses, ennobled by no generous 
or tender sentiment. From his Venetian harem 
he sent forth volume after volume, full of elo- 
quence, of wit, of pathos, of ribaldry, and of 
bitter disdain. His health sank under the 
effects of his intemperance. His hair turned 
gray. His food ceased to nourish him. A 
hectic fever withered him up. It seemed tha* 
his body and mind were about to perish to- 
gether. 

From this wretched degradation he was in 
some measure rescued by an attachment, 
culpable indeed, yet such as, judged by the 
standard of morality established in the country 
where he lived, might be called virtuous. But 
an imagination polluted by vice, a temper im- 
bittered by misfortune, and a frame habituated 
to the fatal excitement of intoxication, pre- 
vented him from fully enjoying the happiness 
which he might have derived from the purest 
and most tranquil of his many attachments. 
Midnight draughts of ardent spirits and Rhe- 
nish wines had begun to work the ruin of. his 
fine intellect. His verse lost much of the 
energy and condensation which had distin- 
guished it. But he would not resign, without 
a struggle, the empire which he had exercised 
over the men of his generation. A new dream 
of ambition arose before him, to be the centre 
of a literary party ; the great mover of an in- 
tellectual revolution ; to guide the public mind 
of England from his Italian retreat, as Voltaire 
had guided the public mind of France from 
the villa of Ferney. With this hope, as it 
should seem, he established The Liberal. But 
powerfully as he had affected the imaginations 
of his contemporaries, he mistook his own 
powers, if he hoped to direct their opinions : 
and he still more grossly mistook his own dis- 
position, if he thought that he could long act 



MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 



119 



In concert with other men of letters. The 
t'an failed, and failed ignominiously. Angry 
with himself, angry with his coadjutors, he re- 
hnquishcd it: and turned to another project, 
the last and the noblest of his life. 

A nation, once the first among the nations, 
pre-eminent in knowledge, pre-eminent in mi- 
litary glory, the cradle of philosophy, of elo- 
quence, and of the fine arts, had been for ages 
bowed down under a cruel yoke. All the vices 
which tyranny generates — the abject vices 
which it generates in those who submit to it, 
the ferocious vices which it generates in those 
who struggle against it — had deformed the 
character of that miserable race. The valour 
which had won the great battle of human 
civilization, which had saved Europe, and 
subjugated Asia, lingered only among pirates 
and robbers. The ingenuity, once so conspi- 
cuously displayed in every department of phy- 
sical and moral science, had been depraved 
into a timid and servile cunning. On a sudden 
this degraded people had risen on their op- 
pressors. Discountenanced or betrayed by the 
surrounding potentates, they had found in 
themselves Something of that which might 
well supply the place of all foreign assistance 
— something of the energy of their fathers. 

As a man of letters, Lord Byron could not 
but be interested in the event of this contest. 
His political opinions, though, like all his opi- 
nions, unsettled, leaned strongly towards the 
side of liberty. He had assisted the Italian 
insurgents with his purse ; and if their struggle 
against the Austrian government had been 
prolonged, would probably have assisted them 
with his sword. But to Greece he was at- 
tached by peculiar ties. He had, when young, 
resided in that country. Much of his most 
splendid and popular poetry had been inspired 
by its scenery and by its history. Sick of in- 
action, degraded in his own eyes by his private 
vices and by his literary failures, pining for 
untried excitement and honourable distinction, 
he carried his exhausted body and his wound- 
ed spirit to the Grecian camp. 

His conduct in his new situation showed so 
much vigour and good sense as to justify us 
in believing, that, if his life had been pro- 
longed, he might have distinguished himself 
as a soldier and a politician. But pleasure 
and sorrow had done the work of seventy 
years upon his delicate frame. The hand of 
death was on him ; he knew it ; and the only 
wish which he uttered was that he might die 
sword in hand. 

This was denied to him. Anxiety, exertion, 
exposure, and those fatal stimulants which had 
become indispensable to him, soon stretched 
him on a sick-bed, in a strange land, amidst 
strange faces, without one human being that 
he loved near him. There, at thirty-six, the 
most celebrated Englishman of the nineteenth 
csntury closed his brilliant and miserable 
career. 

We cannot even now retrace those events 
without feeling something of what was felt by 
the nation, when it was first known that the 
grave had closed over so much sorrow and so 
much glory ; — something of what was felt by 
those who saw the hearse, with its long train 



of coaches, turn slowly northward, leaving be- 
hind it that cemetery, which had been conse* 
crated by the dust of so many great poets, but 
of which the doors were closed against all 
that remained of Byron. We well remember 
that, on that day, rigid moralists could not re- 
frain from weeping for one so young, so illus- 
trious, so unhappy, gifted with such rare gifts, 
and tried by such strong temptations. It is 
unnecessary to make any reflections. The 
history carries its mora, with it. Our age has 
indeed been fruitful of warnings to the emi- 
nent, and of consolations to the obscure. Two 
men have died within our recollection, who a 
a time of life at which few people have com- 
pleted their education, had raised themselves, 
each in his own department, to the height of 
glory. One of them died at Longwood, the 
other at Missolonghi. 

It is always difficult to separate the literary 
character of a man who lives in our own time 
from his personal character. It is peculiarly 
difficult to make this separation in the case of 
Lord Byron. For it is scarcely too much to 
say, that Lord Byron never wrote without some 
reference, direct or indirect, to himself. The 
interest excited by the events of his life mingles 
itself in our minds, and probably in the minds 
of almost all our readers, with the interest 
which properly belongs to his works. A ge- 
neration must pass away before it will be pos- 
sible to form a fair judgment of his books, 
considered merely as books. At present the? 
are not only books, but relics. We will, how 
ever, venture, though with unfeigned diffidence 
to offer some desultory remarks on his poetry. 

His lot was cast in the time of a great lite- 
rary revolution. That poetical dynasty which 
had dethroned the successors of Shakspeare 
and Spenser was, in its turn, dethroned by a 
race who represented themselves as heirs of 
the ancient line, so long dispossessed by usurp- 
ers. The real nature of this revolution has 
not, we think, been comprehended by the great 
majority of those who concurred in it. 

If this question were proposed — wherein 
especially does the poetry of our times differ 
from that of the last century] ninety-nine 
persons out of a hundred would answer, that 
the poetry of the last century was correct, but 
cold and mechanical, and that the poetry of our 
time, though wild and irregular, presented far 
more vivid images, and excited the passion3 
far more strongly, than that of Parnell, of Ad- 
dison, or of Pope. In the same manner we 
constantly hear it said, that the poets of the 
age of Elizabeth had far more genius, but far 
less correctness, than those of the age of Anne. 
It seems to be taken for granted, that there is 
some necessary incompatibility, some antithe- 
sis, between correctness and creative power. 
We rather suspect that this notion arises mere- 
ly from an abuse of words ; and that it has 
been the parent of many of the fallacies which 
perplex the science of criticism. 

What is meant by correctness in poetry'* 
If by correctness be meart the conforming to 
rules which have their foundation in truth 
and in the principles of human nature, then 
correctness is only another name for excel 
lence. If by correctness be meant the cor» 



120 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS*, 



forming to rules purely arbitrary, correctness 
may be another name for dulness and ab- 
surdity. 

A writer who describes visible objects false- 
.y, and violates the propriety of character — a 
writer who makes the mountains " nod their 
drowsy heads" at night, or a dying man take 
leave of the world with a rant like that of 
Maximin, may be said, in the high and just 
sense of the phrase, to write incorrectly. He 
violates the first great law of his art. His 
imitation is altogether unlike the thing imi- 
tated. The four poets who are most eminently 
free from incorrectness of this description are 
Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, and Milton. They 
are, therefore, in one sense, and that the best 
sense, the most correct of poets. 

When it is said that Virgil, though he had 
Zess genius than Homer, was a more correct 
writer, what sense is attached to the word cor- 
rectness ? Is it meant that the story of the 
^Eneid is developed more skilfully than that 
sf the Odyssey? that the Roi^an describes the 
face of the external world, 01 -.he emotions of 
ftie mind, more accurately than the Greek? 
fiiat the characters of Achates and Mnestheus 
are more nicely discriminated, and more con- 
sistently supported, than those of Achilles, of 
Nestor, and of Ulysses ? The fact incontesta- 
bly is, that for every violation of the funda- 
mental laws of poetry, which can be found in 
Homer, it would be easy to find twenty in 
Virgil. 

Troilus and Cressida is perhaps of all the 
piays of Shakspeare that which is commonly 
considered as the mosl; incorrect. Yet it seems 
to us infinitely more correct, in the sound 
sense of the term, than what are called the 
most correct plays of the most correct drama- 
tists. Compare it, for example, with the Iphi- 
g enie of Racine. We are sure that the Greeks 
of Shakspeare bear a far greater resemblance 
than the Greeks of Racine, to the real Greeks 
who besieged Troy ; and for this reason, that 
the Greeks of Shakspeare are human beings, 
and the Greeks of Racine mere names ; — mere 
words printed in capitals at the head of para- 
graphs of declamation. Racine, it is true, 
would have shuddered at the thought of 
making Agamemnon quote Aristotle. But of 
what use is it to avoid a single anachronism, 
when the whole play is one anachronism — the 
topics and phrases of Versailles in the camp 
cfAulis? 

In the sense in which we are now using the 
word correctness, we think that Sir Walter 
ScoU, Mr. Wordsworth, Mr. Coleridge, are far 
mere correct writers than those who are com- 
monly extolled as the models of correctness — 
Pope for example, and Addison. The single 
description of a moonlight night in Pope's 
Iliad contains more inaccuracies than can be 
found in all the Excursion. There is not a 
single scene in Cato in which every thing that 
conduces to poetical illusion — the propriety of 
character, of" language, of situation, is not 
more grossly violated than in any part of the 
Lay of the Last Minstrel. No man can possi- 
bly think that the Romans of Addison resem- 
t>'e the real Romans so closely as the moss- 
livoosrs of Scott resemble the real moss-troop- 



ers. Watt Tinlinn and William of Deloraine 
are not, it is true, persons of so much disnitl 
as Cato. But the dignity of the persons repre- 
sented has as little to do with the correctness 
of poetry as with the correctness of painting. 
We prefer a gipsy by Reynolds to his majes- 
ty's head on a signpost, and a borderer by 
Scott to a senator by Addison. 

In what sense, then, is the word correctness 
used by those who say, with the author of the 
Pursuits of Literature, that Pope was the most 
correct of English poets, and, that next to Pope, 
came the late Mr. Giflbrd ? What is the na- 
ture and value of that correctness, the praise 
of which is denied to Macbeth, to Lear, and to 
Othello, and given to Hoole's translations and 
to all the Seatonian prize-poems? We can 
discover no eternal rule, no rule founded in 
reason and in the nature of things, which 
Shakspeare does not observe much more 
strictly than Pope. But if by correctness be 
meant the conforming to a narrow legislation, 
which, while lenient to the mala in se, multi- 
plies, without the shadow of a reason, the mala 
prohibita; if by correctness be meant a strict 
attention to certain ceremonious observances, 
which are no more essential to poetry than 
etiquette to good government, or than the 
washings of a Pharisee to devotion ; then, as- 
suredly, Pope may be a more correct poet than 
Shakspeare; and, if the code were a little 
altered, Colley Cibber might be a more correct 
poet than Pope. But it may well be doubted 
whether this kind of correctness be a merit ; 
nay, whether it be not an absolute fault. 

It would be amusing to make a digest of the 
irrational laws which bad critics have framed 
for the government of poets. First in celebrity 
and in absurdity stand the dramatic unities of 
place and time. No human being has ever 
been able to find any thing that could, even by 
courtesy, be called an argument for these uni- 
ties, except that they have been deduced from 
the general practice of the Greeks. It requires 
no very profound examination to discover that 
the Greek dramas, often admirable as compo- 
sitions, are, as exhibitions of human charac-. 
ter and human life, far inferior to the English 
plays of the age of Elizabeth. Every scholar 
knows that the dramatic part of the Athenian 
tragedies was at first subordinate to the lyrical 
part. It would, therefore, have been little less 
than a miracle if the laws of the Athenian 
stage had been found to suit plays in which 
there was no chorus. All the great master- 
pieces of the dramatic art have been com- 
posed in direct violation of the unities, and 
could never have been composed if the unities 
had not been violated. It is clear, for exam- 
ple, that such a character as that of Hamlet 
could never have been developed within the 
limits to which Alfieri confined himself. Yet 
such was the reverence of literary men during 
the last century for these unities, that Johnson, 
who, much to his honour, tonk the opposite 
side, was, as he says, " frighted at his own te- 
merity ;" and " afraid to stand against the au- 
thorities which might be produced against 
him." 

There are other rules of the same kind 
without end. "Shakspeare," says Rymer 



MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 



121 



I ouglit not to have made Othello black ; for 
the hero of a tragedy ought always to be 
white." " Milton," says another critic, " ought 
not to have taken Adam for his hero ; for the 
hero of an epic poem ought always to be vic- 
torious." " Milton," says another, " ought not 
to have put so many similes into his first 
book ; for the first book of an epic poem ought 
aiways to be the most unadorned. There are 
no similes in the first book of the Iliad." 
I Milton," says another, " ought not to have 
placed in an epic poern such lines as these : 

' I also erred in overmuch admiring.' " 

And why not 1 The critic is ready with a reason 
— a lady's reason. " Such lines," says he, " are 
not, it must be allowed, unpleasing to the ear ; 
but the redundant syllable ought to be confined 
to the drama, and not admitted into epic poetry." 
As to the redundant syllable in heroic rhyme, 
on serious subjects, it has been, from the time 
of Pope downward, proscribed by the general 
consent of all the correct school. No maga- 
zine would have admitted so incorrect a coup- 
let as that of Dayton, 

"As when we lived untouched with these disgraces, 
When as our kingdom was our dear embraces." 

Another law of heroic poetry which, fifty years 
ago, was considered as fundamental, was, that 
there should be a pause — a comma at least, at 
the end of every couplet. It was also provided 
that there should never be a full stop except 
at the end of a couplet. Well do we remem- 
ber to have heard a most correct judge of poe- 
try revile Mr. Rogers for the incorrectness of 
♦hat most sweet and graceful passage, 

'"Twas thine, Maria, thine, without a sigh, 
At midnight in a sister's arms to die, 
Nursing the young to health." 

Sir Roger Newdigate is fairly entitled, we 
think, to be ranked among the great critics of 
this school. He made a law that none of the 
poems written for the prize which he estab- 
lished at Oxford should exceed fifty lines. 
This law seems to us to have at least as much 
foundation in reason as any of those which 
we have mentioned ; nay, much more, for the 
world, we believe, is pretty well agreed in 
thinking that the shorter a prize-poem is, the 
better. 

We do not see why we should not make a 
few more rules of the same kind — why we 
should not enact that the number of scenes in 
every act shall be three, or some multiple of 
three ; that the number of lines in every scene 
shall be an exact square ; that the dramatis 
■persona, shall never be more nor fewer than six- 
teen ; and that, in heroic rhymes, every thirty- 
sixth line shall have twelve syllables. If we 
were to lay down these canons, and to call 
Pope, Goldsmith, and Addison incorrect wri- 
ters for not having complied with our whims, 
we should act precisely as those critics act 
who find incorrectness in the magnifieent ima- 
j gery and the varied music of Coleridge and 
i Shelley. 

The correctness which the last century 
I prized so much resembled the correctness of 
I ihose pictures of the garden of Eden which we 



see in old Bibles — an exact square, enclosed 
by the rivers Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Eu 
phrates, each with a convenient bridge in thf 
centre — rectangular beds of flowers — a long 
canal neatly bricked and railed in — the tree of 
knowledge, clipped like one of the limes be- 
hind the Tuileries, standing in the centre of 
the grand alley — the snake twined round it— 
the man on the right hand, the woman on the 
left, and the beasts drawn up in an exact cir- 
cle round them. In one sense the picture is 
correct enough. That is to say, the squares 
are correct; the circles are correct; the maa 
and woman are in a most correct , tie with the 
tree ; and the snake forms a n.ost correct 
spiral. 

But if there were a painter so gifted, that he 
should place in the canvass that glorious para- 
dise seen by the interior eye of him whose out- 
ward sight had failed with long watching and 
labouring for liberty and truth — if there were 
a painter who could set before us the mazes of 
the sapphire brook, the lake with its fringe oi 
myrtles, the flowery meadows, the grottoes 
overhung by vines, the forests shining with 
Hesperian fruit and with the plumage of gor- 
geous birds, the massy shade of that nuptial 
bower which showered clown roses on the 
sleeping lovers — what should we think of a 
connoisseur who should tell us that this paint- 
ing, though finer than the absurd picture of the 
old Bible, was not so correct? Surely we 
should answer, It is both finer and more cor- 
rect ; and it is finer because it is more correct. 
It is not made up of correctly drawn diagrams, 
but it is a correct painting, a worthy representa- 
tion of that which it is intended to represent. 

It is not in the fine arts alone that this false 
correctness is prized by narrow-minded men, 
by men who cannot distinguish means from 
ends, or what is accidental from what is essen- 
tial. Mr. Jourdain admired correctness in 
fencing. " You had no business to hit me then. 
You must never thrust in quart till you have 
thrust in tierce" M. Tomes liked correctness 
in medical practice. " I stand up for Artemius, 
That he killed his patient is plain enough. 
But still he acted quite according to rule. A 
man dead is a man dead, and there is an ena 
of the matter. But if rules are to be broken^ 
there is no saying what consequences may 
follow." We have heard of an old German 
officer, who was a great admirer of correctness 
in military operations. He used to revile Bo- 
naparte for spoiling the science of war, which 
had been carried to such an exqaisitc perfec- 
tion by Marshal Daun. " In my youth we used 
to march and countermarch all the summer, 
without gaining or losing a square league, and 
then we went into winter-quarters. And now 
comes an ignorant, hot-headed young man, 
who flies about from Boulogne *o TJlm, and 
from Ulm to the middle of Moravia, and fights 
battles in December. The whole system of 
his tactics is monstrously incorrect." The 
world is of opinion, in spite of critics like these, 
that the end of fencing is to hit, that the end of 
medicine is to cure, that the end oi war is t& 
conquer, and that those means are the mosi. 
correct which best accomplish the ends. 

And has poetry no end, no eternal and im 



Wi 



MACALLAN'S miscellaneous writings 



mutable principles 1 Is poetry, like heraldry, 
mere matter of arbitrary regulation 1 The 
heralds tell us that certain scutcheons and 
bearings denote certain conditions, and that to 
put colours on colours, or metals on metals, is 
false blazonry. If all this were reversed; if 
every coat of arms in Europe were new-fash- 
ioned ; if it were decreed that or should never 
be placed but on argent, or argent but on or; 
that illegitimacy should be denoted by a lozenge, 
and widowhood by a bend, the new science 
would be just as good as the old science, be- 
cause both the new and the old would be good 
for nothing. The mummery of Portcullis and 
Rouge Dragon, as it has no other value than 
that which caprice has assigned to it, may well 
submit to any laws which caprice may impose 
on it. But it is not so with that great imitative 
art, to the power of which all ages, the rudest 
and the most enlightened, bear witness. Since 
its first grea* masterpieces were produced, 
every thing Oat is changeable in this world 
has been changed. Civilization has been 
gained, los\ gained again. Religions, and 
languages, and forms of government, and 
usages of private life, and the modes of think- 
ing, all have undergone a succession of revo- 
lutions. Every thing has passed away but the 
great features of nature, the heart of man, and 
the miracles of that art of which it is the office 
to reflect back the heart of man and the fea- 
tures of nature. Those two strange old poems, 
the wonder of ninety generations, still retain 
all their freshness. They still command the 
veneration of minds enriched by the literature 
»f many nations and ages. They are still, even 
ii wretched translations, the delight of school- 
toys. Having survived ten thousand capri- 
cious fashions, having seen successive codes 
»f criticism become obsolete, they still remain, 
cnmortal with the immortality of truth, the 
same when perused in the study of an English 
scholar as when they were first chanted at the 
banquets of the Ionian princes. 

Poetry is, as that most acute of human 
beings, Aristotle, said, more than two thousand 
years ago, imitation. It is an art analogous in 
many respects to the art of painting, sculpture, 
and acting. The imitations of the painter, the 
sculptor, and the actor are, indeed, within cer- 
tain limits, more perfect than those of the poet. 
The machinery which the poet employs con- 
sists merely of words ; and words cannot, even 
when employed by such an artist as Homer or 
Dante, present to the mind images of visible 
objects quite so lively and exact as those which 
we carry away from looking on the works of 
the brush and the chisel. But, on the other 
hand, the range of poetry is infinitely wider 
than that of any other imitative art, or than 
mat of all the other imitative arts together. 
The sculptor can imitate only form ; the painter 
only form and colour ; the actor, until the poet 
supplies him with words, only form, colour, 
and motion. Poetry holds the outer world in 
common with the other arts. The heart of 
man is the province of poetry, and o*' poetry 
alone. The painter, the sculptor, and the 
fictor, when the actor is unassisted by the poet, 
can exhibit no more of human passion and 
character than that small portion which over- 



flows into the gesture and the face — always an 
imperfect, often a deceitful sign of that which 
is within. The deeper and more complex parts 
of human nature can be exhibited by means 
of words alone. Thus the objects of the imi« 
tation of poetry are the whole external and the 
whole internal universe, the face of nature, the 
vicissitudes of fortune, man as he is in himself, 
man as he appears in society, all things of 
which we can form an image in our minds, by 
combining together parts of things which really 
exist. The domain of this imperial art is com- 
mensurate with the imaginative faculty. 

An art essentially imitative ought not surely 
to be subjected to rules which tend to make its 
imitations less perfect than they would other* 
wise be; and those who obey such rules ought 
to be called, not correct, but incorrect artists. 
The true way to judge of the rules by which 
English poetry was governed during the last 
century, is to look at the effects which they 
produced. 

It was in 17S0 that Johnson completed his 
Lives of the Poets. He tells us in that work 
that since the time of Dryden, English poetry 
had shown no tendency to relapse into its ori- 
ginal savageness ; that its language had been 
refined, its numbers tuned, and its sentiments 
improved. It may, perhaps, be doubted whether 
the nation had any great reason to exult in the 
refinements and improvements which gave it 
Douglas for Othello, and the Triumphs of 
Temper for the Faerie Queen. 

It was during the thirty years which preceded 
the appearance of Johnson's Lives, that the 
diction and versification of English poetry 
were, in the sense in which the word is com- 
monly used, most correct. Those thirty years 
form the most deplorable part of our literary 
history. They have bequeathed to us scarcely 
any poetry which deserves to be remembered. 
Two or three hundred lines of Gray, twice as 
many of Goldsmith, a few stanzas of Beattie 
and Collins, a few strophes of Mason, and a 
few clever prologues and satires, were the 
masterpieces of this age of consummate excel 
lence. They may all be printed in one volume, 
and that volume would be by no means a vo- 
lume of extraordinary merit. It would contain 
no poetry of the highest class, and little which 
could be placed very high in the second class. 
The Paradise Regained, or Comus, would out- 
weigh it all. 

At last, when poetry had fallen inte scch 
utter decay that Mr. Hayley was thought a great 
poet, it began to appear that the excess of the 
evil was about to work the cure. Men became 
tired of an insipid conformity to a standard 
which derived no authority from nature or rea- 
son. A shallow criticism had taught them to 
ascribe a superstitious value to the spurious 
correctness of poetasters. A deeper criticism 
brought them back to the free correctness of 
the first great masters. The eternal laws of 
poetry regained their power, and the temporary 
fashions which had superseded those laws 
went after the wig of Lovelace and the hoop 
of Clarissa. 

It was in a cold and barren season that the 
seeds of that rich harvest which we have 
reaped were first sown. While poetry was 



MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 



123 



every year becoming more feeble and more 
mechanical, while the monotonous versifica- 
tion which Pope had introduced, no longer re- 
deemed by his brilliant wit and his compact- 
ness of expression, palled on the ear of" the 
public, t.ie great works of the dead were every 
(lay attracting more and more of the admiration 
which they deserved. The plays of Shakspeare 
were better acted, better edited, and better 
known than they had ever been. Our noble 
old ballads were again read with pleasure, and 
it became a fashion to imitate them. Many 
of the imitations were altogether contemptible. 
But they showed that men had at least begun 
to admire the excellence which they could not 
rival. A literary revolution was evidently at 
hand. There was a ferment in the minds of 
men, a vague craving for something new, a 
disposition to hail with delight any thing which 
might at first sight wear the appearance of 
originality. A reforming age is always fertile 
of impostors. The same excited state of pub- 
lic feeling which produced the great separation 
from the see of Rome, produced also the ex- 
cesses of the Anabaptists. The same stir in 
the public mind of Europe which overthrew 
the abuses of the old French government, pro- 
duced the Jacobins and Theophilanthropists. 
Macpherson and the Delia Cruscans were to 
the true reformers of English poetry what 
Cnipperdoling was to Luther, or what Clootz 
was to Turgot. The public was never more 
disposed to believe stories without evidence, 
and to admire books without merit. Any thing 
which could break the dull monotony of the 
correct school was acceptable. 

The forerunner of the great restoration of 
our literature was Cowper. His literary ca- 
reer began and ended at nearly the same time 
with that of Alfieri. A parallel between Alfieri 
and Cowper may, at first sight, seem as un- 
promising as that which a loyal Presbyterian 
minister is said to have drawn, in 1745, be- 
tween George the Second and Enoch. It may 
seem that the gentle, shy, melancholy Calvin- 
ist, whose spirit had been broken by fagging at 
school, who had not courage to earn a liveli- 
hood by reading the titles of bills in the House 
of Lords, and whose favourite associates were 
a blind old lady and an evangelical divine, 
could have nothing in common with the 
haughty, ardent, and voluptuous nobleman, the 
horse-jockey, the libertine, who fought Lord 
Ligonier in Hyde Park, and robbed the Preten- 
der of his queen. But though the private lives 
of these remarkable men present scarcely any 
points of resemblance, their literary lives bear 
a close analogy to each other. They both 
found poetry in its lowest state of degradation, 
feeble, artificial, and altogether nerveless. 
They both possessed precisely the talents 
which fitted them for the task of raising it 
from that deep abasement. They cannot, in 
strictness, be called great poets. They had 
not in any very high degree the creative 
power, 

"The vision and the faculty divine ;" 

but they had great vigour of thought, great 
warmth of reeling, and what, in their circum- 
stances, was above all things important, a 



manliness of taste which approached to rough- 
ness. They did not deal in mechanical versi- 
fication and conventional phrases. They wrote 
concerning things, the thought of which set 
their hearts on lire ; and thus what they wrote, 
even when it wanted every other grace, had that 
inimitable grace which sincerity and strong 
passion impart to the rudest and most homely 
compositions. Each of Ihem sought i'or inspi- 
ration in a noble and affecting subject, fertile 
of images, which had not yet l>een hackneyed. 
Liberty was the muse of Alfieri ; religion was 
the muse of Cowper. The same truth is found 
in their lighter pieces. They wem not among 
those who deprecated the severity, or deplored 
the absence of an unreal mistress is melodious 
commonplaces. Instead of raving about ima- 
ginary Chloes ana Sylvias, Cowper wrote of 
Mrs. Unwin's knitting-needles. The only low 
verses of Alfieri were addressed to one whom 
he truly and passionately loved. " Tutte le 
rime amorose che seguono," says he, " tutte 
sono per essa, e hen .sue, e di lei solamente 
poiche mai d'altra donna per certo non cantero." 
These great men were not free from affecta- 
tion. But their affectation was directly op- 
posed to the affectation which generally pre- 
vailed. Each of them has expressed, in strong 
and bitter language, the contempt which he 
felt for the effeminate poetasters who were in 
fashion both in England and Italy. Cowper 
complains that 

" Manner in all in all, whate'er iH writ, 
The substitute for genius, UiHte, and wit." 

He praised Pope; yet he regretted that Pcp» 
had 

" Made poetry a mere mechanic art, 
And every warbler had bis tunc by heart." 

Alfieri speaks with similar scorn of the tragc 
dies of his predecessors. " Mi cadevano dalle 
mani per la languidezza, trivialta e prolissita 
dei modi e del verso, senza parlare poi della 
snervatezza dei pensieri. Or perche mai questa 
nostra divina lingua, si maschia anco, ed ener- 
gica, e feroce, in bocca di Dante, dovra elle 
farci cosi sbiadata ed eunuca nel dialogo tra- 
gico." 

To men thus sick of the languid manner of 
their contemporaries, ruggedness seemed a ve- 
nial fault, or rather a positive merit. In their 
hatred of meretricious ornament, and of what 
Cowper calls "creamy smoothness," they erred 
on the opposite side. Their style was too aus 
tere, their versification too harsh. It is not 
easy, however, to overrate the service which 
they rendered to literature. Their merit is 
rather that of demolition than that of construe 
tion. The intrinsic value of their poems is 
considerable. But the example which they set 
of mutiny against an absurd system was in- 
valuable. The part which they performed was 
rather that of Moses than that of Joshua. They 
opened the house of bondage ; but they did not 
enter the promised land. 

During the twenty years which followed 1hn 
death of Cowper, the revolution in English 
poetry was fully consummated. None of the 
writers of this period, not even Sir Walter 
Scott, contributed so much to the consumma- 
tion as Lord Byron. Yet he, Lord Byron, con 
tributed to it unwillingly, and with corstani 



124 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



self-reproach and shame. All his tastes and in- 
clinations led him to take part with the school 
of poetry which was going out, against the 
school which was coming in. Of Pope him- 
self he spoke with extravagant admiration. 
He did not venture directly to say that the little 
man of Twickenham was a greater poet than 
Shakspeare or Milton. But he hinted pretty 
clearly that he thought so. Of his contempo- 
-aries, scarcely any had so much of his admi- 
ration as Mr. Gifford, who, considered as a 
poet, was merely Pope, without Pope's wit and 
fancy ; and whose satires are decidedly inferior 
in vigour and poignancy to the very imperfect 
juvenile performance of Lord Byron himself. 
He now and then praised Mr. Wordsworth and 
Mr. Coleridge ; but ungraciously and without 
cordiality. When he attacked them, he brought 
his whole soul to the work. Of the most elabo- 
rate of Mr. Wordsworth's poems he could find 
nothing to say, but that it was "clumsy, and 
frowsy, and his aversion." Peter Bell excited his 
spleen to such a degree that he apostrophized 
the shades of Pope and Dryden, and demanded 
of them whether it were possible that such 
trash could evade contempt? In his heart, he 
thought his own Pilgrimage of Harold inferior 
to his Imitation of Horace's Art of Poetry — a 
feeble echo of Pope and Johnson. This insipid 
performance he repeatedly designed to pub- 
lish, and was withheld only by the solicitations 
of his friends. He has distinctly declared his 
approbation of the unities ; the most absurd 
laws by which genius was ever held in servi- 
tude. In one of his works, we think in his 
Letter to Mr. Bowles, he compares the poetry 
of the eighteenth century to the Parthenon, and 
that of the nineteenth to a Turkish mosque ; 
and boasts that, though he had assisted his 
contemporaries in building their grotesque and 
barbarous edifice, he had never joined them in 
defacing the remains of a chaster and more 
graceful architecture. In another letter, he 
compares the change which had recently pass- 
ed on English poetry, to the decay of Latin 
poetry after the Augustan age. In the time of 
Pope, he tells his friend, it was all Horace with 
us. It is all Claudian now. 

For the great old masters of the art he had 
no very enthusiastic veneration. In his Letter 
to Mr. Bowles he uses expressions which 
clearly indicate that he preferred Pope's Iliad 
to the original. Mr. Moore confesses that his 
friend was no very fervent admirer of Shak- 
speare. Of all the poets of the first class, Lord 
Byron seems to have admired Dante and Mil- 
ton most. Yet in the fourth canto of Childe 
Harold he places Tasso, a writer not merely 
inferior to them, but of quite a different order 
of mind, on at least a footing of equality with 
them. Mr. Hunt is, we suspect, quite correct 
in saying, that Lord Byron could see little or 
no merit in Spenser. 

But Lord Byron the critic, and Lord Byron 
the poet, were two very different men. The ef- 
fects of his theory may indeed often be traced 
in his practice. But his disposition led him 
to accommodate himself to the literary taste of 
the age in which he lived ; and his talents 
would have enabled him to accommodate him- 
«Hf to tlie taste of any age. Though he said 



much of his contempt for men, and though he 
boasted that amidst all the inconstancy of for« 
tune and of fame he was all-sufficient to him- 
self, his literary career indicated nothing of 
that lonely and unsocial pride which he affect- 
ed. We cannot conceive him, like Milton or 
Wordsworth, defying the criticisms of his con- 
temporaries, retorting their scorn, and labour 
ing on a poem in the full assurance that it 
would be unpopular, and in the full assurance 
that it would be immortal. He has said, I y the 
mouth of one of his heroes in speaking of poli- 
tical greatness, that " he must serve who gain 
would sway ;" and this he assigns as a reason 
for not entering into political life. He did not 
consider that the sway which he exercised in 
literature had been purchased by servitude — 
by the sacrifice of his own taste to the taste of 
the public. 

He was the creature of his age ; and wher- 
ever he had lived he would have been the 
creature of his age. Under Charles tlie First 
he would have been more quaint than Donne. 
Under Charles the Second the rants of his 
rhyming plays would have pitted it, boxed it, 
and galleried it, with those of any Bayes or 
Bilboa. Under George the First the monoto- 
nous smoothness of his versification and the 
terseness of his expression would have made 
Pope himself envious. 

As it was, he was the man of the last thir- 
teen years of the eighteenth century and of the 
first twenty-three years of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. He belonged half to the old and half to 
the new school of poetry. His personal taste 
led him to the former, his thirst of fame to the 
latter ; his talents were equally suited to both. 
His fame was a common ground on which the 
zealots of both sides — Gifford, for example, and 
Shelley — might meet. He was the representa- 
tive, not of either literary party, but of both at 
once, and of their conflict, and of the victory 
by which that conflict was terminated. His 
poetry fills and measures the whole of the 
vast interval through which our literature has 
moved since the time of Johnson. It touches 
the Essay on Man at the one extremity and the 
Excursion at the other. 

There are several parallel instances in lite- 
rary history. Voltaire, for example, was the 
connecting link between the France of Louis 
the Fourteenth and the France of Louis the 
Sixteenth — between Racine and Boileau on tne 
one side, and Condorcet and Beaumarchais on 
the other. He, like Lord Byron, put himself at 
the head of an intellectual revolution, dread- 
ing it all the time, muwnuring at it, sneering 
at it, yet choosing rather to move before his 
age in any direction than to be left behind 
and forgotten. Dryden was the connect- 
ing link between the literature of the age of 
James the First and the literature of the age 
of Anne. Oromazdes and Anmanes fought for 
him — Arimanes carried him off. But his heart 
was to the last with Oromazdes. Lord Byron 
was in the same manner the mediator between 
two generations, between two hostile poetical 
sects. Though always sneering at Mr. Words- 
worth, he was yet, though perhaps uncon 
sciously, the interpreter between Mr. Words 
worth and the multitude. In the Lyrica 



MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON 



15*6 



Ballads and the Excursion, i\tr. Wordsworth ap- 

K tared as the high priest of a worship of which 
Tature was the idol. No poems have ever in- 
dicated so exquisite a perception of the beauty 
of the outer world, or so passionate a love and 
reverence for that beauty. Yet they were not 
popular; and it is not likely that they ever will 
be popular as the works of Sir Walter Scott 
are popular. The feeling which pervaded 
them was too deep for general sympathy. 
Their style was often too mysterious for gene- 
ral comprehension. They made a few esote- 
ric disciples, and many scoffers. Lord Byron 
founded what may be called an exoteric Lake 
jchool of poetry ; and all the readers of poetry 
in England, we might say in Europe, hastened 
to sit at his feet. What Mr. Wordsworth had 
said like a recluse, Lord Byron said like a man 
of the world; with less profound feeling, but 
with more perspicuity, energy, and concise- 
ness. We would refer our readers to the last 
two cantos of Childe Harold and to Manfred in 
proof of these observations. 

Lord Byron, like Mr. Wordsworth, had no- 
thing dramatic in his genius. He was, indeed, 
the reverse of a great dramatist ; the very an- 
tithesis to« great dramatist. All his charac- 
ters — Harold looking back on the western sky 
from which his country and the sun are reced- 
ing together; the Giaour, standing apart in the 
gloom of the side-aisle, and casting a haggard 
scowl from under his long hood at the crucifix 
and the censer; Conrad, leaning on his sword 
by the watch-tower; Lara, smiling on the 
dancers ; Alp, gazing steadily on the fatal 
cloud as it passes before the moon; Manfred, 
'jrandering among the precipices of Berne ; 
Azo, on the judgment-seat ; Ugo, at the bar ; 
Lambro, frowning on the siesta of his daughter 
and Juan; Cain, presenting his unacceptable 
offering — all are essentially the same. The 
varieties are varieties merely of age, situation, 
and costume. If ever Lord Byron attempted 
to exhibit men of a different kind, he always 
made them either insipid or unnatural. Selim 
is nothing. Bonnivart is nothing. Don Juan 
in the first and best cantos is a feeble copy of 
the Page in the Marriage of Figaro. Johnson, 
the man whom Juan meets in the slave-mar- 
ket, is a most striking failure. How differently 
would Sir Walter Scott have drawn a bluff, 
fearless Englishman in such a situation! The 
portrait would have seemed to walk out of the 
canvass. 

Sardanapalus is more hardly drawn than 
any dramatic personage that we can remem- 
ber. His heroism and his effeminacy, his con- 
tempt of death, and bis dread of a weighty hel- 
met, his kingly resolution to be seen in the 
foremost ranks, and the anxiety with which he 
calls for a looking-glass that he may be seen 
to advantage, are contrasted with all the point 
of Juvenal. Indeed, the hint of the character 
seems to have been taken from what Juvenal 
says of Olho, — 

" Speculum civilis sarcina belli. 
Nimirum sumnii ducis est occiilere Galbam. 
F.t curare cutem ; summi cnnstanlia civis 
Bebriaci canipn spolium affectare PalatS, 
Et prussum in faciem digilis extendere panem." 

These are excellent lines in a satire. But 
9 



it is not the business of the dramatist to ex- 
Libit characters in this sharp antithetical way. 
It is not in this way that Shakspeare makes 
Prince Hal rise from the rake of Eastcheap 
into the hero of Shrewsbury, and sink again 
into the rake of Eastcheap. It is not thus thai 
Shakspeare has exhibited the union of effemi- 
nacy and valour in Antony. A dramatist can- 
not commit a great error than that of follow- 
ing those pointed descriptions of character in 
which satirists and historians indulge so much. 
It is by rejecting what is natural that satirists 
and historians produce these striking charac- 
ters. Their great object generally is to ascribe 
to every man as many contradictory qualities 
as possible ; and this is an object easily at- 
tained. By judicious selections and judicious 
exaggeration, the intellect and the disposition 
of any human being might be described as 
being made up of nothing but startling con- 
trasts. If the dramatist attempts to create a 
being answering to one of these descriptions, 
he fails ; because he reverses an imperfect 
analytical process. He produces, not a man, 
but a personified epigram. Very eminent wri- 
ters have fallen into this snare. Ben Jonson 
has given us an Hermogenes taken from the 
lively lines of Horace ; but the inconsistency 
which is so amusing in the satire appears un- 
natural and disgusts us in the play. Sir Wal- 
ter Scott has committed a far more glaring 
error of the same kind in the novel of Peveril. 
Admiring, as every reader must admire, the 
keen and vigorous lines in which Dryden sa- 
tirized the Duke of Buckingham, he attempted 
to make a Duke of Buckingham to suit them- 
a real living Zimri ; and he made, not a man, 
but the most grotesque of all monsters. A 
writer who should attempt to introduce into a 
play or a novel such a Wharton as the Whar 
ton of Pope, or a Lord Hervey answering to 
Sporus, would fail in the same manner. 

But to return to Lord Byron: his women, 
like his men, are all of one breed. Haidee is 
a half-savage and girlish Julia; Julia is a civil- 
ized and matronly Haidee. Leila is a wedded 
Zuleika— Zuleika a virgin Leila. Gulnare and 
Medora appear to have been intentionally op- 
posed to each other. Yet the difference is a 
difference of situation only. A slight change 
of circumstance Avould, it should seem, have 
sent Gulnare to the lute of Medora, and armed 
Medora with the dagger of Gulnare. 

It is hardly too much to say that Lord Byron 
could exhibit only one man and only one wo- 
man — a man proud, moody, cynical, with de- 
fiance on his brow, and misery in his heart ; a 
scorner of his kind, implacable in revenge, yet 
capable of deep and strong affection; — a woman 
all softness and gentleness, loving to caress and 
to be caressed, but capable of being transformed 
by love into a tigress. 

Even these two characters, his only two 
characters, he could not exhibit dramatically 
He exhibited them in the manner, not of Shak 
speare, but of Clarendon. He analyzed them 
He made them analyze themselves, but he did 
not make them show themselves. He tells us, 
for example, in many lines of great force and 
spirit, that the speech of Lara was bitterly sar 
castic, that he talked little of his travels. th»' 



1S6 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



if much questioned about them, his answers 
became short, and his brow gloomy. But we 
have none of Lara's sarcastic speeches or 
short answers. It is not thus that the great 
masters of human nature have portrayed hu- 
man beings. Homer never tells us that Nestor 
loved to tell long stories about his youth ; 
Shakspeare never tells us that in the mind of 
Iago, every thing that is beautiful and endear- 
ing was associated with some filthy and de- 
basing idea. 

It is curious to observe the tendency which 
the dialogue of Lord Byron always has to lose 
its character of dialogue, and to become soli- 
loquy. The scenes between Manfred and the 
Chamois-hunter, between Manfred and the 
Witch of the Alps, between Manfred and the 
Abbot, are instances of this tendency. Man- 
fred, after a few unimportant speeches, has 
all the talk to himself. The other interlocutors 
are nothing more than good listeners. They 
drop an occasional question, or ejaculation, 
which sets Manfred off again on the inexhaust- 
ible topic of his personal feelings. If we ex- 
amine the fine passages in Lord Byron's 
dramas, the description of Rome, for example, 
in Manfred, the description of a Venetian revel 
in Marino Faliero, the dying invective which 
the old Doge pronounces against Venice, we 
shall find there is nothing dramatic in them ; 
that they derive none of their effect from the 
character or situation of the speaker ; and that 
they would have been as fine, or finer, if they 
had been published as fragments of blank 
verse by Lord Byron. There is scarcely a 
speech in Shakspeare of which the same could 
be said. No skilful reader of the plays of 
Shakspeare can endure to see what are called 
the fine things taken out, under the name of 
"Beauties" or of "Elegant Extracts;" or to 
hear any single passage — "To be or not to 
be," for example, quoted as a sample of the 
great poet. " To be or not to be," has merit 
undoubtedly as a composition. It would have 
merit if put into the mouth of a chorus. But 
its merit as a composition vanishes, when 
compared with its merit as belonging to Ham- 
let. It is not too much to say that the great 
plays of Shakspeare would lose less by being 
deprived of all the passages which are com- 
monly called the fine passages, than those pas- 
sages lose by being read separately from the 
play. This is perhaps the highest praise 
which can be given to a dramatist. 

On the other hand, it may be doubted whe- 
ther there is, in all Lord Byron's plays, a sin- 
gle remarkable passage which owes any por- 
tion of its interest or effect to its connection 
with the characters or the action. He has 
written only one scene, as far as we can re- 
collect, which is dramatic even in manner — 
the scene between Lucifer and Cain. The 
conference in that scene is animated, and each 
of the interlocutors has a fair share of it. But 
!bjs scene, when examined, will be found to be 
a confirmation of our remarks. It is a dia- 
logue only in form. It is a soliloquy in es- 
sence. It is in reality a debate carried on 
witiiin one single unquiet and skeptical mind. 
The questions and the answers, the objections 



and the solutions, all belong to the same cha 
racter. 

A writer who showed so little of dramatic 
skill in works professedly dramatic was nol 
likely to write narrative with dramatic effect 
Nothing could indeed be more rude and care- 
less than the structure of his narrative poems. 
He seems to have thought, with the hero of 
the Rehearsal, that the plot was good for no* 
thing but to bring in fine things. His two 
longest works, Childe Harold and Don Juan, 
have no plan whatever. Either of them might 
have been extended to any length, or cut short 
at any point. The state in which the Giaour 
appears illustrates the manner in which all 
his poems were constructed. They are all, 
like the Giaour, collections of fragments ; and, 
though there may be no empty spaces marked 
by asterisks, it is still easy to perceive, by the 
clumsiness of the joining, where the parts, for 
the sake of which the whole was composed, 
end and begin. 

It was in description and meditation that he 
excelled. — " Description," as he said in Don 
Juan, " was his forte" His manner is indeed 
peculiar, and is almost unequalled — rapid, 
sketchy, full of vigour ; the selection happy ; 
the strokes few and bold. In spite of the reve- 
rence which we feel for the genius of Mr. 
Wordsworth, we cannot but think that the 
minuteness of his descriptions often diminishes 
their effect. He has accustomed himself to 
gaze on nature with the eye of a lover — to 
dwell on every feature, and to mark every 
change of aspect. Those beauties which strike 
the most negligent observer, and those which 
only a close attention discovers, are equally 
familiar to him, and are equally prominent in 
his poetry. The proverb of old Hesiod, that 
half is often more than the whole, is eminently 
applicable to description. The policy of the 
Dutch, who cut down most of the precious 
trees in the Spice Islands, in order to raise the 
value of what remained, was a policy which 
poets would do well to imitate. It was a policy 
which no poet understood better than Lord 
Byron. Whatever his faults might be, he was 
never, while his mind retained its vigour, ac- 
cused of prolixity. 

His descriptions, great as was their intrinsic 
merit, derived their principal interest from the 
feeling which always mingled with them. He 
was himself the beginning, the middle, and 
the end of all his own poetry, the hero of every 
tale, the chief object in every landscape. Ha- 
rold, Lara, Manfred, and a crowd of other 
characters, were universally considered mere- 
ly as loose incognitos of Byron ; and there is 
every reason to believe that he meant them to 
be so considered. The wonders of the outer 
world, the Tagus, with the mighty fleets of 
England riding on its bosom, the towers of 
Cintra overhanging the shaggy forest, of cork- 
trees and willows, the glaring marble of Pen- 
telicus, the banks of the Rhine, the glaciers of 
Clarens, the sweet Lake of Leman, the dell of 
Egeria, with its summer-birds and rustling 
lizards, the shapeless ruins of Rome, over- 
grown with ivy and wall-flowers, the stars, the 
sea, the mountains — all were mere accessaries 



MOORE'S LIFE O* LORD BYRON. 



127 



me uackground to one dark and melancholy- 
figure. 

Never had any writer so vast a command 
of the whole eloquence of scorn, misanthropy, 
and despair. That Marah was never dry. No 
art could sweeten, no draughts could exhaust, 
its perennial waters of bitterness. Never was 
there such variety in monotony as that of By- 
ron. From maniac laughter to piercing la- 
mentation, there was not a single note of hu- 
man anguish of which he was not master. 
Year after year, and month after month, he 
continued to repeat that to be wretched is the 
destiny of all ; that to be eminently wretched, 
is the destiny of the eminent ; that all the de- 
sires by which we> are cursed lead alike to 
misery ; — if they are not gratified, to the misery 
of disappointment ; if they are gratified, to the 
misery of satiety. His principal heroes are 
men who have arrived by different roads at 
the same goal of despair, who are sick of life, 
who are at war with society, who are support- 
ed in their anguish only by an unconquerable 
pride, resembling that of Prometheus on the 
rock, or of Satan in the burning marl ; who can 
master their agonies by the force of their will, 
and who, Jo the last, defy the whole power of 
earth and heaven. He always described him- 
self as a man of the same kind with his fa- 
vourite creations, as a man whose heart had 
been withered, whose capacity for happiness 
was gone, and could not be restored; but whose 
invincible spirit dared the worst that could be- 
fall him here or hereafter. 

How much of this morbid feeling sprung 
from an original disease of mind, how much 
from real misfortune, how much from the 
nervousness of dissipation, how much of it was 
fanciful, how much of it was merely affected, 
it is impossible for us, and would probably 
have been impossible for the most intimate 
friends of Lord Byron, to decide. Whether 
there ever existed, or can ever exist, a person 
answering to the description which he gave of 
himself, may be doubted: but that he was not 
such a person is beyond all doubt. It is ri- 
diculous to imagine that a man whose mind 
was really imbued with scorn of his fellow- 
creatures, would have published three or four 
books every year in order to tell them so ; or 
that a man, who could say with truth that he 
neither sought sympathy nor needed it, would 
have admitted all Europe to hear his farewell 
to his wife, and his blessings on his child. In 
the second canto of Childe Harold, he tells us 
that he is insensible to fame and obloquy : 

"III may guch contest now the Rpirit move, 
Whicli heeds nor keen reproof nor partial praise." 

Yet we know, on the best evidence, that a day 
, or two before he published these lines, he was 
greatly, indeed childishly, elated by the com- 
pliments paid to his maiden speech in the 
House of Lords. 

We are far, however, from thinking that his 
sadness was altogether feigned. He was na- 
turally a man of great sensibility ; he had been 
ill-educated; his feelings had been early ex- 
posed to sharp trials ; he had been crossed in 
his boyish love ; he had been mortified by the 
failure of his first literary efforts; he was strait- 
ened in pecuniary circumstances; he was un- 



fortunate in his domestic relations ; ihe public 
treated him with cruel injustice; hij health 
and spirits suffered from his dissipated habits 
of life ; he was, on the whole, an unhappy 
man. He early discovered that, by parading 
his unhappiness before the multitude, he ex. 
cited an unrivalled interest. The world gave 
him every encouragement to talk about his 
mental sufferings. The effect which his first 
confessions produced, induced him to affect 
much that he did not feel ; and the affectation 
probably reacted on his feelings. How far 
the character in which he exhibited himself 
was genuine, and how far theatrical, would 
probably have puzzled himself to say. 

There can be no doubt that tin's remarkable 
man owed the vast influence which he exer« 
cised over his contemporaries, at least as 
much to his gloomy egotism as to the real 
power of his poetry. We never could very 
clearly understand how it is that egotism, so 
unpopular in conversation, should be so popu- 
lar in writing ; or how it is that men who af- 
fect in their compositions qualities and feel- 
ings which they have not, impose so much 
more easily on their contemporaries than on 
posterity. The interest which the loves of 
Petrarch excited in his own time, and the pity- 
ing fondness with which half Europe looked 
upon Rousseau, are well known. To readers 
of our time, the love of Petrarch seems tc 
have been love of that kind which breaks no 
hearts ; and the sufferings of Rousseau to have 
deserved laughter rather than pity — to have 
been partly counterfeited, and partly the con- 
sequences of his own perverseness and vanity. 
What our grandchildren may think of the 
character of Lord Byron, as exhibited in his 
poetry, we will not pretend to guess. It is 
certain, that the interest which he excited dur- 
ing his life is without a parallel in literary 
history. The feeling with which young read- 
ers of poetry regarded him, can be conceived 
only by those who have experienced it. To 
people who are unacquainted with the real ca- 
lamity, "nothing is so dainty sweet as lovely 
melancholy." This faint image of sorrow has 
in all ages been considered by young gentle- 
men as an agreeable excitement. Old gentle- 
men and middle-aged gentlemen have so many 
real causes of sadness, that they are rarely 
inclined " to be as sad as night only for wan- 
tonness." Indeed they want the power almost 
as much as the inclination. We know very 
few persons engaged in active life, who, even 
if they were to procure stools to be melancholy 
upon, and were to sit down with all the pre 
meditation of Master Stephen, would be able 
to enjoy much of what somebody calls the 
" ecstasy of wo." 

Among that large class of young persons 
whose reading is almost entirely confined to 
works of imagination, the popularity of Lord 
Byron was unbounded. They bought pictures 
of him, they treasured up the smallest relics 
of him ; they learned his poems by heart, and 
did their best to write like him, and to look 
like him. Many of them practised at the grass,. 
in the hope of catching the curl of the uppei 
lip, and the scowl of the brow, which appear 
in some of his portraits. A few discarded 



128 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



their neckcloths in imitation of their great 
leader. For some years, the Minerva press 
sent forth no novel without a mysterious, un- 
happy, Lara-like peer. The number of hope- 
ful undergraduates and medical students who 
became things of dark imaginings, on whom 
the freshness of the heart ceased to fall like 
dew, whose passions had consumed themselves 
to dust, and to whom the relief of tears was 
denied, passes all calculation. This was not 
the worst. There was created in the minds of 
many of these enthusiasts, a pernicious and 
absurd association between intellectual power 
and moral depravity. From the poetry of Lord 
Byron they drew a system of ethics, compound- 
ed of misanthropy and voluptuousness ; a sys- 
tem in which the two great commandments 



were, to hate your neighbour, and to love yom 
neighbour's wife. 

This affectation has passed away ; and a few 
more years -will destroy whatever yet remains 
of that magical potency which once belonged 
to the name of Byron. To us he is still a man, 
young, noble, and unhappy. To our children 
he will be merely a writer ; and their impar- 
tial judgment will appoint his place among 
writers, without regard to his rank or to his 
private history. That his poetry will undergo 
a severe sifting ; that much of what has been 
admired by his contemporaries will be reject- 
ed as worthless, we have little doubt. But we 
have as little doubt, that, after the closest scru- 
tiny, there will still remain much that can only 
perish with the English language. 



SOUTHEY'S EDITION OE THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.* 



[Edinburgh Review, 1831.] 



This is an eminently beautiful and splendid 
edition of a book which well deserves all that 
the printer and the engraver can do for it. 
The life of Bunyan is, of course, not a per- 
formance which can add much to the literary 
reputation of such a writer as Mr. Southey. 
But it is written in excellent English, and, for 
the most part, in an excellent spirit. Mr. Sou- 
they propounds, we need not say, many opi- 
nions from which we altogether dissent ; and 
his attempts to excuse the odious persecution 
to which Bunyan was subjected, have some- 
times moved our indignation. But we will 
avoid this topic. We are at present much 
more inclined to join in paying homage to the 
genius of a great man, than to engage in a 
controversy concerning church government 
and toleration. 

We must not pass without notice the en- 
gravings with which this beautiful volume is 
decorated. Some of Mr. Heath's woodcuts are 
admirably designed and executed. Mr. Mar- 
tin's illustrations do not please us quite so 
well. His Valley of the Shadow of Death is 
not that Valley of the Shadow of Death which 
Bunyan imagined. At all events, it is not that 
dark and horrible glen which has from child- 
hood been in our mind's eye. The valley is a 
cavern: the quagmire is a lake : the straight 
path runs zigzag: and Christian appears like 
a speck in the darkness of the immense vault. 
We miss, too, those hideous forms which make 
so striking a part of the description of Bunyan, 
and Avhich Salvator Rosa would have loved to 
draw. It is with unfeigned diffidence that we 
pronounce judgment on any question relating 
to the art of painting. But it appears to us 
that Mr. Martin has not of late been fortunate 

+ The Pilgrim's Progress, with a life of John Bunyan. 
By Robert Southey, Esq., LL.D., Poet Laureate. I!- 
usiraterl with Engravings. 8vo. London. 1830. 



in his choice of subjects. He should never 
have attempted to illustrate the Paradise Lost. 
There can be no two manners more directly 
opposed to each other, than the manner of his 
painting and the manner of Milton's poetry. 
Those things which are mere accessaries in 
the descriptions, become the principal objects 
in the pictures ; and those figures which 
are most prominent i:\ the descriptions can be 
detected in the pictures only by a very close 
scrutiny. Mr. Martin has succeeded perfectly 
in representing the pillars and candelabras of 
Pandemonium. But he has forgotten that 
Milton's Pandemonium is merely the back- 
ground to Satan. In the picture, the Archangel 
is scarcely visible amidst the endless colon- 
nades of his infernal palace. Milton's Para- 
dise, again, is merely the background to his 
Adam and Eve. But in Mr. Martin's picture 
the landscape is every thing. Adam, Eve, 
and Raphael attract much less notice than the 
lake and the mountains, the gigantic flowers, 
and the giraffes which feed upon them. We 
have read, we forget where, that James the 
Second sat to Verelst, the great flower-painter. 
When the performance Avas finished, his ma- 
jesty appeared in the midst of sunflowers and 
tulips, which completely drew away all atten- 
tion from the central figure. All who looked 
at the portrait took it for a flower-piece. Mr. 
Martin, we think, introduces his immeasurable 
spaces, his innumerable multitudes, his gor- 
geous prodigies of architecture and landscape, 
almost as unseasonably as Verelst introduced 
his flower-pots and nosegays. If Mr. Martin 
were to paint Lear in the storm, the blazing 
sky, the sheets of rain, the swollen torrents, 
and the tossing forest, would draw away all 
attention from the agonies of the insulted king 
and father. If he were to paint the death of 
Lear the old man, asking the bystanders ta 



SOUTHEY'S EDITION OF THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. 



129 



undo his button, would be thrown into the 
shade by a vast blaze of pavilions, standards, 
armour, and herald's coats. He would illus- 
trate the Orlando Furioso well, the Orlando 
Innamorato still better, the Arabian Nights 
best of all. Fairy palaces and gardens, porti- 
coes of agate, and groves flowering with eme- 
ralds and rubies, inhabited by people for whom 
nobody cares, these are his proper domain. 
He would succeed admirably in the enchanted 
ground of Alcina, or the mansion of Aladdin. 
But he should avoid Milton and Bunyan. 

The characteristic peculiarity of the Pil- 
grim's Progress is, that it is the only work of 
its kind which possesses a strong human in- 
terest. Other allegories only amuse the fancy. 
The allegory of Bunyan has been read by many 
thousands with tears. There are some good 
allegories in Johnson's works, and some of 
still higher merit by Addison. In these per- 
formances there is, perhaps, as much wit and 
ingenuity as in the Pilgrim's Progress. But 
the pleasure which is produced by the Vision 
of Mirza, or the Vision of Theodore, the gene- 
alogy of Wit, or the contest between Rest and 
Labour, is exactly similar to the pleasure 
which we derive from one of Cowley's Odes, 
or from a Canto of Hudibras. It is a pleasure 
which belongs wholly to the understanding, 
and in which the feelings have no part what- 
ever. Nay, even Spenser himself, though 
assuredly one of the greatest poets that ever 
lived, could not succeed in the attempt to make 
allegory interesting. It was in vain that he 
lavished the riches of his mind on the House 
of Pride, and the House of Temperance. One 
nnpardonable fault, the fault of tediousness, 
pervades the. whole of the Faerie Queen. We 
become sick of Cardinal Virtues and Deadly 
Sins, and long for the society of plain men and 
women. Of the persons who read the first 
Canto, not one in ten reaches the end of the 
First Book, and not one in a hundred perse- 
veres to the end of the poem. Very few and 
very weary are those who are in at the death 
of the Blatant Beast. If the last six books, 
which are said to have been destroyed in Ire- 
land, had been preserved, we doubt whether 
any heart less stout than that of a commentator 
would have held out to the end. 

It is not so with the Pilgrim's Progress. 
That wonderful book, while it obtains admira- 
tion from the most fastidious critics, is loved 
by those who are too simple to admire it. 
Doctor Johnspn, all whose studies were desul- 
tory, and who hated, as he said, to read books 
through, made an exception in favour of the 
Pilgrim's Progress. That work, he said, was 
«ne of the two or three works which he wished 
longer. It was by no common merit that the 
illiterate sectary extracted praise like this from 
the most pedantic of critics and the most 
bigoted of Tories. In the wildest parts of 
Scotland the Pilgrim's Progress is the delight 
of the peasantry. In every nursery the Pil- 
grim's Progress is a greater favourite than 
Jack the Giant-Killer. Every reader knows 
the straight and narrow path, as well as he 
knows a road in which he has gone backward 
and forward a hundred times. This is the 
QUjhest miracle of genius — that things which 



are not should be as though they wore, that th« 
imaginations of one mind should become the 
personal recollections of another. And this 
miracle the tinker has wrought. There is no 
ascent, no declivity, no resting-place, no turn- 
stile, with which we are not perfectly acquaint 
ed. The wicket gate, and the desolate swamp 
which separates it from the City of Destruc- 
tion ; the long line of road, as straight as a rule 
can make it ; the Interpreter's house, and all 
its fair shows ; the prisoner in the iron cage ; 
the palace, at the doors of which armed men 
kept guard, and on the battlements of which 
walked persons clothed all in gold ; the cross 
and the sepulchre ; the steep hill and the plea- 
sant arbour; the stately front of the House 
Beautiful by the wayside ; the low green valley 
of Humiliation, rich with grass and covered 
with flocks, all are as well known to us as the 
sights of our own street. Then we come to the 
narrow place where Apollyon strode right 
across the whole breadth of the way, to stop 
the journey of Christian, and where afterwards 
the pillar was set up to testify how bravely the 
pilgrim had fought the good fight. As we ad- 
vanes, the valley becomes deeper and deeper. 
The shade of the precipices on both sides falls 
blacker and blacker. The clouds gather over- 
head. Doleful voices, the clanking of chains, 
and the rushing of many feet to and fro, are 
heard through the darkness. The way, hardly 
discernible in gloom, runs close by the mouth 
of the burning pit, which sends forth its flames, 
its noisome smoke, and its hideous shapes, to 
terrify the adventurer. Thence he goes on, 
amidst the snares and pitfalls, with the mangled 
bodies of those who have perished lying in the 
ditch by his side. At the end of the long dark 
valley, he passes the dens in which the old 
giants dwelt, amidst the bones and ashes of 
those whom they had slain. 

Then the road passes straight on through a 
waste moor, till at length the towers of a dis- 
tant city appear before the traveller; and soon 
he is in the midst of the innumerable multi- 
tudes of Vanity Fair. There are the jugglers 
and the apes, the shops and the puppet-shows. 
There are Italian Row, and French Row, and 
Spanish Row, and Britain Row, with their 
crowds of buyers, sellers, and loungers, jab- 
bering all the languages of the earth. 

Thence we go on by the little hill of the sil- 
ver mine, and through the meadow of lilies, 
along the bank of that pleasant river which is 
bordered on both sides by fruit trees. On the 
left side, branches off the path leading to that 
horrible castle, the court-yard of which is 
paved with the skulls of pilgrims ; and right 
onward are the sheepfolds and orchards of the 
Delectable Mountains. 

From the Delectable Mountains, the way lies 
through the fogs and briers of the Enchanted 
Ground, with here and there a bed of soft 
cushions spread under a green arbour. And 
beyond is the land of Beulah, where the fioweis, 
the grapes, and the songs of birds never cease, 
and where the sun shines night and day. 
Thence are plainly seen the golden pavements 
and streets of pearl, on the other side of that 
black and cold, river over which there is u« 
bridge. 



130 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



All the stages of the journey, all the 
forms which cross or overtake the pilgrims, 
— giants and hobgoblins, ill-favoured ones 
and shining ones ; the tall, comely, swarthy 
Madam Bubble, with her great purse by her 
side, and her fingers playing with the money ; 
the black man in the bright vesture ; Mr. 
Worldly- Wiseman, and my Lord Hategood ; 
Mr. Talkative, and Mrs. Timorous — are all 
actually existing beings to us. We follow the 
travellers through their allegorical progress 
with interest not inferior to that with which 
we follow Elizabeth from Siberia to Moscow, 
or Jeanie Deans from Edinburgh to London. 
Bunyan is almost the only writer that ever 
gave to the abstract the interest of the con- 
crete. In the works of many celebrated au- 
thors, men are mere personifications. We 
have not an Othello, but jealousy ; not an Iago, 
but perfidy ; not a Brutus, but patriotism. 
The mind of Bunyan, on the contrary, was so 
imaginative, that personifications, when he 
dealt with them, became men. A dialogue 
between two qualities in his dream, has more 
dramatic effect than a dialogue between two 
human beings in most plays. In this respect 
the genius of Bunyan bore a great resem- 
blance to that of a man who had very little 
else in common with him, Percy Bysshe Shel- 
ley. The strong imagination of Shelley made 
him an idolater in his own despite. Out of 
the most indefinite terms of a hard, cold, dark, 
metaphysical system, he made a gorgeous 
Pantheon, full of beautiful, majestic, and life- 
like forms. He turned atheism itself into a 
n. -thology, rich with visions as glorious as the 
g >ds that live in the marble of Phidias, or the 
virgin saints that smile on us from the canvass 
of Murillo. The Spirit of Beauty, the Prin- 
ciple of Good, the Principle of Evil, when he 
treated of them, ceased to be abstractions. 
They took shape and colour. They were no 
longer mere words; but "intelligible forms;" 
" fair humanities ;" objects of love, of adora- 
tion, or of fear. As there can be no stronger 
signs of a mind destitute of the poetical faculty 
than that tendency which was so common 
among the writers of the French school to turn 
images into abstractions — Venus, for example, 
into Love, Minerva into Wisdom, Mars into 
War, and Bacchus into Festivity — so there can 
be no stronger sign of a mind truly poetical, 
than a disposition to reverse this abstracting 
process, and to make individuals out of gene- 
ralities. Some of the metaphysical and ethical 
theories of Shelley Avere certainly most absurd 
and pernicious. But we doubt whether any 
modern poet has possessed in an equal degree 
the highest qualities of the great ancient mas- 
ter?;. The words bard and inspiration, which 
seem &o cold and affected when applied to 
other modern writers, have a perfect propriety 
when applied to him. He was not an author, 
but a bard. His poetry seems not to have been 
an art, but an inspiration. Had he lived to the 
full age of man, he might not improbably have 
given to the world some great work of the very 
bighest rank in design and execution. But, 
aias ! 

o Aa^v s t/3a poov ttckvoE Siva 
•ov MbHratf 0(Xoii ivSpa, tov ov Nv/j0a(<rij/ airsx^l 



But we must return to Bunyan. The P>1 
grim's Progress undoubtedly is not a perfect 
allegory. The types are often inconsistent 
with each other ; and sometimes the allegori 
cal disguise is altogether thrown off. Th« 
river, for example, is emblematic of death, 
and we are told that every human being mu3t 
pass through the river. But Faithful docs not 
pass through it. He is martyred, not in sha- 
dow, but in reality, at Vanity Fair. Hopeful 
talks to Christian about Esau's birthright, and 
about his own convictions of sin, as Bunyan 
might have talked with one of his own con- 
gregation. The damsels at the House Beauti- 
ful catechise Christiana's boys, as any good 
ladies might catechise any boys at a Sunday- 
school. But we do not believe that any man, 
whatever might be his genius, and whatever 
his good luck, could long continue a figurative 
history without falling into many inconsist- 
encies. We are sure that inconsistencies, 
scarcely less gross than the worst into which 
Bunyan has fallen, may be found in the short- 
est and most elaborate allegories of the Spec- 
tator and the Rambler. The Tale of a Tub and 
the History of John Bull swarm with simila: 
errors, if the name of error can be properly 
applied to that which is unavoidable. It is not 
easy to make a simile go on all-fours. But 
we believe that no human ingenuity could 
produce such a centipede as a long allegory, 
in which the correspondence between the out' 
ward sign and the thing signified should be 
exactly preserved. Certainly no writer, an- 
cient or modern, has yet achieved the adven- 
ture. The best thing, on the whole, that an 
allegorist can do, is to present to his readers a 
succession of analogies, each of which may 
separately be striking and happy, without look- 
ing very nicely to see whether they harmonize 
with each other. This Bunyan has done ; and, 
though a minute scrutiny may detect incon^ 
sistencies in every page of his tale, the general 
effect which the tale produces on all persons, 
learned and unlearned, proves that he has done 
well. The passages which it is most difficult 
to defend, are those in which he altogether 
drops the allegory, and puts into the mouth o r 
his pilgrims religious ejaculations and disqui 
sitions, better suited to his own pulpit at Bed- 
ford or Reading, than to the Enchanted Ground 
of the Interpreter's Garden. Yet even these 
passages, though we will not undertake to de- 
fend them against the objections of critics, 
we feel 'that we could ill spare. We feel tha* 
the story owes much of its charm to these 01- 
casional glimpses of solemn and affecting 
subjects, which will not be hidden, which force 
themselves through the veil, and appear before 
us in their native aspect. The effect is not 
unlike that which is said to have been pro- 
duced on the ancient stage, when the eyes of 
the actor were seen flaming through his mask, 
and giving life and expression to what would 
else have been inanimate and uninteresting 
disguise. 

It is very amusing and very instructive ta 
compare the Pilgrim's Progress with the Grace 
Abounding. The latter work is indeed one of 
the most remarkable pieces of autobiography 
in the world. It is a full and open confession 



SOUTHEY'S EDITION OF THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. 



13! 



of the fancies which passed through the mind 
of an illiterate man, whose affections were 
warm, whose nerves were irritable, whose 
imagination was ungovernable, and who was 
under the influence of the strongest religious 
excitement. In whatever age Bunyan had 
lived, the history of his feelings would, in all 
probability, have been very curious. But the 
time in which his lot was cast was the time 
of a great stirring of the human mind. A 
tremendous burst of public feeling, produced 
by the tyranny of the hierarchy, menaced the 
old ecclesiastical institutions with destruction. 
To the gloomy regularity of, one intolerant 
church had succeeded the license of innume- 
rable sects, drunk with the sweet and heady 
ir.-tst of their new liberty. Fanaticism, en- 
gendered by persecution, and destined to en- 
gender fresh persecution in turn, spread rapid- 
ly through society. Even the strongest and 
most commanding minds were not proof against 
this strange taint. Any time might have pro- 
duced George Fox and James Naylor. But to 
one time alone belong the frantic delusions 
of such a statesman as Vane, and the hyste- 
rical tears of such a soldier as Cromwell. 

The history of Bunyan is the history of a 
most excitable mind in an age of excitement. 
By most of his biographers he has been treated 
with gross injustice. They have understood 
in a popular sense all those strong terms of 
self-condemnation which he employed in a 
theological sense. They have, therefore, re- 
presented him as an abandoned wretch, re- 
claimed by means almost miraculous ; or, to 
use their favourite metaphor, " as a brand 
plucked from the burning." Mr. Ivimey calls 
him the depraved Bunyan, and the wicked 
tinker of Elstow. Surely Mr. Ivimey ought 
to have been too familiar with the bitter accu- 
sations which the most pious people are in the 
habit of bringing against themselves, to under- 
stand literally all the strong expressions which 
are to be found in the Grace Abounding. It is 
quite clear, as Mr. Southey most justly re- 
marks, that Mr. Bunyan never was a vicious 
man. He married very early ; and he solemn- 
ly declares that he was strictly faithful to his 
wife. He does not appear to have been a 
drunkard. He owns, indeed, that when a boy, 
he never spoke without an oath. But a single 
admonition cured him of this bad habit for life ; 
and the cure must have been wrought early : 
for at eighteen he was in the army of the Par- 
liament; and if he had carried the vice of 
profaneness into that service, he would doubt- 
less have received something more than an 
admonition frdm Sergeant Bind-their-kings-in- 
chains, or Captain Hew-Agag-in-pieces-before- 
the-Lord. Bell-ringing, and playing at hockey 
on Sundays, seem to have been the worst 
vices of this depraved tinker. They would 
have passed for virtues with Archbishop Laud. 
It is quite clear that, from a very early age, 
Bunyan was a man of a strict life and of a 
tender conscience. " He had been," says Mr. 
Southey, " a blackguard." Even this we think 
too hard a censure. Bunyan was not, we ad- 
mit, so fine a gentleman as Lord Digby ; yet 
hi was a blackguard no otherwise than as 



every tinker that ever lived has been a black 
guard. Indeed Mr. Southey acknowledges this 
" Such he might have been expected to be bj 
his birth, breeding, and vocation. Scarcer? 
indeed, by possibility, could he have been 
otherwise." A man, whose manners and sen- 
timents are decidedly below those of his class, 
deserves to be called a blackguard. But it is 
surely unfair to apply so strong a word of re- 
proach to one who is only what the great mass 
of every community must inevitably be. 

Those horrible internal conflicts which Bun- 
yan has described with so much power of 
language prove, not that he was a worse man 
than his neighbours, but that his mind was 
constantly occupied by religious considera- 
tions, that his fervour exceeded his knowledge, 
and that his imagination exercised despotic 
power over his body and mind. He heard 
voices from heaven : he saw strange visions 
of distant hills, pleasant and sunny as his own 
Delectable Mountains ; from those seats he was 
shut out, and placed in a dark and horrible 
wilderness, where he wandered through ice 
and snow, striving to make his way into the 
happy region of light. At one time he was 
seized with an inclination to work miracles. 
At another time he thought himself actually 
possessed by the devil. He could distinguish 
the blasphemous whispers. He felt his infer- 
nal enemy pulling at his clothes behind him. 
He spurned with his feet, and struck with his 
hands, at the destroyer. Sometimes he was 
tempted to sell his part in the salvation of man- 
kind. Sometimes a violent impulse urged him 
to start up from his food, to fall on his knees, 
and break forth into prayer. At length he 
fancied that he had committed the unpardon- 
able sin. His agony convulsed his robust 
frame. He was, he says, as if his breastbone 
would split ; and this he took for a sign that 
he was destined to burst asunder like Judas. 
The agitation of his nerves made all his move- 
ments tremulous; and this trembling, he sup- 
posed, was a visible mark of his reprobation, 
like that which had been set on Cain. At one 
time, indeed, an encouraging voice seemed 
to rush in at the window, like the noise of 
wind, but very pleasant, and commanded, as 
he says, a great calm in his soul. At another 
time, a word of comfort "was spoke loud 
unto him ; it showed a great word ; it seemed 
to be writ in great letters." But these intervals 
of ease were short. His state, during two 
years and a half, was generally the most horri- 
ble that the human mind can imagine. "I 
walked," says he, with his own peculiar elo- 
quence, " to a neighbouring town ; and sat 
down upon a settle in the street, and fell into 
a very deep pause about the most fearful state 
my sin had brought me to ; and, after long 
musing, I lifted up my head ; but methought I 
saw as if the sun that shineth in the neavens 
did grudge to give me light ; and as if the very 
stonec in the streets and tiles upon the houses 
did band themselves against me. Methought 
that they all combined together to banish mo 
out of the world ! I was abhorred of them, and 
unfit to dwell among them, because I had sin- 
ned against the Saviour. Oh, how happy now 



132 



MAC AULA Y'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



was every creature over I ! for they stood fast, 
and kept their station. But I was gone and 
lost." Scarcely any madhouse could produce 
an instance of delusion so strong, or of misery 
so acute. 

It was through this Valley of the Shadow of 
Death, overhung by darkness, peopled with 
devils, resounding with blasphemy and lamen- 
tation, and passing amidst quagmires, snares, 
and pitfalls, close by the very mouth of hell, 
that Bunyan journeyed to that bright and 
fruitful land of Beulah, in which he sojourned 
luring the latter days of his pilgrimage. The 
jnly trace which his cruel sufferings and 
temptations seem to have left behind them, was 
an affectionate compassion for those who were 
still in the state in which he had once been. 
Religion has scarcely ever worn a form so 
calm and soothing as in his allegory. The feel- 
ing which predominates through the whole 
book is a feeling of tenderness for weak, timid, 
and harassed minds. The character of Mr. 
Fearing, of Mr. Feeble-Mind, of Mr. Despond- 
ency and his daughter Miss Muchafraid ; the 
account of poor Littlefaith, who was robbed 
by the three thieves of his spending-money ; 
the description of Christian's terror in the 
dungeons of Giant Despair, and in his passage 
through the river, all clearly show how strong 
a sympathy Bunyan felt, after his own mind 
had become clear and cheerful, for persons 
afflicted with religious melancholy. 

Mr. Southey, who has no love for the Cal- 
vinists, admits that, if Calvinism had never 
worn a blacker appearance than in Bunyan's 
works, it would never have become a term of 
reproach. In fact, those works of Bunyan 
with which we are acquainted, are by no 
means more Calvinistic than the homilies of 
the Church of England. The moderation of 
his opinions on the subject of predestination, 
gave offence to some zealous persons. We 
have seen an absurd allegory, the heroine of 
which is named Hephzibah, written by some 
raving supralapsarian preacher, who was dis- 
satisfied with the mild theology of the Pilgrim's 
Progress. In this foolish book, if we recollect 
rightly, the Interpreter is called the Enlight- 
ener, and the House Beautiful is Castle 
Strength. Mr. Southey tells us that the Ca- 
tholics had also their Pilgrim's Progress with- 
out a Giant Pope, in which the Interpreter is 
the Director, and the House Beautiful Grace's 
Hall. It is surely a remarkable proof of the 
power of Bunyan's genius, that two religious 
parties, both of which regarded his opinions as 
heterodox, should have had recourse to him for 
assistance. 

There are, we think, some characters and 
scenes in the Pilgrim's Progress, which can be 
ully comprehended and enjoyed only by per- 
sons familiar with the history of the times 
through which Bunyan lived. The character 
of Mr. Grcatheart, the guide, is an example. 
His fighting is, of course, allegorical ; but the 
allegory is not strictly preserved. He delivers 
a sermon on imputed righteousness to his com- 
panions; and, soon after, he gives battle to 
Giant Grim, who had taken upon him to back 
the lions He expounds the fifty-third chapter 



of Isaiah to the he lsehold and guests of Gaius 
and then sallies out to attack Slaygood, wh* 
was of the nature of flesh-eaters, in his deh 
There are inconsistencies ; but they are incon- 
sistencies which add, we think, to the interest 
of the narrative. We have not the least doubt 
that Bunyan had in view some stout old Great- 
heart of Naseby and Worcester, who prayed 
with his men before he drilled them ; who 
knew the spiritual state of every dragoon in 
his troop ; and who, with the praises of God in 
his mouth, and a two-edged sword in his hand, 
had turned to flight, on many fields of battle 
the swearing, drunken bravoes of Rupert and 
Lunsford. 

Every age produces such men as By-ends. 
But the middle of the seventeenth century was; 
eminently prolific of such men. Mr. Southey 
thinks that the satire was aimed at some par- 
ticular individual ; and this seems by no means 
improbable. At all events, Bunyan must have 
known many of those hypocrites who followed 
religion only when religion walked in silver 
slippers, when the sun shone, and when the 
people applauded. Indeed, he might have 
easily found all the kindred of By-ends among 
the public men of his time. He might have 
found among the peers, my Lord Turn-about, 
my Lord Time-server, and my Lord Fair- 
speech; in the House of Commons, Mr. 
Smooth-man, Mr. Anything, and Mr. Facing- 
both-ways ; nor would " the parson of the 
parish, Mr. Two-tongues," have been wanting. 
The town of Bedford probably contained more 
than one politician, who, after contriving to 
raise an estate by seeking the Lord during the 
reign of the saints, contrived to keep what he 
had got by persecuting the saints during the 
reign of the strumpets; and more than one 
priest who, during repeated changes in the 
discipline and doctrines of the church, had 
remained constant to nothing but his bene- 
fice. 

One of the most remarkable passages in the 
Pilgrim's Progress, is that in which the pro- 
ceedings against Faithful are described. It is 
impossible to doubt that Bunyan intended to 
satirize the mode in which state trials were 
conducted under Charles the Second. The 
license given to the witnesses for the prosecu- 
tion, the shameless partiality and ferocious in- 
solence of the judge, the precipitancy and the 
blind rancour of the jury, remind us of those 
odious mummeries which, from the Restoration 
to the Revolution, were merely forms prelimi- 
nary to hanging, drawing, and quartering. 
Lord Hategood performs the office of counsel 
for the prisoners as well as Scroggs himself 
could have performed it. 

" Judge. Thou runagate, heretic, and traitor, 
hast thou heard what these honest gentlemen 
have witnessed against thee 1 

" Faithful. May I speak a few words in my 
own defence 1 

" Judge. Sirrah, Sirrah ! thou deservest tc 
live no longer, but to be slain immediately 
upon the place ; yet, that all men may see our 
gentleness to thee, let us hear what thou, vilt 
runagate, hast to say." 

No person who knows the state trials can b 



SOUTHEY'S EDITION OF THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. 



13K 



tX a loss for parallel cases. Indeed, write what 
Bunyan would, the baseness and cruelty of the 
lawyers of those times " sinned up to it still," 
ind even went beyond it. The imaginary trial 
of Faithful before a jury composed of personi- 
fied vices, was just and merciful, when com- 
pared with the real trial of Lady Alice Lisle 
before that tribunal where all the vices sat in 
the person of Jeffries. 

The style of Bunyan is delightful to every 
reader, and invaluable as a study to every per- 
son who wishes to obtain a wide command 
over the English language. The vocabulary 
is the vocabulary of the common people. 
There is not an expression, if we except a few 
technical terms of theology, which would puz- 
zle the rudest peasant. We have observed 
several pages which do not contain a single 
word of more than two syllables. Yet no wri- 
ter has said more exactly what he meant to 
say. For magnificence, for pathos, for vehe- 
ment exhortation, for subtle disquisition, for 
every purpose of the poet, the orator, and the 



divine, this homely dialect, the dialect of plain 
workingmen, was perfectly sufficient. There 
is no book in our literature on which we could 
so readily stake the fame of the old unpolluted 
English language ; no book which shows so 
well how rich that language is in its own pro- 
per wealth, and how little it has been improved 
by all that it has borrowed. 

Cowper said, forty or fifty years ago, that he 
dared not name John Bunyan in his verse, for 
fear of moving a sneer. To our refined fore- 
fathers, we suppose, Lord Roscommon's Essay 
on Translated Verse, and the Duke of Buck- 
inghamshire's Essay on Poetry, appeared to 
be compositions infinitely superior to the alle 
gory of the preaching tinker. We live in 
better times; and we are not afraid to say 
that, though there were many clever men in 
England during the latter half of the seven- 
teenth century, there were only two great 
creative minds. One of those minds pro 
duced the Paradise Lost, the other the Pil 
grim's Progress 



BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 



18i 



CHOKER'S EDITION OF BOSWELL'S LIFE OF 

JOHNSON.* 

[Edinburgh Review, 1831.] 



Ihis work has greatly disappointed us. 
Whatever faults we may have been prepared 
to find in it, we fully expected that it would be 
a valuable addition to English literature, that 
it would contain many curious facts and many 
judicious remarks ; that the style of the notes 
would be neat, clear, and precise ; and that the 
typographical execution would be, as in new 
editions of classical works it ought to be, al- 
most faultless. We are sorry to be obliged to 
say, that the merits of Mr. Croker's perform- 
ance are on a par with those of a certain leg 
of mutton on which Dr. Johnson dined, while 
travelling from London to Oxford, and which 
he, with characteristic energy, pronounced to 
be, " as bad* as bad could be ; ill-fed, ill-killed, 
ill-kept, and ill-dressed."f That part of the 
volumes before us, for which the editor is re- 
sponsible, is ill-compiled, ill-arranged, ill-ex- 
pressed, and ill-printed. 

Nothing in the work had astonished us so 
much as the ignorance or carelessness of Mr. 
Croker with respect to facts and dates. Many 
of his blunders are such as we should be sur- 
prised to hear any well-educated gentleman 
commit, even in conversation. The notes ab- 
solutely swarm with misstatements, into which 
the editor never would have fallen, if he had 
taken the slightest pains to investigate the 
truth of his assertions, or if he had even been 
well acquainted with the very book on which 
. he undertook to comment. We wit* give a few 
instances. 

Mr. Croker tells us, in a note, that Derrick, 
who was master of the ceremonies at Bath, 
died very poor, in 17604 We read on; and, a 
few pages later, we find Dr. Johnson and Bos- 
well talking of the same Derrick as still living 
and reigning, as having retrieved his character, 
as possessing so much power over his subjects 
at Bath, that his opposition might be fatal to 
Sheridan's lectures on oratory.§ And all this 
in 1763. The fact is, that Derrick died in 
1769. 

In one note we read, that Sir Herbert Croft, 
the author of that pompous and foolish account 
of Young, which appears among the Lives of 
the Poets, died in 1805." Another note in the 
same volume states, that this same Sir Her- 
bert Croft died at Paris, after residing abroad 
for fifteen years, on the 27th of April, 1816.J 

Mr. Croker informs us, that Sir William 
Forbes of Pitsligo, the author of the life of 



* The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. f including a 
Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. By James Boswell, 
Esq. A New Edition, with numerous Additions and 
urates. By John Wilson Croker, LL.D., F.R.S. 5 
»ole. 8vo. London. 1831. 

+ V. 184. J I. 394. g I. 404. 

11 IV. 321. T[ IV. 428. 



Beattie, died in 1816.* A Sir William Forbes 
undoubtedly died in that year ; but not the Sir 
William Forbes in question, whose death took 
place in 1806. It is notorious, indeed, that the 
biographer of Beattie lived just long enough to 
complete the history of his friend. Eight or 
nine years before the date which Mr. Croker 
has assigned for Sir William's death, Sir Wal« 
ter Scott lamented that event, in the introduc« 
tion, we think, to the fourth canto of Marmion. 
Every school-girl knows the lines : 

" Scarce had lamented Forbes paid 
The tribute to his Minstrel's shade; 
The tale of friendship scarce was told, 
Ere the narrator's heart was cold — 
Far may we search before we find 
A hea rt so manly and so kind !" 

In one place, we are told, that Allan Ramsay 
the painter, was born in 1709, and died in 
1784 ;| in another, that he died in 1784, in the 
seventy-first year of his age.+ If the latter 
statement be correct, he must have been born 
in or about 1713. 

In one place, Mr. Croker says, that at the 
commencement of the intimacy between Dr. 
Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, in 1765, the lady 
was twenty-five years old.§ In other places 
he says, that Mrs. Thrale's thirty-fifth year co- 
incided with Johnson's seventieth.il Johnson 
was born in 1709. If, therefore, Mrs. Thrale's 
thirty-fifth year coincided with Johnson's se« 
ventieth, she could have been only twenty-one 
years old in 1765. This is not all. Mr. 
Croker, in another place, assigns the year 
1777 as the date of the complimentary lines 
which Johnson made on Mrs. Thrale's thirty- 
fifth birthday.^ If this date be correct, Mrs. 
Thrale must have been born in 1742, and could 
have been only twenty-three when her ac- 
quaintance with Johnson commenced. Two 
of Mr. Croker's three statements must be false. 
We will not decide between them ; we will 
only say, that the reasons which he gives for 
thinking that Mrs. Thrale was exactly thirty- 
five years old when Johnson was seventy, ap- 
pear to us utterly frivolous. 

Again, Mr. Croker informs his readers thai 
"Lord Mansfield survived Johnson full ten 
years."** Lord Mansfield survived Dr. John 
son just eight years and a quarter. 

Johnson found in the library of a French 
lady, whom he visited during his short visit to 
Paris, some works which he regarded with 
great disdain. " I looked," says he, " into the 
books in the lady's closet, and, in contempt, 
showed them to Mr. Thrale — Prince Titi ; Bi- 
blotheque des Fees, and other books."f f " The 



* II. 262. -r IV. 105. % V. 281. J 1. 510. 

11 IV. 271, 322. «H III. 463. ** II. 151. +t III 2T7J 



136 



MAOAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



history of Prince Titi," observes Mr. Croker, 
"was said to be the autobiography of Frederic 
Prince of Wales, but was probably written by 
Ralph, his secretary." A more absurd note 
never was penned. The history of Prince 
Titi, to which Mr. Croker refers, whether writ- 
ten by Prince Frederic or by Ralph, was cer- 
tainly never published. If Mr. Croker had 
taken the trouble to read with attention the 
very passage in Park's Royal and Noble Au- 
thors, which he cites as his authority, he 
would have seen that the manuscript was 
given up to the government. Even if this 
memoir had been printed, it was not very likely 
to find its way into a French lady's bookcase. 
And would any man in his senses speak con' 
temptuously of a French lady, for having in 
her possession an English work so curious 
and interesting as a Life of Prince Frederic, 
whether written by himself of by a confidential 
secretary, must have been 1 The history at 
which Johnson laughed was a very proper 
companion to the Bibliotheque des Fees — a 
fairy tale about good Prince Titi and naughty 
Prince Violent. Mr. Croker may find it in the 
Magasin des Enfans, the first French book 
which the little girls of England read to their 
governesses. 

Mr. Croker states, that Mr. Henry Bate, who 
afterwards assumed the name of Dudley, was 
proprietor of the Morning Herald, and fought 
a duel with George Robinson Stoney, in con- 
sequence of some attacks on Lady Strathmore, 
which appeared in that paper.* Now Mr. 
Bate was connected, not with the Morning He- 
rald, but with the Morning Post, and the dis- 
pute took place before the Morning Herald 
was in existence. The duel was fought in 
January, 1777. The Chronicle of the Annual 
Register for that year contains an account of 
the transaction, and distinctly states that Mr. 
Bate was editor of the Morning Post. The 
Morning Herald, as any person may see by 
looking at any number of it, was not establish- 
ed till some years after this affair. For this 
blunder there is, we must acknowledge, some 
excuse : for it certainly seems almost incredi- 
ble to a person living in our time, that any 
human being should ever have stooped to 
fight with a writer in the Morning Post. 

"James de Duglas," says Mr. Croker, "was 
requested by King Robert Bruce, in his last 
hours, to repair with his heart to Jerusalem, 
and humbly to deposit it at the sepulchre of 
our Lord, which he did in 1329."f Now it is 
well known that he did no such thing, and for 
a very sufficient reason — because he was killed 
by the way. Nor was it in 1329 that he set 
out. Robert Bruce died in 1329, and the ex- 
pedition of Douglas took place in the follow- 
ing year, — " quand h printems vint el la saison," 
»ays Froissart, — in June, 1330, says Lord 
Hailfts, whom Mr. Croker cites as the author- 
ity for his statement. 

Mr. CroKer tens us that the great Marquis 
of Montrosa was beheaded in Edinburgh in 
16504 There is not a forward boy at any 
scaool in England who does not know that the 
Marquis was hanged. The account of the 



execution is one of the finest passages in Lord 
Clarendon's History. We can scarcely sup- 
pose that Mr. Croker has never read that pas- 
sage ; and yet we can scarcely suppose that 
any person who has ever perused so noble and 
pathetic a story can have utterly forgotten all 
its most striking circumstances. 

"Lord Townshend." says Mr. Croker, "was 
not secretary of state till 1720."* Can Mr. 
Croker possibly be ignorant that Lord Town- 
shend was made secretary of state at the ac- 
cession of George the First, in 1714, that he 
continued to be secretary of state till he was 
displaced by the intrigues of Sunderland and 
Stanhope at the close of 171G, and that he re- 
turned to the office of secretary of state, not in 
1720, but in 17211 Mr. Croker, indeed, is ge- 
nerally unfortunate in his statements respect- 
ing the Townshend family. He tells us tha; 
Charles Townshend, the chancellor of the ex 
chequer, was " nephew of the prime minister, 
and son of a peer who was secretary of state, 
and leader of the House of Lords."| Charles 
Townshend was not nephew, but grand-ne- 
phew of the Duke of Newcastle — not son, 
but grandson of the Lord Townshend who was 
secretary of state and leader of the House of 
Lords. 

" General Burgoyne surrendered at Sarato- 
ga," says Mr. Croker, "in March, 1778."+ Ge- 
neral Burgoyne surrendered on the 17th of 
October, 1777. 

" Nothing," says Mr. Croker, " can be more 
unfounded than the assertion that Byng fell a 
martyr to political party. By a strange coinci- 
dence of circumstances, it happened that there 
was a total change of administration between 
his condensation and his death ; so that one 
party presided at his trial and another at his 
execution ; there can be no stronger proof that 
he was not a political martyr."§ Now, what 
will our readers think of this writer when we 
assure them that this statement, so confidently 
made respecting events so notorious, is abso- 
lutely untrue 1 One and the same administra- 
tion was in office when the court-martial on 
Byng commenced its sittings, through the whole 
trial, at the condemnation, and at the execu- 
tion. In the month of November, 1756, the 
Duke of Newcastle and Lord Hardwicke re- 
signed ; the Duke of Devonshire became first 
lord of the treasury, and Mr. Pitt secretary of 
state. This administration lasted till the month 
of April, 1757. Byng's court-martial began to 
sit on the 28th of December, 1756. He was 
shot on the 14th of March, 1757. There is 
something at once diverting and provoking in 
the cool and authoritative manner in which 
Mr. Croker makes these random assertions. 
We do not suspect him of intentionally falsify- 
ing history. But of this high literary misde- 
meanor we do without hesitation accuse him 
— that he has no adequate sense of the obliga- 
tion which a writer, who professes to relate 
facts, owes to the public. We accuse him of 
a negligence and an ignorance analogous to 
that crassa negligentia and that crassa ignorantia 
on which the law animadverts in magistrates 
and surgeons even wnen malice and corrup- 



• V. 196. 



t IV. 29. 



t II. 526. 



* III. 52. 



t III. 368. 



t IV. 222. 



i I. 298. 



BOSWELL S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 



131 



lion are not imr ated. We accuse him of hav- 
ing undertaken a work which, if not performed 
with strict accuracy, must be very much worse 
than useless, and of having performed it as 
if the difference between an accurate and an 
inaccurate statement was not worth the trouble 
of looking into the most common book of re- 
ference. 

But we must proceed. These volumes con- 
tain mistakes more gross, if possible, than any 
that we have yet mentioned. Boswell has re- 
corded some observations made by Johnson on 
the changes which took place in Gibbon's re- 
ligious opinions. "It is said," cried the doc- 
tor, laughing, " that he has been a Mahome- 
tan." "This sarcasm," says the editor, "pro- 
bably alludes to the tenderness with which 
Gibbon's malevolence to Christianity induced 
him to treat Mahometanism in his history."* 
Now the sarcasm was uttered in 1776, and 
that part of the History of the Decline and 
Fall of the Roman Empire which relates tb 
Mahometanism was not published till 1788, 
twelve years after the date of this conversa- 
tion, and nearly four years after the death of 
Johnson. 

"It was i* the year 1761," says Mr. Croker, 
"that Goldsmith published his Vicar of Wake- 
field. This leads the editor to observe a more 
serious inaccuracy of Mrs. Piozzi than Mr. Bos- 
well notices, when he says Johnson left her 
table to go and sell the Vicar of Wakefield for 
Goldsmith. Now Dr. Johnson was not ac- 
quainted with the Thraies till 1765, four years 
after the book had been published."! Mr. 
Croker, in reprehending the fancied inaccu- 
racy of Mrs. Thrale, has himself shown a de- 
gree of inaccuracy, or, to speak more proper- 
ly, a degree of ignorance, hardly credible. The 
Traveller was not published till 1765; and it 
is a fact as notorious as any in literary his- 
tory that the Vicar of Wakefield, though writ- 
ten before the Traveller, was published after 
it. It is a fact which Mr. Croker may find in 
any common life of Goldsmith ; in that written 
by Mr. Chalmers, for example. It is a fact 
which, as Boswell tells us, was distinctly 
stated by Johnson in a conversation with Sir 
Joshua Reynolds.^ It is therefore quite possi- 
ble and probable that the celebrated scene of 
the landlady, the sheriff's officer, and the bottle 
of Madeira, may have taken place in 1765. 
Now Mrs. Thrale expressly says that it was 
near the beginning of her acquaintance with 
Johnson, in 1765, or at all events not later than 
1766. that he left her table to succour his friend. 
Her accuracy is therefore completely vindi- 
cated. 

The very page which contains this mon- 
strous blunder contains another blunder, if 
possible, more monstrous still. Sir Joseph 
Mawbey, a foolish member of Parliament, at 
whose speeches and whose pig-styes the wits 
of Brookes's were fifty years ago in the habit 
of laughing most unmercifully, stated, on the 
authority cf Garrick, that Johnson, while sit- 
ting in a toffee-house at Oxford about the time 
of his doctor's degree, used some contemptu- 
ous express jus respectins Home's play and 



* HI. 33R 



t V. 409. 



Macpherson's Ossian. " Many men," he said, 
" many women, and many children might, have 
written Douglas." Mr. Croker conceives that 
he has detected an inaccuracy, and glories 
over poor Sir Joseph in a most characteristic 
manner. " I have que ted this anecdote solely 
with the view of showing to how little credit 
hearsay anecdotes are in general entitled. 
Here is a story published by Sir Joseph Maw- 
bey, a member of the House of Commons, and 
a person every way worthy of credit, who says 
he had it from Garrick. Now mark : — John- 
son's visit to Oxford, about the time of his doc« 
tor's degree, was in 1754, the first time he had 
been there since he left the university. But 
Douglas was not acted till 1756, and Ossian 
not published till 1760. All, therefore, that is 
new in Sir Joseph Mawbey's story is false.* 
Assuredly we need not go far to find ample 
proof that a member of the House of Commons 
may commit a very gross error." Now mark, 
say we, in the language of Mr. Croker. The 
fact is, that Johnson took his Master's degree 
in 1754,f and his Doctor's degree in 17754 In 
the spring of 1776§ he paid a visit to Oxford, 
and at this visit a conversation respecting the 
works of Home and Macpherson might have 
taken place, and in all probability did take 
place. The only real objection to the story Mr. 
Croker has missed. Boswell states, apparent- 
ly on the best authority, that as early at leas! 
as the year 1763, Johnson, in conversation with 
Blair, used the same expressions respecting Os- 
sian which Sir Joseph represents him as hav- 
ing used respecting DouglasJ| Sir Joseph or 
Garrick confounded, we suspect, the two sto- 
ries. But their error is venial compared with 
that of Mr. Croker. 

We will not multiply instances of this scan 
dalous inaccuracy. It is clear that a writer 
who, even when warned by the text on which 
he is commenting, falls into such mistakes as 
these, is entitled to no confidence whatever. 
Mr. Croker has committed an error of four 
years with respect to the publication of Gold- 
smith's nove 1 ; an error of twelve years with 
respect to the publication of Gibbon's history; 
an error of twenty-one years with respect to 
one of the most remarkable events of John- 
son's life. Two of these three errors he has 
committed while ostentatiously displaying his 
own accuracy, and correcting what he repre- 
sents as the loose assertions of others. How can 
his readers take on trust his statements concern- 
ing the births, marriages, divorces, and deaths 
of a crowd of people whose names are scarce- 
ly known to this generation 1 It is not likely 
that a person who is ignorant of what almost 
everybody knows can know that of which al- 
most everybody is ignorant. We did not open 
this book with any wish to find blemishes in 
it. We have made no curious researches. 
The work itself, and a very common know- 
ledge of literary and political history, have en- 
abled us to detect the mistakes which we have 
pointed out, and many other mistakes of the 
same kind. We must say, and we say it with 
regret, that we do not consider th° authority 
of Mr. Croker, unsupported by othei evidence, 

*V.409. f 1.262. t HI. 205. $111,326. || I 40S 



108 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



as sufficient to justify any writer who may fol- 
low him, in relating a single anecdote, or in as- 

'gning a date to a single event. 
Mr. Croker shows almost as much ignorance 
and heedlessness in his criticisms as in his 
statements concerning facts. Dr. Johnson said, 
very reasonably as it appears to us, that some 
of the satires of Juvenal are too gross for imi- 
tation. Mr. Croker, who, by the way, is angry 
with Johnson for defending Prior's tales against 
the charge of indecency, resents this aspersion 
on Juvenal, and indeed refuses to believe that 
the doctor can have said any thing so absurd. 
"He probably said — some passages of them — 
for there are none of Juvenal's satires to which 
the same objection may be made as to one of 
Horace's, that it is altogether gross and licen- 
tious."* Surely Mr. Croker can never have 
read the second and ninth satires of Juvenal. 

Indeed, the decisions of this editor on points 
of classical learning, though pronounced in a 
very authoritative tone, are generally such, that 
if a schoolboy under our care were to utter 
them, our soul assuredly should not spare for 
his crying. It is no disgrace to a gentleman, 
who has been engaged during nearly thirty 
years in political life, that he has forgotten 
his Greek and Latin. But he becomes justly 
ridiculous, if, when no longer able to construe 
a plain sentence, he affects to sit in judgment 
on the most delicate questions of style and 
metre. From one blunder, a blunder which 
no good scholar would have made, Mr. Croker 
was saved, as he informs us, by Sir Robert 
Peel, who quoted a passage exactly in point 
from Horace. We heartily wish that Sir Ro- 
bert, whose classical attainments are well 
known, had been more frequently consulted. 
Unhappily he was not always at his friend's 
elbow, and we have therefore a rich abundance 
of the strangest errors. Boswell has preserved 
a poor epigram by Johnson, inscribed "Ad 
Lauram parituram." Mr. Croker censures 
the poet for applying the word puclla to a lady 
in Laura's situation,_ and for talking of the 
beauty of Lucina. " Lucina," he says, " was 
never famed for her beauty ."f If Sir Robert 
Peel had seen this note, he probably would 
have again refuted Mr. Croker's criticisms by 
an appeal to Horace. In the secular ode, Lu- 
cina is used as one of the names of Diana, 
and the beauty of Diana is extolled by all the 
most orthodox doctors of the ancient mytholo- 
gy, from Homer, in his Odyssey, to Claudian, 
in his Rape of Proserpine. In another ode, 
Horace describes Diana as the goddess who 
assists'the " laborar.es utero pucllas." But we 
are ashamed tc detain our readers with this 
fourth-form learning. 

Boswell found, in his tour to the Hebrides, an 
inscription written by a Scotch minister. It runs 
tnus: "Joannes Macleod,&c.,gentis susePhilar- 
chus, &c, Flora Macdonald matrimoniali vin- 
culo conjugatus turrem hanc Beganodunensem 
prosevorum habitaculum longe vetustissimum, 
diu penitus labefactatam, anno scree vulgaris 
mdclxxxvi., instauravit." — "The minister," 
says Mr. Croker, " seems to have been no con- 
temptible Latinist. Is not Philarchus a very 



* 1. 1fi7. 



1 1. 133. 



happy term to express the paternal and kindly 
authority of the head of the Cianl"* The 
composition of this eminent Latinist, short as 
it is, contains several words that are just as 
much Coptic as Latin, to say nothing of the 
incorrect structure of the sentence. The word 
Philarchus, even if it were a happy term ex- 
pressing a paternal and kindly authority, would 
prove nothing for the minister's Latin, what« 
ever it might prove for his Greek. But it is 
clear that the word Philarchus means, not a 
man who rules by love, but a man who loves 
rule. The Attic writers of the best age use the 
word <ptAd£%os in the sense which we assign to 
it. Wouid Mr. Croker translate <piKoa-n<fc;, a 
man who acquires wisdom by means of love ; 
or (piKcxi^K, a man who makes money by means 
of love ] In fact it requires no Bentley or Ca- 
saubon to perceive that Philarchus is merely 
a false spelling for Phy larch us, the chief of a 
tribe. 

Mr. Croker has favoured us with some 
Greek of his own. "At the altar," says Dr. 
Johnson, "I recommend my S-. p." These let- 
ters," says the editor, " (which Dr. Strahan 
seems not to have understood,) probably mean 
■Stxtm ipiKot, departed friends"^ Johnson was not 
a first-rate Greek scholar; but he knew more 
Greek than most boys when they leave school ; 
and no schoolboy could venture to use the 
word 3-mrot in the sense which Mr. Crcker 
ascribes to it without imminent danger of a 
flogging. 

Mr. Croker has also given us a specimen of 
his skill in translating Latin. Johnson wrote 
a note in which he consulted his friend, Dr. 
Lawrence, on the propriety of losing some 
blood. The note contains these words : — " Si 
per te licet, imperatur nuncio Holclerum ad me 
deducere." Johnson should rather have writ- 
ten " imperatum est." But the meaning of the 
words is perfectly clear. "If you say yes, the 
messenger has orders to bring Holder to me." 
Mr. Croker translates the words as follows: 
" If you consent, pray tell the messenger to 
bring Holder to me."$ If Mr. Croker is re« 
solved to write on points of classical learning, 
we would advise him to begin by giving an 
hour every morning to our old friend Corde- 
rius. 

Indeed, we cannot open any volume of this 
work in any place, and turn it over for two 
minutes in any direction, without lighting on 
a blunder. Johnson, in his Life of Tickell, 
stated that the poem entitled "The Royal Pro 
gress," which appears in the last volume of 
the Spectator, was written on the accession of 
George I. The word " arrival " was after- 
wards substituted for " accession." " The 
reader will observe," says Mr. Croker, " that 
the Whig term accession, which might imply 
legality, was altered into a statement of the 
simple fact of King George's arrival."^ Now 
Johnson, though a bigoted Tory, Avas not quite 
such a fool as Mr. Croker here represents 
him to be. In the Life of Granville, Lord 
Lansdowne, which stands next to the Life of 
Tickell, mention is made of the accession of 
Anne, and of the accession of George I. The 



* H. 458. 



t IV. 551. 



t V. 17. 



} TV. 423 



BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 



iyy 



word arrival was used in the Life of Tickell 
for the simplest of all reasons. It was used 
because the subject of the "Royal Progress" 
was the arrival of the king, and not his acces- 
sion, which took place nearly two months be- 
fore his arrival. 

The editor's want of perspicacity is indeed 
very t amusing. He is perpetually telling us 
that he cannot understand something in the 
text which is as plain as language can make 
it. "Mattaire," said Dr. Johnson, "wrote 
L&t'm verses from time to time, and published 
a set in his old age, which he called Senilia, in 
which he shows so little learning or taste in 
writing, as to make Carteret a dactyl."* Here- 
upon we have this note : " The editor does not 
understand this objection, nor the following 
observation." The following observation which 
Mr. Croker cannot understand is simply this : 
" In matters of genealogy," says Johnson, " it 
is necessary to give the bare. names as they 
are. But in poetry, and in prose of any ele- 
gance in the writing, they require to have 
inflection given to them." If Mr. Croker had 
told Johnson that this was unintelligible, the 
doctor would probably have replied, as he re- 
plied on another occasion, " I have found you 
a reason, sir ; I am not bound to find you an 
understanding." Everybody who knows any 
thing of Latinity knows that, in genealogical 
tables, Joannes Baro de Carteret, or Vice- 
comes de Carteret, may be tolerated, but that 
in compositions which pretend to elegance, 
Carteretus, or some other form which admits 
of inflection, ought to be used. 

A'.l our readers have doubtless seen the two 
iistichs of Sir William Jones, respecting the 
division of the time of a lawyer. One of the 
distichs is translated from some old Latin 
lines, the other is original. The former runs 
thus : 

"Six hours to sleep, to law's grave study six, 
Four spend in prayer, the rest on nature fix." 

"Rather," says Sir "William Jones, 

" Six hours to law, to sot thing slumbers seven, 
Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven." 

The second couplet puzzles Mr. Croker 
strangely. "Sir William," says he, "has 
shortened his day to twenty-three hours, and 
the general advice of ' all to heaven,' destroys 
the peculiar appropriation of a certain period 
to religious exercise."f Now, we did not 
think that it was in human dulness to miss the 
meaning of the lines so completely. Sir Wil- 
liam distributes twenty-three hours among va- 
rious employments. One hour is thus left for 
devotion. The reader expects that the verse 
will end with — " and one to heaven." The 
whole point of the lines consist in the unex- 
pected substitution of "all" for "one." The 
conceit is wretched enough ; but it is perfectly 
intelligible, and never, we will venture to say, 
perplexed man, woman, or child before. 

Poor Tom Davies, after failing in business, 
tried to live by his pen. Johnson called him 
" an author generated by the corruption of a 
bookseller." This is a very obvious, and even 
a commonplace allusion to the famous dogma 



* IV. 335. 



t V. 283. 



of the old physiologists. Dryden made a simi- 
lar allusion to the dogma before Johnson was 
born. Mr. Croker, however, is unable to under- 
stand it. " The expression," he says, " seems 
not quite clear." And he proceeds to talk 
about the generation of insects, about bursting 
into gaudier life, and Heaven knows what.* 

There is a still stranger instance of the edi- 
tor's talent for finding out difficulty in what is 
perfectly plain. "No man," said Johnson, 
" can now be made a bishop for his learning 
and piety." " From this too just observation," 
says Boswell, " there are some eminent excep- 
tions." Mr. Croker is puzzled by Boswell's 
very natural and simple language. " That a 
general observation should be pronounced too 
just, by the very person who admits that it is 
not universally just, is not a little odd."f 

A very large portion of the two thousand five 
hundred notes which the editor boasts of hav- 
ing added to those of Boswell and Malone, 
consists of the flattest and poorest reflections — 
reflections such as the least intelligent reader 
is quite competent to make for himself, and 
such as no intelligent reader would think it 
worth whils to utter aloud. They remind us 
of nothing so much as of those profound and 
interesting annotations which are pencilled by 
sempstresses and apothecaries' boys on the 
dog-eared margins of novels borrowed from 
circulating libraries — " How beautiful !" — 
"cursed prosy" — "I don't like Sir Reginald 
Malcolm at all."— "I think Pelham is a sad 
dandy." Mr. Croker is perpetually stopping 
us in our progress through the most delightful 
narrative in the .language, to observe, that 
really Dr. Johnson was very rude ; that he 
talked more for victory than for truth ; that his 
taste for port-wine with capillaire in it was 
very odd; that Boswell was impertinent; that 
it was foolish in Mrs. Thrale to marry the 
music-master; and other "merderies" of the 
same kind, to borrow the energetic word of 
Rabelais. 

We cannot speak more favourably of the 
manner in which the notes are written, than cf 
the matter of which they consist. We find in 
every page words used in wrong senses, and 
constructions which violate the plainest rules 
of grammar. We have the low vulgarism of 
"mutua. friend," for "common friend." We 
have "fallacy" used as synonymous with 
"falsehood," or "misstatement." We have 
many such inextricable labyrinths of pronouns 
as that which follows : " Lord Erskine was 
fond of this anecdote ; he told it to the editor 
the first time that he had the honour of being 
in his company." Lastly, we have a plentiful 
supply of sentences resembling those which 
we subjoin. "Markland, ivho, with Jartin and 
Thirlby, Johnson calls three contemporaries 
of great eminence."t " Warburton himself did 
not feel, as Mr. Boswell was disposed to think 
he did, kindly or gratefully of Johnson ?"§ "It 
was him that Horace Walpole called a man 
who never made a bad figure but as an au- 
thor."|| We must add that the printer has 
done his best to fill both the text and notes 
with all sorts of blunders ; and he and the 



♦ IV. 323. fill. 228. t IV. 377. } IV, «5. [J II Ml 



140 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



editor have between them made the book so 
bad, that we do not well see how it could have 
been worse. 

When we turn from the commentary of Mr. 
Croker to the work of our old friend Boswell, 
we find it not only worse printed than in any 
other edition with which we are acquainted, 
but mangled in the most wanton manner. 
Much that Boswell inserted in his narrative 
is, without the shadow of a reason, degraded 
to the appendix. The editor has also taken 
upon himself to alter or omit passages which 
he considers as indecorous. This prudery is 
quite unintelligible to us. There is nothing 
immoral in Boswell's book — nothing which 
tends to inflame the passions. He sometimes 
uses plain words. But if this be a taint which 
requires expurgation, it would be desirable to 
begin by expurgating the morning and evening 
lessons. Mr. Croker has performed the deli- 
cate office which he has undertaken in the 
most capricious manner. A strong, old-fashion- 
ed, English word, familiar to all who read their 
Bibles, is exchanged for a softer synonyme in 
some passages, and suffered to stand unaltered 
in others. In one place, a faint allusion made 
by Johnson to an indelicate subject — an allu- 
sion so faint that, till Mr. Croker's note pointed 
it out to us, we had never noticed it, and of 
which we are quite sure that the meaning 
would never be discovered by any of those for 
whose sake books are expurgated — is alto- 
gether omitted. In another place, a coarse 
and stupid jest of Doctor Taylor, on the same 
subject, expressed in the broadest language — 
almost the only passage, as far as we remem- 
ber, in all Boswell's book, which we should 
have been inclined to leave out — is suffered to 
remain. 

We complain, however, much more of the 
additions than of the omissions. We have 
half of Mrs. Thrale's book, scraps of Mr. 
Tyers, scraps of Mr. Murphy, scraps of Mr. 
Cradock, long prosings of Sir John Hawkins, 
and connecting observations by Mr. Croker 
himself, inserted into the midst of Boswell's 
text. To this practice we most decidedly ob- 
ject. An editor might as well publish Thucy- 
dides with extracts from Diodorus interspers- 
ed, or incorporate the Lives of Suetonius with 
the History and Annals of Tacitus. Mr. Croker 
tells us, indeed, that he has done only what 
Boswell wished to do, and was prevented from 
doing by the law of copyright. We doubt this 
greatly. Boswell has studiously abstained 
from availing himself of the information con- 
tained in the works of his rivals, on many oc- 
casions on which he might have done so with- 
out subjecting himself to the charge of piracy. 
Mr. Croker has himself, on one occasion, re- 
marked very justly that Boswell was very 
reluctant to owe any obligations to Hawkins. 
But be this as it may, if Boswell had quoted 
from Sir John and from Mrs. Thrale, he would 
have been guided by his own taste and judg- 
ment in selecting his quotations. On what he 
quoted, he would have commented with perfect 
freedom, and the borrowed passages, so se- 
lected, and accompanied by such comments, 
would have become original. They would 
Uave dovetailed into tne work : no hitch, no 



crease would have been discernible. Tht 
whole would appear one and indivisible, 

"Ut per laeve severos 
Effundat junctura ungues." 

This is not the case with Mr. Croker's in* 
sertions. They are not chosen as Boswell 
would have chosen them. They are not intro- 
duced as Boswell would have introduced them. 
They differ from the quotations scattered 
through the original Life of Johnson, as a 
withered bough stuck in the ground differs 
from a tree skilfully transplanted, with all its 
life about it. 

Not only do these anecdotes disfigure Bos- 
well's book ; they are themselves disfigured 
by being inserted in his book. The charm ol 
Mrs. Thrale's little volume is utterly destroyed. 
The feminine quickness of observation, the 
feminine softness of heart, the colloquial incor- 
rectness and vivacity of style, the little amus^ 
ing airs of a half-learned lady, the delightful 
garrulity, the " dear Doctor Johnson," the " it 
was so comical," all disappear in Mr. Croker's 
quotations. The lady ceases to speak in the 
first person; and her anecdotes, in the process 
of transfusion, become as flat as champagne 
in decanters, or Herodotus in Beloe's version. 
Sir John Hawkins, it is true, loses nothing; 
and for the best of reasons. Sir John had no- 
thing to lose. 

The course which Mr. Croker ought to have 
taken is quite clear. He should have reprinted 
Boswell's narrative precisely as Boswell wrote 
it ; and in the notes or the appendix he should 
have placed any anecdotes which he might 
have thought it advisable to quote from other 
writers. This would have been a much more 
convenient course for the reader, who has now 
constantly to keep his eye on the margin in 
order to see whether he is perusing Boswell, 
Mrs. Thrale, Murphy, Hawkins, Tyers, Cra- 
dock, or Mr. Croker. We greatly doubt whe- 
ther even the Tour to the Hebrides ought to 
have been inserted in the midst of the Life. 
There is one marked distinction between the 
two works. Most of the Tour was seen by 
Johnson in manuscript. It does not appear 
that he ever saw any part of the Life. 

We love, we own, to read the great produc- 
tions of the human mind as they were written. 
We have this feeling even about scientific 
treatises ; though we know that the sciences 
are always in a state of progression, and thai 
the alterations made by a modern editor in an 
old book on any branch of natural or political 
philosophy are likely to be improvements. 
Many errors have been detected by writers of 
this generation in the speculations of Adam 
Smith. A short cut has been made to much 
knowledge, at which Sir Isaac Newton arrived 
through arduous and circuitous paths. Yet 
we still look with peculiar veneration on the 
Wealth of Nations and on the Principia, and 
should regret to see either of those great works 
garbled even by the ablest hands. But in 
works which owe much of their interest to the 
character and situation of the writers, the case 
is infinitely stronger. What man rf taste and 
feeling can endure harmonies, rifaamentos 
abridgments, expurgated editions? Who evpt 



BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 



141 



reacL; a stage-copy of a play, when he can pro- 
cure the original 1 Who ever cut open Mrs. 
Siddons's Milton 1 Who ever got through ten 
pages of Mr. Gilpin's translation of John Bun- 
yan's Pilgrim into modern English? Who 
would lose, in the confusion of a diatesseron, 
the peculiar charm which belongs to the nar- 
rative of the disciple whom Jesus loved 1 The 
feeling of a reader who has become intimate 
with any great original work, is that which 
Adam expressed towards his bride : 

•* Should God create another Eve, and I 
Another rib afford, yet loss of thee 
Would never from my heart." 

No substitute, however exquisitely formed, 
will fill the void left by the original. The 
second beauty may be equal or superior to the 
first ; but still it is not she. 

The reasons which Mr. Croker has given 
for incorporating passages from Sir John 
Hawkins and Mrs. Thrale with the narrative 
of Boswell, would vindicate the adulteration 
of half the classical works in the language. 
If Pepys's Diary and Mrs. Hutchinson's Me- 
moirs had been published a hundred years ago, 
no human being can doubt that Mr. Hume 
would have inade great use of those books in 
his History of England. But would it, on that 
account, be judicious in a writer of our times 
to publish an edition of Hume's History of 
England, In which large additions from Pepys 
and Mrs. Hutchinson should be incorporated 
with the original text 1 Surely not. Hume's 
history, be its faults what they may, is now 
one great entire work — the production of one 
vigorous mind, working on such materials 
as were within its reach. Additions made by 
another hand may supply a particular defi- 
ciency, but would grievously injure the gene- 
ral effect. With Boswell's book the case is 
stronger. There is scarcely, in the whole 
compass of literature, a book which bears in- 
terpolation so ill. We know no production 
of the human mind which has so much of 
what may be called the race, so much of the 
peculiar flavour of the soil from which it 
sprang. The work could never have been 
written, if the writer had not been precisely 
what he was. His character is displayed in 
every page, and this display of character gives 
a delightful interest to many passages which 
have no other interest. 

The life of Johnson is assuredly a great, a 
very great work. Homer is not more decided- 
ly the first of heroic poets, Shakspeare is not 
more decidedly the first of dramatists, Demos- 
thenes is not more decidedly the first of ora- 
Kors, than Boswell is the first of biographers. 
He has no second. He has distanced all his 
competitors so decidedly, that it is not worth 
^vhile to place them. Eclipse is first, and the 
rest nowhere. 

We are not sure that there is in the whole 
history of the human intellect so strange a 
phenomenon as this book. Many of the great- 
est men that ever lived have written biogra- 
phy. Boswell was one of the smallest men 
that ever lived ; and he has beaten them all. 
I He was, if we are to give any credit to his own 
account, or to the united testimony of all who 
knew him, a man of the meanest and feeblest 
10 



intellect. Johnson described him as a fellow 
who had missed his only chance of immortality, 
by not having been alive when the Dunciad 
was written. Beauclerk used his name as a 
proverbial expression for a bore. He was the 
laughing-stock of the whole of that brilliant 
society which has owed to him the greater part 
of its fame. He was always laying himself 
at the feet of some eminent man, and begging 
to be spit upon and trampled tipon. He was 
always earning some ridiculous nickname, 
and then " binding it as a crown unto him," 
— not merely in metaphor, but literally. He 
exhibited himself at the Shakspeare Jubilee, 
to all the crowd which filled Stafford-on-Avon, 
with a placard around his hat bearing the in- 
scription of Corsica Boswell. In his Tour, he 
proclaimed to all the world, that at Edinburgh 
he was known by the appellation of Paoli Bos- 
ivell. Servile and impertinent — shallow and 
pedantic — a bigot and a sot — bloated with fa- 
mily pride, and. eternally blustering about the 
dignity of a born gentleman, yet stooping to be 
a talebearer, an eavesdropper, a common bi*tt 
in the taverns of London — so curious to know 
everybody who was talked about, that, Tory and 
High Churchman as he was, he manoeuvred, 
we have been told, for an introduction to 
Tom Paine — so vain of the most childish dis- 
tinctions, that, when he had been to court, he 
drove to the office where his book was being 
printed without changing his clothes, and sum- 
moned all the printer's devils to admire his 
new ruffles and sword ; — such was this man : 
and such he was content and proud to be. 
Every thing which another man would have 
hidden — every thing, the publication of which 
would have made another man hang himself, 
was matter of gay and clamorous exultation 
to his weak and diseased mind. What silly 
things he said — what bitter retorts he provoked 
— how at one place he was troubled with evil 
presentiments which came to nothing — how at 
another place, on waking from a drunken doze, 
he read the Prayer-book, and took a hair of the 
dog that had bitten him — how he went to see 
men hanged, and came away maudlin — how 
he added five hundred pounds to the fortune of 
one of his babies, because she was not fright- 
ened at Johnson's ugly face — how he was 
frightened out of his wits at sea — and how the 
sailors quieted him as they would have quieted 
a child — how tipsy he/was at Lady Cork's one 
evening, and how much his merriment annoyed 
the ladies — howimpertinenthe was to the Duch- 
ess of Argyle, and with what stately contempt 
she put down his impertinence — how Colonel 
Macleod sneered to his face at his impudent ob 
trusiveness — how his father and the very wife 
of his bosom laughed and fretted at his fooleries 
— all these things he proclaimed to all the world, 
as if they had been subjects for pride and osten- 
tatious rejoicing. All the caprices of his tem 
per, all the illusions of his vanity, all the hypo 
chondriac whimsies, all his castles in the air, 
he displayed with a cool self-complacency, a 
perfect unconsciousness that he was making 
a fool of himself, to which it is impossible to 
find a parallel in the whole history of man- 
kind. He has used many people ill, but assu 
redly he has used nobody so ill as himself. 



142 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



That such a man should have written one 
of the best books in fthe world, is strange 
enough. But this is not all. Many persons 
who have conducted themselves foolishly in 
active life, and whose conversation has indi- 
cated no superior powers of mind, have writ- 
ten valuable books. Goldsmith was very just- 
ly described by one of his contemporaries as 
an inspired idiot, and by another as a being, 

" Who wrote like an angel, an3 talked like poor Poll." 

La Fontaine was in society a mere simpleton. 
His blunders would not come in amis,s among 
the stories of Hierocles. But these men at- 
tained literary eminence in spite, of their weak- 
nesses. Boswell attained it by reason of his 
weaknesses. If he had not been a great fool, 
he would never have been a great writer. 
Without all the qualities which made him the 
jest and the torment of those among whom he 
lived — without the officiousness, the inquisi- 
tiveness, the effrontery, the toad-eating, the 
insensibility to all reproof, he never could have 
produced so excellent a book. He was a slave, 
proud of his servitude ; a Paul Pry, convinced 
that his own curiosity and garrulity were vir- 
tues ; an unsafe companion, who never scru-. 
pled to repay the most liberal hospitality by 
tl j basest violation of confidence ; a man 
without delicacy, without shame, without sense 
enough to know when he was hurting the feel- 
ings cf others, or when he was exposing him- 
self to derision ; and because he was all this, 
he has, in an important department of litera- 
ture, immeasurably surpassed such writers as 
Tacitus, Clarendon, Alfieri, and his own idol 
Johnson. 

Of the talents which ordinarily raise, men to 
eminence as writers, he had absolutely none. 
There is not, in all his books, a single remark 
of his own on literature, politics, religion, or 
society, which is not either commonplace or 
absurd. His dissertations on hereditary gen- 
tility, on the slave trade, and on the entailing 
of landed estates, may serve as examples. To 
say that these passages are sophistical, would 
be to pay them an extravagant compliment. 
They have no pretence to argument or even to 
meaning. He has reported innumerable ob- 
servations made by himself in the course of 
conversation. Of those observations we do 
not remember one which is above the intellec- 
tual capacity of a boy of fifteen. He has 
printed many of his own letters, and in these 
letters he is always ranting or twaddling. Lo- 
gic, eloquence, wit, taste, all those things which 
are generally considered as making a book 
valuable, were utterly wanting to him. He 
had, indeed, a quick observation and a retentive 
memory. These qualities, if he had been a 
man of sense and virtue, would scarcely of 
themselves have sufficed to make him conspi- 
cuous ; but, as he was a dunce, a parasite, and 
a coxcomb, they have made him immortal. 

Those parts of his book which, considered 
abstractedly, are most utterly worthless, are 
delightful when we read them as illustrations 
of the character of the writer. Bad in them- 
selves, they are good dramatically, like the 
nonsense of Justice Shallow, the clipped Eng- 
U^h of Dr. Caius, or the misplaced consonants 



! of Fluellen. Of all confessors, Boswell is the 
i most candid. Other men who have pretended 
to lay open their own hearts — Rousseau, for 
example, and Lord Byron — have evidently 
written with a constant view to effect, and are 
to be then most distrusted when they seem 
to be most sincere. There is scarcely any 
man who would not rather accuse himself of 
great crimes and of dark and tempestuous 
passions, than proclaim all his little vanities, 
and all his wild fancies. It would be easier to 
find a person who would avow actions like 
those of Cossar Borgia or Danton, than one 
who would publish a day-dream like those of 
Alnaschar and Malvolio. Those weaknesses 
which most men keep covered up in the most 
secret places of the mind, not to be disclosed 
to the eye of friendship or of love, were pre- 
cisely the weaknesses which Boswell paraded 
before all the world. He was perfectly frank, 
because the weakness of his understanding 
and the tumult of his spirit prevented him 
from knowing when he made himself ridicu- 
lous. His book resembles nothing so much 
as the conversation of the inmates of the Pa- 
lace of Truth. 

"His fame is great, and it will, we have no\ 
doubt, be lasting ; but it is fame of a peculiar * 
kind, and indeed marvellously resembles infa- 
my. We remember no other case in which the 
world has made so great a distinction between 
a book and its author. In general, the book and 
the author are considered as one. To admire 
the book is to admire the author. The case of 
Boswell is an exception, we think the only ex- 
ception, to this rule. His work is universally 
allowed to be interesting, instructive, eminent- 
ly original ; yet it has brought him nothing but 
contempt. All the world reads it, all the world 
delights in it ; yet we do not remember ever to 
have read or even to have heard any expres- 
sion of respect and admiration for the man to 
whom we owe so much instruction and amuse- 
ment. While edition after edition of his book 
was coming forth, his son, as Mr. Croker tells 
us, was ashamed of it, and hated to hear it 
mentioned. This feeling was natural and rea- 
sonable. Sir Alexander saw, that in proportion 
to the celebrity of the work was the degradation 
of the author. The very editors of this unfor- 
tunate gentleman's books have forgotten their 
allegiance, and, like those Puritan casuists 
who took arms by the authority of the king 
against his person, have attacked the writer 
while doing homage to the writings. Mr. Cro- 
ker, for example, has published two thousand 
five hundred notes on the Life of Johnson, and 
yet scarcely ever mentions the biographer, 
whose performance he has taken such pains 
to illustrate, without some expression of con- 
tempt. 

An ill-natured man Boswell certainly wa« 
not. Yet the malignity of the most malignan. 
satirist could scarcely cut deeper than his 
thoughtless loquacity. Having himself na 
sensibility to derision and contempt, he took it 
for granted that all others were equally callous 
He was not ashamed to exhibit himself to th« 
whole world as a common spy, a common tat- 
tler, a humble companion without the excuse 
of poverty, to tell a hundred stories of his ow» 



BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 



113 



pe»Vness and folly, and of the insults which 
his pertness and folly brought upon him. It 
was natural that he should show little discre- 
tion in cases in which the feelings or the ho- 
nour of others might be concerned. No man, 
surely, ever published such stories respecting 
persons whom he professed to love and revere. 
He would infallibly have made his hero as 
contemptible as he has made himself, had not 
this hero really possessed some moral and in- 
tellectual qualities of a very high order. The 
best proof that Johnson was really an extraor- 
dinary man, is, that his character, instead of 
being degraded, has, on the whole, been de- 
cidedly raised by a work in which all his vices 
and weaknesses are exposed more unsparingly 
than they ever were -exposed by Churchill or 
by Kenrick. 

Johnson grown old, Johnson in the fulness 
of his fame and in the enjoyment of a compe- 
tent fortune, is better known to us than any 
other man in history. Every thing about him, 
his coat, his wig, his figure, his face, his scro- 
fula, his St. Vitus's dance, his rolling walk, his 
blinking eye, the outward signs which too 
clearly marked his approbation of his dinner, 
his insatiable appetite for fish-sauce and veal- 
pie with pittas, his inextinguishable thirst for 
tea, his trick of touching the posts as he 
walked, his mysterious practice of treasuring 
up scraps of orange-peel, his morning slum- 
bers, his midnight disputations, his contortions, 
his mutterings, his gruntings, his puffings, his 
vigorous, acute, and ready eloquence, his sar- 
castic wit, his vehemence, his insolence, his 
fits of tempestuous rage, his queer inmates, old 
Mr. Leyett and blind Mrs. Williams, the cat 
Hedge and the negro Frank — all are as fami- 
liar to us as the objects by which we have been 
surrounded from childhood. But we have no 
minute information respecting those years of 
Johnson's life during which his character and 
his manners became immutably fixed. We 
know him not as he was known to the men of 
his own generation, but as he was known to 
men whose father he might have been. Tnat 
celebrated club of which he was the most dis- 
tinguished member contained few persons who 
could remember a lime when his fame was not 
fully established and his habits completely 
formed. He had made himself a name in lite- 
rature while Reynolds and the Wartons were 
still boys. He was about twenty years older 
than Burke, Goldsmith, and Gerard Hamilton ; 
about thirty years older than Gibbon, Beau- 
clerk, and Langton; and about forty years 
older than Lord Stowell, Sir William Jones, 
and Windham. Boswell and Mrs. Thrale, the 
two writers from whom we derive most of our 
knowledge respecting him, never saw him till 
long after he was fifty years old, till most of 
his great works had become classical, and till 
the pension bestowed on him by Lord Bute had 
placed him above poverty. Of those eminent 
men who were his most intimate associates 
towards the close of his life, the only one, as 
far as we remember, who knew him during 
the first ten or twelve years of his residence in 
the capital, was David Garrick ; and it does 
not appear that, during those years, David 
Garrick saw much of his fellow-townsman. 



Johnson came up to London precisely at the 
time when the condition of a man of letters 
was most miserable and degraded. It was a 
dark night between two sunny days. The age 
of Maecenases had passed away. The age of 
general curiosity and intelligence had not ar- 
rived. The number of readers is at present 
so great, that a popular author may subsist in 
comfort and opulence on the profits of his 
works. In the reigns of William the Third, of 
Anne, and of George the First, even such men 
as Congreve and Addison would scarcely have 
been able to live like gentlemen by the mere 
sale of their writings. But the deficiency of 
the natural demand for literature was, at the 
close of the seventeenth and at the beginning 
of the eighteenth century, more than made up 
by artificial encouragement, by a vast system 
of bounties and premiums. There was, per- 
haps, never a time at which the rewards of 
literary merit were so splendid — at which men 
who could write well found such easy admit- 
tance into the most distinguished society and 
to the highest honours of the state. The chiefs 
of both the great parties into which the king- 
dom was divided patronised literature with 
emulous munificence. Congreve, when he had 
scarcely attained his majority, was rewarded 
for his first comedy with places which made 
him independent for life. Smith, though his 
Hippolytus and Phoedra failed, would have 
been consoled with £300 a year, but for his 
own folly. Rowe was not only poet-laureate, 
but land-surveyor of the customs in the port 
of London, clerk of the council to the Prince 
of Wales, and secretary of the Presentations 
to the Lord Chancellor. Hughes was secretary 
to the Commissions of the Peace. Ambrose 
Philips was judge of the Prerogative Court in 
Ireland. Locke was Commissioner of Appeals 
and of the Board of Trade. Newton was 
Master of the Mint. Stepney and Prior were 
employed in embassies of high dignity and 
importance. Gay, who commenced life as 
apprentice to a silk-mercer, became a secre- 
tary of legation at five-and-twenty. It was tc 
a poem on the Death of Charles II., and to the 
City and Country Mouse, that Montague owed 
his introduction into public life, his earldom, 
his garter, and his auditorship of the Exche- 
quer. Swift, but for the unconquerable preju- 
dice of the queen, would have been a bishop. 
Oxford, with his white staff in his hand, passed 
through the crowd of his suitors to welcome 
Parnell, Avhen that ingenious writer deserted 
the Whigs. Steele was a commissioner of 
stamps and a member of Parliament. Arthur 
Mainwaring was a commissioner of the cus- 
toms and auditor of the imprest. Tickell was 
secretary to the Lords Justices of Ireland. Ad- 
dison was secretary of state. 

This liberal patronage was brought into 
fashion, as it seems, by the magnificent Dor- 
set, who alone, of all the noble versifiers in the 
court of Charles the Second, possessed talents 
for composition which would have made him 
eminent without the aid of a coronet. Monta- 
gue owed his elevation to the favour of Dorset, 
and imitated through the whole course of his 
life the liberality to which he was himself so 
greatly indebted. The Tory leaders, Harlf»y 



144 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



and Bolingbroke in particular, vied with the 
chiefs of the Whig party in zeal for the encou- 
ragement of letters. But soon after the acces- 
sion of the house of Hanover a change took 
place. The supreme power passed to a man 
who cared little for poetry or eloquence. The 
importance of the House of Commons was 
constantly on the increase. The government 
was under the necessity of bartering, for par- 
liamentary support, much of that patronage 
which had been employed in fostering literary 
merit ; and Walpole was by no means inclined 
to divert any part of the fund of corruption to 
purposes which he considered as idle. He 
had eminent talents for government and for 
debate ; but he had paid little attention to books, 
and felt little respect for authors. One of the 
coarse jokes of his friend, Sir Charles Han- 
bury Williams, was far more pleasing to him 
than Thomson's Seasons or Richardson's Pa- 
mela. He had observed that some of the dis- 
tinguished writers whom the favour of Halifax 
had turned into statesmen, had been mere en- 
cumbrances to their party, dawdlers in office, 
and mutes in Parliament. During the whole 
course of his administration, therefore, he 
scarcely patronised a single man of genius. 
The best writers of the age gave all their sup- 
port to the opposition, and contributed to excite 
that discontent which, after plunging the nation 
into a foolish and unjust war, overthrew the 
minister to make room for men less able and 
equally unscrupulous. The opposition could 
reward its eulogists with little more than pro- 
mises and caresses. St. James would give 
nothing, Leicester-house had nothing to give. 

Thus at the time when Johnson commenced 
his Jiterary career, a writer had little to hope from 
the patronage of powerful individuals. The 
patronage of the public did not yet furnish the 
means of comfortable subsistence. The prices 
paid by booksellers to authors w«« so low, 
that a man of considerable talents an4 unre- 
mitting industry could do little more than pro- 
vide for the day which was passing over him. 
The lean kine had eaten up the fat kine. 
The thin and withered ears had devoured the 
good ears. The season of rich harvest was 
over, and the period of famine had begun. All 
that is squalid and miserable might now be 
summed up in the one word — Poet. That 
word denoted a creature dressed like a scare- 
crow, familiar with compters and spunging- 
houses, and perfectly qualified to decide on the 
somparative merits of the Common Side in the 
King's Bench prison, and of Mount Scoundrel 
in the Fleet. Even the poorest pitied him; 
and they well might pity him. For if their 
condition was equally abject, their aspirings 
were not equally high, nor their sense of insult 
equally acute. To lodge in a garret up four 
pair of stairs, to dine in a cellar amongst foot- 
men out of place ; to translate ten hours a day 
for the wages of a ditcher ; to be hunted by 
bailiffs from one haunt of beggary and pesti- 
lence to another, from Grub street to St. 
George's Fields, and from St. George's Fields 
to the alleys behind St. Martin's church; to 
sleep on a bulk in June, and amidst the ashes 
of a glasshouse in December, to die in an hos- 
p'tal, and to be buried in a parish vault, was 



the fate of more than one writer, who, if he hao 
lived thirty years earlier, would have been ad« 
mitted to the sittings of the Kit-Cat or the Scri« 
blerus Club, would have sat in the Parlia 
ment, and would have been intrusted with em- 
bassies to the High Allies ; who, if he had lived 
in our time, would have received from tha 
booksellers several hundred pounds a year. 

As eyery climate has its peculiar diseases, 
so every walk of life has its peculiar tempta* 
tions. The literary character, assuredly, has 
always had its share of faults — vanity, jealousy, 
morbid sensibility. To these faults were now 
superadded all the faults which are oommonly 
found in men whose livelihood is precarious, 
and whose principles are exposed to the trial 
of severe distress. All the vices of the gam- 
bler and of the beggar were blended with those 
of the author. The prizes in the wretched lot- 
tery of book-making were scarcely less ruinous 
than the blanks. If good fortune came, it came 
in such a manner that it was almost certain to 
be abused. After months of starvation and de- 
spair, a full third night, or a well-received dedi- 
cation, filled the pocket of the lean, ragged, un- 
washed poet with guineas. He hastened to 
enjoy those luxuries with the images of which 
his mind had been haunted while sleeping 
amidst the cinders, and eating potatoes at the 
Irish ordinary in Shoe Lane. A week of ta- 
verns soon qualified him for another year of 
night cellars.' Such was the life of Savage, 
of Boyce, and of a crowd of others. Some- 
times blazing in gold-laced hats and waistcoats, 
sometimes lying in bed because their coats had 
gone to pieces, or wearing paper cravats be- 
cause their linen was in pawn ; sometimes 
drinking Champagne and Tokay with Betty 
Careless ; sometimes standing at the window 
of an eating-house in Porridge island, to snuff 
up the scent of what they could not afford to 
taste ; — they knew luxury ; they knew beggary ; 
but they never knew comfort. These men 
were irreclaimable. They looked on a regular 
and frugal life with the same aversion which 
an old gipsy or a Mohawk hunter feels for a 
stationary abode, and for the restraints and 
securities of civilized communities. They 
were as untatneable, as much wedded to their 
desolate freedom, as the wild ass. They could 
no more be broken in to the offices of social 
man, than the unicorn could be trained to serve 
and abide by the crib. It was well if they did 
not, like beasts of a still fiercer race, tear the 
hands which ministered to their necessities. 
To assist them was impossible ; and the most 
benevolent of mankind at length became weary 
of giving relief, which was dissipated with the 
wildest profusion as soon as it had been re- 
ceived. If a sum was bestowed on the wretch- 
ed adventurer, such as, properly husbanded, 
might have supplied him for six months, it was 
instantly spent in strange freaks of sensuality, 
and before forty-eight hours had elapsed, the 
poet was again pestering all his acquaintances 
for twopence to get a plate of shin of beef at a 
subterraneous cook-shop. If his friends gave 
him an asylum in their houses, those houses 
were forthwith turned into bagnios and taverns. 
All order was destroyed, all business was sus- 
pended. The most good-natured host began 



BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 



145 



m repent of his eagerness to serve a man of 
genius in distress, when he heard his guest 
roaring for fresh punch at five o'clock in the 
morning. 

A few eminent writers were more fortunate. 
Pope had been raised above poverty by the 
active patronage which, in his youth, both 
the great political parties had extended to his 
Homer. Young had received the only pension 
ever bestowed, to the best of our recollection, 
by Sir Robert Walpole, as the reward of mere 
literary merit. One or two of the many poets 
who attached themselves to the opposition, 
Thomson in particular, and Mallet, obtained, 
after much severe suffering, the means of sub- 
sistence from their political friends. Richard- 
son, like a man of sense, kept his shop, and 
his shop kept him, which his novels, admirable 
as they are, would scarcely have done. But 
nothing could be more deplorable than the 
state even of the ablest men, who at that time 
depended for subsistence on their writings. 
Johnson, Collins, Fielding, and Thomson were 
certainly four of the most distinguished per- 
sons that England produced during the eight- 
eenth century. It is well known that they were 
all four arretted for debt. 

Into calamities and difficulties such as these 
Johnson plunged in his twenty-eighth year. 
From that time, till he was three or four-and- 
fifty, we have little information respecting 
him ; — little, we mean, compared with the full 
and accurate information which we possess 
respecting his proceedings and habits towards 
the close of his life. He emerged at length 
from cocklofts and sixpenny ordinaries into 
the society of the polished and the opulent. 
His fame was established. A pension sufficient 
for his wants had been conferred on him ; and 
he came forth to astonish a generation with 
which he had almost as little in common as 
with Frenchmen or Spaniards. 

In his early years he had occasionally seen 
the great ; but he had seen them as a beggar. 
He now came among them as a companion. 
The demand for amusement and instruction 
had, during the course of twenty years, been 
gradually increasing. The price of literary 
labours had risen; and those rising men of 
letters, with whom Johnson was henceforth to 
associate, were for the most part persons wide- 
ly different from those who had walked about 
with him all night in the streets, for want of a 
lodging. Burke, Robertson, the Wartons, 
Gray, Mason, Gibbon, Adam Smith, Beattie, 
Sir William Jones, Goldsmith, and Churchill 
were the most distinguished writers of what 
may be called the second generation of the 
Johnsonian age. Of these men, Churchill was 
the only one in whom W3 can trace the stronger 
lineaments of thd.t character, which, when 
Johnson first came up to London, was common 
among authors. Of the rest, scarcely any had 
felt the pressure of severe poverty. All had 
been early admitted into the most respectable 
society on an equal footing. They were men 
of quite a different species from the dependants 
of Curll and Osborne. 

Johnson came among them the solitary spe- 
cimen of a past age — the last survivor of a 
genuine race of Grub-street hacks ; the last of 



that generation cf authors whose abject m sery 
and whose dissolute manners had furnished 
inexhaustible matter to the satirical genius of 
Pope. From nature, he had received an un- 
couth figure, a diseased constitution, and an 
irritable temper. The manner in which the 
earlier years of his manhood had been passed, 
had given to his demeanour, and even to his 
moral character, some peculiarities, appalling 
to the civilized beings who were the compa- 
nions of his old age. The perverse irregularity 
of his hours, the slovenliness of his person, his 
fits of strenuous exertion, interrupted by long 
intervals of sluggishness ; his strange absti- 
nence, and his equally strange voracity ; his 
active benevolence, contrasted with the con- 
stant rudeness and the occasional ferocity of 
his manners in society, made him, in the 
opinion of those with whom he lived during 
the last twenty years of his life, a complete 
original. An original he was, undoubtedly, in 
some respects. But if we possessed full in- 
formation concerning those who shared his 
early hardships, we should probably find, that 
what we call his singularities of manner, were, 
for the most part, failings which he had in 
common with the class to which he belonged. 
He ate at Streatham Park as he had been used 
to eat behind the screen at St. John's Gate, 
when he was ashamed to show his ragged 
clothes. He ate as it was natural that a man 
should eat who, during a great part of his 
life, had passed the morning in doubt whether 
he should have food for the afternoon. The 
habits of his early life had accustomed him to 
bear privation with fortitude, but not to taste 
pleasure with moderation. He could fast ; 
but when he did not fast, he tore his dinner like 
a famished wolf, with the veins swelling on his 
forehead, and the perspiration running down 
his cheeks. He scarcely ever took wine. But 
when he drank it, he drank it greedily, and in 
large tumblers. These were, in fact, mitigated 
symptoms of that same moral disease, which 
raged with such deadly malignity in his friends 
Savage and Boyce. The roughness and vio- 
lence which he showed in society were to be 
expected from a man whose temper, not natu- 
rally gentle, had been long tried by the bitterest 
calamities — by the want of meat, of fire, and of 
clothes ; by the importunity of creditors, by the 
insolence of booksellers, by the derision of 
fools, by the insincerity of patrons, by that 
bread which is the bitterest of all foo>?, by 
those stairs which are the most toilscrne of 
all paths, by that deferred hope which makes 
the heart sick. Through all these things the 
ill-dressed, coarse, ungainly pedant had strug- 
gled manfully up to eminence and command. 
It was natural, that, in the exercise of his 
power, he should be " eo immitior, quiatolera- 
verat" — that though his heart was undoubtedly 
generous and humane, his demeanour in so- 
ciety should be harsh and despotic. For 
severe distress he had sympathy, and not only 
sympathy, but munificent relief. But for the 
suffering which a harsh word inflicts upon a 
delicate mind, he had no pity; for it was a kind 
of suffering which he could scarcely conceive, 
He would carry home on his shoulders a sick 
and starving girl from the streets. He turned 



>46 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



his house into a place of refuge for a'crowd of 
wretched old creatures who could find no other 
asylum ; nor could all their peevishness and 
ingratitude weary out his benevolence. But the 
pangs of wounded vanity seemed to him ridi- 
culous ; and he scarcely felt sufficient compas- 
sion even for the pangs of wounded affection. 
He had seen and felt so much of sharp misery, 
that he was not affected by paltry vexations ; 
and he seemed to think that everybody ought 
to be as much hardened to those vexations as 
himself. He was angry with Boswell for com- 
plaining of a headache; with Mrs. Thrale for 
grumbling about the dust on the road, or the 
smell of the kitchen. These were, in his phrase, 
"foppish lamentations," which people ought 
to be ashamed to utter in a world so full of 
misery. Goldsmith crying because the Good- 
natured Man had failed, inspired him with no 
pity. Though his own health was not good, he 
detested and despised valetudinarians. Even 
great pecuniary losses, unless they reduced 
the loser absolutely to beggary, moved him 
very little. People whose, hearts had been 
softened by prosperity might cry, he said, for 
such events ; but all that could be expected of 
a plain man was not to laugh. 

A person who troubled himself so little 
about the smaller grievances of human life, 
was not likely to be very attentive to the feel- 
ings of others in the ordinary intercourse of 
society. He could not understand how a sar- 
casm or a reprimand could make any man 
really unhappy. " My dear doctor," said he to 
Goldsmith, " what harm does it do to a man to 
call him Holofernes 1" "Poh, ma'am," he 
exclaimed to Mrs. Carter, " who is the worse 
for being talked of uncharitably 1" Politeness 
has been well defined as benevolence in small 
things. Johnson was impolite, not because he 
wanted benevolence, but because small things 
appeared smaller to him than to people who 
had never known what it was to live for four- 
pence half-penny a day. 

The characteristic peculiarity of his intel- 
lect was the union of great powers with low 
prejudices. If we judged of him by the best 
parts of his mind, we should place him almost 
as high as he was placed by the idolatry of 
Boswell ; if by the worst parts of his mind, 
we should place him even below Boswell him- 
self. Where he was not under the influence 
of some strange scruple, or some domineering 
passion, which prevented him from boldly and 
fairly investigating a subject, he was a wary 
and accurate reasoner, a little too much in- 
clined to skepticism, and a little too fond of 
paradox. No man was less likely to be im- 
posed upon by fallacies in argument, or by 
exaggerated statements of fact. But, if, while 
he was beating down sophisms, and exposing 
false testimony, some childish prejudices, such 
as would excite laughter in a well-managed 
nursery, came across him, he wai smitten as 
if by enchantment. His mind dwindled away 
under the spell from gigantic elevation to 
dwarfish littleness. Those who had lately 
been admiring its amplitude and its force, were 
now as much astonished at its strange narrow- 
ness and feebleness, as the fisherman, in the 
Arabian tale, when he saw the genie, whose 



statue had overshadowed the whole seacoast) 
and whose might seemed equal to a contest 
with armies, contract himself to th2 dimen« 
sions of his small prison, and lie there the 
helpless slave of the charm of Solomon. 

Johnson was in the habit of sifting with 
extreme severity the evidence for all stories 
which were merely odd. But when they were 
not only odd but miraculous, his severity re- 
laxed. He began to be credulous precisely at 
the point where the most credulous people 
begin to be skeptical. It is curious to observe, 
both in his writings and in his conversation, 
the contrast between the disdainful manner in 
which he rejects unauthenticated anecdotes, 
even when they are consistent with the general 
laws of nature, and the respectful manner in 
which he mentions the wildest stories relating 
to the invisible world. A man who told him of 
a waterspout or a meteoric stone generally had 
the lie direct given him for his pains. A man 
who told him of a prediction or a dream wonder- 
fully accomplished, was sure of a courteous 
hearing. "Johnson," observes Hogarth, "like 
King David, says in his haste that all men are 
liars." " His ^incredulity," says Mrs. Thrale, 
"amounted almost to disease." She tells us how 
he browbeat a gentleman, who gave him an 
account of a hurricane in the West Indies, and 
a poor Quaker, who related some strange cir- 
cumstance about the red-hot balls fired at the 
siege of Gibraltar. "It is not so. It cannot 
be true. Don't tell that story again. Yob 
cannot think how poor a figure you make in 
telling it." He once said, half jestingly vre 
suppose, that for six months he refused to 
credit the fact of the earthquake at Lisbon, 
and that he still believed the extent of the cala- 
mity to be greatly exaggerated. Yet he related 
with a grave face how old Mr. Cave of St. 
John's Gate saw a ghost, and how this ghost 
was something of a shadowy being. He went 
himself on a ghost-hunt to Cock-lane, and was 
angry with John Wesley for not following up 
another scent of the same kind with proper 
spirit and perseverance. He rejects the Celtic 
genealogies and poems without the least hesi- 
tation ; yet he declares himself willing to be- 
lieve the stories of the second sight. If he had 
examined the claims of the Highland seers 
with half the severity with which he sifted the 
evidence for the genuineness of Fingal, he 
would, we suspect, have come away from 
Scotland with a mind fully made up. In his 
Lives of the Poets, we find that he is unwilling 
to give credit to the accounts of Lord Ros- 
common's early proficiency in his studies ; but 
he tells with great solemnity an absurd ro- 
mance about Rome intelligence preternaturally 
impressed on the mind of that nobleman. He 
avows himself to be in great doubt about the 
truth of the story, and ends by warning his 
readers not wholly to slight such impressions. 

Many of his sentiments on religious subjects 
are worthy of a liberal and enlarged mind. 
He could discern clearly enough the folly and 
meanness of all bigotry except his own. 
When he spoke of the scruples of the Puri- 
tans, he spoke like a person who had really 
obtained an insight into the divine philosophy 
of the New Testament, and who considered 



BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 



147 



Christianity as a noble scheme of government, 
tending to promote the happiness and to elevate 
the moral nature of man. The horror which 
the sectaries felt for cards, Christmas ale, plum- 
porridge, mince-pies, and dancing-bears, ex- 
cited his contempt To the arguments urged 
by some very worthy people against showy 
dress, he replied with admirable sense and 
soirit, " Let us not be found, when our Master 
calls us, stripping the lace off our waistcoats, 
but the spirit of contention from our souls and 
tongues. Alas ! sir, a man who cannot get to 
heaven in a green coat, will not find his way 
thither the sooner in a gray one." Yet he was 
himself under the tyranny of scruples as un- 
reasonable as those of Hudibras or Ralpho ; 
and carried his zeal for ceremonies and for 
ecclesiastical dignities to lengths altogether 
inconsistent with reason, or with Christian 
charity. He has gravely noted down in his 
diary, that he once committed the sin of drink- 
ing coffee on Good Friday. In Scotland, he 
thought it his duty to pass several months 
without joining in public worship, solely be- 
cause the ministers of the kirk had not been 
ordained by bishops. His mode of estimating 
the piety ,of his neighbours was somewhat 
singular. " Campbell," said he, " is a good 
man — a pious man. I am afraid he has not 
been in the inside of a church for many years; 
but he never passes a church without pulling 
off his hat; this shows he has good principles." 
Spain and Sicily must surely contain many 
pious robbers and well-principled assassins. 
Johnson could easily see that a Roundhead, 
who named all his children after Solomon's 
singers, and talked in the House of Commons 
about seeking the Lord, might be an unprin- 
cipled villain, whose religious mummeries 
only aggravated his guilt. But a man who 
took off his hat when he passed a church 
episeopally consecrated, must be a good man, 
a pious man, a man of good principles. John- 
son could easily see that those persons who 
looked on a dance or a laced waistcoat, as sin- 
ful, deemed most ignobly of the attributes of 
God, and of the ends of revelation. But with 
what a storm of invective he would have over- 
whelmed any man who had blamed him for 
celebrating the close of Lent with sugarless 
tea and butterless bunns. 

Nobody spoke more contemptuously of the 
cant of patriotism. Nobody saw more clearly 
the error of those who represented- liberty, not 
as a means, but as an end ; and who proposed 
to themselves, as the object of their pursuit, 
the prosperity of the state as distinct from the 
prosperity of the individuals who compose the 
state. His calm and settled opinion seems to 
have been that forms of government have little 
or no influence on the happiness of society. 
This opinion, erroneous as it is, ought at least 
to have preserved him from all intemperance 
on political questions. It did not, however, 
preserve him from the lowest, fiercest, and 
most absurd extravagance of party spirit — 
from rants which, in every thing but the dic- 
tion, resembled those of Squire Western. He 
was, as a politician, half ice and half fire — on 
the side of his intellect a mere Pococurante — 
far too apathetic about public affairs — far too 



skeptical as to the good or evil tendency of 
any form of polity. His passions, on the con 
trary, were violent even to slaying against all 
who leaned to Whiggish principles. The well 
known lines which he inserted in Goldsmith's 
Traveller express what seems to have been 
his deliberate judgment : — 

"How small, of all that human hearts endure, 
That part which kings or laws can cause or cure." 

He had previously put expressions very simi 
lar into the mouth of Rasselas. It is amusing 
to contrast these passages with the torrents of 
raving abuse which he poured forth against 
the Long Parliament and the American Con- 
gress. In one of the conversations reported 
by Boswell, this strange inconsistency displays 
itself in the most ludicrous manner. 

" Sir Adam Ferguson," says Boswell, " sug- 
gested that luxury corrupts a people and de- 
stroys the spirit of liberty." — Johnson. " Sir, 
that is all visionary, I would not give half a 
guinea to live under one form of government 
rather than another. It is of no moment to 
the happiness of an individual. Sir, the dan- 
ger of the abuse of power is nothing to a pri- 
vate man. What Frenchman is prevented 
from passing his life as he pleases '.'" — Sir 
Adam. "But, sir, in the British constitution 
it is surely of importance to keep up a spirit 
in the people, so as to preserve a balance 
against the crown." — Johnson. "Sir, I per- 
ceive you are a vile Whig. Why all this 
childish jealousy of the power of the ciown? 
The crown has not power enough." 

One of the old philosophers, Lord Bacon tells 
us, used to say that life and death were just the 
same to him. " Why, then," said an objector, 
"do you not kill yourself!" The philosopher 
answered, "Because it is just the same." If 
the difference between two forms of govern- 
ment be not worth half a guinea, it is not easy 
to see how Whiggism can be viler than Tory- 
ism, or how the crown can have too little 
power. If private men suffer nothing from po- 
litical abuses, zeal for liberty is doubtless ridi- 
culous. B ut zeal for monarchy must be equally 
so. No person would have been more quick- 
sighted than Johnson to such a contradictios 
as this in the logic of an antagonist. 

The judgments which Johnson passed on 
books were in his own time regarded with !>u- 
perstitious veneration; and in our time are 
generally treated with indiscriminate contempt. 
They are the judgments of a strong but en- 
slaved understanding. The mind of the critie 
was hedged round by an uninterrupted fence 
of prejudices and superstitions. Within his 
narrow limits he displayed a vigour and an 
activity which ought to have enabled him to 
clear the barrier that confined him. 

How it chanced that a man who reasoned 
on his premises so ably should assume his 
premises so foolishly, is one of the great mys 
teries of human nature. The same inconsist 
ency may be observed in the schoolmen of the 
middle ages. Those writers show so much 
acuteness and force of mind in arguing on 
their wretched data, that a modern reader is 
perpetually at a loss to comprehend how such 
minds came by such datx. Not a flaw in the 



148 



MACAULAY S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



superstructure of the theory which they are 
rearing escapes their vigilance. Yet they are 
blind to the obvious unsoundness of the found- 
ation. It is the same with some eminent law- 
yers. Their legal arguments are intellectual 
prodigies, abounding with the happiest analo- 
gies and the most refined distinctions. The 
principles of their arbitrary science being once 
admitted, the statute-book and the reports be- 
ing once assumed as the foundations of juris- 
prudence, these men must be allowed to be 
perfect masters of logic. But if a question 
arises as to the postulates on which their whole 
system rests, if they are called upon to vindi- 
cate the fundamental maxims of that system 
which they have passed their lives in study- 
ing, these very men often talk the language of 
savages or of children. Those who have list- 
ened to a man of this class in his own court, 
and who have witnessed the skill with which 
he analyzes and digests a vast mass of evi- 
dence, or reconciles a crowd of precedents 
which at first sight seem contradictory, scarce- 
ly know him again when, a few hours later, 
they hear him speaking on the other side of 
Westminster Hall in his capacity of legisla- 
tor. They can scarcely believe that the paltry 
quirks which are faintly heard through a storm 
of coughing, and which cannot impose on the 
plainest country gentleman, can proceed from 
the same sharp and vigorous intellect which 
had excited their admiration under the same 
roof and on the same day. 

Johnson decided literary questions like a 
lawyer, not like a legislator. He never exa- 
mined foundations where a point was already 
ruled. His whole code of criticism rested on 
pure assumption, for which he sometimes gave 
a precedent or an authority, but rarely troubled 
himself to give a reason drawn from the na- 
ture of things. He took it for granted that the 
kind of poetry which flourished in his own 
time, which he had been accustomed to hear 
praised from his childhood, and which he had 
himself written with success, was the best kind 
of poetry. In his biographical work he has 
repeatedly laid it down as an undeniable pro- 
position that, during the latter part of the seven- 
teenth century and the earlier part of the eight- 
eenth, English poetry had been in a constant 
progress of improvement. Waller, Denham, 
Dryden, and Pope had been, according to him, 
the great reformers. He judged of aJl works 
of the imagination by the standard established 
among his own contemporaries. Though he 
allowed Homer to have been a greater man 
than Virgil, he seems to have thought the 
Mneid a greater poem than the Iliad. Indeed 
he well might have thought so, for he preferred 
Pope's Iliad to Homer's. He pronounced that, 
after Hoole's translation of Tasso, Fairfax's 
would hardly be reprinted. He could see no 
merit in our fine old English ballads, and al- 
ways spoke with the most provoking contempt 
of Percy's fondness for them. Of all the great 
original w orks which appeared during his time 
Richardson's novels alone excited his admira- 
tion. He could see little or no merit in Tom 
Jones, in Gulliver's Travels, or in Tristram 
Bhandy. To Thomson's Castle of Indolence 
he vouchsafed only a line of cold commenda- 



tion — of commendation much colder than what 
he has bestowed on the Creation of that por« 
tentous bore, Sir Richard Blackmore. Gray 
was, in his dialect, a barren rascal. Churchill 
was a blockhead. The contempt which he fell 
for the trash of Macpherson was indeed just , 
but it was, we suspect, just by chance. He 
despised the Fingal for the very reason which 
led many men of genius to admire it. He de- 
spised it, not because it was essentially com- 
monplace, but because it had a superficial air 
of originality. 

He was undoubtedly an excellent judge of 
compositions fashioned on his own principles 
But when a deeper philosophy was required — 
when he Undertook to pronounce judgment on 
the works of those great minds which "yield 
homage only to eternal laws" — his failure was 
ignominious. He criticised Pope's Epitaphs ex- 
cellently. But his observations on Shakspeare's 
plays and Milton's poems seem to us as wretch- 
ed as if they had been written by Rymer him- 
self, whom we take to have been the worst cri- 
tic that ever lived. 

Some of Johnson's whims on literary sub- 
jects can be compared only to that strange, 
nervous feeling which made him uneasy if he 
had not touched every post between the Mitre 
tavern and his own lodgings. His preference 
of Latin epitaphs to English epitaphs is an in- 
stance. An English epitaph, he said, would 
disgrace Smollett. He declared that he would 
not pollute the walls of Westminster Abbey 
with an English epitaph on Goldsmith. What 
reason there can be for celebrating a British 
writer in Latin which there was not for cover- 
ing the Roman arches of triumph with Greek 
inscriptions, or for commemorating the deed 
of the heroes of Thermopylae in Egyptian hie- 
roglyphics, we are utterly unable to imagine. 

On men and manners — at least, on the men 
and manners of a particular' place and a par- 
ticular age — Johnson had certainly looked with 
a most observant and discriminating eye. His 
remarks on the education of children, on mar- 
riage, on the economy of families, on the rules 
of society, are always striking, and generally 
sound. In his writings, indeed, the knowledge 
of life which he possessed in an eminent de- 
gree is very imperfectly exhibited. Like those 
unfortunate chiefs of the middle ages, whe 
were suffocated by their own chainmail and 
cloth of gold, his maxims perish under that 
load of words, which was designed for their 
ornament and their defence. But it is clear, 
from the remains of his conversation, that ho 
had more of that homely wisdom which no- 
thing but experience and observation can give, 
that any writer since the time of Swift. If he 
had been content to write as he talked, he 
might have left books on the practical art of 
living superior to the Directions to Servants. 

Yet even his remarks on society, like his re 
marks on literature, indicate a mind at least as 
remarkable for narrowness as for strength. 
He was no master of the great science of hu- 
man nature. He had studied, not the genus 
man, but the species Londoner. Nobody was 
ever so thoroughly conversant with all the 
forms of life, and all the shades of moral and 
intellectual character, which were to be seen 



BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 



140 



from Islington to the Thames, and from Hyde- 
Park corner to Mile-end green. But his phi- 
losophy stopped at the first turnpike gate. 
Of the rural life of England he knew nothing ; 
and he took it for granted that everybody who 
lived in the country was either stupid or mise- 
rable. " Country gentlemen," said he, " must 
be unhappy; for they have not enough to keep 
their lives in motion." As if all those peculiar 
habits and associations, which made Fleet 
Street and Charing Cross the finest views in 
the world to himself, had been essential parts 
of human nature. Of remote countries and 
past times he talked with wild and ignorant 
presumption. "The Athenians of the age of 
Demosthenes," he said to Mrs. Thrale, " were 
a people of brutes, a barbarous people." In 
conversation with Sir Adam Ferguson he used 
similar language. " The boasted Athenians," 
he said, " were barbarians. The mass of every 
people must be barbarous, where there is no 
printing." The fact was this : he saw that a 
Londoner who could not read was a very stupid 
and brutal fellow: he saw that great refine- 
ment of taste and activity of intellect were 
rarely found in a Londoner who had not read 
much ; and, because it was by means of 
books that people acquired almost all their 
knowledge in the society with which he was 
acquainted, he concluded, in defiance of the 
strongest and clearest evidence, that the human 
mind can be cultivated by means of book;; 
alone. An Athenian citizen might possess 
very few volumes ; and even the largest library 
to which he had access might be much less 
aluable than Johnson's bookcase in Bolt 
Court. But the Athenian might pass every 
morning in conversation with Socrates, and 
might hear Pericles speak four or five times 
every month. He saw the plays of Sophocles 
and Aristophanes ; he walked amidst the 
friezes of Phidias and the paintings of Zeuxis ; 
he knew by heart the choruses of iEschylus ; 
he heard the rhapsodist at the corner of the 
street reciting the Shield of Achilles, or the 
Death of Argus; he was a legislator conver- 
sant with high questions of alliance, revenue, 
and war; he was a soldier, trained under a 
liberal and generous discipline ; he was a 
judge, compelled every day to weigh the ef- 
fect of opposite arguments. These things were 
in themselves an education; an education 
eminently fitted, not indeed, to form exact or 
profound thinkers, but to give quickness to the 
perceptions, delicacy to the taste, fluency to 
the expression, and politeness to the manners. 
But this Johnson never considered. An Athe- 
nian who did not improve his mind by read- 
ing, was, in his opinion, much such a person 
as a Cockney who made his mark ; much such 
a person as black Frank before he went to 
school, and far inferior to a parish-clerk or a 
printer's devil. 

His friends have allowed that he carried to 
a ridiculous extreme his unjust contempt for 
foreigners. He pronounced the French to be 
a very silly people — much behind us — stupid, 
ignorant creatures. And this judgment he 
formed after having been at Paris about a 
month, during which he would not talk French, 
for fear of giving the natives an advantage 



over him in conversation, lie pronounced 
them, also, to be an indelicate people, because 
a French footman touched the sugar with hia 
fingers. That ingenious and amusing travel • 
ler, M. Simond, has defended his countrymen 
very successfully against Johnson's aceusa* 
tion, and has pointed out some English prac- 
tices, which, to an impartial spectator, would 
seem at least as inconsistent with physical 
cleanliness and social decorum as those which 
Johnson so bitterly reprehended. To the sage, 
as Boswell loves to call him, it never occurred 
to doubt that there must be something eternally 
and immutably good in the usages to which he 
had been accustomed* In fact, Johnson's re- 
marks on society beyond the bills of mortality, 
are generally of much the same kind with 
those of honest Tom Dawson, the English foot- 
man of' Dr. Moore's Zeluco. "Suppose the 
King of France has no sons, but only a daugh- 
ter, then, when the king dies, this here daugh- 
ter, according to that there law, cannot be made 
queen, but the next near relative, provided he 
is a man, is made king, and not the last king's 
daughter, which, to be sure, is very unjust. 
The French footguards are dressed in blue, 
and all the marching regiments in white, which 
has a very foolish appearance for soldiers; 
and as for blue regimentals, it is only fit for 
the blue horse or the artillery." 

Johnson's visit to the Hebrides introduced 
him to a state of society completely hew to 
him : and a salutary suspicion of his own de- 
ficiencies seems on that occasion to have 
crossed his mind for the first time. He con- 
fessed, in the last paragraph of his Journey, 
that his thoughts on national manners were the 
thoughts of one who had seen but little ; of 
one who had passed his time almost wholly in 
cities. This feeling, however, soon passed 
away. It is remarkable, that to the last he en- 
tertained a fixed contempt for all those modes 
of life and those studies, which lead to eman- 
cipate the mind from the prejudices of a par- 
ticular age or a particular nation. Of foreign 
travel and of history he spoke with the fierce 
and boisterous contempt of ignorance. " What 
does a man learn by travelling t Is Beauclerk 
the better for travelling] What did Lord 
Charlemont learn in his travels, except that 
there was a snake in one of the pyramids of 
Egypt]" History was, in his opinion, to use 
the fine expression of Lord Plunkett, an old 
almanac : historians could, as he conceived 
claim no higher dignity than that of almanac- 
makers ; and his favourite historians were 
those who, like Lord Hailes, aspired to no 
higher dignity. He always spoke with con- 
tempt of Robertson. Hume he would not even 
read. He affronted one of his friends for talk 
ing r to him about Catiline's conspiracy, and 
declared that he never desired to hear of ihe 
Punic War again as long as he lived. 

Assuredly one fact, which does not directly 
affect our own interests, considered in itself, .s 
no better worth knowing than another fact. 
The fact that there is a snake in a pyramid, 
or the fact that Hannibal crossed the Alps by 
the Great St. Bernard, are in themselves as un- 
profitable to us as the fact that there is a green 
blind in a parti sular house in Threadneed'.e 



150 



MAC AUL AY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



street, or the fact that a Mr. Smith comes into 
the city every morning on the top of one of the 
Blackwall stages. But it is certain that those 
who -will not crack the shell of history will 
never get at the kernel. Johnson, with hasty 
arrogance, pronounced the kernel worthless, 
because he saw no value in the shell. The 
real use of travelling to distant countries, and 
of studying the annals of past times, is to pre- 
serve men from the contraction of mind which 
those can hardly escape, whose whole com- 
munion is with one generation and one neigh- 
bourhood, who arrive at conclusions by means 
of an induction not sufficiently copious, and 
who therefore constantly confound exceptions 
with rules, and accidents with essential pro- 
perties. In short, the real use of travelling, 
and of studying history, is to keep men from 
being what Tom Dawson was in fiction, and 
Samuel Johnson in reality. 

Johnson, as Mr. Burke most justly observed, 
appears far greater in Boswell's books than in 
his own. His conversation appears to have 
been quite equal to his writings in matter, and 
far superior to them in manner. When he 
talked, he clothed his wit and his sense in for- 
cible and natural expressions. As soon as he 
took his pen in his hand to write for the pub- 
lic, his style became systematically vicious. 
All his books are written in a learned lan- 
guage — in a language which nobody hears 
from his mother or his nurse — in a language 
in which nobody ever quarrels, or drives bar- 
gains, or makes love — in a language in which 
nobody ever thinks. It is clear, that Johnson 
himself did not think in the dialect in which 
he wrote. The expressions which came first 
to his tongue were simple, energetic, and pic- 
turesque. When he wrote for publication, he 
did his sentences out of English into John- 
sonese. His letters from the Hebrides to Mrs. 
Thrale are the original of that work of which 
the Journey to the Hebrides is the translation ; 
and it is amusing to compare the two versions. 
" When we were taken up stairs," says he in 
one of his letters, " a dirty fellow bounced out 
of the bed on which one of us was to lie." 
This incident is recorded in the Journey as 
follows : " Out of one of the beds on which we 
were to repose, started up, at our entrance, a 
man black as a Cyclops from the forge." 
Sometimes Johnson translated aloud. "The 
Rehearsal," he said, very unjustly, " has not 
wit enough to keep it sweet;" then, after a 
pause, " it has not vitality enough to preserve 
it from putrefaction." 

Mannerism is pardonable, and is sometimes 
even agreeable, when the manner, though vi- 
cious, is natural. Few readers, for example, 
would be willing to part with the mannerism 
of Milton or of Burke. But a mannerism 
which does not sit easy on the mannerist, which 
has been adopted on principle, and which can 
t«e sustained only by constant effort, is always 
offensive. And such is the mannerism of 
Johnson. 

The characteristic faults of his style are so 
familiar to all our readers, and have been so 
often burlesqued, that it is almost superfluous 
to point them out. It is well known that he 
maie less use than any other eminent writer 



of those strong plain words, Anglo-Saxon ox 
Norman French, of which the rcxits lie in the 
inmost depths of our language; and that ho 
felt a vicious partiality for terms which, long 
after our own speech had been fixed, were 
borrowed from the Greek and Latin, and 
which, therefore, even when lawfully natural- 
ized, must be considered as born aliens, not 
entitled to rank with the king's English. His 
constant practice of padding out a sentence 
with useless epithets, till it became as stiff as 
the bust of an exquisite ; his antithetical forms 
of expression, constantly employed even where 
tnere is no opposition in the ideas expressed ; 
his big words wasted on little things ; his harsh 
inversions, so widely different from those 
graceful and easy inversions which give va- 
riety, spirit, and sweetness to the expression 
of our great old writers — all these peculiarities 
have been imitated by his admirers, and paro- 
died by his assailants, till the public has be- 
come sick of the subject. 

Goldsmith said to him, very wittily and very 
justly, "If you were to write a fable about 
little fishes, doctor, you would make the little 
fishes talk like whales." No man surely ever 
had so little talent for personation as Johnson. 

Whether he wrote in the character of a dis 
appointed legacy-hunter or an empty town fop, 
of a crazy virtuoso or a flippant coquette, he 
wrote in the same pompous and unbending 
style. His speech, like Sir Piercy Shafton's 
Euphuistic eloquence, bewrayed him under 
every disguise. Euphelia and Rhodoclia talk 
as finely as Imlac the poet, or Seged, Emperor 
of Ethiopia. The gay Cornelia describes her 
reception at the country-house of her relations 
in such terms as these : "I was surprised, after 
the civilities of my first reception, to find, in 
stead of the leisure and tranquillity which a 
rural life always promises, and, if well con- 
ducted, might always afford, a < onfused wild- 
ness of care, and a tumultuous hurry of 
diligence, by which every face was clouded, 
and every motion agitated." The gentle Tran- 
quilla informs us, that she " had not passed 
the earlier part of life without the flattery of 
courtship and the joys of triumph ; but had 
danced the round of gayety amidst the mur- 
murs of envy and the gratulations of applause; 
had been attended from pleasure to pleasure 
by the great, the sprightly, and the vain ; and 
had seen her regard solicited by the obsequi- 
ousness of gallantry, the gayety of wit, and the 
timidity of love." Surely Sir John Falstaff 
himself did not wear his petticoats with a 
worse grace. The reader may well cry out 
with honest Sir Hugh Evans, " I like not when 
a 'oman has a great peard: I spy a great peard 
under her muffler." 

We had something more to say. But oui 
article is already too long ; and we must closa 
it. We would fain part in good humour from 
the hero, from the biographer, and even from 
the editor, who, ill as he has performed his 
task, has at least this claim to our gratitude, 
that he has induced us to read Boswell's book 
again. As we close it, the club-room is before 
us, and the table on which stands the omelet 
for Nugent and the lemons for Johnson. There 
are assembled those heads which live forevei 



BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 



1SI 



en the canvass of Reynolds. There are the 
spectacles of Burke and the tall thin form of • 
Langton ; the courtly sneer of Beauclerk and 
the beaming smile of Garrick ; Gibbon tapping 
his snuff-box, and Sir Joshua with his trumpet 
in his ear. In the foreground is that strange 
figure which is as familiar to us as the figures 
of those among whom we have been brought 
up— the gigantic body, the huge massy face, 
seamed with the scars of disease ; the brown 
coat, the black worsted stockings, the gray 
wig with a scorched foretop ; the dirty hands, 
the nails bitten and pared to the quick. We 
see the eyes and mouth moving with convul- 
sive twitches ; we see the heavy form rolling ; 
we hear it puffing; and then comes the "Why, 
sir!" and the "What then, sir?" and the "No, 
sir !" and the "You dont see your way through 
the question, sir !" 



What a singular destiny lias been that of 
this remarkable man ! To be regarded m hia 
own age as a classic, and in ours as a compa- 
nion — to receive from his contemporaries that 
full homage which men of genius have in 
general received only from posterity — to be 
more intimately known to posterity than other 
men are known to their contemporaries ! That 
kind of fame which is commonly the most 
transient, is, in his case, the most durable. 
The reputation of those writings, which he 
probably expected to be immortal, is every day 
fading; while those peculiarities of manner, 
and that careless table-talk, the memory of 
which, he probably thought, would die with 
him, are likely to be remembered as long as the 
English language is spoken in any quarter of 
the globe. 



LOJID NUGENFS MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN/ 



[Edinburgh Review, 1831.] 



We have read this book with great pleasure, 
though not exactly with that kind of pleasure 
which we had expected. We had hoped that 
Lord Nugent would have been able to collect, 
»rom family papers and local traditions, much 
new and interesting information respecting the 
life and character of the renowned leader of 
the Long Parliament, the first of those great 
English commoners, whose plain addition of 
Mister, has, to our ears, a more majestic sound 
than the proudest of the feudal titles. In this 
hope we have been disappointed; but assuredly 
not from any want of zeal or diligence on the 
part of the noble biographer. Even at Hamp- 
den, there are, it seems, no important papers 
relative to the most illustrious proprietor of 
that ancient domain. The most valuable me- 
morials of him which still exist, belong to the 
family of his friend, Sir John Eliot. Lord 
Eliot has furnished the portrait which is en- 
graved for this work, together with some 
very interesting letters. The portrait is un- 
doubtedly an original, and probably the only 
original now in existence. The intellectual 
forehead, the mild penetration of the eye, and 
the inflexible resolution expressed by the lines 
of the mouth, sufficiently guaranty the like- 
ness. We shall probably make some extracts 
from the letters. They contain almost all the 
new information that Lord Nugent has been 
able to procure, respecting the private pursuits 
of the great man whose memory he worships 
with an enthusiastic, but not an extravagant, 
veneration. 

The public life of Hampden is surrounded 
Dy no obscurity. His history, more particu- 
arly from the beginning of the year 1640 to his 
ieath, is the history of England. These me- 



* Some Memorials of John Hampden, his Party, and hit 
Times. Bv Lord Nugent. 2 vols. 8vo. London. 1831. 



moirs must be considered as Memoirs of th« 
history of England; and, as such, they well 
deserve to be attentively perused. They con- 
tain some curious facts, which, to us at least, 
are new, much spirited narrative, many judi- 
cious remarks, and much eloquent declama- 
tion. 

We are not sure that even the want of in- 
formation respecting the private character of 
Hampden is not in itself a circumstance as 
strikingly characteristic as any which the 
most minute chronicler — O'Meara, Las Cases, 
Mrs. Thrale, or Boswell himself— ever record- 
ed concerning their heroes. The celebrated 
Puritan leader is an almost solitary instance 
of a great man who neither sought nor shunned 
greatness; who found glory only because glory 
lay in the plain path of duty. During more > 
than forty years, he was known to his country 
neighbours as a gentleman of cultivated mind, 
of high principles, of polished address, happy 
in his family, and active in the discharge of 
local duties ; to political men, as an honest, 
industrious, and sensible member of Parlia 
ment, not eager to display his talents, stanch 
to his party, and attentive to the interests of 
his constituents. A great and terrible crisis 
came. A direct attack was made, by an arbi- 
trary government, on a sacred right of Eng- 
lishmen, on a right which was the chief secu- 
rity for all their other rights. The nation 
looked round for a defender. Calmly and un- 
ostentatiously the plain Buckinghamshire Es 
quire placed himself at the head of his coun- 
trymen, and right before the face, and across 
the path of tyranny. The times grew darker 
and more troubled. Public service, perilous, 
arduous, delicate, was required; and to every 
service, the intellect and the courage of this 
wonderful man were found fully equal. He 
became a debater of the first order, a mosi 



152 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



dexterous manager of the House of Commons, 
a negotiator, a soldier. He governed a fierce 
and turbulent assembly, abounding in able 
men, as easily as he had governed his family. 
He showed himself as competent to direct a 
campaign as to conduct the business of the 
petty sessions. We can scarcely express the 
admiration which we feel for a mind so great, 
and, at the same time, so healthful and so well 
proportioned; so willingly contracting itself 
to the humblest duties; so easily expanding 
itself to the highest; so contented in repose ; 
so powerful in action. Almost every part of 
this virtuous and blameless life, which is not 
hidden from us in modest privacy, is a pre- 
cious and splendid portion of our national his- 
tory. Had the private conduct of Hampden 
afforded the slightest pretence for censure, he 
would have been assailed by the same blind 
malevolence which, in defiance of the clearest 
proofs, still continues to call Sir John Eliot an 
assassin. Had there been even any weak part 
in the character of Hampden, had his manners 
been in any respect open to ridicule, we may 
be sure that no mercy would have been shown 
to him by the writers of Charles's faction. 
Those writers have carefully preserved every 
little circumstance which could tend to make 
their opponents cdious or contemptible. They 
have told us that Pym broke down in a speech, 
that Ireton had his nose pulled by Hollis, that 
the Earl of Northumberland cudgelled Henry 
Martin, that St. John's manners were sullen, 
that Vane had an ugly face, that Cromwell 
had a red nose. They have made themselves 
merry with the canting phrases of injudicious 
zealots. But neither the artful Clarendon nor 
the scurrilous Denham could venture to throw 
the slightest imputation on the morals or the 
manners of Hampden. What was the opinion 
entertained respecting him by the best men of 
his time, we learn from Baxter. That eminent 
person*— eminent not only for his piety and his 
fervid devotional eloquence, but for his mode- 
ration, his knowledge of political affairs, and 
his skill in judging of characters — declared in 
the Saint's Rest, that one of the pleasures which 
he hoped to enjoy in Heaven was the society 
of Hampden. In the editions printed after the 
restoration, the name of Hampden was omit- 
ted. " But I must tell the reader," says Baxter, 
"that I did blot it out, not as changing my 
opinion of the person. .... Mr. John 
Hampden was one that friends and enemies 
acknowledged to be most eminent for pru- 
dence, piety, and peaceable counsels, having 
the most universal praise of any gentleman 
hat I remember of that age. I remember a 
moderate, prudent, aged gentleman, far from 
him, but acquainted with him, whom I have 
heard saying, that if he might choose what 
person he would be then in the world, he would 
be John Hampden." We cannot but regret 
that We have not fuller memorials of a man, 
who, after passing through the most severe 
temptations by which human virtue can be 
;ried, after acting a most conspicuous part in 
a revolution and a civil war, could yet deserve 
such praise as this from such authority. Yet 
the want of memorials is surely the best proof 



that hatred itself could find no blemish on hit 
memory. 

The story of his early life is soon told. He 
was the head of a family which had been set« 
tied in Buckinghamshire before the Conquest. 
Part of the estate which he inherited had been 
bestowed by Edward the Confessor on Bald- 
wyn de Hampden, whose name seems to indi- 
cate that he was one of the Norman favourites 
of the last Saxon king. During the contest 
between the houses of York and Lancaster, 
the Hampdens adhered to the party of the Red 
Rose, and were consequently persecuted by 
Edward the Fourth, and favoured by Henry 
the Seventh. Under the Tudors, the family 
was great and flourishing. Griffith Hampden, 
high sheriff of Buckinghamshire, entertained 
Elizabethwith great magnificence at his seat. 
His son, William Hampden, sate in the Parlia- 
ment which that queen summoned in the year 
1593. William married Elizabeth Cromwell, 
aunt of the celebrated man who afterwards 
governed the British islands with more than 
regal power ; and from this n carriage sprang 
John Hampden. 

He was born in 1594. In 1597 his father 
died, and left him heir to a very large estate. 
After passing some years at the grammar 
school of Thame, young Hampden was sent, 
at fifteen, to Magdalen College, in the Univer- 
sity of Oxford. At nineteen, he was admitted 
a student of the Innti 'lemple, where he made 
himself master of the principles of the English 
law. In 1619 he married Elizabeth Symeon 
a lady to whom he appears to have been fond- 
ly attached. In the following year he was 
returned to Parliament by a borough which 
has in our time obtained a miserable celebrity, 
the borough of Grampound. 

Of his private life during his early years, 
little is known beyond what Clarendon has 
told us. " In his entrance into the world," 
says that great historian, "he indulged him- 
self in all the license in sports, and exercises, 
and company, which were used by men of 
the most jolly conversation." A remarkable 
change, however, passed in his character. 
" On a sudden," says Clarendon, " from a life 
of great pleasure and license, he retired to ex- 
traordinary sobriety and strictness, to a more 
reserved and melancholy society." It is proba- 
ble that this change took place when Hamp- 
den was about twenty-five years old. At that 
age he was united to a woman whom he loved 
and esteemed. At that age he entered into 
political life. A mind so happily constituted 
as his, would naturally, under such circum- 
stances, relinquish the pleasures of dissipation 
for domestic enjoyments and public duties. 

His enemies have allowed that he was a 
man in whom virtue showed itself in its mild- 
est and least austere form. With the morals 
of a Puritan, he had the manners of an accom- 
plished courtier. Even after the change in 
his habits, " he preserved," says Clarendon, 
" his own natural cheerfulness and vivacity, 
and, above all, a flowing courtesy to all men." 
These qualities distinguished him from most 
of the members of his sect and his party; and, 
in the great crisis in which he afterwards took 



LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN. 



15.1 



a principal part, were of scarcely less service 
to the country than his keen sagacity and his 
dauntless courage. 

On the 30th of January, 1621, Hampden took 
his seat in the House of Commons. His 
' mother was exceedingly desirous that her son 
should obtain a peerage. His family, his pos- 
sessions, and his personal accomplishments 
were such as would, in any age, have justified 
him in pretending to that honour. But, in the 
reign of James the First, there was one short 
cut to the House of Lords. It was but to ask, 
to pay, ani :o hays. The sale of titles was 
carried on as openly as the sale of boroughs 
in our times. Hampden turned away with 
contempt from the degrading honours with 
which his family desired to see him invested, 
and attached himself to the party which was 
in opposition to the court. 

It was about this time, as Lord Nugent has 
justly remarked, that parliamentary opposition 
began to take a regular form. From a very 
early age, the English had enjoyed a far larger 
share of liberty than had fallen to the lot of 
any neighbouring people. How it chanced 
that a country conquered and enslaved by in- 
vaders, a cojintry of which the soil had been 
portioned out among foreign adventurers, and 
of which the laws were written in a foreign 
tongue, a country given over to that worst ty- 
ranny, the tyranny of caste over caste, should 
have become the seat of civil liberty, the object 
of the admiration and envy of surrounding 
states, is one of the most obscure problems in 
the philosophy of history. But the fact is cer- 
tain. Within a century and a half after the 
Norman Conquest, the Great Charter was con- 
ceded. Within two centuries after the Con- 
quest, the first House of Commons met. Frois- 
sart tells us, what indeed his whole narrative 
sufficiently proves, that of all the nations of the 
fourteenth century, the English were the least 
disposed to endure oppression. " C'est le plus 
perilleux peuple qui soit au monde, et plus 
outrageux et orgueilleux." The good Canon 
probably did not perceive that all the prospe- 
rity and internal peace which this dangerous 
people enjoyed were the fruits of the spirit 
which he designates as proud and outrageous. 
He has, however, borne ample testimony to the 
effect, though he was not sagacious enough tc 
trace it to its cause. "En le royaume d'An- 
gleterre," says he, " toutes gens, laboureurs et 
marchands, ont appris de vivre en pays, et a. 
mener leurs marchandises paisiblement, et les 
laboureurs labourer." In the fifteenth century, 
though England was convulsed by the struggle 
between the two branches of the royal family, 
the physical and moral condition of the people 
continued to improve. Villanage almost wholly 
disappeared. The calamities of war were little 
felt, except by those who bore arms. The 
oppressions of the government were little felt, 
except by the aristocracy The institutions of 
tb.3 country, when compared with the institu- 
tions of the neighbouring kingdoms, seem to 
have been not undeserving of the praises of 
Fortescue. The government of Edward the 
Fourth, though we call it cruel and arbitrary, 
was humane and liberal, when compared with 
that of Louis the Eleventh, or that of Charles 



the Bold. Comines, who had lived amidst th 
wealthy cities of Flanders, and who had visite 
Florence and Venice, had never seen a peopl 
so well governed as the English. " Or selou 
mon advis," says he, " entre toutes les seigneu- 
ries du monde, dont j'ay connoissanee, ou la 
chose publique est mieux traitee, et ou regne 
moins de violence sur le peuple, et ou il n'y a 
nuls edifices abbatus n'y demolis pour guerre, 
c'est Angleterre; ettornbele sort et le malheur 
sur ceux qui font la guerre." 

About the close of the fifteenth and the com- 
mencement of the sixteenth century, a great 
portion of the influence which the aristocracy 
had possessed passed to the crown. No Eng 
lish king has ever enjoyed such absolute power 
as Henry the Eighth. But while the royal pre- 
rogatives were acquiring strength at the ex- 
pense of the nobility, two great revolutions 
took place, destined to be the parents of many 
revolutions — the discovery of printing and the 
reformation of the Church. 

The immediate effect of the Reformation in 
England was by no means favourable to poli- 
tical liberty. The authority which had been 
exercised by the Popes was transferred almost 
entire to the king. Two formidable powers 
which had often served to check each other, 
were united in a single despot. If the system 
on which the founders of the Church of Eng- 
land acted could have been permanent, the Re- 
formation would have been, in a political 
sense, the greatest curse that ever fell on our 
country. But that system carried within it the 
seeds of its own death. It was possible to trans- 
fer the name of Head of the Church from 
Clement to Henry ; but it was impossible to 
transfer to the new establishment the venera- 
tion which the old establishment had inspired 
Mankind had not broken one yoke in pieces 
only in order to put on another. The supre- 
macy of the Bishop of Rome had been for 
ages considered as a fundamental principle of 
Christianity. It had for it every thing that 
could make a prejudice deep and strong — 
venerable antiquity, high authority, general 
consent. It had been taught in the first lessons 
of the nurse. It was taken for granted in all 
the exhortations of the priest. To remove it 
was to break innumerable associations, and to 
give a great and perilous shock to the mind. 
Yet this prejudice, strong as it was, could 
not stand in the great day of the deliverance 
of the human reason. And as it was not to be 
expected that the public mind, just after fret 
ing itself, by an unexampled effort, from & 
bondage which it had endured for ages, would 
patiently submit to a tyranny which could 
plead no ancient title. Rome had at least pre 
scription on its side. But Protestant intole 
ranee, despotism in an upstart sect, infallibility 
claimed by guides who acknowledged that they 
had passed the greater part of their lives in 
error, restraints imposed on the liberty cf pri- 
vate judgment by rulers who could vindicate 
their own proceedings only by asserting the 
liberty of private judgment — diese things could 
not long be borne. Those who had pulled 
down the crucifix could not long continue tc 
persecute for the surplice. It required no great 
sagacity to perceive the inconsistency anddis 



.54 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



honesty of men who, dissenting from almost all 
Christendom, would suffer none to dissent from 
themselves; who demanded freedom of con- 
science, yet refused to grant it ; who execrated 
persecution, yet persecuted; who urged reason 
against the authority of one opponent, and 
authority against the reasons of another. Bon- 
ner at least acted in accordance with his own 
principles. Cranmer could vindicate himself 
from the charge of being a heretic, only by 
arguments which made him out to be a mur- 
derer. 

Thus the system on which the English 
princes acted with respect to ecclesiastical af- 
fairs for some time after the Reformation, was 
a system too obviously unreasonable to be 
lasting. The public mind moved while the 
government moved ; but would not stop where 
the government stopped. The same impulse 
which had carried millions away from the 
Church of Rome, continued to carry them for- 
ward in the same direction. As Catholics had 
foecome Protestants, Protestants became Puri- 
tans ; and the Tudors and Stuarts were as un- 
able to avert the latter change as the Popes 
had been to avert the former. The dissenting 
party increased, and became strong under 
every kind of discouragement and oppression. 
They were a sect. The government persecuted 
them, and they became an opposition. The 
old constitution of England furnished to them 
the means of resisting the sovereign without 
breaking the laws. They were the majority of 
the House of Commons. They had the power 
of giving or withholding supplies ; and, by a 
judicious exercise of this power, they might 
hope to take from the Church its usurped 
authority over the consciences of men; and 
from the Crown some part of the vast preroga- 
tive which it had recently acquired at the 
expense of the nobles and of the Pope. 

The faint beginnings of this memorable con- 
test may be discerned early in the reign of 
Elizabeth. The conduct of her last Parliament 
made it clear that one of those great revolutions 
which policy may guide, but cannot stop, was 
in progress. It was on the question of Mono- 
polies that the House of Commons gained its 
first great victory over the throne. The con- 
duct of the extraordinary woman who then 
governed England is an admirable study for 
politicians v/ho live in unquiet times. It shows 
how thoroughly she understood the people 
Whom she ruled, and the crisis in which she 
was called to act. What she held, she held 
firmly. What she gave, she gave graciously. 
She saw that it was necessary to make a con- 
cession to the nation: and she made it, not 
grudgingly, not tardily, not as a matter of bar- 
gain and sale, not, in a word, as Charles the 
First would have made it, but promptly and 
cordially. Before a bill could be framed or an 
address presented, she applied a remedy to the 
evil of which the nation compiained. She ex- 
pressed in the warmest terms her gratitude to 
her faithful Commons for detecting abuses 
which interested persons had concealed from 
her If her successors had inherited her wis- 
dom with her crown, Charles the First might 
nave died of old age, and James the Second 
«rukl never have seeD St. Germains. 



She died; and the kingdom passed to or* 
who was, in his own opinion, the greatest mas- 
ter of kingcraft that ever lived ; who was, in 
truth, one of those kings whom God seems to 
send for the express purpose of hastening re« 
volutions. Of all the enemies of liberty whom 
Britain has produced, he was at once the most 
harmless and the most provoking. His office 
resembled that of the man who, in a Spanish 
bull-fight, goads the torpid savage to fury, by 
shaking a red rag in the air, and now and then 
throwing a dart, sharp enough to sting, but too 
small to injure. The policy of wise tyrants 
has always been to cover their violent acts 
with popular forms. James was always ob- 
truding his despotic theories on his subjects 
without the slightest necessity. His foolish 
talk exasperated them infinitely more than 
forced loans or benevolences would have done. 
Yet, in practice, no king ever held his preroga- 
tives less tenaciously. He neither gave way 
gracefully to the advancing spirit of liberty, 
nor took vigorous measures to stop it, but 
retreated before it with ludicrous haste, blus- 
tering and insulting as he retreated. Tha 
English people had been governed for nearly 
a hundred and fifty years by princes who, 
whatever might be their frailties or their vices, 
had all possessed great force of character 
and who, whether beloved or hated, had always 
been feared. Now, at length, for the first time 
since the day when the sceptre of Henry the 
Fourth dropped from the hand of his lethargic 
grandson, England had a king whom she de- 
spised. 

The follies and vices of the man increased 
the contempt which was produced by the 
feeble policy of the sovereign. The indeco- 
rous gallantries of the Court, the habits of 
gross intoxication in which even the ladies 
indulged, were alone sufficient to disgust a 
people whose manners were beginning to be 
strongly tinctured with austerity. But these 
were trifles. Crimes of the most frightful 
kind had been discovered; others were sus- 
pected. The strange story of the Gowries was 
not forgotten. The ignominious fondness of 
the king for his minions, the perjuries, the sor- 
ceries, the poisonings, which his chief favour- 
ites had planned within the walls of his palace, 
the pardon which, in direct violation of his 
duty, and of his word, he had granted to the 
mysterious threats of a murderer, made him an 
object of loathing to many of his subjects- 
What opinion grave and moral persons re- 
siding at a distance from the court entertained 
respecting him, we learn from Mrs. Hutchin- 
son's Memoirs. England was no place, the 
seventeenth century no time, for Sporus and 
Locusta. 

This was not all. The most ridiculous 
weaknesses seemed to meet in the wretched 
Solomon of Whitehall ; pedantry, buffoonery 
garrulity, low curiosity, the most contemptible 
personal cowardice. Nature and education 
had done their best to produce a finished spe- 
cimen of all that a king ought not to be. His 
awkward figure, his rolling eye, his rickety 
walk, his nervous tremblings, his slobbering 
mouth, his broad Scotch accent, were impe •■ 
fections which might have been found in th< 



LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN. 



15ft 



best and greatest man. Their effect, however, 
was to make James and his office objects of 
contempt ; and to dissolve those associations 
which had been created by the noble bearing 
of preceding monarchs, and which were in 
themselves no inconsiderable fence to royalty. 

The sovereign whom James most resembled 
was, we think, Claudius Caesar. Both had the 
same feeble and vacillating temper, the same 
childishness, the same coarseness, the same 
poltroonery. Both were men of learning; both 
wrote and spoke — not, indeed, well — but still 
in a manner in which it seems almost incredi- 
ble that men so foolish should have written or 
spoken. The follies and indecencies of James 
are well described in the words which Sueto- 
nius uses respecting Claudius: "Multa talia, 
etiam privatis deformia, necdum principi, ne- 
que infacundo, neque indocto, immo etiam 
pertinaciter liberalibus studiis dedito." The 
description given by Suetonius of the manner 
in Avhich the Roman prince transacted busi- 
ness, exactly suits the Briton. "In cogno- 
scendo ac decernendo mira varietate animi 
fuit, modo circumspectus et sagax, modo in- 
consultus ac prasceps, non nunquam frivolus 
amentique similis." Claudius was ruled suc- 
cessively by two bad women ; James success- 
ively by two bad men. Even the description 
of the person of Claudius, which we find in 
the ancient memoirs, might, in many points, 
serve for that of James. " Ceterum et ingre- 
dientem destituebant poplites minus firmi, et 
remisse quid vel serio agentem multa dehone- 
Jtabant : risus indecens ; ira turpior, spumante 
■ictu, proeterea linguae titubantia." 

The Parliament which James had called 
loon after his accession had been refractory. 
rfis second Parliament, called in the spring 
flf 1S14, had been more refractory still. It had 
6een dissolved after a session of two months ; 
and during six years the king had governed 
without having recourse to the legislature. 
During those six years, melancholy and dis- 
graceful events, at home and abroad, had fol- 
lowed one another in rapid succession ; — the 
divorce of Lady Essex, the murder of Overbury, 
the elevation of Villi«rs, the pardon of Somer- 
set, the disgrace of Coke, the execution of Ra- 
leigh, the battle of Pragae, the invasion of the 
Palatinate by Spitioia, ihe ignominious flight 
of the son-in-law of the English king, the de- 
pression of the Protestant interest all over the 
Continent. All the extraordinary modes by 
which James could venture to raise money 
had been tried. His necessities were greater 
than ever ; and he was compelled to summon 
the Parliament in which Hampden made his 
first appearance as a public man. 

This Parliament lasted about twelve months. 
During that time it visited with deserved pu- 
nishment several of those who, during the 
preceding six years, had enriched themselves 
by peculation and monopoly. Michell, one of 
those grasping patentees, who had purchased 
of the favourite the power of robbing the na- 
tion, was fined and imprisoned for life. Mom- 
pesson, the original, it is said, of Massinger's 
* Overreach," was outlawed and deprived of 
his ill-gotten wealth. Even Sir Edward Vil- 
<iers, the brother of Buckingham, found it 



convenient to leave England. A greater r.am« 
is to be added to the ignominious list. By this 
Parliament was brought to justice that illus« 
trious philosopher, whose memory genius has 
half redeemed from the infamy due to servility, 
to ingratitude, and to corruption. 

After redressing internal grievances, the 
Commons proceeded to take into considera- 
tion the state of Europe. The king flew intc 
a rage with them for meddling with such mat- 
ters, and, with characteristic judgment, drew 
them into a controversy about the origin of 
the House and of its privileges. When he 
found that he could not convince them, he 
dissolved them in a passion, and sent some of 
the leaders of the Opposition to ruminate -an 
his logic in prison. 

During the time which elapsed between this 
dissolution and the meeting of the next Parlia- 
ment, took place the celebrated negotiation re- 
specting the Infanta. The would-be despot was 
unmercifully browbeaten. The would-be Solo- 
mon was ridiculously overreached. "Steenie," 
in spite of the begging and sobbing of his dear 
"dad and gossip," carried off "baby Charles" 
in triumph to Madrid. The sAveet lads, as 
James called them, came back safe, but with- 
out their errand. The great master of king- 
craft, in looking for a Spanish match, found a 
Spanish war. In February, 1624, a Parlia* 
ment met, during the whole sitting of which 
James was a mere puppet in the hands of his 
"baby," and of his "poor slave and dog." The 
Commons were disposed to support the king- 
in the vigorous policy which his son and his 
favourite urged him to adopt. But they were 
not disposed to place any confidence in their 
feeble sovereign and his dissolute courtiers, 
or to relax in their efforts to remove public 
grievances. They therefore lodged the money 
which they voted for the war in the hands 
of parliamentary commissioners. They im- 
peached the treasurer, Lord Middlesex, for 
corruption, and they passed a bill by which 
patents of monopoly were declared illegal. 

Hampden did not, during the reign of James, 
take any prominent part in public affairs. It 
is certain, however, that he paid great atten- 
tion to the details of parliamentary business, 
and to the local interests of his own county. 
It was in a great measure owing to his exer- 
tions, that Wendover and some other boroughs, 
on which the popular party could depend, re- 
covered the elective franchise, in spite of the 
opposition of the court. 

The health of the king had for some time 
been declining. On the 27th of March, 1625, 
he expired. Under his weak rule, the spirit 
of liberty had grown strong, and had become 
equal to the great contest. The contest was 
brought on by the policy of his successor. 
Charles bore no resemblance to his father 
He was not a driveller, or a pedant, or a buf 
foon, or a coward. It would be absurd to deny 
that he was a scholar and a gentleman, a man 
of exquisite taste in the fine arts, a man of 
strict morals in private life. His talents for 
business were respectable ; his demeanour 
was kingly. But he was false, imperious, ob- 
stinate, narrowminded, ignorant of the tempei 
of his people, unobservant of the signs of hia 



156 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



times. The whole principle of his government 
was resistance to public opinion ; nor did he 
make any real concession to that opinion till 
it mattered not whether he resisted or con- 
ceded ; till the nation, which had long ceased 
to love him or to trust him, had at last ceased 
to fear him. 

His first Parliament met in June, 1625. 
Hampden sat in it as burgess for Wendover. 
The king wished for money. The Commons 
wished for the redress of grievances. The 
war, however, could not be carried on without 
funds. The plan of the Opposition was, it 
should seem, to dole out supplies by small 
sums in order to prevent a speedy dissolution. 
They gave the king two subsidies only, and 
proceeded to complain that his ships had been 
employed against the Huguenots in France, 
and to petition in behalf of the Puritans who 
were persecuted in England. The king dis- 
solved them, and raised money by letters un- 
der his privy seal. The supply fell far short 
of what he needed; and, in the spring of 1626, 
he called together another Parliament. In this 
Parliament, Hampden again sat for Wendover. 

The Commons resolved to grant a very libe- 
ral supply, but to defer the final passing of 
the act for that purpose till the grievances of 
the nation should be redressed. The struggle 
which followed far exceeded in violence any 
that had yet taken place. The Commons im- 
peached Buckingham. The king threw the 
managers of the impeachment into prison. 
The Commons denied the right of the king 
to levy tonnage and poundage without their 
consent. The king dissolved them. They put 
forth a remonstrance. The king circulated a 
declaration vindicating his measures, and com- 
mitted some of the most distinguished members 
of the Opposition to close custody. Money 
was raised by a forced loan, which was appor- 
tioned among the people according to the rate 
at which they had been respectively assessed 
to the last subsidy. On this occasion it was 
that Hampden made his first stand for the fun- 
damental principle of the English constitution. 
He positively refused to lend a farthing. He 
was required to give his reasons. He answer- 
ed, "chat he could be content to lend as well 
as others, but feared to draw upon himself 
that curse in Magna Charta which should 
be read twice a year against those who in- 
fringe it." For this noble answer the Privy 
Council committed him close prisoner to the 
Gate-House. After some time, he was again 
brought up; but he persisted in his refusal, 
and was sent to a place of confinement in 
Hampshire. 

The government went on, oppressing at 
home, and blundering in all its measures 
abroad. A war was foolishly undertaken 
against France, and more foolishly conducted. 
Buckingham led an expedition against Rhe, 
and failed ignominiously. In the mean time, 
soldiers were billeted on the people. Crimes, 
of which ordinary justice should have taken 
cognisance, were punished by martial law. 
Nearly eighty gentlemen were imprisoned for 
teiusing to contribute to the forced loan. The 
«ower people, who showed any signs of insub- 

rdination, were pressed into the fleet, or com- 



pelled to serve in the army. Money, however 
came in slowly : and the king was compelled 
to summon another Parliament. In the hope 
of conciliating his subjects, he set at liberty 
the persons who had been imprisoned for re. 
fusing to comply with his unlawful demands 
Hampden regained his freedom ; and was ira 
mediately re-elected burgess for Wendover. 

Early in 1628 the Parliament met. During 
its first session, the Commons prevailed on the 
king, after mafiy delays and much equivoca- 
tion, to give, in return for five subsidies, his 
full and solemn assent to that celebrated in« 
strument, the second great charter of the liber, 
ties of England, known by the name of the 
Petition of Right. By agreeing to this act, the 
king bound himself to raise no taxes without 
the consent of Parliament, to imprison no man 
except by.legal process, to billet no more sol- 
diers on the people, and to leave the cognisance 
of offences to the ordinary tribunals. 

In the summer this memorable Parliament 
was prorogued. It met again in January, 1 629. 
Buckingham was no more. That weak, vio- 
lent, and dissolute adventurer, who, with no 
talents or acquirements but those of a mere 
courtier, had, in a great crisis of foreign and 
domestic politics, ventured on the part of 
prime minister, had fallen, during the recess 
of Parliament, by the hand of an assassin. 
Both before and after his death, the war had 
been feebly and unsuccessfully conducted. 
The king had continued, in direct violation of 
the Petition of Right, to raise tonnage and 
poundage, without the consent of Parliament. 
The troops had again been billeted on the 
people ; and it was clear to the Commons, thai 
the five subsidies which they had given, as the 
price of the national liberties, had been given 
in vain. 

They met accordingly in no complying hu- 
mour. They took into their most serious con 
sideration the measures of the government 
concerning tonnage and poundage. They 
summoned the officers of the custom-house to 
their bar. They interrogated the barons of 
the exchequer. They committed one of the 
sheriff's of London. Sir John Eliot, a distin- 
guished member of the opposition, and an 
intimate friend of Hampden, proposed a reso- 
lution condemning the unconstitutional impo- 
sition. The speaker said that the king had 
commanded him to put no such question to 
the vote. This decision produced the most 
violent burst of feeling ever seen within the 
walls of Parliament. Hayman remonstrated 
vehemently against the disgraceful language 
which had been heard from the chair. Eliot 
dashed the paper which contained his resolu 
tion on the floor of the House. Valentine and 
Hollis held the speaker down in his seat by 
main force, and read the motion amidst the 
loudest shouts. The door was locked ; the key 
was laid on the table. Black Rod knocked for 
admittance in vain. After passing severa 
strong resolutions, the House adjourned. — Or. 
the day appointed for its meeting, it was 
dissolved t>y the king, and several of its 
most eminent members, among whom were 
Hollis and Sir John Eliot, were committed tc 
prison. 



LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN. 



161 



Though Hampden had as yet taken little 
part in the debates of the House, he had been 
a member of many very important committees, 
and had read and written much concerning the 
law of Parliament. A manuscript volume of 
Parliamentary Cases, which is still in exist- 
ence, contains many extracts from his notes. 

He now retired to the duties and pleasures 
of a rural life. During the eleven years which 
followed the dissolution of the Parliament of 
1628, he resided at his seat in one of the most 
beautiful parts of the county of Buckingham. 
The house, which has, since his time, been 
greatly altered, and which is now, we believe, 
almost entirely neglected, was then an old 
English mansion, built in the days of the 
Plantagenets and the Tudors. It stood on the 
brow of a hill which overlooks a narrow val- 
ley. The extensive woods which surround it 
were pierced by long avenues. One of those 
avenues the grandfather of the great statesman 
cut for the approach of Elizabeth ; and the 
opening, which is still visible for many miles, 
retains the name of the Queen's Gap. In this 
delightful retreat Hampden passed several 
years, performing with great activity all the 
duties of a landed gentleman and a magistrate, 
and amusing himself with books and with 
fieldsports. 

He was not in his retirement unmindful of 
his prosecuted friends. In particular, he kept 
up a close correspondence with Sir John Eliot, 
who was confined in the Tower. Lord Nugent 
has published several of the letters. We may 
perhaps be fanciful; but it seems to us that 
every one of them is an admirable illustration 
of some part of the character of Hampden 
which Clarendon has drawn. 

Part of the correspondence relates to the 
two sons of Sir John Eliot. These young 
men were wild and unsteady ; and their father, 
who was now separated from them, was na- 
turally anxious about their conduct. He at 
length resolved to send one of them to France, 
and the other to serve a campaign in the Low 
Countries. The letter which we subjoin shows 
that Hampden, though rigorous towards him- 
self, was not uncharitable towards others, and 
that his puritanism was perfectly compatible 
with the sentiments and the tastes of an accom- 
plished gentleman. It also illustrates admi- 
rably what has been said of him by Clarendon : 
"He was of that rare affability and temper in 
debate, and of that seeming humility and sub- 
mission of judgment, as if he brought no opi- 
nion of his own with him, but a desire of 
information and instruction. Yet he had so 
subtle a way of interrogating, and, under 
cover of doubts, insinuating his objections, 
that he infused his own opinions into tho.*e 
from whom he pretended to learn and receive 
them." 

The letter runs thus: "I am so perfectly 
acquainted with your clear insight irto the 
dispositions of men, and ability to Lt them 
with courses suitable, that, had you uestowed 
sons of mine as you have done your own, my 
judgment durst hardly have called it into 
question, especially when, in laying the de- 
sign, you have prevented the objections to be 
made against it. For if Mr. Richard Eliot 
11 



will, in the intermissions of action, adft stud 
to practice, and adorn that lively spirit with 
flowers of contemplation, he will raise our 
expectations of another Sir Edward Vere, that 
had this character — all summer in the field, all 
winter in his study — in whose fall fame makes 
this kingdom a great loser; and, having taken 
this resolution from counsel with the highest 
wisdom, as I doubt not you have, I hope and 
pray that the same Power will crown it with a 
blessing answerable to our wish. The way 
you take with my other friend shows you to be 
none of the Bishop of Exeter's converts ;* of 
whose mind neither am I superstitiously. But 
had my opinion been asked, I should, as vulgar 
conceits use to do, have showed my power 
rather to raise objections than to answer them, 
A temperf between France and Oxford might 
have taken away his scruples, with morG ad 

vantage to his years For 

although he be one of those that, if his age 
were looked for in no other book but that of 
the mind, Avould be found no ward if you should 
die to-morrow ; yet it is a great hazard, me- 
thinks, to see so sweet a disposition guarded 
with no more, amongst a people whereof many 
make it their religion to be superstitious in 
impiety, and their behaviour to be affected in 
ill manners. But God, who only knoweth the 
periods of life and opportunities to come, hath 
designed him, I hope, for his own service be- 
time, and stirred up your providence to hus- 
band him so early for great affairs. Then 
shall he be sure to find Him in France that 
Abraham did in Sechem and Joseph in Egypt, 
under whose wing alone is perfect safety." 

Sir John Eliot employed himself, during his 
imprisonment, in writing a treatise on govern- 
ment, which he transmitted to his friend. 
Hampden's criticisms are strikingly charac- 
teristic. They are written with all that "flow- 
ing courtesy" which is ascribed to him by 
Clarendon. The objections are insinuated 
with so much delicacy, that they could scarce- 
ly gall the most irritable author. We see, too, 
how highly Hampden valued in the writings 
of others that conciseness which was one of 
the most striking peculiarities of his own elo- 
quence. Sir John Eliot's style was, it seems, 
too diffuse, and it is impossible not to admire 
the skill wilh which this is suggested. "The 
piece," says Hampden, "is as complete, an 
image of the pattern as can be drawn by lines 
— a lively character of a large mind — the sub- 
ject, method, and expression, excellent and 
homogemal, and to say truth, sweetheart, 
. c jm&what exceeding my commendations. My 
vords cannot render them to the life. Yet 
to show my ingenuity rather than wit — would 
not a less model have given a full representa- 
tion of that subject — not by diminution but by 
contraction of parts! I desire to learn. I 
dare not say. — The variations upon each par 



* Lord Nugent, we .hink.has misunderstood this pai 
sage. Hampden seems to allude to Bishop Hall's sixth 
satire, in which the custom of sending young men 
abroad is censured, and an academic life recommended. 
We have a general recollection that mere is something 
to the same effect in Hall's prose works ; but we have 
not time to search them. 

t " A middle course— i compromise," 



158 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ticular seem many — all, I confess, excellent. 
The fountain was full, the channel narrow; 
that may be the cause ; or that the author re- 
sembled Virgil, who made more verses by 
many than he intended to write. To extract 
a just number, had I seen all his, I could easily 
have bid him make fewer; but if he had bade 
me tell which he could have spared, I had been 
posed." 

This is evidently the writing, not only of a 
man of good sense and good taste, but of a man 
of literary habits. Of the studies of Hampden 
little is known. But as it was at one time in 
contemplation to give him the charge of the 
education of the Prince of Wales, it cannot be 
doubted that his acquirements were consider- 
able. Davila, it is said, was one of his fa- 
vourite writers. The moderation of Davila's 
opinions, and the perspicuity and manliness 
of his style, could not but recommend him to 
so judicious a reader. It is not improbable 
that the parallel between France and England, 
the Huguenots and the Puritans, had struck 
the mind of Hampden, and that he already felt 
within himself powers not unequal to the lofty 
part of Coligni. While he was engaged in 
these pursuits, a heavy domestic calamity fell 
on him. His wife, who had borne him nine 
children, died in the summer of 1634. She 
lies in the parish church of Hampden, close to 
the manor-house The tender and energetic 
language of her epitaph still attests the bitter- 
ness of her husband's sorrow, and the consola- 
tion which he found in a hope full of immor- 
tality. 

In the mean time, the aspect of public affairs 
grew darker and darker. The health of Eliot 
had sunk under an unlawful imprisonment of 
several years. The brave sufferer refused to 
purchase liberty, though liberty would to him 
have been life, by recognising the authority 
which had confined him. In consequence of 
the representations of his physicians, the se- 
verity of restraint was somewhat relaxed. But 
it was in vain. He languished and expired a 
martyr to that good cause, for which his friend 
Hampden was destined to meet a more brilliant 
but not a more honourable death. 

All the promises of the king were violated 
without scruple or shame. The Petition of 
Right, to which he had, in consideration of 
moneys duly numbered, given a solemn assent, 
was set at naught. Taxes were raised by the 
royal authority. Patents of monopoly were 
granted. The old usages of feudal times were 
made pretexts for harassing the people with 
exactions unknown during many years. The 
Puritans were persecuted with cruelty worthy 
of the Holy Office. They were forced to fly 
from, the country. They were imprisoned. 
They were whipped. Their ears were cut off. 
Their noses were slit. Their cheeks were 
branded with red-hot iron. But the cruelty of 
me oppressor could not tire out the fortitude 
f the victims. The mutilated defenders of 
liberty again defied the vengeance of the Star- 
Chamber, came back with undiminished reso- 
lution to the place of their glorious infamy, and 
manfully presented the stumps of their ears to 
be grubbed out by the hangman's knife. The 
•»ardv sect grew up and flourished, in spite of 



everything that seemed likely to stum it, struck 
its roots deep into a barren soil, and spread its 
branches wide to an inclement sky. The mul- 
titude thronged round Prynne in the pillory 
with more respect, than they paid to Mainwar- 
ing in the pulpit, and treasured up the rags 
which the blood of Burton had soaked, with a 
veneration such as rochets and surplices had 
ceased to inspire. 

For the misgovernment of this disastrous 
period, Charles himself is principally respon- 
sible. After the death of Buckingham, he 
seemed to have been his own prime minister. 
He had, however, two counsellors who se- 
conded him, or went beyond him, in intolerance 
and lawless violence ; the one a superstitious 
driveller, as honest as a vile temper would 
suffer him to be ; the other a man of great va- 
lour and capacity, but licentious, faithless, 
corrupt, and cruel. 

Never were faces more strikingly character- 
istic of the individuals to whom they belonged, 
than those of Laud and Strafford, as they still 
remain portrayed by the most skilful hand of 
that age. The mean forehead, the pinched 
features, the peering eyes of the prelate suit 
admirably with his disposition. They mark 
him out as a lower kind of Saint Dominic, 
differing from the fierce and gloomy enthu 
siast who founded the Inquisition, as we might 
imagine the familiar imp of a spiteful witch to 
differ from an archangel of darkness. When 
we read his judgments, when we read the re- 
port which he drew up, setting forth that he 
had sent some separatists to prison, and im- 
ploring the royal aid against others, we feel a 
movement of indignation. We turn to his 
Diary, and we are at once as cool as contempt 
can make us. There we read how his picture 
fell down, and how fearful he was lest the fall 
should be an omen ; how he dreamed that the 
Duke of Buckingham came to bed to him ; that 
King James walked past him; that he saw 
Thomas Flaxage in green garments, and the 
Bishop of Worcester with his shoulders wrap- 
ped in linen. In the early part of 1627, the 
sleep of this great ornament of the church 
seems to have been much disturbed. On the 
5th of January, he saw a merry old man with 
a wrinkled countenance, named Grove, lying 
on the ground. On the fourteenth of the same 
memorable month, he saw the Bishop of Lin- 
coln jump on a horse and ride away. A day 
or two after this, he dreamed that he gave th« 
king drink in a silver cup, and that the king 
refused it, and called for a glass. Then he 
dreamed that he had turned Papist — of all his 
dreams the only one, we suspect, which came 
through the gate of horn. But of these visions; 
our favourite is that which, as he has record- 
ed, he enjoyed on the night of Friday the 9th 
of February, 1627. "I dreamed," says he, 
" that I had the scurvy ; and that forthwith all 
my teeth became loose. There was one in 
especial in my lower jaw, which I could 
scarcely keep in with my finger till I had called 
for help." Here was a man to have the super- 
intendence of the opinions of a great nation ! 

But Wentworth — who ever names him with- 
out thinking of those harsh dark features, en- 
nobled by their expressions into more than the 



LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN. 



159 



majesty of an antique Jupiter; of that brow, 
that eye, that cheek, that lip, wherein, as in a 
chronicle, are written the events of many 
stormy and disastrous years ; high enterprise 
accomplished, frightful dangers braved, power 
unsparingly exercised, suffering unshrink- 
ingly borne ; of that fixed look, so full of se- 
verity, of mournful anxiety ; of deep thought, 
of dauntless resolution, which seems at once 
to forebode and defy a terrible fate, as it 
lowers on us from the living canvass of Van- 
dyke] Even at this day the haughty earl 
overawes posterity as he overawed his con- 
temporaries, and excites the same interest 
when arraigned before the tribunal of history, 
which he excited at the bar of the House of 
Lords. In spite of ourselves, we sometimes 
feel towards his memory a certain relenting, 
similar to that relenting which his defence, as 
Sir John Denham tells us, produced in West- 
minster Hall. 

This great, brave, bad man entered the 
House of Commons at the same time with 
Hampden, and took the same side with Hamp- 
den. Both were among the richest and most 
powerful commoners in the kingdom. Both 
were equally distinguished by force of charac- 
ter and by personal courage. Hampden had 
more judgment and sagacity than Wentworth. 
But no orator of that time equalled Wentworth 
in force and brilliancy of expression. In 1626, 
both these eminent men were committed to pri- 
son by the king ; Wentworth, who was among 
the leaders of the Opposition, on account of his 
parliamentary conduct; Hampden, who had 
not as yet taken a prominent part in debate, 
for refusing to pay taxes illegally imposed. 

Here their paths separated. After the death 
of Buckingham, the king attempted to seduce 
some of the chiefs of the opposition from their 
party ; and Wentworth was among those who 
yielded to the seduction. He abandoned his 
associates, and hated them ever after with the 
deadly hatred of a renegade. High titles and 
great employments were heaped upon him. 
He became. Earl of Strafford, Lord-Lieutenant 
of Ireland, President of the Council of" the 
North ; and he employed all his power for the 
purpose of crushing those liberties of which 
he had been the most distinguished champion. 
His counsels respecting public affairs were 
fierce and arbitrary. His correspondence with 
Laud abundantly proves that government with- 
out Parliaments, government by the sword, was 
his favourite scheme. He was unwilling even 
that the course of justice between man and 
man should be unrestrained by the royal pre- 
rogative. He grudged to the Courts of King's 
Bench and Common Pleas even that measure 
of liberty, which the most absolute of the 
Bourbons have allowed to the Parliaments of 
France. 

In Ireland, where he stood in the place of 
the king, his practice was in strict accordance 
with his theory. He set up the authority of the 
executive government over that of the courts 
of law. He permitted no person to leave the 
island without his license. He established 
vast monopolies for his own private benefit. 
He imposed taxes arbitrarily. He levied them 
by military force. Some of his acts are de- 



scribed even by the partial Clarendon as po-w- 
erful acts — acts which marked a nature exces« 
sively imperious — acts which caused dislike 
and terror in sober and dispassionate persons 
— high acts of oppression. Upon a most fri 
volous charge, he obtained a capital sentence 
from a court-martial against a man of high 
rank who had given him offence. He debauch- 
ed the daughter-in-law of the Lord Chan- 
cellor of Ireland, and then commanded that 
nobleman to settle his estate according to the 
wishes of the lady. The chancellor refused. 
The Lord-Lieutenant turned him out of office, 
and threw him into prison. When the violent 
acts of the Long Parliament are blamed, let ft 
not be forgotten from what a tyranny they 
rescued the nation. 

Among the humbler tools of Charles, were 
Chief-justice Finch, and Noy, the attorney- 
general. Noy had, like Wentworth, supported 
the cause of liberty in Parliament, and had, 
like Wentworth, abandoned that cause for the 
sake of office. He devised, in conjunction 
with Finch, a scheme of exaction which made 
the alienation of the people from the throne 
complete. A writ was issued by the king, com- 
manding the city of London to equip and man 
ships of war for his service. Similar writs 
were sent to the towns along the coast. These 
measures, though they were direct violations of 
the Petition of Right, had at least some show 
of precedent in their favour. But, after a time, 
the government took a step for which no pre- 
cedent could be pleaded, and sent writs of ship- 
money to the inland counties. This was a 
stretch of power on which Elizabeth herself 
had not ventured, even at a time when all laws 
might with propriety have been made to bend 
to that highest law, the safety of the state. The 
inland counties had not been required to fur- 
nish ships, or money in the room of ships, 
even when the Armada was approaching our 
shores. It seemed intolerable that a prince, 
who, by assenting to the Petition of Right, had 
relinquished the power of levying ship-money 
even in the outports, should be the first to levy 
it on parts of the kingdom where it had been 
unknown, under the most absolute of his pre- 
decessors. 

Clarendon distinctly admits that this tax vas 
intended, not only for the support of the navy, 
but "for a spring and magazine that should 
have no bottom, and for an everlasting supply 
of all occasions." The nation well understood 
this ; and from one end of England to the 
other, the public mind was strongly excted. 

Buckinghamshire was assessed at a ship of 
four hundred and fifty tons, or a sum of four 
thousand five hundred pounds. The share of 
the tax which fell to Hampden was very small ; 
so small, indeed, that the sheriff was blamed 
for setting so wealthy a man at so low a rate. 
But though the sum demanded was a trifle, the 
principle of the demand was despotism. Hamti- 
den, after consulting the most eminent consu- 
tutional lawyers of the time, refused to pay the 
few shillings at which he was assessed; and 
determined to incur all the certain expense, 
and the probable danger, of bringing to a 
solemn hearing this great controversy between 
the people and the crown. "Till this time," 



100 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



says Clarendon, " he was rather of reputation 
in his own county, than of public discourse or 
fame in the kingdom ; but then he grew the 
argument of all tongues, every man inquiring 
who and what he was that durst, at his own 
charge, support the liberty and prosperity of 
the kingdom." 

Towards the close of the year 1636, this 
great cause came on in the Exchequer Cham- 
ber before all the judges of England. The 
leading counsel against the writ was the cele- 
brated Oliver St. John ; a man whose temper 
was melancholy, whose manners were re- 
served, and who wa's as yet little known in 
Westminster Hall ; but whose great talents 
had not escaped the penetrating eye of Hamp- 
den. The attorney-general and solicitor-gene- 
ral appeared for the crown. 

The arguments of the counsel occupied 
many days ; and the Exchequer Chamber took 
a considerable time for deliberation. The opi- 
nion of the bench was divided. So clearly 
was the law in favour of Hampden, that though 
the judges held their situations only during the 
royal pleasure, the majority against him was 
the least possible. Four of the twelve pro- 
nounced decidedly in his favour ; a fifth took a 
middle course. The remaining seven gave 
their voices in favour of the writ. 

The only effect of this decision was to make 
the public indignation stronger and deeper. 
"The judgment," says Clarendon, "proved of 
more advantage and credit to the gentleman 
condemned than to the king's service." The 
courage which Hampden had shown on this 
occasion, as the same historian tells us, " raised 
his reputation to a great height generally 
throughout the kingdom." Even courtiers and 
crown-lawyers spoke respectfully of him. 
"His carriage," says Clarendon, "throughout 
that agitation, was with that rare temper and 
modesty, that they who watched him narrowly 
to find some advantage against his person, to 
make him less resolute in his cause, were com- 
pelled to give him a just testimony." But his 
demeanour, though it impressed Lord Falkland 
with the deepest respect, though it drew forth 
the praises of Solicitor-general Herbert, only 
kindled into a fiercer flame the ever-burning 
hatred of Strafford. That minister, in his let- 
ters to Laud, murmured against the lenity with 
which Hampden was treated. " In good faith," 
he wrote, "were such men rightly served, they 
should be whipped into their right wits." 
Again he says, "I still wish Mr. Hampden, 
and others to his likeness, were well whipped 
into their right senses. And if the rod be so 
used that it smart not, I am the more sorry." 

The person of Hampden was now scarcely 
safe. His prudence and moderation had 
hitherto disappointed those who would gladly 
nave had a pretence for sending him to the 
prison of Eliot. But he knew that the eye of 
a tyrant was oh him. In the year 1637, mis- 
government had reached its height. Eight 
years had passed without a Parliament. The 
decision of the Exchequer Chamber had placed 
at the disposal of the crown the whole pro- 
perty of the English people. About the time 
at which that decision was pronounced, 
V ynne, Bastwick, and Burton were mutilated i 



by the sentence of the Star-Chamber, and seia 
to rot in remote dungeons. The estate and the 
person of every man who had opposed the 
court were at its mercy. 

Hampden determined to leave England. 
Beyond the Atlantic Ocean, a few of the per- 
secuted Puritans had formed, in the wilderness 
of Connecticut, a settlement which has sinca 
become a prosperous commonwealth; and 
which, in spite of the lapse of time, and of the 
change of government, still retains something 
of the character given to it by its first founders. 
Lord Say and Lord Brooke were the original 
projectors of this scheme of emigration, 
Hampden had been early consulted respecting 
it. . He was now, it appears, desirous to with- 
draw himself beyond the reach of oppressors, 
who, as he probably suspected, and as we 
know, were bent on punishing his manful re- 
sistance to their tyranny. He was accompa- 
nied by his kinsman Oliver Cromwell, over 
whom he possessed great influence, and in 
whom he alone had discovered, under an ex- 
terior appearance of coarseness and extrava- 
gance, those great and commanding talents 
which were afterwards the admiration and the 
dread of Europe. 

The cousins took their passage in a vessel 
which lay in the Thames, bound for North 
America. They were actually on board, when 
an order of Council appeared, by which the 
ship was prohibited from sailing. Seven other 
ships, filled with emigrants, were stopped at 
the same time. 

Hampden and Cromwell remained ; and with 
them remained the Evil Genius of the house 
of Stuart. The tide of public affairs was even 
now on the turn. The king had resolved to 
change the ecclesiastical constitution of Scot- 
land, and to introduce into the public worship of 
that kingdom ceremonies which the great body 
of the Scots regarded as popish. This absurd 
attempt produced, first discontents, then riots, 
and at length open rebellion. A provisional 
government was established at Edinburgh, and 
its authority was obeyed throughout the king- 
dom. This government raised an army, ap- 
pointed a general, and called a General 
Assembly of the Kirk. The faincrs instru- 
ment called the Covenant was put fcrih at 
this time, and was eagerly subscribed by the 
people. 

The beginnings of this formidable insurrec- 
tion were strangely neglected by the king and 
his advisers. But towards the close of the 
year 1638, the danger became pressing. An 
army was raised ; and early in the following 
spring Charles marched northward, at the head 
of a force sufficient, as it seemed, to reduce the 
Covenanters to submission. 

But Charles acted, at this conjuncture, as he 
acted at every important conjuncture through- 
out his life. After oppressing, threatening, and 
blustering, he hesitated and failed. He was bold 
in the wrong place, and timid in the wrong place. 
He would have shown his wisdom by being 
afraid before the liturgy was read in St. Giles's 
church. He put off his fear till he had reached 
the Scottish border with his troops. Then, 
after a feeble campaign, he concluded a treaty 
with the insurgents, and withdrew his army. 



LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN. 



1CZ 



But the terms of the pacification were not ob- 
served. Each party charged the other with 
foul play. The Scots refused to disarm. The 
king found great difficulty in reassembling his 
forces. His late expedition had drained his 
treasury. The revenues of the next year had 
been anticipated. At another time, he might 
have attempted to make up the deficiency by 
illegal expedients : but such a course would 
clearly have been dangerous when part of the 
island was in rebellion. It was necessary to 
call a Parliament. After eleven years of suf- 
fering, the voice of the nation was to be heard 
once more. 

In April, 1640, the Parliament met; and the 
king had another chance of conciliating his 
people. The new House of Commons was, 
beyond all comparison, the least refractory 
House of Commons that had been known for 
many years. Indeed, we have never been able 
to understand how, after so long a period of 
misgovernment, the representatives of the na- 
tion should have shown so moderate and so 
loyal a disposition. Clarendon speaks with 
admiration of their dutiful temper. "The 
House generally," says he, "was exceedingly 
disposed to please the king and to do him ser- 
vice." " - It could never be hoped," he observes 
elsewhere, " that more sober or dispassionate 
men would ever meet together in that place, 
or fewer who brought ill purposes with them." 

In this Parliament Hampden took his seat 
as member for Buckinghamshire ; and thence- 
forward till the day of his death gave himself 
up, with scarcely any intermission, to public 
affairs. He took lodgings in Gray's Inn Lane, 
near the house occupied by Pym, with whom 
he lived in habits of the closest intimacy. He 
was now decidedly the most popular man in 
England. The Opposition looked to him as 
their leader. The servants of the king treated 
him with marked respect. Charles requested 
the Parliament to vote an immediate supply, 
and pledged his word that if they would gratify 
him in this request, he would afterwards give 
them time to represent their grievances to 
him. The grievances under which the nation 
suffered were so serious, and the royal word had 
been so shamefully violated, that the Commons 
could hardly be expected to comply with this 
request. During the first week of the session 
the minutes of the proceedings against Hamp- 
den were laid on the table by Oliver St. John, 
and the committee reported that the case was 
matter of grievance. The king sent a message 
to the Commons, offering, if they would vote 
him twelve subsidies, to give up the preroga- 
tive of ship-money. Many years before he had 
received five subsidies in consideration of his 
assent to the Petitionof Right. By assenting 
to that petition, he had given up the right of 
levying ship-money, if he ever possessed it. 
How he had observed the promises made to 
■>is third Parliament all England knew ; and it 
was not strange that the Commons should be 
somewhat unwilling to buy from him over and 
iver again their own ancient and undoubted 
'nheritance. 

His message, however, was not unfavour- 
ibly received. The Commons were ready to 
p ve a large supply, b it they were not disposed 



to give it in exchange for a prerogative of which 
they altogether denied the existence. If they 
acceded to the proposal of the king, they recog< 
nised the legality of the writs of ship-money. 

Hampden, who was a greater master of par- 
liamentary tactics than any man of his time, 
saw that this was the prevailing feeling, and 
availed himself of it with great dexterity. He 
moved that the question should be put, "Whe- 
ther the House would consent to the proposi- 
tion made by the king as contained in the 
message." Hyde interfered, and proposed that 
the question should be divided ; that the sense 
of the House should be taken merely on the 
point, "Supply, or no supply?" and that the 
manner and the amount should be left for sub- 
sequent consideration. 

The majority of the House was for granting 
a supply, but against granting it in the manner 
proposed by the king. If the House had di- 
vided on Hampden's question, the court would 
have sustained a defeat ; if on Hyde's, the 
court would have gained an apparent victory. 
Some members called for Hyde's motion, others 
for Hampden's. In the midst of the uproar the 
secretary of state, Sir Harry Vane, rose and 
stated that the supply would not be accepted 
unless it were voted according to the tenor of 
the message. Vane was supported by Her- 
bert, the solicitor-general. Hyde's motion was 
therefore no further pressed, and the debate 
on the general question was adjourned till the 
next day. 

On the next day the king came down to the 
House of Lords, and dissolved the Parliament 
with an angry speech. 

His conduct on this occasion has never been 
defended by any of his apologists. Clarendon 
condemns it severely. "No man," says he, 
" could imagine what offence the Commons 
had given." The offence which they had given 
is plain. They had, indeed, behaved most tem- 
perately and most respectfully. But they had 
shown a disposition to redress wrongs and to 
vindicate , the laws; and this was enough to 
make them hateful to a king whom no law 
could bind, and whose whole government was 
one system of wrong. 

The nation received the intelligence of the 
dissolution with sorrow and indignation. The 
only persons to whom this event gave pleasure 
were those few discerning men who thought 
that the maladies of the state were beyond the 
reach of gentle remedies. Oliver St. John's 
joy was too great for concealmen-t. It lighted 
up his dark and melancholy features, and made 
him, for the first time, indiscreetly communica- 
tive. He told Hyde that things must be worse 
before they could be better; and that the dis- 
solved Parliament would never have done all" 
that was necessary. St. John, we think, was 
in the right. No good could then have been 
done by any Parliament which did not adopt 
as its great principle that no confidence could 
safely be placed in the king, and that, while he 
enjoyed more than the shadow of power, the 
nation would never enjoy more than the sha- 
dow of liberty. 

As soon as Charles had dismissed the Par- 
liament, he threw several members of the 
House of Commons into prison. Ship-money 



162 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



was exacted more rigorously than ever ; and 
the mayor and sheriffs of London were prose- 
cuted before the Star-Chamber for slackness 
in levying it. Wentworth, it is said, observed, 
with characteristic insolence and cruelty, that 
things would never go right till the aldermen 
were hanged. Large sums were raised by 
force on those counties in which the troops 
were quartered. All the wretched shifts of a 
bewared exchequer were tried. Forced loans 
we're raised. Great quantities of goods were 
bought on long credit and sold for ready money. 
A scheme for debasing the currency was under 
consideration. At length, in August, the king 
again marched northward. 

The Scots advanced into England to meet 
him. It is by no means improbable that this 
bold step was taken by the advice of Hampden, 
and of those with whom he acted ; and this has 
been made matter of grave accusation against 
the English Opposition. To call in the aid of 
foreigners in a domestic quarrel, it is said, is 
the worst of treasons ; and that the Puritan 
leaders, by taking this course, showed that they 
were regardless of the honour and independ- 
ence of the nation, and anxious only for the 
success of their own faction. We are utterly 
unable to see any distinction between the case 
of the Scotch invasion in 1640 and the case of 
the Dutch invasion in 1688, or rather we see 
distinctions which are to the advantage of 
Hampden and his friends. We believe Charles 
to have been, beyond all comparison, a worse 
and more dangerous king than his son. The 
Dutch were strangers to us ; the Scots a kin- 
dred people, speaking the same language, sub- 
jects of the same crown, not aliens in the eye 
of the law. If, indeed, it had been possible 
that a Dutch army or a Scotch army could 
have enslaved England, those who persuaded 
Lesley to cross the Tweed, and those who 
signed the invitation to the Prince of Orange, 
would have been traitors to their country. But 
such a result was out of the question. All that 
either a Scotch or a Dutch invasion could do 
was to give the public feeling of England an 
opportunity to show itself. Both expeditions 
would have ended in complete and ludicrous 
discomfiture had Charles and James been sup- 
ported by their soldiers and their people. In 
neither case, therefore, was the independence 
of England endangered ; in neither case was 
her honour compromised: in both cases her 
liberties were preserved. 

The second campaign of Charles against 
the Scots was short and ignominious. His 
soldiers, as soon as they saw the enemy, ran 
away as English soldiers have never run either 
before or since. It can scarcely be doubted 
that their flight was the effect, not of cowardice, 
but of disaffection. The four northern coun- 
ties of England were occupied by the Scotch 
army. The king retired to York. 

The game of tyranny was now up. Charles 
had risked and lost his last stake. It is im- 
possible to retrace the mortifications and humi- 
liations which this bad man now had to endure 
without a feeling of vindictive pleasure. His 
army was mutinous ; his treasury was empty; 
his people clamoured for a Parliament; ad- 
dresses ar.d petitions against the government 



were presented. Strafford was for shooting 
those who presented them by martial law; bit 
the king could not trust the soldiers. A greg; 
council of Peers was called at York, but the 
king could not trust even the Peers. He 
struggled, he evaded, he hesitated, he tried 
every shift rather than again face the repre. 
sentatives of his injured people. At length no 
shift was left. He made a truce with the Scots, 
and summoned a Parliament. 

The leaders of the popular party had, after 
the late dissolution, remained in London for 
the purpose of organizing a scheme of oppo- 
sition to the court. They now exerted them- 
selves to the utmost. Hampden, in particular, 
rode from county to county exhorting the elect- 
ors to give their votes to men worthy of their 
confidence. The great majority of the returns 
was on the side of the Opposition. Hampden 
was himself chosen member for both Wend- 
over and for Buckinghamshire. He made his 
election to serve for the county. 

On the 3d of November, 1640— a day to be 
long remembered— met that great Parliament, 
destined to every extreme of fortune— to em- 
pire and to servitude, to glory and to con- 
tempt ;— at one time the sovereign of its sove- 
J reign, at another time the servant of its ser- 
I vants, and the tool of its tools From the first 
day of its meeting the attendance was great, 
and the aspect of the members was that of 
men not disposed to do the work negligently. 
The dissolution of the late Parliament had 
convinced most of them that half measures 
would no longer suffice. Clarendon tells us 
that " the same men who, six months before, 
were observed to be of very moderate tempers, 
and to wish that gentle remedies might be ap- 
plied, talked now in another dialect both of 
kings and persons ; and said that they must 
now be of another temper than they were the 
last Parliament." The debt of vengeance was 
swollen by all the usury which had been accu- 
mulating during many years ; and payment 
was made to the full. 

This memorable crisis called forth parlia- 
mentary abilities, such as England had never 
before seen. Among the most distinguished 
members of the House of Commons were 
Falkland, Hyde, Digby, Young, Harry Vane, 
Oliver St. John, Denzil Hollis, Nathaniel 
Fiennes. But two men exercised a paramount 
influence over the legislature and the country 
— Pym and Hampden ; and, by the universal 
consent of friends and enemies, the first place 
belonged to Hampden. 

On occasions which required set speeches 
Pym generally took the lead. Hampden very 
seldom rose till late in a debate. His speaking 
was of that kind which has, in every age, been 
held in the highest estimation by English Par- 
liaments—ready, weighty, perspicuous, con- 
densed. His perception of the feeling of the 
House was exquisite, his temper unalterably 
placid, his manner eminently courteous and 
gentlemanlike. " Even with those," says Cla- 
rendon, "who were able to preserve them- 
selves from his infusions, and who discerned 
these opinions to be fixed in him with which 
they could not comply, he always left the cha 
racter of an ingenuous and conscientious ne* 



LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN. 



163 



son." His talents for business were as remark- 
able as his talents for debate. " He was," says 
Clarendon, " of an industry and vigilance not 
to be tired out or wearied by the most labo- 
rious, and of parts not to be imposed upon by 
th; most subtle and sharp." Yet it was rather 
to his moral than to his intellectual qualities 
that he was indebted for the vast influence 
which he possessed. " When this Parliament 
began," we again quote Clarendon, " the eyes 
of all men were fixed upon him, as their patrice 
paier, and the pilot that must steer the vessel 
through the tempests and rocks which threat- 
ened it. And I am persuaded his power and 
interest at that time were greater to do good or 
hurt than any man's in the kingdom, or than 
any man of his rank hath had in any time ; for 
his reputation of honesty was universal, and 
his affections seemed so publicly guided, that 
no corrupt or private ends could bias them. 

.... He was, indeed, a very wise man 
and of great parts, and possessed with the 
most absolute spirit of popularity, and the 
most absolute faculties to govern the people, 
of any man I ever knew." 

It is sufficient to recapitulate shortly the acts 
of the Long^ Parliament during its first session. 
Strafford and Laud were impeached and im- 
prisoned. Strafford was afterwards attainted 
by bill, and executed. Lord Keeper Finch fled 
to Holland, Secretary Windebank to France. 
All those whom the king had, during the last 
twelve years, employed for the oppression of 
his people — from the servile judges who had 
pronounced in favour of the crown against 
Hampden, down to the sheriffs who had dis- 
trained for ship-money and the custom-house 
officers who had levied tonnage and poundage 
— were summoned to answer for their conduct. 
The Star-Chamber, the High Commission 
Court, the Council of York, were abolished. 
Those unfortunate victims of Laud, who, after 
undergoing ignominious exposure and cruel 
manglings, had been sent to languish in dis- 
tant prisons, were set at liberty, and conducted 
through London in triumphant procession. 
The king was compelled to give to the judges 
patents for life, or during good behaviour. He 
was deprived of those oppressive powers 
which were the last relics of the old feudal 
tenures. The Forest Courts and the Stannary 
Courts were reformed. It was provided that 
the Parliament then sitting should not be pro- 
rogued or dissolved without its own consent ; 
and that a Parliament should be held at least 
once every three years. 

Many of these measures Lord Clarendon al- 
lows to have been most salutary; and few per- 
sons will, in our times, deny that, in the laws 
passed during this session, the good greatly 
preponderated over the evil. The abolition of 
those three hateful courts — the Northern Coun- 
cil, the Star-Chamber, and the High Commis- 
sion — would alone entitle the Long Parliament 
to the lasting gratitude of Englishmen. 

The proceedings against Strafford undoubt- 
edly seem hard to people living in our days ; 
and would probably have seemed merciful 
and modi rate to people living in the sixteenth 
century. It is curious to compare the trial of 
Charles's minister with the trial, if it can be 



so called, of Lord Sudley, in th? blessed reign 
of Edward the Sixth. None of the great re 
formers of our church doubted for a moment 
of the propriety of passing an act of Parlia- 
ment for cutting off Lord Sudley's head with- 
out a legal conviction. The pious Cranmer 
voted for that act; the pious Latimer preached 
for it; the pious Edward returned thanks for 
it; and all the pious Lords of the Council 
together exhorted their victim in what they 
were pleased facetiously to call "the quiet and 
patient suffering of justice." 

But it is not necessary to defend the pro- 
ceedings against Strafford by any such compa- 
rison. They are justified, in our opinion, by 
that which alone justifies capital punishment, 
or any punishment, by that which alone justi- 
fies war — by the public dajnger. That there is 
a certain amount of public danger, which will 
justify a legislature in sentencing a man to 
death by an ex post facto law, few people, we 
suppose, will deny. Few people, for example, 
will deny that the French Convention was per- 
fectly justified in declaring Robespierre, St. 
Just,fand Couthon, hors la hi, without a trial. 
This proceeding differed from the proceeding 
against Strafford, only in being much more 
rapid and violent. Strafford was fully heard. 
Robespierre was not suffered to defend him- 
self. Was there, then, in the case of Strafford, 
a danger sufficient to justify an act of attain- 
der 1 We believe that there was. We believe 
that the contest in which the Parliament was 
engaged against the king, was a contest for 
the security of our property, for the liberty of 
our persons, for every thing which makes us 
to differ from the subjects of Don Miguel. We 
believe that the cause of the Commons was 
such as justified them in resisting the king, in 
raising an army, in sending thousands of brave 
men to kill and to be killed. An act of attain 
der is surely not more a departure from the 
ordinary course of law than a civil war. An 
act of attainder produces much less suffering 
than a civil war ; and we are, therefore, un- 
able to discover on what principle it can be 
maintained that a cause which justifies a civil 
war, will not justify an act of attainder. 

Many specious arguments have been urged 
against the ex post facto law by which Strafford 
was condemned to death. But all these argu- 
ments proceed on the supposition that the 
crisis was an ordinary crisis. The attainder 
was, in truth, a revolutionary measure. It 
was part of a system of resistance which op- 
pression had rendered necessary. It is as un- 
just to judge of the conduct pursued by the 
Long Parliament towards Strafford on ordina- 
ry principles, as it would have been to indict 
Fairfax for murder, because he cut down a 
cornet at Naseby. From the day on which the 
Houses met, there was a war waged by them 
against the king — a war for all that they held 
dear — a war carried on at first by means of 
parliamentary forms, at last by physical force ,- 
and, as in the second stage of that war, so in the 
first, they were entitled to do many things which, 
in quiet times, would have been culpable. 

We must not omit to mention, that those 
men who were afterwards the most distin 
guished ornaments of the king's party, sup 



164 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ported the bill of attainder. It is almost cer- 
tain that Hyde voted for it. It is quite certain 
lhat Falkland both voted and spoke for it. The 
opinion of Hampden, as far as it can be col- 
lected from a very obscure note of one of his 
speeches, seems to have been, that the pro- 
ceeding by bill was unnecessary, and that it 
would be a better course to obtain judgment 
on the impeachment. 

During this year the court opened a nego- 
tiation with the leaders of the Opposition. The 
Earl of Bedford was invited to form an admi- 
nistration on popular principles. St. John was 
made solicitor-general. Hollis was to have 
been secretary of state, and Pym chancellor of 
the exchequer. The post of tutor to the Prince 
of Wales was designed for Hampden. The 
death of the Earl of Bedford prevented this 
arrangement from being carried into effect; 
and it may be doubted whether, even if that 
nobleman's life had been prolonged, Charles 
would ever have consented to surround him- 
self with counsellors whom he could not but 
hate and fear. 

Lord Clarendon admits that the conduct of 
Hampden during this year was mild and tem- 
perate; that he seemed disposed rather to 
soothe than to excite the public mind ; and that, 
when violent and unreasonable motions were 
made by his followers, he generally left the 
House before the division, lest he should seem 
to give countenance to their extravagance. 
His temper was moderate. He sincerely loved 
peace. He felt also great fear lest too precipi- 
tate a movement should produce a reaction. 
The events which took place early in the next 
session clearly showed that this fear was not 
unfounded. 

During the autumn the Parliament adjourned 
for a few weeks. Before the recess, Hampden 
was despatched to Scotland by the House of 
Commons, nominally as a commissioner, to 
obtain security for a debt which the Scots had 
contracted during the late invasion; but in 
truth that he might keep watch over the king, 
who had now repaired to Edinburgh, for the 
purpose of finally adjusting the points of dif- 
ference which remained between him and his 
northern subjects. It was the business of 
Hampden to dissuade the Covenanters from 
making their peace with the court at the ex- 
pense of the popular party in England. 

While the king was in Scotland, the Irish 
rebellion broke out. The suddenness and vio- 
lence of this terrible explosion excited a 
strange suspicion in the public mind. The 
queen was a professed Papist. The king and 
the Archbishop of Canterbury had not indeed 
been reconciled to the See of Rome ; but they 
*iad, while acting towards the Puritan party 
with the utmost rigour, and speaking of that 
party with the utmost contempt, shown great 
tenderness and respect towards the Catholic re- 
ligion and its professors. In spite of the wishes 
of successive Parliaments, the Protestant sepa- 
ratists had been cruelly persecuted. And at the 
j&me time, in spite of the wishes of those very 
Parliaments, the laws — the unjust and wicked 
jaws — which were in force against the Papists, 
had not been carried into execution. The 
Protestant nonconformists had not yet learned 



toleration in the school of suffering. The^ 
reprobated the partial lenity which the govern* 
ment showed towards idolaters ; and, with 
some show of reason, ascribed to bad mGtives 
conduct which, in such a king as Charles, and 
such a prelate as Laud, could not possibly be 
ascribed to humanity or to liberality of senti- 
ment. The violent Arminianism of the arch- 
bishop, his childish attachment to ceremonies, 
his superstitious veneration for altars, vest- 
ments, and painted windows, his bigoted zeal for 
the constitution and the privileges of his order, 
his known opinions respecting the celibacy of 
the clergy, had excited great disgust through- 
out that large party which was every day be- 
coming more and more hostile to Rome, and 
more and more inclined to the doctrines and 
the discipline of Geneva. It was believed 
by many, that the Irish rebellion had been se- 
cretly encouraged by the court ; and when the 
Parliament met again in November, after a 
short recess, the Puritans were more intracta- 
ble than ever. 

But that which Hampden had feared had 
come to pass. A reaction had taken place. A 
large body of moderate and well-meaning men, 
who had heartily concurred in the strong mea- 
sures adopted during the preceding year, were 
inclined to pause. Their opinion was, that 
during many years, the country had been griev- 
ously misgoverned, and that a great reform 
had been necessary; but, that a great reform 
had been made, that the grievances of the na- 
tion had been fully redressed, that sufficient 
vengeance had been exacted for the past, and 
sufficient security provided for the future ; thai 
it would, therefore, be both ungrateful and un- 
wise to make any further attacks on the royal 
prerogative. In support of this opinion many 
plausible arguments have been used. But to 
all these arguments there is one short answer: 
the king could not be trusted. 

At the head of those who may be called the 
Constitutional Royalists, were Falkland, Hyde, 
and Culpeper. All these eminent men had, 
during the former year, been in very decided 
opposition to the court. In some of those very 
proceedings with which their admirers re- 
proach Hampden, they had taken at least as 
great a part as Hampden. They had all been 
concerned in the impeachment of Strafford. 
They had all, there is reason to believe, voted 
for the Bill of Attainder. Certainly none of 
them voted against it. They had all agreed to 
the act which made the consent of the Parlia- 
ment necessary to its own dissolution or pro- 
rogation. Hyde had been among the most ac- 
tive of those who attacked the Council of 
York. Falkland had voted for the exclusion 
of the bishops from the Upper House. They 
were now inclined to halt in the path of reform; 
perhaps to retrace a few of their steps. 

A direct collision soon took place between the 
two parties, into which the House of Commons, 
lately at almost perfect unity with itself, was 
now divided. The opponents of the govern- 
ment moved that celebrated address to the 
king which is known by the name of the 
Grand Remonstrance. In this address all the 
oppressive acts of the preceding fifteen years 
were set forth with great energy of language 



LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN. 



165 



and, in conclusion, the king was entreated to 
employ no ministers in whom the Parliament 
could not confide. 

The debate on the Remonstrance was long 
and stormy. It commenced at nine in the 
morning of the twenty-first of November, and 
lasted till after midnight. The division showed 
that a great change had taken place in the 
temper of the House. Though many members 
had retired from exhaustion, three hundred 
voted, and the remonstrance was carried by a 
majority of only nine. A violent debate fol- 
lowed on the question whether the minority 
should be allowed to protest against this deci- 
sion. The excitement was so great that seve- 
ral members were on the point of proceeding 
to personal violence. " We had sheathed our 
swords in each other's bowels," says an eye- 
witness, "had not the sagacity and great calm- 
ness of Mr. Hampden, by a short speech, pre- 
vented it." The House did not rise till two in 
the morning. 

The situation of the Puritan leaders was now 
difficult and full of peril. The small majority 
which they still had, might soon become a mi- 
nority. Out of doors their supporters in the 
nigher and middle classes were beginning to 
fall off. There was a growing opinion that the 
king had been hardly used. The English are 
always inclined to side with a weak party 
which is in the wrong, rather than with a 
strong party which is in the right. Even the 
idlers in the street will not suffer a man to be 
struck when he is down. And as it is with a 
boxing-match, so it is with a political contest. 
Thus it was that a violent reaction took place 
in favour of Charles the Second, against the 
Whigs, in 1681. Thus it was that an equally 
v iolent reaction took place in favour of George 
the Third, against the coalition, in 1784. A 
similar reaction was beginning to take place 
during the second year of the Long Parliament. 
Some members [of the Opposition " had re- 
sumed," says Clarendon, " their old resolution 
of leaving the kingdom." Oliver Cromwell 
openly declared that he and many others would 
have emigrated, if they had been left in a mi- 
nority on the question of the Remonstrance. 

Charles had now a last cnance of regaining 
the affection of his people. If he could have 
resolved to give his confidence to the leaders 
of the moderate party in the House of Com- 
mons, and to regulate his proceedings by their 
advice, he might have been, not, indeed as he 
had been, a despot, but the powerful and re- 
spected king of a free people. The nation 
might have enjoyed liberty and repose under a 
government, with Falkland at its head, checked 
by a constitutional Opposition, under the con- 
duct of Hampden. It was not necessary that, 
in order to accomplish this happy end, the 
king should sacrifice any part of his lawful 
prerogative, or submit to any conditions incon- 
i sistent with his dignity. It was necessary only 
that he should abstain from treachery, from 
I violence, from gross breaches of the law. 
i This was all that the nation was then disposed 
to require of him. And even this was too much. 
For a short time he seemed inclined to take 
| a wise and temperate course. He resolved to 
1 make Falkland secretary of state •, and Cul- 



peper chancellor of the exchequer. He de 
clared his intention of conferring in a shoil 
time some important office on Hyde. He as- 
sured these three persons that he would do 
nothing relating to the House of Commcms 
without their joint advice ; and that he would 
communicate all his designs to them in the 
most unreserved manner. This resolution, had 
he adhered to it, would have averted many 
years of blood and mourning. But " in a very 
few days," says Clarendon, " he did fatally 
swerve from it." 

On the 3dof January, 1642, without giving the 
slightest hint of his intention to those advisers 
whom, he had solemnly promised to consult, 
he sent down the attorney-general to impeach 
Lord Kimbolton, Hampden, Pym, Hollis, and 
two other members of the House of Commons, 
at the bar of the Lords, on a charge of high 
treason. It is difficult to find in the whole his- 
tory of England such an instance of tyranny, 
perfidy, and folly. The most precious and an- 
cient rights of the subjects were violated by 
this act. The only way in which Hampden and 
Pym could legally be tried for treason at the 
suit of the king, was by a petty jury on a bill 
found by a grand jury. The attorney-general 
had no right to impeach them. The House of 
Lords had no right to try them. 

The Commons refused to surrender their 
members. The Peers showed no inclination 
to usurp the unconstitutional jurisdiction, 
which the king attempted to force on them. 
A contest began, in which violence and weak- 
ness were on the one side, law and resolution 
on the other. Charles sent an officer to seal 
up the lodgings and trunks of the accused 
members. The Commons sent their sergeant 
to break the seals. The tyrant resolved to fol- 
low up one outrage by another. In making 
the charge, he had struck at the institution of 
juries. In executing the arrest, he struck at 
the privileges of Parliament. He resolved to 
go to the House in person, with an armed 
force, and there to seize the leaders of the Op- 
position, while engaged in the discharge ol 
their parliamentary duties. 

What was his purpose 1 ? Is it possible to 
believe that he had no definite purpose — that 
he took the most important step of his whole 
reign without having for one moment consi- 
dered what might be its effects 1 Is it possible 
to believe, that he went merely for the purpose 
of making himself a laughing-stock ; that he 
intended, if he had found the accused mem- 
bers, and if they had refused, as it was their 
right and duty to refuse, the submission which 
he illegally demanded, to leave the House 
without bringing them away! If we reject 
both these suppositions, we must believe — and 
we certainly do believe — that he went fully 
determined to carry his unlawful design into 
effect by violence ; and, if necessary, to shed 
the blood of the chiefs of the Opposition on the 
very floor of the Parliament House. 

Lady Carlisle conveyed intelligence of the 
design to Pym. The five members had time 
to withdraw before the arrival cf Charles. 
They left the House as he was entering New 
Palace Yard. He was accompanied by about 
tvo hundred halberdiers of his guard, and >■» 



166 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



many gentlemen of the court armed with 
swords. He walked up Westminster Hall. 
At the southern door of that vast building, his 
attendants divided to the right and left, and 
formed a lane to the door of the House of Com- 
mons. He knocked, entered, darted a look to- 
wards the place which Pym usually occupied ; 
and seeing it empty, walked up to the table. 
The speaker fell on his knee. The members 
rose and uncovered their heads in profound 
silence, and the king took his seat in the chair. 
He looked round the house. But the live 
members were nowhere to be seen. He in- 
terrogated the speaker. The speaker answer- 
ed, that he was merely the organ of the House, 
and had neither eyes to see, nor tongue to 
speak, but according to their direction. The 
baffled tyrant muttered a few feeble sentences 
about his respect for the laws of the realm 
and the privileges of Parliament, and retired 
As he passed along the benches, several reso- 
lute voices called out audibly, " Privilege !" 
He returned to Whitehall with his company 
of bravoes, who, while he was in the house, 
had been impatiently waiting in the lobby for 
the word, cocking their pistols, and crying, 
" Fall on." That night he put forth a procla- 
mation, directing that the posts should be stop- 
ped, and that no person should, at his peril, 
venture to harbour the accused members. 

Hampden and his friends had taken refuge 
in Coleman street. The city of London was 
indeed the fastness of public liberty ; and was, 
in those times, a place of at least as much im- 
portance as Paris during the French revolution. 
The city, properly so called, now consists in a 
great measure of immense warehouses and 
counting-houses, which are frequented by tra- 
ders and their clerks during the day, and left in 
almost total solitude during the night. It was 
then closely inhabited by three hundred thou- 
sand persons, to whom it was not merely a 
place of business, but a place of constant resi- 
dence. This great body had as complete a 
civil and military organization as if it had 
been an independent republic. Each citizen 
had his company ; and the companies, which 
now seem to exist only for the delectation of 
epicures and of antiquaries, were then for- 
midable brotherhoods; the members of which 
were almost as closely bound together as the 
members of a Highland clan. How strong 
these artificial ties were, the numerous and 
valuable legacies anciently bequeathed by citi- 
zens to *their corporations abundantly prove. 
The municipal offices were filled by the most 
opulent and lespectable merchants of the king- 
dom. The pomp of the magistracy of the 
capital was second only to that which sur- 
rounded the person of the sovereign. The 
Londoners loved their city with that patriotic 
love which is found only in small communities, 
like those of ancient Greece, or like those 
which arose in Italy during the middle ages. 
The numbers, the intelligence, the wealth of 
the citizens, the democratic form of their local 
government, and their vicinity to the court and 
and to the Parliament, made them one of the 
most formidable bodies in the kingdom. Even 
as soldiers, they were not to be despised. In 
»n age in which war is a profession, there is 



something ludicrous in the idea of battalions 
composed of apprentices and shopkeepers, and 
officered by aldermen. But, in the early part of 
the seventeenth century, there was no standing 
army in the island ; and the militia of the me- 
tropolis was not inferior in training to the 
militia of other places. A city which could 
furnish many thousands of armed men, abound- 
ing in natural courage, and not absolutely un- 
tinctured with military discipline, was a formi- 
dable auxiliary in times of internal dissension. 
On several occasions during the civil war, the 
trainbands of London distinguished themselves 
highly ; and at the battle of Newbury, in par- 
ticular, they repelled the onset of fiery Kupert, 
and saved the army of the Parliament from 
destruction. 

The people of this great city had long been 
thoroughly devoted to the national cause. Great 
numbers of them had signed a protestation, in 
which they declared their resolution to defend 
the privileges of Parliament. Their enthu- 
siasm had of late begun to cool. The im- 
peachment of the five members, and the insult 
offered to the House of Commons, inflamed it 
to fury. Their houses, their purses, their 
pikes, were at the command of the Commons. 
London was in arms all night. The next day 
the shops were closed ; the streets were filled 
with immense crowds. The multitude pressed 
round the king's coach, and insulted him with 
opprobrious cries. The House of Commons, 
in the mean time, appointed a committee to 
sit in the city, for the purpose of inquiring into 
the circumstances of the late outrage. The 
members of the committee were welcomed by 
a deputation of the common council. Mer» 
chant Tailors' Hall, Goldsmiths' Hall, and 
Grocers' Hall were fitted up for their sittings. 
A guard of respectable citizens, duly relieved 
twice a day, was posted at their doors. The 
sheriffs were charged to watch over the safety 
of the accused members, and to escort them to 
and from the committee with every mark of 
honour. 

A violent and sudden revulsion of feeling, 
both in the House and out of it, was the effect 
of the late proceedings of the king. The Op- 
position regained in a few hours all the as- 
cendency which it had lost. The constitutional 
royalists were filled with shame and sorrow. 
They felt that they had been cruelly deceived 
by Charles. They saw that they were unjustly, 
but not unreasonably, suspected by the nati<jn. 
Clarendon distinctly says, that they perfectly 
detested the councils by which the king had 
been guided, and were so much displeased and 
dejected at the unfair manner in which he had 
treated them, that they were inclined to retire 
from his service. During the debates on this 
subject, they preserved a melancholy silence. 
To this day, the advocates of Charles take care 
to say as little as they can about his visit to the 
House of Commons; and, when they cannot 
avoid mention of it, attribute to infatuation an 
act, which, on any other supposition, they must 
admit to have been a frightful crime. 

The Commons, in a few days, openly defied 
the king, and ordered the accused members 
to attend in their places at Westminster, and 
to resume their parliamentary duties. Th# 



,ORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN. 



167 



citizens resolved to bring back the champions 
of liberty in triumph before the windows of 
Whitehall. Vast preparations were made both 
by land and water for this great festival. 

The king had remained in his palace, hum- 
bled, dismayed, and bewildered ; " feeling," 
says Clarendon, " the trouble and agony which 
usually attend generous and magnanimous 
minds upon their having committed errors;" 
feeling, we should say, the despicable repent- 
ance which attends the bungling villain, who, 
having attempted to commit a crime, finds that 
he has only committed a folly. The populace 
hooted and shouted all day before the gates of 
the royal residence. The wretched man could 
not bear to see the triumph of those whom he 
had destined to the gallows and the quartering 
block. On the day preceding that which was 
fixed for their return, he fled, with a few at- 
tendants, from that palace, which he was never 
to see again till he was led through it to the 
scaffold. 

On the 11th of January, the Thames was 
covered with boats, and its shores with a 
gazing multitude. Armed vessels decorated 
with streamers were ranged in two lines from 
London Bridge to Westminster Hall. The 
members returned by water in a ship manned 
by sailors who had volunteered their services. 
The trainbands of the city, under the command 
of the sheriffs, marched along the Strand, at- 
tended by a vast crowd of spectators, to guard 
the avenues to the House of Commons ; and 
thus, with shouts and loud discharges of ord- 
nance, the accused patriots were brought back 
by the people whom they had served, and for 
whom they had suffered. The restored mem- 
bers, as soon as they had entered the House, 
expressed, in the warmest terms, their grati- 
tude to the citizens of London. The sheriffs 
were warmly thanked by the speaker in the 
name of the Commons ; and orders were given 
that a guard, selected from the trainbands of 
the city, should attend daily to watch over the 
safety of the Parliament. 

The excitement had not been confined to 
London. When intelligence of the danger to 
which Hampden was exposed reached Buck- 
inghamshire, it excited the alarm and indigna- 
tion of the people. Four thousand freeholders 
of that county, each of them wearing in his 
hat a copy of the protestation in favour of the 
privileges of Parliament, rode up to London 
to defend the person of their beloved repre- 
sentative. They came in a body to assure 
Parliament of their full resolution to defend 
its privileges. Their petition was couched in 
the strongest terms. " In respect," said they, 
"of that latter attempt upon the honourable 
House of Commons, we are now come to offer 
our service to that end, and resolved, in their 
just defence, to live and die." 

A great struggle was clearly at hand. Hamp- 
den had returned to Westminster much changed. 
His influence had hitherto been exerted rather 
to restrain than to moderate the zeal of his 
party. But the treachery, the contempt of law, 
the thirst for blood, which the king had now 
shown, left no hope of a peaceable adjustment. 
It was clear that Charles must be either a 
puppet or a tyrant, that no obligation of love 



or of honour could bind him, and that the only 
way to make him harmless was to make him 
powerless. 

The attack which the king had made on 
the five members was not merely irregular in 
manner. Even if the charges had been pre- 
ferred legally, if the grand jury of Middlesex 
had found a true bill, if the accused persons 
had been arrested under a proper warrant, and 
at a proper time and place, there would still 
have been in the proceeding enough of perfidy 
and injustice to vindicate the strongest mea- 
sures which the Opposition could take. To 
impeach Pym and Hampden was to impeach 
the House of Commons. It was notoriously 
on account of what they had done as mem- 
bers of that House that they were selected as 
objects of vengeance ; and in what they had 
done as members of that House, the majority 
had concurred. Most of the charges brought 
against them were common between them and 
the Parliament. They were accused, indeed, 
and it may be with reason, of encouraging the 
Scotch army to invade England. In doing 
this, they had committed what was, in strict- 
ness of law, a high offence ; the same offence 
which Devonshire and Shrewsbury committed 
in 1688. But the king had promised pardon 
and oblivion to those who had been the prin- 
cipals in the Scotch insurrection. Did it then 
consist with his honour to punish the accessa- 
ries 1 He had bestowed marks of his favour 
on the leading Covenanters. He had given 
the great seal of Scotland to Lord Loudon, the 
chief of the rebels, a marquisate to the Earl 
of Argyle, an earldom to Lesley, who had 
brought the Presbyterian army across the 
Tweed. On what principle was Hampden to 
be attainted for advising what Lesley was en- 
nobled for doing '? In a court of law, of course, 
no Englishman could plead an amnesty grant- 
ed to the Scots. But, though not an illegal, it 
was surely an inconsistent and a most unkingly 
course, after pardoning the heads of the re- 
bellion in one kingdom, to hang, draw, and 
quarter their accomplices in another. 

The proceedings of the king against the 
five members, or rather against that Par- 
liament which had concurred in almost all 
the acts of the five members, was the cause 
of the civil war. It was plain that either 
Charles or the House of Commons must be 
stripped of all real power in the state. The 
best course which the Commons could have 
taken would perhaps have been to depose the 
king ; as their ancestors had deposed Edward 
the Second and Richard the Second, and as 
their children afterwards deposed James. 
Had they done this, had they placed on tne 
throne a prince whose character and whose 
situation would have been a pledge for his 
good conduct, they might safely have left to 
that prince all the constitutional prerogatives 
of the crown ; the command of the armies of 
the state ; the power of making peers ; the 
power of appointing ministers ; a veto on bills 
passed by the two Houses. Such a prince, 
reigning by their choice, would have been 
under the necessity of acting in ccnlonnity 
with their wishes. But the public mind was 
not ripe for such a measure. There was no 



168 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Duke of Lancaster, no Prince of Orange, no 
great and eminent person, near in blood to 
the throne, yet attached to the cause of the 
people. Charles was then to remain king; 
and it was therefore necessary that he should 
be king only in name. A William the Third, 
or a George the First, whose title to the crown 
was identical with the title of the people to 
their liberty, might safely be trusted with ex- 
tensive powers. But new freedom could not 
exist in safety under the old tyrant. Since he 
was not to be deprived of the name of king, 
the only course which was left was to make 
him a mere trustee, nominally seised of pre- 
rogatives, of which others had the use, a Grand 
Lama, a Roi Faineant, a phantom resembling 
those Dagoberts and Childeberts who wore the 
badges of royalty, while Ebroin and Charles 
Martel held the real sovereignty of the state. 

The conditions which the Parliament pro- 
pounded were hard; but, we are sure, not 
harder than those which even the Tories in 
the Convention of 1689 would have imposed 
on James, if it had been resolved that James 
should continue to be king. The chief con- 
dition was, that the command of the militia 
and the conduct of the war in Ireland should 
be left to the Parliament. On this point was 
that great issue joined whereof the two parties 
put themselves on God and on the sword. 

We think, not only that the Commons were 
justified in demanding for themselves the 
power to dispose of the military force, but that 
it would have been absolute insanity in them 
to leave that force at the disposal of the king. 
From the very beginning of his reign, it had 
evidently been his object to govern by an 
army. His third Parliament had complained, 
in the Petition of Right, of his fondness for 
martiai law, and of the vexatious manner in 
which he billeted his soldiers on the people. 
The wish nearest the heart of Strafford was, 
as his letters prove, that the revenue might be 
brought into such a state as would enable the 
king to support a standing military establish- 
ment. In 1640, Charles had supported an army 
in the northern counties by lawless exactions. 
In 1641, he had engaged in an intrigue, the 
object of which was to bring that army into 
London, for the purpose of overawing the 
Parliament. His late conduct had proved that, 
if he were suffered to retain even a small body- 
guard of his own creatures near his person, 
the Commons would be in danger of outrage, 
perhaps o; massacre. The Houses were still 
deliberating under the protection of the militia 
of London. Could the command of the whole 
armed force of the realm have been, under 
these circumstances, safely confided to the 
king? Would it not have been frenzy in the 
Parliament to raise and pay an army of fifteen 
or twenty thousand men for the Irish war, and 
to give to Charles the absolute control of this 
army, and the power of selecting, promoting, 
and dismissing officers at his pleasure 1 Was 
it not possible that this army might become, 
what it is the nature of armies to become, 
what bo many armies formed under much more 
favourable circumstances have become, what 
this army of the English Commonwealth be- 
came, wnat tne army of the French Republic 



became — an instrument of despotism 1 Was 
it not possible that the soldiers might forget 
that they were also citizens, and might be ready 
to serve their general against their country ! 
Was it not certain that, on the very first day 
on which Charles could venture to revoke his 
concessions, and to punish his opponents, he 
would establish an arbitrary government, and 
exact a bloody revenge 1 

Our own times furnish a parallel case. Sup- 
pose that a revolution should take place in 
Spain, that the Constitution of Cadiz should 
be re-established, that the Cortes should meet 
again, that the Spanish Prynnes and Burtons, 
who are now wandering in rags round Lei- 
cester Square, should be restored to ther coun- 
try, Ferdinand the Seventh would, in that case, 
of course, repeat all the oaths and promises 
which he made in 1820, and broke in 1823. 
But would jt not be madness in the Cortes, 
even if they were to leave him the name of 
king, tO' leave him more than the name ? 
Would not all Europe scoff at them, if they 
were to permit him to assemble a large army 
for an expedition to America, to model that army 
at his pleasure, to put it under the command 
of officers chosen by himself] Should we not 
say, that every member of the constitutional 
party, who might concur in such a measure, 
would most richly deserve the fate which he 
would probably meet — the fate of Riego and 
of the Empecinado 1 We are not disposed to 
pay compliments to Ferdinand; nor do we 
conceive that we pay him any compliment, 
when we say, that, of all sovereigns in history,, 
he seems to us most to resemble King Charles 
the First. Like Charles, he is pious after a 
certain fashion; like Charles, he has made 
large concessions to his people after a certain 
fashion. It is well for him that he has had fr. 
deal with men who bore very little resem- 
blance to the English Puritans. 

The Commons would have the power of the 
sword, the king would not part with it ; and 
nothing remained but to try the chances of war. 
Charles still had a strong party in the country. 
His august office, his dignified manners, his 
solemn protestations that he would for the 
time to come respect the liberties of his sub- 
jects, pity for fallen greatness, fear of violent 
innovation, secured to him many adherents. 
He had the Church, the Universities, a majority 
of the nobles and of the old landed gentry. The 
austerity of the Puritan manners drove most 
of the gay and dissolute youth of that age to 
the royal standard. Many good, brave, and 
moderate men, who disliked his former con* 
duct, and who entertained doubts touching his 
present sincerity, espoused his cause unwill- 
ingly, and with many painful misgivings; 
because, though they dreaded his tyranny 
much, they dreaded democratic violence more. 

On the other side was the great body of the 
middle orders of England — the merchants, the 
shopkeepers, the yeomanry, headed by a very 
large and formidable minority of the peerage 
and of the landed gentry. The Earl of Essex, 
a man of respectable abilities, and of some 
military experience, was appointed to the com- 
mand of the parliamentary army. 

Hampden spared neither his fortune n ar his 



LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN. 



169 



person in the cause. He subscribed two thou- 
sand pounds to the public service. He took a 
colonel's commission in the army, and went 
into Buckinghamshire to raise a regiment of 
infantry. His neighbours eagerly enlisted 
under his command. His men were known 
by their green uniform, and by their standard, 
which bore on one side the watchword of the 
Parliament, " God with us," and on the other 
the device of Hampden, " Vestigia nulla retror- 
sum." This motto well described the line of 
conduct which he pursued. No member of 
his party had been so temperate, while there 
remained a hope that legal and peaceable 
measures might save the country. No mem- 
ber of his party showed so much energy and 
vigour when it became necessary to appeal to 
arms. He made himself thoroughly master of 
his military duty, and " performed it," to use 
the words of Clarendon, " upon all occasions 
most punctually." The regiment which he had 
raised and trained was considered as one of 
the best in the service of the Parliament. He 
exposed his person in every action, with an 
intrepidity which made him conspicuous even 
among thousands of brave men. " He was," 
says Clarendon, " of a personal courage equal 
to his best parts ; so that he was an enemy not 
to be wished wherever he might have been 
made a friend, and as much to be apprehended 
where he was so as any man could deserve to 
be." Though his military career was short, 
and his military situation subordinate, he fully 
proved that he possessed the talents of a great 
general, as well as those of a great statesman. 

We shall not attempt to give a history of the 
war. Lord Nugent's account of the military 
operations is very animated and striking. Our 
abstract would be dull, and probably unintel- 
ligible. There was, in fact, for some time, no 
great and connected system of operations on 
either side. The war of the two parties was 
like the war of Arimanes and Oromazdes, 
neither of whom, according to the Eastern 
theologians, has any exclusive domain, who 
are equally omnipresent, who equally pervade 
all space, who carry on their eternal strife 
within every particle of matter. There was a 
petty war in almost every county. A town 
furnished troops to the Parliament, while the 
manor-house of the neighbouring peer was 
garrisoned for the king. The combatants were 
rarely disposed to march far from their own 
homes. It was reserved for Fairfax and Crom- 
well to terminate this desultory warfare, by 
moving one overwhelming force successively 
against all the scattered fragments of the royal 
party. 

It is a remarkable circumstance, that the 
officers who had studied tactics in what were 
considered as the best schools — under Vere in 
the Netherlands, and under Gustavus Adol- 
phus in Germany — displayed far less skill than 
those commanders who had been bred to 
peaceful employments, and who never saw 
even a skirmish till the civil war broke out. 
An unlearned person might hence be inclined 
to suspect that the military art is no very pro- 
found mystery; that its principles are the 
principles of plain good sense ; and that a 
quick eye, a cocl head, and a stout heart wO 



do more to make a general than all the dia 
grams of Jomini. This, however, is certain, 
that Hampden showed himself a far better offi- 
cer than Essex, and Cromwell than Lesley. 

The military errors of Essex were probably 
in some degree produced by political timidity. 
He was honestly, but not warmly, attached to 
the cause of the Parliament ; and next to a 
great defeat, he dreaded a great victory. Hamp- 
den, on the other hand, was for vigorous and 
decisive measures. When-he drew the sword, 
as Clarendon has well said, he threw away the 
scabbard. He had shown that he knew better 
than any public man of his time, how to value 
and how to practise moderation. But he knew 
that the essence of war is violence, and that 
moderation in war is imbecility. On several 
occasions particularly during the operations 
in the neighbourhood of Brentford, he remon- 
strated earnestly w< h Essex. Wherever he 
commanded separately, the boldness and rapi- 
dity of his movements presented a striking 
contrast to the sluggishness of his superior. 

In the Parliament he possessed boundless 
influence. His employments towards the close 
of 1642 have been described by Denham in 
some lines, which, though intended to be sar- 
castic, convey in truth the highest eulogy. 
Hampden is described in this satire, as per- 
petually passing and repassing between the 
military station at Windsor and the House of 
Commons at Westminster ; overawing the 
general, and giving law to that Parliament 
which knew no other law. It was at this time 
that he organized that celebrated association 
of counties, to which his party was principally 
indebted for its victory over the king. 

In the early part of 1 643, the shires lying in 
the neighbourhood of London, which were de- 
voted to the cause of the Parliament, were in- 
cessantly annoyed by Rupert and his cavalry. 
Essex had extended his lines so far, that 
almost every point was vulnerable. The 
young prince, who, though not a great general, 
was an active and enterprising partisan, fre- 
quently surprised posts, burned villages, swept 
away cattle, and was again at Oxford, before a 
force sufficient to encounter him could be as- 
sembled. 

The languid proceedings of Essex were 
loudly condemned by the troops. All the ar 
dent and daring spirits in the parliamentary 
party were eager to have Hampden at theii 
head. Had his life been prolonged, there is 
every reason to believe that the supreme com 
mand would have been intrusted to him, But 
it was decreed that, at this conjuncture, Eng 
land should lose the only man who united per 
feet disinterestedness to eminent talents — tht 
only man who, being capable of gaining the 
victory for her, was incapable of abusing thai 
victory when gained. 

In the evening of the 17th of June, Rupen 
darted out of Oxford with his cavalry on a 
predatory expedition. At three in the morning 
of the following day, he attacked and dispersed 
a few parliamentary soldiers who were quar 
tered at Postcombe. He then flew to Chinnor, 
burned the village, killed or took all the troops 
who were posted there, and prepared to hurry 
back with his booty and his prisoners to Oxford 



170 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WHITINGS. 



Hampden had, on the preceding day, strong- 
ly represented to Essex the danger to which 
this part of the line was exposed. As soon 
as he received intelligence of Rupert's incur- 
sions, he sent off a horseman with a mes- 
sage to the general. The Cavaliers, he said, 
could return only by Chiselhampton Bridge. 
A force ought to be instantly despatched in 
that direction, for the purpose of intercepting 
them. In the mean time, he resolved to set 
out with all the cavalry that he could muster, 
for the purpose of impeding the march of the 
enemy till Essex could take measures for cut- 
ting off their retreat. A considerable body of 
horse and dragoons volunteered to follow him. 
He was not their commander. He did not 
even belong to their branch of the service. 
But " he was," says Lord Clarendon, " second 
to none but the general himself in the obser- 
vance and application'of all men." On the field 
of Chalgrove he came up with Rupert. A fierce 
skirmish ensued, In the first charge, Hampden 
was struck in the shoulder by two bullets, 
which broke the bone, and lodged in his body. 
The troops of the Parliament lost heart and 
gave way. Rupert, after pursuing them for a 
short time, hastened to cross the bridge, and 
made his retreat unmolested to Oxford. 

Hampden, with his head drooping, and his 
nands leaning on his horse's neck, moved 
feebly out of the battle. The mansion which 
had been inhabited by his father-in-law, and 
from which in his youth he had carried home 
his bride, Elizabeth, was in sight. There still 
remains an affecting tradition, that he looked 
for a moment towards that beloved house, and 
made an effort to go thither to die. But the 
enemy lay in that direction. He turned his 
norse towards Thame, where he arrived almost 
fainting with agony. The surgeons^dressed his 
wounds. But there was no hope. The pain 
which he suffered was most excruciating. But 
he endured it with admirable firmness and re- 
signation. His first care was for his country. 
He wrote from his bed several letters to Lon- 
don concerning public affairs, and sent a last 
pressing message to the head-quarters, recom- 
mending that the dispersed forces should be 
concentrated. When his last public duties 
were performed, he calmly prepared himself 
to die. He was attended by a clergyman of the 
Church of England, with whom he had lived 
in habits of intimacy, and by the chaplain of 
the Buckinghamshire Green-coats, Br. Spurton, 
whom Baxter describes as a famous and excel- 
lent divine. 

A short time before his death, the sacrament 
was administered to him. He declared that, 
though he disliked the government of the 
Church of England, he yet agreed with that 
Church as to all essential matters of doctrine. 
His intellect remained unclouded. When all 
was nearly over, he lay murmuring faint 
prayers for himself and for the cause in which 
he died. " Lord Jesus," he exclaimed, in the 
raoment of the last agony, "receive my soul — 



O Lord, save my country — O Lord, be oterci 

ful to ." In that broken ejaculation passed 

away his noble and fearless spirit. 

He was buried in the parish church of 
Hampden. His soldiers, bareheaded, with re- 
versed arms and muffled drums and colours, 
escorted his body to the grave, singing, as they 
marched, that lofty and melancholy psalm, in 
which the fragility of human life is contrasted 
with the immutability of Him, in whose sight 
a thousand years are but as yesterday when it 
is past, and as a watch in the night. 

The news of Hampden's death produced as 
great a consternation in his party, according tc 
Clarendon, as if their whole army had been 
cut off. The journals of the time amply prove 
that the Parliament and all its friends were 
filled with grief and dismay. Lord Nugent has 
quoted a remarkable passage from the next 
Weekly Intelligencer. "The loss of Colonel 
Hampden goeth near the heart of every man 
that loves the good of his king and country, 
and makes some conceive little content to be 
at the army now that he is gone. The memory 
of this deceased colonel is such, that in no age 
to come but it will more and more be had in. 
honour and esteem; — a. man so religious, and 
of that prudence, judgment, temper, valour, 
and integrity, that he hath left few his like 
behind him." 

He had indeed left none his like behind him. 
There still remained, indeed, in his party, 
many acute intellects, many eloquent tongues, 
many brave and honest hearts. There still 
remained a rugged and clownish soldier, half- 
fanatic, half-buffoon, whose talents, discerned 
as yet only by one penetrating eye, were equal 
to all the highest duties of the soldier and the 
prince. But in Hampden, and in Hampden 
alone, were united all the qualities which, at 
such a crisis, were necessary to save the state 
— the valour and energy of Cromwell, the dis- 
cernment and eloquence of Vane, the humanity 
and moderation of Manchester, the stern inte- 
grity^ Hale, the ardent public spirit of Sidney. 
Others might possess the qualities whish were 
necessary to save the popular party in the 
crisis of danger ; he alone had both the power 
and the inclination to restrain its excesses in 
the hour of triumph. Others could conquer; 
he alone could reconcile. A heart as bold as 
his brought up the cuirassiers who turned the 
tide of battle on Marston Moor. As skilful an 
eye as his watched the Scotch army descending 
from the heights over Dunbar. But it was when, 
to the sullen tyranny of Laud and Charles, had 
succeeded the fierce conflict of sects and fac- 
tions, ambitious of ascendency and burning 
for revenge ; it was when the vices and igno- 
rance which the old tyranny had generated, 
threatened the new freedom with destruction 
that England missed that sobriety, that self- 
command, that perfect soundness of judgment, 
that perfect rectitude of intention, to which the 
history of revolutions furnishes no parallel, or 
furnishes a parallel in Washington alone. 



NARES'S MEMOIRS OF LORD BURGHLEY' 



»7J 



NAKES'S MEMOIBS OF LOBD BUBGHLEY. J 



[Edinburgh Review, 1832.] 



The work of Doctor Nares has filled us with 
astonishment similar to that which Captain 
Lemuel Gulliver felt, when first he landed in 
Brobdignag, and saw corn as high as the oaks 
in the New Forest, thimbles as large as 
buckets, and wrens of the bulk of turkeys. 
The whole book, and every component part of 
it, is on a gigantic scale. The title is as long 
as an ordinary preface. The prefatory matter 
would furnish out an ordinary book ; and the 
book contains as much reading as an ordinary 
library. We cannot sum up the merits of the 
stupendous mass of paper which lies before us, 
better than by saying, that it consists of about 
two thousand closely printed pages, that it 
occupies fifteen hundred inches cubic measure, 
and that it weighs sixty pounds avoirdupois. 
Such a boo*k might, before the deluge, have 
been considered as light reading by Hilpa and 
Shallum. But unhappily the life of man is now 
threescore years and ten ; and we cannot but 
think it somewhat unfair in Doctor Nares to 
demand from us so large a portion of so short 
an existence. 

Compared with the labour of reading through 
these volumes, all other labour — the labour of 
thieves on the tread-mill, of children in facto- 
ries, of negroes in sugar plantations — is an 
agreeable recreation. There was, it is said, a 
criminal in Italy, who was suffered to make his 
choice between Guicciardini and the galleys. 
He chose the history. But the war of Pisa was 
too much for him. He changed his mind, and 
went to the oar. Guicciardini, though certainly 
not the most amusing of writers, is an Herodotus, 
or a Froissart, when compared with Doctor 
Nares. It is not merely in bulk, but in specific 
gravity also, that these memoirs exceed all 
other human compositions. On every subject 
which the professor discusses, he produces 
three times as many pages as another man; 
and one of his pages is as tedious as another 
man's three. His book is swelled to its vast 
dimensions by endless repetitions, by episodes 
which have nothing to do with the main action, 
by quotations from books which are in every 
circulating library, and by reflections which, 
when they happen to be just, are so obvious 
that they must necessarily occur to the mind 
of every reader. He employs more words in 
expounding and defending a truism, than any 
other writer would employ in supporting a pa- 

* Memoirs of the Life and Administration of the Right 
Honourable William Cecil Lord Burghley, Secretary of 
State in the Reign of King Edward the Sixth,'and Lord 
High Treasurer of England in the Reign of Queen Eliza- 
beth. Containing an Historical View of the Times in which 
he lived, and of the many eminent and illustrious Persons 
with whom he was connected ; with extracts from his Pri- 
vate and Official Correspondence and other Papers, now first 
published from the Originals. By the Reverend Edward 
Nares, D.D., Regius Professor of Modern Htstorv in the 
University of Oxford. 3 vols. 4to. London. 1828," 1832. 



radox. Of the rules of historical perspective 
he has not the faintest notion. There is neither 
foreground nor background in his delineation. 
The wars of Charles the Fifth in Germany are 
detailed at almost as much length as in Robert- 
son's. Life of that prince. The troubles of 
Scotland are. related as fully as in M'Crie's 
Life of John Knox. It would be most unjust 
to deny that Doctor Nares is a man of great 
industry and research ; but he is so utterly in- 
competent to arrange the materials which he 
has collected, that he might as well have left 
them in their original repositories. 

Neither the facts which Doctor Nares has 
discovered, nor the arguments which he urges, 
will, we apprehend, materially alter the opinion 
generally entertained by judicious readers of 
history concerning his hero. Lord Burghley 
can hardly be called a great man. He was not 
one of those whose genius and energy change 
the fate of empires. He was by nature and 
habit one of those who follow, not one of those 
who lead. Nothing that is recorded, either cf 
his words or of his actions, indicates intellectual 
or moral elevation. But his talents, though 
not brilliant, were of an eminently useful 
kind ; and his principles, though not inflexible, 
were not more relaxed than those of his asso- 
ciates and competitors. He had a cool temper, 
a sound judgment, great powers of application, 
and a constant eye to the main chance. In his 
youth he was, it seems, fond of practical jokes. 
Yet even out of these he contrived to extract 
some pecuniary profit. When he was study 
ing the law at Gray's Inn, he lost all his fur- 
niture and books to his companion at the 
gaming-table. He accordingly bored a hole 
in the wall which separated his chambers from 
those of his associate, and at midnight bellow- 
ed through his passage threats of damnation 
and calls to repentance in the' ears of the victo- 
rious gambler, who lay sweating with fear all 
night, and refunded his winnings on his knees 
next day. " Many other the like merry jests," 
says his old biographer, " I have heard him 
tell, too long to be here noted." To the last, 
Burghley was somewhat jocose ; and some of 
his sportive sayings have been recorded h^ 
Bacon. They show much more shrewdness 
than generosity; and are, indeed, neatly ex- 
pressed reasons for exacting iw ney rigorously, 
and for keeping it carefully. It must, however, 
be acknowledged, that he was rigorous and 
careful for the public advantage, as well as for 
his own. To extol his moral character, as 
Doctor Nares has extolled it, would be absurd. 
It would be equally absurd to represent him as 
a corrupt, rapacious, and bad-hearted man. He 
paid great attention to the interest of the .state, 
and great attention also to the interest of his 
own family. He never deseited his friends til! 



172 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



U Tva3 very inconvenient to stand by them; 
was an excellent Protestant when it was not 
very advantageous to be a Papist ; recommend- 
ed a tolerant policy to his mistress as strongly 
as he could recommend it without hazarding 
her favour ; never put to the rack any person 
from whom it did not seem probable that very 
useful information might be derived; and was 
bo moderate in his desires, that he left only 
three hundred distinct landed estates, though he 
might, as his honest servant assures us, have 
left much mere, "if he would have taken money 
out of the exchequer for his own use, as many 
treasurers have done." 

Burghley, like the old Marquess of Win- 
chester, who preceded him in the custody of 
the White Staff, was of the willow, and not of 
the oak. He first rose into notice by defend- 
ing the supremacy of Henry the Eighth. He 
was subsequently favoured and promoted by 
the Duke of Somerset. He not only contrived 
to escape unhurt when his patron fell, but 
became an important member of the adminis- 
tration of Northumberland. Doctor Nares as- 
sures us over and over again, that there could 
have been nothing base in Cecil's conduct on 
this occasion ; for, says he, Cecil continued to 
stand well with Cranmer. This, we confess, 
hardly satisfies us. We are much of the mind 
of Falstaff s tailor. We must have better as- 
surance for Sir John than Bardolph's. We 
like not the security. 

Through the whole course of that miserable 
intrigue which was carried on round the dying 
bed of Edward the Sixth, Cecil so demeaned 
himself as to avoid, first, the displeasure of 
Northumberland, and afterwards the displea- 
sure of Mary. He was prudently unwilling to 
put his hand to the instrument which changed 
the course of the succession. But the furious 
Dudley was master of the palace. Cecil, there- 
fore, according to his own account, excused 
?nmself from signing as a party, but consented 
•o sign as a witness. It is not easy to describe 
his dexteroas conduct at this most perplexing 
crisis, in language more appropriate than that 
which is employed by old Fuller: "His hand 
wrote it as secretary of state," says that quaint 
writer; "but his heart consented not thereto. 
Yea, he openly opposed it; though at last 
yielding to the greatness of Northumberland, 
in an age when it was present drowning not 
to swim with the stream. But as the philoso- 
pher tells us, that, though the planets be whirl- 
ed about daily from east (c west, by the motion 
of the prirnum mobile, yet have they also a con- 
trary proper motion of their own from west to 
east, which they slowly, though surely, move 
at their leisure ; so Cecil had secret counter- 
endeavours against the strain of the court 
herein, and privately advanced his rightful in- 
tentions against the foresaid duke's ambition." 

This was undoubtedly the most perilous 
conjuncture of Cecil's life. Wherever there 
was a safe course, hs was safe. But here 
every course was full of danger. His situa- 
tion rendered it impossibla for him to be neu- 
tral. If he acted on either side, if he refused 
to act at all, he ran a fearful risk. He saw 
all the difficulties of his position. He sent his 

oneyand plate out of London, made over his 



estates to his son, and carried arms about his 
person. His best arms, however, were his sa- 
gacity and his self-command. The plot in 
which he had been an unwilling accomplice, 
ended, as it was natural that so odious and 
absurd a plot should end, in the ruin of its 
contrivers. In the mean time, Cecil quietly 
extricated himself, and, having been succes- 
sively patronised by Henry, Somerset, and 
Northumberland, continued to flourish under 
the protection of Mary. 

He had no aspirations after the crown of 
martyrdom. He confessed himself, therefore, 
with great decorum, heard mass in Wimbledon 
church at Easter, and, for the better ordering 
of his spiritual concerns, took a priest into his 
house. Doctor Nares, whose simplicity passes 
that of any casuist with whom we are ac- 
quainted, vindicates his hero by assuring us, 
that this was not superstition, but pure un- 
mixed hypocrisy. " That he did in some man- 
ner conform, we shall not be able, in the face 
of existing documents, to deny ; while we feel 
in our own minds abundantly satisfied, that, 
during this very trying reign, he never aban- 
doned the prospect of another revolution in fa- 
vour of Protestantism." In another place, the 
doctor tells us, that Cecil went to mass " with 
no idolatrous intention." Nobody, we believe, 
ever accused him of idolatrous intentions. 
The very ground of the charge against him is, 
that he had no idolatrous intentions. Nobody 
would have blamed him if he had really gone 
to Wimbledon church, with the feelings of a 
good Catholic, to worship the host Doctor 
Nares speaks in several places, with just se- 
verity, of the sophistry of the Jesuits, and with 
just admiration of the incomparable letters of 
Pascal. It is somewhat strange, therefore, that 
he should adopt, to the full extent, the jesuiti» 
cal doctrine of the direction of intentions. 

We do not blame Cecil for not choosing to 
be burned. The deep stain upon his memory 
is, that, for differences of opinion for which he 
would risk nothing himself, he, in the day of 
his power, took away without scruple the lives 
of others. One of the excuses suggested in 
these Memoirs for his conforming, during the 
reign of Mary, to the Church of Rome, is, tha> 
he may have been of the same mind with 
those German Protestants who were called 
Adiaphorists, and who considered the popish 
rites as matters indifferent. Melancthon was 
one of these moderate persons, and "appears," 
says Doctor Nares, " to have gone greater 
lengths than any imputed to Lord Burghley." 
We should have thought this not only an ex- 
cuse, but a complete vindication, if Burghley 
had been an Adiaphorist for the benefit of 
others, as well as for his own. If the popish 
rites were matters of so little moment, that a 
good Protestant might lawfully practise them 
for his safety, how could it be just or humane 
that a Papist should be hanged, drawn, and 
quartered, for practising them from a sense of 
duty. Unhappily, these non-essentials soon 
became matters of life and death. Just at the 
very time at which Burghley attained the high- 
est point of power and favour, an act of Par- 
liament was passed, by which the penalties of 
high treason Avere denounced against persons 



NARES'S MEMOIRS OF LORD BURGHLEY. 



173 



who should do in sincerity what he had done 
from cowardice. 

Early in the reign of Mary, Cecil was em- 
ployed in a mission scarcely consistent with 
the character of a zealous Protestant. He 
was sent to escort the Papal legate, Cardinal 
Pole, from Brussels to London. That great 
body of moderate persons, who cared more for 
the quiet of the realm than for the controvert- 
ed points which were in issue between the 
churches, seem to have placed their chief 
hope in the wisdom and humanity of the gen- 
tle cardinal. Cecil, it is clear, cultivated the 
friendship of Pole with great assiduity, and re- 
ceived great advantage from his protection. 

But the best protection of Cecil, during the 
gloomy and disastrous reign of Mary, was that 
which he derived from his own prudence and 
from his own temper ; — a prudence which 
could never be lulled into carelessness, a tem- 
per which could never be irritated into rash- 
ness. The Papists could find no occasion 
against him. Yet he did not lose the esteem 
even of those sterner Protestants who had 
preferred exile to recantation. He attached 
himself to the persecuted heiress of the throne, 
and entitled liimself to her gratitude and confi- 
dence. Yet he continued to receive marks of 
favour from the queen. In the House of Com- 
mons, he put himself at the head of the party 
opposed to the court. Yet so guarded was his 
language, that even when some of those who 
acted with him were imprisoned by the Privy 
Council, he escaped with impunity. 

At length Mary died. Elizabeth succeeded, 
and Cecil rose at once to greatness. He was 
sworn in privy counsellor and secretary of 
state to the new sovereign before he left her 
prison of Hatfield ; and he continued to serve 
her for forty years, without intermission, in the 
highest employments. His abilities were pre- 
cisely those which keep men long in power. 
He belonged to the class of the Walpoles, the 
Pelhams, and the Liverpools ; not to that of 
the St. Johns, the Carterets, the Chathams,and 
the Cannings. If he had been a man of origi- 
nal genius, and of a commanding mind, it 
would have been scarcely possible for him to 
keep his power, or even his head. There was 
not room in one government for an Elizabeth 
and a Richelieu. What the haughty daughter 
of Henry needed, was a moderate, cautious, 
flexible minister, skilled in the details of busi- 
ness, competent to advise, but not aspiring to 
command. And such a minister she found in 
Burghley. No arts could shake the confidence 
which she reposed in her old and trusty ser- 
vant. The courtly graces of Leicester, the 
brilliant talents and accomplishments of Es- 
sex, touched the fancy, perhaps the heart, of 
the woman; but no rival could deprive the 
Treasurer of the place which he possessed in 
the favour of the queen. She sometimes chid 
him sharply; but he was the man whom she 
delighted to honour. For Burghley, she forgot 
her usual parsimony both of wealth and of 
dignities. For Burghley, she relaxed that se- 
vere etiquette to which she was unreasonably 
attached. Every other person to whom she 
addressed her speech, or on whom the glance 
*f her eagle eve fell, instantly sank on his 
12 



knee. For Burghley alone, a chair was set in 
her presence ; and there the old minister, by 
birth only a plain Lincolnshire esquire, took 
his ease, while the haughty heirs of the Fitz- 
alans and the De Veres humbled themselves tc 
the dust around him. At length, having sur- 
vived all his early coadjutors and rivals, he 
died full of years and honours. His royal 
mistress visited him on his death-bed, and 
cheered him with assurances of her affection 
and esteem ; and his power passed, with little 
diminution, to a son who inherited his abili- 
ties, and whose mind had been formed by his 
counsels. 

The life of Burghley was commensurate 
with one of the most important periods in the 
history of the world. It exactly measures the 
time during which the house of Austria held 
unrivalled superiority, and aspired to univer- 
sal dominion. In the year in which Burghley 
was born, Charles the Fifth obtained the impe- 
rial crown. In the year in which Burghley 
died, the vast designs which had for nearly a 
century kept Europe in constant agitation, 
were buried in' the same grave with the proud 
and sullen Philip. 

The life of Burghley was "commensurate 
also with the period during which a great mo- 
ral revolution was effected ; a revolution, the 
consequences of which were felt, not only in 
the cabinets of princes, but at half the firesides 
in Christendom. He was born when the great 
religious schism was just commencing. He 
lived to see the schism complete, to see a line 
of demarcation, which, since his death, has 
been very little altered, strongly drawn between 
Protestant and Catholic Europe. 

The only event of modern times which can 
be properly compared with the Reformation, is 
the French Revolution ; or, to speak more ac- 
curately, that great revolution of political feel- 
ing which took place in almost every part of 
the civilized world during the eighteenth cen- 
tury, and which obtained in France its most 
terrible and signal triumph. Each of these 
memorable events maybe described as a rising 
up of human reason against a caste. The 
one was a struggle of the laity against the 
clergy for intellectual liberty ; the other was a 
struggle of the people against the privileged 
orders for political liberty. In both cases, the 
spirit of innovation was at first encouraged by 
the class to which it was likely to be most pre- 
judicial. It was under the patronage of Fre- 
derick, of Catharine, of Joseph, and of the 
French nobles, that the philosophy which 
afterwards threatened all the thrones and aris- 
tocracies of Europe with destruction, first be- 
came formidable. The ardour with which men 
betook themselves to liberal studies at the close 
of the fifteenth and the beginning of the six- 
teenth century, was zealously encouraged by 
the heads of that very church, to which liberal 
studies were destined to be fatal. In both cases 
when the explosion came, it came with a vio- 
lence which appalled and disgusted many of 
those who had previously been distinguished 
by the freedom of their opinions. The violencs 
of the democratic party in France made Burke 
a tory, and Alfieri a courtier ; the violence of 
the chiefs of the German schism made 



174 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



mas a defender of abuses, and turned the au- 
thor of Utopia intd a persecutor. In both cases, 
the convulsion which had overthrown deeply- 
seated errors, shook all the principles on which 
society rests to their very foundations. The 
minds of men were unsettled. It seemed for a 
time that all order and morality were about to 
perish with the prejudices with which they had 
been long and intimately associated. Frightful 
cruelties were committed. Immense masses 
of property were confiscated. Every part of 
Europe swarmed with exiles. In moody and 
turbulent spirits, zeal soured into malignit}?-, or 
foamed into madness. From the political agi- 
tation of the eighteenth century sprang the Ja- 
cobins. From the religious agitation of the 
sixteenth century sprang the Anabaptists. The 
partisans of Robespierre robbed and murdered 
in the name of fraternity and equality. The 
followers of Cnipperdoling robbed and mur- 
dered in the name of Christian liberty. The 
feeling of patriotism was, in many parts of 
Europe, almost wholly extinguished. All the 
old maxims of foreign policy were changed. 
Physical boundaries were superseded by mo- 
ral boundaries. Nations made war on each 
other with new arms ; with arms which no for- 
tifications, however strong by nature or by art, 
could resist ; with arms before which rivers 
parted like the Jordan, and ramparts fell down 
like the wa.ls of Jericho. Those arms were 
opinions, reasons, prejudices. The great mas- 
ters of fleets and armies were often reduced to 
confess, like Milton's warlike angel, how hard 
they found it 

"To exclude 
Spiritual substance with corporeal bar." 

Europe was divided, as Greece had been di- 
vided during the period concerning which Thu- 
cydides wrote. The conflict was not, as it is 
in ordinary times, between state and state, but 
between two omnipresent factions, each of 
which was in some places dominant, and in 
other places oppressed, but which, openly or 
covertly, carried on their strife in the bosom of 
every society. No man asked whether another 
belonged to the same country with himself, but 
whether he belonged to the same sect. Party 
spirit . seemed to justify and consecrate acts 
which, in any other times, would have been 
considered as the foulest of treasons. The 
French emigrant saw nothing disgraceful in 
bringing Austrian and Prussian hussars to 
Paris. The Irish or Italian democrat saw no 
impropriety in serving the French Directory 
against his own native government. So, in the 
sixteenth century, the fury of theological fac- 
tions often suspended all national animosities 
and jealousies. The Spaniards were invited 
into France by the League; the English were 
invited into France by the Huguenots. 

We by no means intend to underrate or to 
palliate the crimes and excesses which, during 
the last generation, were produced by the spirit 
of democracy. But when we find that men 
Kealous for the Protestant religion, constantly 
represent the French Revolution as radically 
and essentially evil on account of those crimes 
and excesses, we cannot but remember, that 
the delh srance of our ancestors from the house 



of their spiritual bondage was effected "ty 
plagues and by signs, by wonders and by war." 
We cannot but remember, that, as in the case 
of the French Revolution, so also in the case 
of the Reformation, those who rose up against 
tyranny were themselves deeply tainted with 
the vices which tyranny engenders. We can- 
not but remember, that libels scarcely less 
scandalous than those of Herbert, mummeries 
scarcely less absurd than those of Clootz, and 
crimes scarcely less atrocious than those of 
Marat, disgrace the early history of Protest- 
antism. The Reformation is an event long 
past. The volcano has spent its rage. The 
wide waste produced by its outbreak is forgot- 
ten. The landmarks which were swept away 
have been replaced. The ruined edifices have 
been repaired. The lava has covered with a 
rich incrustation the fields which it once de- 
vastated ; and after having turned a garden 
into a desert, has again turned the desert into 
a still more beautiful and fruitful garden. The 
second great eruption is not yet over. The 
marks of its ravages are still all around us. 
The ashes are still hot beneath our feet In some 
directions, the deluge of fire still continues to 
spread. Yet experience surely entitles us to 
believe that this explosion, like that which pre- 
ceded it, will fertilize the soil which it has de- 
vastated. Already, in those parts which have 
suffered most severely, rich cultivation and 
secure dwellings have begun to appear amidst 
the waste. The more we read of the history 
of past ages, the more we observe the signs of 
these times, the more do we feel our hearts 
filled and swelled up with a good hope for the 
future destinies of the human race. 

The history of the Reformation in England 
is full of strange problems. The most promi- 
nent and extraordinary phenomenon which it 
presents to us, is the gigantic strength of the 
government contrasted with the feebleness of 
the religious parties. During the twelve or 
thirteen years which followed the death of 
Henry the Eighth, the religion of the state was 
thrice changed. Protestantism was establish- 
ed by Edward ; the Catholic Church was re- . 
stored by Mary ; Protestantism was again es- 
tablished by Elizabeth. The faith of the nation 
seemed to depend on the personal inclinations 
of the sovereign. Nor was this all. An estab- 
lished church was then, as a matter of course, a 
persecuting church. Edward persecuted Catho- 
lics: Mary persecuted Protestants. Elizabeth 
persecuted Catholics again. The father of those 
three sovereigns had enjoyed the pleasure of 
persecuting both sects at once ; and had sent 
to death, on the same hurdle, the heretic whe 
denied the real presence, and the traitor who 
denied the royal supremacy. There was no- 
thing in England like that fierce and bloody 
opposition, which, in France, each of the reli- 
gious factions in its turn offered to the govern- 
ment. We had neither a Coligni nor a May- 
enne ; neither a Moncontour nor an Ivry. No 
English city braved sword and famine for the 
reformed doctrines with the spirit of Rochelle; 
nor for the Catholic doctrines with the spirit 
of Paris. Neither sect in England formed a 
league. Neither sect extorted a recantatio 
from the sovereign. Neither sect couidob'a— 



ATARES'S MEMOIRS OF LORD BURGHLEY. 



175 



from an adverse sovereign even a toleration. 
The English Protestants, after several years of 
domination, sank down with scarcely a strug- 
gle under the tyranny. of Mary. The Catholics, 
after having regained and abused their old as- 
cendency, submitted patiently to the severe 
rule of Elizabeth. Neither Protestants nor 
Catholics engaged in any great and well-orga- 
nized scheme of resistance. A few wild and 
tumultuous risings, suppressed as soon as they 
appeared, a few dark conspiracies, in which 
only a small number of desperate men en- 
gaged — such were the utmost efforts made by 
these two parties to assert the most sacred of 
human rights, attacked by the most odious 
tyranny. • 

The explanation of these circumstances 
which has generally been given, is very sim- 
ple, but by no means satisfactory. The power 
of the crown, it is said, was then at its height, 
and was, in fact, despotic. This solution, we 
own, seems to us to be no solution at all. 

It has long been the fashion, a fashion intro- 
duced by Mr. Hume, to describe the English 
monarchy in the sixteenth century as an abso- 
lute monarchy. And such undoubtedly it ap- 
pears to a superficial observer. Elizabeth, it 
is true, often spoke to her Parliaments in lan- 
guage as haughty and imperious as that which 
the Great Turk would use to his divan. She 
punished with great severity members of the 
House of Commons, who, in her opinion, car- 
ried the freedom of debate too far. She as- 
sumed the power of legislating by means of 
proclamation. She imprisoned her subjects 
without bringing them to a legal trial. Torture 
was often employed, in defiance of the laws of 
England, for the purpose of extorting confes- 
sions from those who were shut up in her 
dungeons. The authority of the Star-Chamber 
and the Ecclesiastical Commission was at its 
highest point. Severe restraints were imposed 
on political and religious discussion. The 
number of presses was at one time limited. 
No man could print without a license ; and 
every work had to undergo the scrutiny of the 
primate or the Bishop of London. Persons 
whose writings were displeasing to the court 
were cruelly mutilated, 'ike Stubbs, or put to 
death, like Penry. Non— .formity was severely 
punished. The queen prescribed the exact 
rule of religious faith and discipline ; and who- 
ever departed from that rule, either to the right 
or to the left, was in danger of severe penal- 
ties. 

Such was this government Yet we know 
that it was loved by the great body of those 
who lived under it. We know that, during the 
fierce contests of the sixteenth century, both 

, the hostile parties spoke of the time of Eliza- 
beth as of a golden age. The great queen has 

\ new been lying two hundred and thirty years 
in Henry the Seventh's chapel. Yet her me- 

. mory is still dear to the hearts of a free 

'. people. 

The truth seems to be, that the government 
of the Tudors was, with a few occasional de- 

. viations, a popular government under the forms 

' of despotism. At first sight, it may seem that the 

i prerogatives of Elizabeth were not less ample 
than those of Louis the Fourteenth, that her Par- 



liaments were as obsequious as his Parlia 
ments, that her warrant had as much authorit* 
as his lettre-de-cachet. The extravagance with 
which her courtiers eulogized her personal and 
mental charms, went beyond the adulation of 
Boileau and Moliere. Louis would have blushed 
to receive from those who composed the gor- 
geous circles of Marli and Versailles, the out- 
ward marks of servitude which the haughty 
Britoness exacted of all who approached her. 
But the power of Louis rested on the support 
of his army. The power of Elizabeth rested 
solely on the support of her people. Those 
who say. that her power was absolute do not 
sufficiently consider in what her power con- 
sisted. Her power consisted in the willing 
obedience of her subjects, in their attachment 
to her person and to her office, in their respect 
for the old line from which she sprang,- in their 
sense of the general security which they en- 
joyed under her government. These were the 
means, and the only means, which she had at 
her command for carrying her decrees into 
execution, for resisting foreign enemies, and 
for crushing domestic treason. There was not 
a ward in the city, there was not a hundred in 
any shire in England, which could net have 
overpowered the handful of armed men who 
composed her household. If a hostile sove- 
reign threatened invasion, if an ambitious no- 
ble raised the standard of revolt, she could 
have recourse only to the trainbands of her 
capital, and the array of her counties, to the 
citizens and yeomen of England, commanded 
by the merchants and esquires of England. 

Thus, when intelligence arrived of the vast 
preparations which Philip was making for the 
subjugation of the realm, the first petoon to 
whom the government thought of applying 
for assistance was the Lord Mayor of London. 
They sent to ask him Avhat force the city woula 
engage to furnish for the defence of the king- 
dom against the Spaniards. The mayor and 
common council, in return, desired to know 
what force the queen's highness desired them 
to furnish. The answer was — fifteen ships 
and five thousand men. The Londoners deli- 
berated on the matter, and two days after 
" humbly entreated the council, in sign of their 
perfect love and loyalty to prince and country, 
to accept ten thousand men, and thirty ships 
amply furnished." 

People who could give such signs as these 
of their loyalty were by no means to be misgo- 
verned with impunity. The English in the 
sixteenth century were, beyond all doubt, a free 
people. They had not, indeed, the outward 
show of freedom ; but they had the reality. 
They had not a good constitution, but they had 
that without which the best constitution is as 
useless as the king's proclamation against vice 
and immorality, that which, without any con 
stitution, keeps rulers in awe — force, and the 
spirit to use it. Parliaments, it is true, were 
rarely held ; and were not very respectfully 
treated. The Great Charter was often violated. 
But the people had a security against gross 
and systematic misgovernment, far stronger 
than all the parchment that was ever marked 
with the sign manual, and than all tlva w;u 
that was ever pressed by the great sea( 



i7fi 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



It is a common error in politics to confound 
means with ends. Constitutions, charters, pe- 
titions of right, declarations of right, repre- 
sentative assemblies, electoral colleges, are not 
good government; nor do they, even when 
most elaborately constructed, necessarily pro- 
duce good government. Laws exist in vain 
for those who have not the courage and the 
means to defend them. Electors meet in vain 
where want renders them the slaves of the land- 
lord ; or where superstition renders them the 
slaves of the priest. Representative assem- 
blies sit in vain unless they have at their com- 
mand, in the last resort, the physical power 
which is necessary to make their deliberations 
free, and their votes eifectual. 

The Irish are better represented in Parlia- 
ment than the Scotch, who indeed are not re- 
presented at all. But are the Irish better go- 
verned than the Scotch! Surely not. This 
circumstance has of late been used as an ar- 
gument against reform. It proves nothing 
against reform. It proves only this ; that laws 
have no magical, no supernatural virtue ; that 
laws do not act like Aladdin's lamp or Prifcee 
Ahmed's apple; that priestcraft, that ignorance, 
that the rage of contending factions may make 
good institutions useless ; that intelligence, so- 
briety, industry, moral freedom, firm union, 
may supply in a great measure the defects of 
the worst representative system. A people 
whose education and habits are such, that, in 
every quarter of the world, they rise above the 
mass of those with whom they mix, as surely 
as oil rises to the top of water ; a people of 
such temper and self-government, that the 
wildest popular excesses recorded in their his- 
tory partake of the gravity of judicial pro- 
ceedings, and of the solemnity of religious 
rites; a people whose national pride and mu- 
tual attachment have passed into a proverb ; 
a people whose high and fierce spirit, so forci- 
bly described in the haughty motto which en- 
circles their thistle, preserved their independ- 
ence, during a struggle of cerifaries, from the 
encroachments of wealthier and more power- 
ful neighbours, — such a people cannot be 
long oppressed. Any government, however 
constituted, must respect their wishes, and 
tremble at their discontents. It is indeed most 
desirable that such a people should exercise a 
direct influence on the conduct of affairs, and 
should make their wishes known through con- 
stitutional organs. But some influence, direct 
or indirect, they will assuredly possess. Some 
organ, constitutional or unconstitutional, they 
will assuredly find. They will be better go- 
verned under a good constitution' than under a 
bad constitution. But they will be better go- 
verned under the worst constitution than some 
other nations under the best. In any general 
classification of constitutions, the constitution 
of Scotland must be reckoned as one of the 
worst, perhaps as the worst in Christian Eu- 
iope. Yet the Scotch are not ill governed. 
And the reason is simply that they will not 
bear to be ill governed. 

In some of the Oriental monarchies, in Af- 
ghanistan, for example, though there exists 
nothing which a European publicist would 
all a constitution, the sovereign generally 



governs in conformity with certain rules ea 
tablished for the public benefit ; and the sanc« 
tion of those rules is, that every Afghan ap« 
proves them, and that every Afghan is a sol« 
dier. 

The monarchy of England in the sixteenth 
century was a monarchy of this kind. It is 
called an absolute monarchy, because little 
respect was paid by the Tudors to those insti« 
tutions which we have been accustomed to 
consider as the sole checks on the power of 
the sovereign. A modern Englishman can 
hardly understand how the people can have 
Had any real security for good government urn 
der kings who levied benevolences and chi<} 
the House of Commons as they would have 
chid a pack of dogs. People do not sufficiently 
consider that, though the legal checks were 
feeble, the" natural checks were. strong. There 
was one great and effectual limitation on the 
royal authority — the knowledge that if the pa- 
tience of .the nation were severely tried, the 
nation would put forth its strength, and thai 
its strength would be found irresistible. If a 
large body of Englishmen became thoroughly 
discontented, instead of presenting requisitions, 
holding large meetings, passing resolutions, 
signing petitions, forming associations and 
unions, they rose up ; they took their halberds 
and their bows ; and if the sovereign was not 
sufficiently popular to find among his subjects 
other halberds and other bows to oppose to the 
rebels, nothing remained for him but a repeti- 
tion of the horrible scenes of Berkeley and Pom- 
fret. He had no regular army which could by its 
superior arms and its superior skill overawe 
or vanquish the sturdy commons of his realm, 
abounding in the native hardihood of English- 
men, and trained in the simple discipline of the 
militia. 

It has been said that the Tudors were as ab- 
solute as the Ceesars. Never was parallel so 
unfortunate. The government of the Tudors 
was the direct opposite to the government of 
Augustus and his successors. The Caesars 
ruled despotically, by means of a great stand- 
ing army, under the decent forms of a republi- 
can constitution. They called themselves citi- 
zens. They mixed unceremoniously with other 
citizens. In theory they were only the elective 
magistrates of a free commonwealth. Instead 
of arrogating to themselves despotic power, 
they acknowledged obedience to the senate. 
They were merely the lieutenants of that ve- 
nerable body. They mixed in debate. They 
even appeared as advocates before the courts 
of law. Yet they could safely indulge in the 
wildest freaks of cruelty and rapacity while 
their legions remained faithful. Our Tudors, 
on the other hand, under the titles and forms 
of monarchical supremacy, were essentially 
popular magistrates. They had no means of 
protecting themselves against the public ha- 
tred; and they were therefore compelled to 
court the public favour. To enjoy all the state 
and all the personal indulgences of absolute 
power, to be adored with Oriental prostrations, 
to dispose at will of the liberty and even of the 
life of ministers and courtiers — this the nation 
granted to the Tudors. But the condition on 
which they were suffered to be the tyrant* ot 



NARES'S MEMOIRS OF LORD BURGHLEY. 



177 



Whitehall was, that they should be the mild 
and paternal sovereigns of England. They 
were under the same restraints with regard to 
their people under which a military despot is 
placed with regard to his army. They would 
have found it as dangerous to grind their sub- 
jects with cruel taxation as Nero would have 
found it to leave his prsetorians unpaid. Those 
who immediately surrounded the royal person, 
and engaged in the hazardous game of ambi- 
tion, were exposed to the most fearful dangers. 
Buckingham, Cromwell, Surrey, Sudley, So- 
merset, Suffolk, Norfolk, Percy, Essex, perish- 
ed on the scaffold. But in general the country 
gentleman hunted and the merchant traded in 
peace. Even Henry, as cruel as Domitian but 
far more politic, contrived, while reeking with 
the blood of the Lamiee, to be the favourite 
with the cobblers. 

The Tudors committed very tyrannical acts. 
But in their ordinary dealings with the people 
they were not, and could not safely be tyrants. 
Some excesses were easily pardoned. For the 
nation was proud of the high and fiery blood 
of its magnificent princes ; and saw, in many 
proceedings which a lawyer would even then 
have condemned, the outbreak of the same 
noble spirit which so manfully hurled foul 
acorn at Parma and at Spain. But to this en- 
durance there was a limit. If the government 
ventured to adopt measures which the great 
body of the people really felt to be oppressive, 
it was soon compelled to change its course. 
When Henry the Eighth attempted to raise a 
forced loan of unusual amount by proceedings 
of unusual rigour, the opposition which he en- 
countered was such as appalled even his stub- 
born and imperious spirit. The people, we are 
told, said that if they were to be taxed thus, 
" then were it worse than the taxes of France, 
and England should be bond, and not free." 
The county of Suffolk rose in arms. The king 
prudently yielded to an opposition which, if he 
had persisted, would in all probability have 
taken the form of a general rebellion. To- 
wards the close of the reign of Elizabeth, the 
people felt themselves aggrieved by the mono- 
polies. The queen, proud and courageous as 
she was, shrunk from a contest with the na- 
tion, and, with admirable sagacity, conceded 
all that her subjects had demanded, while it 
was yet in her power to concede with dignity 
and grace. 

It cannot be supposed that a people who had 
in their own hands the means of checking their 
princes, would suffer any prince to impose 
upon them a seligion generally detested. It is 
absurd to suppose that, if the nation had been 
decidedly attached to the Protestant faith, Mary 
could have re-established the Papal supremacy. 
It is equally absurd to suppose that, if the na- 
tion had been zealous for the ancient religion, 
Elizabeth could have restored the Protestant 
Church. The truth is, that the people were 
not disposed to engage in a struggle either for 
the new or for the old doctrines. Abundance 
of spirit was shown when it seemed likely that 
Mary would resume her father's grants of 
church property, or that she would sacrifice 
the interests of England to the husband whom 
she regarded witb unmerited tenderness. That 



queen found that it would be madness tc at< 
tempt the restoration of the abbey lands. She 
found that her subjects would never suffer her 
to make her hereditary kingdom a fief of Cas- 
tile. On these points she encountered a steady 
resistance, and was compelled to give way. If 
she was able to establish the Catholic worship 
and to persecute those who would not conform 
to it, it was evidently because the people cared 
far less for the Protestant religion than for the 
rights of property and for the independence of 
the English crown. In plain words, they did 
not think the difference between the hostile 
sects worth a struggle. There was undoubted- 
ly a zealous Protestant party and a zealous 
Catholic party. But both these parties were, 
we believe, very small. We doubt whether 
both together made up, at the time of Mary's 
death, the twentieth part of the nation. The 
remaining nineteen-twentieths halted between 
the two opinions, and were not disposed to 
risk a revolution in the government for the 
purpose of giving to either of the exii^me fac- 
tions an advantage over the other. 

We possess no data which will enable us te 
compare with exactness the force of the twe 
sects. Mr. Butler asserts that, even at the ac- 
cession of James the First, a majority of the 
population of England were Catholics. Thij 
is pure assertion, and is not only unsupportec 
by evidence, but, we think, completely dis 
proved by ihe strongest evidence. Dr. Lingan . 
is of opinion that the Catholics were one-hal : 
of the nation in the middle of the reign of Eliza- 
beth. Richton says, that when Elizabeth cam-j 
to the throne, the Catholics were two-third3 
of the nation, and the Protestants only one- 
third. The most judicious and impartial of 
English historians, Mr. Hallam, is, on the con- 
trary, of opinion that two-thirds were Protest- 
ants, and only one-third Catholics. To us, ws 
must confess, it seems altogether inconceivable 
that, if the Protestants were really two to one, 
they should have borne the government of 
Mary; or that, if the Catholics were really two 
to one, they should have borne the government 
of Elizabeth. It is absolutely incredible that 
a sovereign who has no standing army, and 
whose power rests solely on the loyalty of his 
subjects, can continue for years to persecute 
a religion to which the majority of his subjects 
are sincerely attached. In fact, the Protest- 
ants did rise up against one sister, and ths 
Catholics against the other. Those risings 
clearly showed how small and feeble both tha 
parties were. Both in the one case and in the 
other the nation ranged itself on the side of the 
government, and the insurgents were speedily 
put down and punished. The Kentish gentle- 
men who took up arms for the reformed doc- 
trines against Mary, and the Great Northern 
Earls who displayed the banner of the Five 
Wounds against Elizabeth, were alike consi- 
dered by the great body of their countrymen as 
wicked disturbers of the public peace. 

The account which Cardinal Bentivoglio 
gave of the state of religion in England well 
deserves consideration. The zealous Catho- 
lics he reckoned at one-thirtieth part of the 
nation. The people who would without the 
least scruple become Catholics if the Ca.th;*i<< 



178 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



religion were established he estimated at four- 
fifths of the nation. "We believe this account 
to have been very near the truth. We believe 
that the people whose minds were made up on 
either side, who were inclined to make any 
sacrifice or run any .risk for either religion, 
were very few. Each side had a few enter- 
prising champions and a few stout-hearted 
martyrs ; but the nation, undetermined in its 
opinions and feelings, resigned itself implicitly 
to the guidance of the government, and lent to 
the sovereign for the time being an equally 
ready aid against either of the extreme parties. 
We are very far from saying that the Eng- 
lish of that generation were irreligious. They 
held firmly those doctrines which are common 
to the Catholic and to the Protestant theology. 
But they had no fixed opinion as to the matters 
in dispute between the churches. They were 
in a situation resembling that of those Bor- 
derers whom Sir Walter Scott has described 
with so much spirit ; 

" Who sought the beeves that made their broth 
In England and in Scotland both;" 

And who 

" Nine times outlawed had been 
By England's king and Scotland's queen." 

They were sometimes Protestants, sometimes 
Catholics ; sometimes half Protestants, half 
Catholics. 

The English had not, for ages, been bigoted 
Papists. In the fourteenth century, the first, 
and perhaps the greatest of the reformers, John 
Wicklifie, had stirred the public mind to its in- 
most depths. During the same century, a 
scandalous schism in the Catholic church had 
diminished, in many parts of Europe, the re- 
verence in which the Roman pontiffs were 
held. It is clear that a hundred years before 
the time of Luther, a great party in this king- 
dom was eager for a change, at least as exten- 
sive as that which was subsequently effected 
by Henry the Eighth. The House of Com- 
mons, in the reign of Henry the Fourth, pro- 
posed a confiscation of ecclesiastical property 
more sweeping and violent evtT- than that 
which took place under the administration of 
Thomas Cromwell; and, though defeated in 
this attempt, they succeeded in depriving the 
clerical order of some of its most oppressive 
privileges. The splendid Conquests of Henry 
the Fifth turned the attention of the nation 
from domestic reform. The Council of Con- 
stance removed some of the grossest of those 
scandals which had deprived the Church of 
the public respect. The authority of that 
venerable synod propped up the sinking au- 
thority of the Popedom. A considerable reac- 
tion took place. It cannot, however, be doubted, 
that there was still much concealed Lollardism 
in England; or that many who did not abso- 
lutely dissent from any doctrine held by the 
Church of Rome, were jealous of the wealth 
and power enjoyed by her ministers. At the 
very beginning of the reign of Henry the 
Eighth, a struggle took place between the 
clergy and the courts of law, in which the 
courts of law remained victorious. One of the 
bishops on that occasion declared, that the 



common people entertained the strongest pre* 
judices against his order, and that a ckrgy- 
man had no chance of fair play before a lay 
tribunal. The London juries, he said, enter- 
tained such a spite to the Church, that they 
would find Abel guilty of the murder of Cain. 
This was said a few months before the time 
when Martin Luther began to preach at Wife. 
temberg against indulgences. 

As the Reformation did not find the English 
bigoted Papists, so neither was it conducted in 
such a manner as to make them zealous Pro 
testants. It was not under the direction of 
men like that fiery Saxon, who swore that he 
would go to Worms, though he had to face as 
many devils as there were tiles qn the houses, 
or like that brave Switzer, who was struck 
down while, praying in front of the ranks ot 
Zurich. No preacher of religion had the same 
power here which Calvin had at Geneva, and 
Knox in Scotland. The government put itself 
early at the head of the movement, and thus 
acquired power to regulate, and occasionally 
to arrest, the movement. 

To many persons it appears extraordinary 
that Henry the Eighth should have been able 
to maintain himself so long in an intermediate 
position between the Catholic and Protestant 
parties. Most extraordinary, it would indeed 
be, if we were to suppose that the nation con- 
sisted of none but decided Catholics and de- 
cided Protestants. The fact is, that the great 
mass of the people were neither Catholic nor 
Protestant; but was, like its sovereign, mid- 
way between the two sects. Henry, in tha; 
very part of his conduct which has been repre- 
sented as most capricious and inconsistent, 
was probably following a policy far more 
pleasing to the majority of his subjects, than 
a policy like that of Edward or a policy like 
that of Mary would have been. Down even 
to the very close of the reign of Elizabeth, the 
people Avere in a state somewhat resembling 
that in which, as Machiavelli says, the inha- 
bitants of the Roman empire were, during the 
transition from Heathenism to Christianity ; 
" sendo la maggior parte di loro incerti a quale 
Dio dovessero ricorrere." They were gene- 
rally, we think, favourable to the royal supre- 
macy. They disliked the policy of the court 
of Rome. Their spirit rose against the inter- 
ference of a foreign priest with their national 
concerns. The bull which pronounced sen- 
tence of deposition against Elizabeth, the plots 
which were formed against her life, the usurpa- 
tion of her titles by the Queen of Scotland, the 
hostility of Philip, excited their strongest in- 
dignation. The cruelties of Bonner were re- 
membered with disgust. Some parts of the 
new system, the use of the English language, 
for example, in public worship, and the com« 
munion in both kinds, were undoubtedly popu- 
lar. On the other hand, the early lessons of 
the nurse and the priest were not forgotten. 
The ancient ceremonies were long remember- 
ed with affectionate reverence. A large por- 
tion of the ancient theology lingered to the 
last in the minds which had been imbued with 
it in childhood. 

The best proof that the religion of the people 



NARES'S MEMOIRS OF LORD BURGHLEY. 



179 



i*as of this mixed kind, is furnished by the 
drama of that age. No man would bring un- 
popular opinions prominently forward in a 
play irJb snded for representation. And we may 
safety conclude, that feelings and opinions 
which pervade the whole dramatic literature 
of an age, are feelings and opinions of which 
the men of that age generally partook. 

The greatest and most popular dramatists of 
the Elizabethan age treat religious subjects in a 
very remarkable manner. They speak respect- 
fully of the fundamental doctrines of Chris- 
tianity. But they speak neither like Catholics 
nor like Protestants, but like persons who are 
wavering between the two systems ; or who 
have made a system for themselves out of 
parts selected from both. They seem to hold 
some of the Romish rites and doctrines in high 
respect. They treat the vow of celibacy, for 
example, so tempting, and, in after times, so 
common a subject for ribaldry, with mysterious 
reverence. The members of religious orders 
whom they introduce are almost always holy 
and venerable men. We remember in their 
plays nothing resembling the coarse ridicule 
with which the Catholic religion and its minis- 
ters were assailed, two generations later, by 
dramatists who wished to please the multitude. 
We remember no Friar Dominic, no Father 
Foigard, among the characters drawn by those 
great poets. The scene at the close of the 
Knight of Malta might have been written by a 
fervent Catholic. Massinger shows a great fond- 
ness for ecclesiastics of the Romish church ; 
and has even gone so far as to bring a virtuous 
and interesting Jesuit on the stage. Ford, in 
that fine play, which it is painful to read, and 
scarcely decent to name, assigns a highly 
creditable part to the Friar. The partiality of 
Shakspeare for Friars is well known. In Ham- 
let, the Ghost complains that he died without 
extreme unction, and, in defiance of the article 
which condemns the doctrine of purgatory, de- 
clares that he is 

" Confined to fast in fires, 
Till the foul crimes, done in his days of nature, 
Are burnt and purged away." 

These lines, we suspect, would have, raised 
a tremendous storm in the theatre at any time 
during the reign of Charles the Second. They 
were clearly not written by a zealous Protest- 
ant, or for zealous Protestants. Yet the author 
of King John and Henry the Eighth was surely 
no friend to papal supremacy. 

There is, we think, only one solution of the 
phenomena which we find in the history and 
in the drama of that age. The religion of 
England was a mixed religion, like that of the 
Samaritan settlers, described in the second 
book of Kings, who "feared the Lord, and 
served their graven images ;" like that of the 
Judaizing Christians, who blended the ceremo- 
nies and doctrines of the synagogue with those 
of the church ; like that of the Mexican In- 
dians, who, for many generations after the sub- 
jugation of their race, continued to unite with 
the rites learned from their conquerors, the 
worship of the grotesque idols which had been 
dored by Monttzuma and Guatemozin. 

These foelings were not confined to the 



populace, Elizabeth nerself was not excmpl 
from them. A crucifix, with wax-lights burn- 
ing round it, stood in her private chapel. She 
always spoke with disgust and anger of the 
marriage of priests. "I was in horror," says 
Archbishop Parker, "to hear such words to 
come from her mild nature and Christian 
learned conscience, as she spake concerning 
God's holy ordinance and institution of matri- 
mony." Burghley prevailed on her to connive 
at the marriages of churchmen. But she would 
only connive; and the children sprung from 
such marriages were illegitimate till the ac- 
cession of James the First. 

That which is, as we have said, the great 
stain on the character of Burghley, is also thg 
great stain on the character of Elizabeth 
Being herself an Adiaphorist, having no scru- 
ple about conforming to the Romish churcn. 
when conformity was necessary to her own 
safety, retaining to the last moment of her life 
a fondness for much of the doctrine and much 
of the ceremonial of that church, she yet sub- 
jected that church to a persecution even more 
odious than the persecution with which her 
sister had harassed the Protestants. We say 
more odious. For Mary had at least the plea 
of fanaticism. She did nothing for her reli- 
gion which she was not prepared to suffer for 
it. She had held it firmly under persecution. 
She fully believed it to be essential to salva- 
tion. If she burned the bodies of her subjects, 
it was in order to rescue their souls. Eliza- 
beth had no such pretext. In opinion, she was 
little more than half a Protestant. She had 
professed,, when it suited her, to be wholly a 
Catholic. There is an excuse, a wretched ex- 
cuse, for the massacre of Piedmont and the 
autos-da-fe of Spain. But what can be said in 
defence of a ruler who is at once indifferent 
and intolerant 1 

If the great queen, whose memory is still 
held in just veneration by Englishmen, had 
possessed sufficient virtue and sufficient en- 
largement of mind to adopt those principles 
which More, wiser in speculation than in ac- 
tion, had avowed in the preceding generation, 
and by which the excellent l'Hospital regu- 
lated his conduct in her own time, how dif- 
ferent would be the colour of the whole history 
of the last two hundred and fifty years ! She 
had the happiest opportunity ever vouchsafed 
to any sovereign, of establishing perfect free- 
dom of conscience throughout her dominions, 
without danger to her government, or scandal 
to any large party among her subjects. The 
nation, as it was clearly ready to profess either 
religion, would, beyond all doubt, have been 
ready to tolerate both. Unhappily for her own 
glory and for the public peace, she adopted a 
policy, from the effects of which the empire is 
still suffering. The yoke of the Established 
Church was pressed down on the people tili 
they would bear it no longer. Then a reaction 
came. Another reaction followed. To the 
tyranny of the establishment succeeded the tu- 
multuous conflict of sects, infuriated by mam 
fold wrongs, and drunk with unwonted freedom. 
To the conflict of sects succeeded again rh« 
cruel domination of one persecuting chnirch 



180 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



At length oppression put off its most horrible 
form, and took a milder aspect. The penal 
laws against dissenters were abolished. But 
exclusions and disabilities still remained. 
These exclusions and disabilities, after having 
generated the most fearful discontents, after 
having rendered all government in one part 
of the kingdom impossible, after having 
brought the state to the very brink of ruin, 
have, in our times, been removed ; but, though 
removed, have left behind them a rankling 
which may last for many years. It is melan- 
choly to think with what ease Elizabeth might 
have united all the conflicting sects under the 
shelter of the same impartial laws and the 
same paternal throne ; and thus have placed 
the nation in the same situation, as far as the 
rights of conscience are concerned, in which 
we at. length stand, after all the heart-burnings, 
the persecutions, the conspiracies, the sedi- 
tions, the revolutions, the judicial murders, 
the civil wars, of ten generations. 

This is the dark side of her character. Yet 
she surely was a great woman. Of all the 
sovereigns who exercised a power which was 
seemingly absolute, but which in fact depend- 
ed for support on the love and confidence of 
their subjects, she was by far the most illus- 
trious. It has often been alleged, as an excuse 
for the misgovernment of her successors, that 
they only followed her example ; — that prece- 
dents might be found in the transactions of 
her reign for persecuting the Puritans, for 
levying money without the sanction of the 
House of Commons, for confining men with- 
out bringing them to trial, for interfering with 
the liberty of parliamentary debate. All this 
may be true. But it is no good plea for her 
successors, and for this plain reason, that they 
were her successors. She governed one gene- 
ration, they governed another; and between 
the two generations there was almost as little 
in common as between the people of two dif- 
ferent countries. It was not by looking at the 
particular measures which Elizabeth had 
adopted, but by looking at the great general 
principles of her government, that those who 
followed her were likely to learn the art of 
managing untractable subjects. If, instead of 
searching the records of her reign for prece- 
dents which might seem to vindicate the muti- 
lation of Prynne and the imprisonment of 
Eliot, the Stuarts had attempted to discover 
the fundamental rules which guided her con- 
duct in all her dealings with her people, they 
would have perceived that their policy was 
then most unlike to hers when, to a superficial 
observer, it would have seemed most to resem- 
ble hers. Firm, haughty, sometimes unjust and 
cruel in her proceedings towards individuals 
or towards small parties, she avoided with 
care, or retracted with speed, every measure 
which seemed likely to alienate the great mass 
of the people. She gained more honour and 
more love by the manner in which she repair- 
ed her errors, than she would have gained by 
never committing errors. If such a man as 
Shanes the First had been in her place when 

a whole nation was crying out against the 
monoDolies, he would have refused all redress • 



he would have dissolved the Parliament, anii 
imprisoned the most popular members Ha 
would have called another Parliament. He 
would have given some vague and delusive 
promises of relief in return for subsidies. 
When entreated to fulfil his promises, he 
would have again dissolved the Parliament, 
and again imprisoned his leading opponents. 
The country would have become more agi- 
tated than before. The next House of Com- 
mons would have been more unmanageable 
than that which preceded it. The tyrant 
would have agreed to all that the nation de- 
manded. He would have solemnly ratified an 
act abolishing monopolies forever. He would 
have received a large supply in return for this 
concession ; and within half a year new pa- 
tents, more oppressive than those which had 
been cancelled, would have been issued by 
scores. Such was the policy which brought 
the heir of a long line of kings, in early youth 
the darling of his countrymen, to a prison and 
a scaffold. 

Elizabeth, before the House of Commons 
could address her, took out of their mouths the 
words which they were about to utter in the 
name of the nation. Her promises went be- 
yond their desires. Her performance followed 
close upon her promise. She did not treat the 
nation as an adverse party ; as a party which 
had an interest opposed to hers ; as a party to 
which she was to grant as few advantages as 
possible, and from which she was to extort as 
much money as possible. Her benefits were 
given, not sold; and when once given, they 
were not withdrawn. She gave them, too, 
with a frankness, an effusion of heart, a 
princely dignity, a motherly tenderness, which 
enhanced their value. They were received by 
the sturdy country gentleman, who had come 
up to Westminster full of resentment, with 
tears of joy and shouts of God save the Queen. 
Charles the First gave up half the preroga- 
tives of his crown to the Commons; and the 
Commons sent him in return the Grand Re- 
monstrance. 

We had intended to say something concern- 
ing that illustrious group of which Elizabeth 
is the central figure — that group which the 
last of the bards saw in vision from the top of 
Snowdon, encircling the Virgin Queen — 

" Many a baron bold, 
And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old 
In bearded majesty." 

We had intended to say something concerning 
the dexterous Walsingham, the impetuous Ox • 
ford, the elegant Sackville, the all-accomplish- 
ed Sidney; concerning Essex, the ornament of 
the court and of the camp, the model of chival- 
ry, the munificent patron of genius, whom great 
virtues, great courage, great talents, the favour 
of his sovereign, the love of his countrymen — 
all that seemed to insure a happy and glorious 
life, led to an early and an ignominious death* 
concerning Raleigh, the soldier, the sailor, the 
scholar, the courtier, the orator, the poet, the 
historian, the philosopher, sometimes review- 
ing the queen's guards, sometimes givin # 



DUMONT'S RECOLLECTIONS OF MIRABEAU. 



181 



chase to a Spanish galleon, then answering 
the chiefu of the country party in the House of 
Commons, then again murmuring one of his 
sweet love-songs too near the ears of her high- 
ness's maids of honour, and soon after poring 
over the Talmud, or collating Polybius with 
Livy. We had intended also to say something 
concerning the literature of that splendid pe- 
riod, and especially concerning those two in- 
comparable men, the Prince of Poets and the 



Prince of Philosophers, who have made th« 
Elizabethan age a more glorious and important 
era in the history of the human mind, than the 
age of Pericles, of Augustus, or of Leo. But 
subjects so vast require a space far largei 
than we can at present afford. We therefore 
stop here, fearing that, if we proceed, our arti 
cle may swell to a bulk exceeding that of all 
other reviews, as much as Doctor Nares's book 
exceeds the bulk of all other histories. 



DUMONT'S RECOLLECTIONS OF MIEABEAU.* 



[Edinburgh Review, 1832.] 



This is a very amusing and a very in- 
structive book ; but, even if it were less amus- 
ing and less instructive, it would still be inte- 
resting as a relic of a wise and virtuous man. 
M. DumontVas one of those persons, the care 
of whose fame belongs in an especial manner 
to mankind, for he was one of those persons 
who have, for the sake of mankind, neglected 
the care of their own fame. In his walk 
through life there was no obtrusiveness, no 
pushing, no elbowing, none of the little arts 
which bring forward little men. With every 
right to the head of the board, he took the low- 
est room, and well deserved to be greeted with — 
Friend, go up higher. Though no man was 
more capable of achieving for himself a sepa- 
rate and independent renown, he attached him- 
self to others ; he laboured to raise their fame ; 
he was content to receive, as his share of the 
reward, the mere overflowings which redound- 
ed from the full measure of their glory. Not 
that he was of a servile and idolatrous habit 
of mind ; not that he was one of the tribe of 
Boswells, those literary Gibeonites, born to be 
hewers of wood and drawers of water to the 
higher intellectual castes. Possessed of talents 
and acquirements which made him great, he 
wished only to be useful. In the prime of 
manhood, at the very time of life at which am- 
bitious men are most ambitious, he was not 
solicitous to proclaim that he furnished infor- 
; mation, arguments, and eloquence to Mirabeau. 
In his later years he was perfectly willing that 
his renown should merge in that of Mr. Ben- 
tham. 

The services which M. Dumont has rendered 
to society can be fully appreciated only by 
those who have studied Mr. Bentham's works, 
both in their rude and in their finished state. 
The difference both for show and for use is as 
great as the difference between a lump of golden 
ore and a rouleau of sovereigns fresh from the 
mint. Of Mr. Bentham we would at all times 
speak with the reverence which is due to a 



* Souvenirs sur Mirakeau, et sur les deux PremUres 
Assemblies Legislatives. Par Etienne Dumont, de Ge- 
neve : ouvrage posthume publie par M. J. L. Duval, 
Membre du ConseilRepresentatif du Canton du Geneve. 
8vo. Paris. 1832. 



great original thinker, and to a sincere and 
ardent friend of the human race. If a few 
weaknesses were mingled with his eminent 
virtues, if a few errors insinuated themselves 
among the many valuable truths which he 
taught, this is assuredly no time for noticing 
those weaknesses or those errors in an unkind 
or sarcastic spirit. A great man has gone 
from among us, full of years, of good works, 
and of deserved hqnours. In some of the high- 
est departments in which the human intellect 
can exert itself, he has not left his equal or his 
second behind him. From his contemporaries 
he has had, according to the usun lot, more or 
less than justice. He has had blind flatterers 
and blind detractors ; flatterers who could see 
nothing but perfection in his style, detractors 
who could see nothing but nonsense in his 
matter. He will now have judges. Posterity 
will pronounce its calm and impartial decision, 
and that decision will, we firmly believe, place 
in the same rank with Galiieo a*id with Locke 
the man who found jurisprudence a gibberish 
and left it a science. Never was there a lite 
rary partnership so fortunate as that of Mr 
Bentham and M. Dumont. The raw material 
which Mr. Bentham furnished was most pre- 
cious, but it was unmarketable. He was, assu- 
redly, at once a great logician and a great 
rhetorician. But the effect of his logic was 
injured by a vicious arrangement, and the 
effect of his rhetoric by a vicious style. His 
mind was vigorous, comprehensive, subtile, 
fertile of arguments, fertile of illustrations. 
But he spoke in an unknown tongue ; and, that 
the congregation might be edified, it was neces- 
sary that some brother having the gift of inter- 
pretation should expound the invaluable jargon. 
His oracles were of high import, but they were 
traced on leaves and flung loose to the wind. 
So negligent was he of the arts of selection, 
distribution, and compression, that to persons 
who formed their judgment of him from his 
works in their undigested state, he seemed to 
be the least systematic of all philosophers. 
The truth is, that his opinions formed a sys- 
tem which, whether sound or unsound, is mora 
exact, more °.ntire, and more consistent with 
itself than any other. Yet, to superficial rea ■'- • 



182 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ers of his works in their original form, and 
indeed to all readers of. those works who did 
not bring great industry and great acuteness 
to the study, he seemed to be a man of a quick 
and ingenious but ill-regulated mind, who saw 
truth only by glimpses, who threw out many 
striking hints, but who had never thought of 
combining his doctrines in one harmonious 
whole. 

M. Dumont was admirably qualified to sup- 
ply what was wanting in Mr. Bentham. In the 
qualities in which the French writers surpass 
those of all other nations — neatness, clearness, 
precision, condensation — he surpassed all 
French writers. If M. Dumont had never been 
born, Mr. Bentham would still have been a 
very great man. But he would have been 
great to himself alone. The fertility of his 
mind would have resembled the fertility of 
those vast American wildernesses, in which 
blossoms and decays a rich but unprofitable 
vegetation, " wherewith the reaper filleth not 
his hand, neither he that bindeth up the sheaves 
his bosom." It would have been with his dis- 
coveries as it has been with the " Century of 
Inventions." His speculations on laws would 
have been of no more practical use than Lord 
Worcester's speculations on steam-engines. 
Some generations hence, perhaps, when legis- 
lation has found its Watt, an antiquary might 
have published to the world the curious fact, 
that in the reign of George the Third there had 
been a man called Bentham, who had given 
hints of many discoveries made since his time, 
and who had really, for his age, taken a most 
philosophical view of the principles of juris- 
prudence. 

Many persons have attempted to interpret 
between this powerful mind and the public. 
But, in our opinion, M, Dumont alone has suc- 
ceeded. It is remarkable that, in foreign coun- 
tries, where Mr. Bentham's works are known 
solely through the medium of the French ver- 
sion, his merit is almost universally acknow- 
ledged. Even those who are most decidedly 
opposed to his political opinions, the very 
chiefs of the Holy Alliance, have publicly tes- 
tified their respect for him. In England, on 
the contrary, many persons who certainly en- 
tertained no prej udice against him on political 
grounds, were long in the habit of mentioning 
him contemptuously. Indeed, what was said 
of Bacon's philosophy may be said of Ben 
tham's. It was of little repute among us till 
judgments in its favour came from beyond sea, 
and convinced us, to our shame, that we had 
been abusing and laughing at one of the great- 
est men of the age. 

M. Dumont might easily have found employ- 
ments more gratifying to personal vanity, than 
that of arranging works not his own. But he 
could have found no employment more useful 
or more truly honourable. The book before 
as, hastily written as it is, contains abundant 
proof, if proof were needed, that he did not be- 
come an editor because he wanted the talents 
which would have made him eminent as a 
writer. 

Persons who hold democratical opinions, 
and who have been accustomed to consider 
M. Dumont as one of their party, have been 



surprised and mortified to learn, '.hat he apeaka 
with very little respect of the French Revolu 
tion, and of its authors. Some zealous Tories 
have naturally expressed great satisfaction at 
finding their doctrines, in some respects, con- 
firmed by the testimony of an unwilling wit- 
ness. The date of the work, we think, explaina 
every thing. If it had been written ten years 
earlier, or twenty years later, it would have 
been very different from what it is. It was 
written, neither during the first excitement of 
the Revolution, nor at that later period, when 
the practical good produced by the Revolution j 
had become manifest to the most prejudiced ! 
observers ; but in those wretched times, when 
the enthusiasm had abated, and the solid ad- 
vantages were not yet fully seen. It was writ- 
ten in the year 1799, a year in which the most 
sanguine friend of liberty might well feel some 
misgivings as to the effects of what the National 1 
Assembly had done. The evils which attend 
every great change had been severely felt. 
The benefit was still to come. The price, a 
heavy price, had been paid. The thing pur- 
chased had not yet been delivered. Europe 
was swarming with French exiles. The fleets 
and armies of the second coalition were victo- 
rious. Within France, the reign of terror was 
over ; but the reign of law had not commenced. ' 
There had been, indeed, during three or four 
years, a written constitution, by which rights 
were defined, and checks provided. But these 
rights had been repeatedly violated, and those 
checks had proved utterly inefficient. The 
laws which had been framed to secure the dis 
tinct authority of the executive magistrates 
and of the legislative assemblies — the freedom 
of election, the freedom of debate, the freedom 
of the press, the personal freedom of citizens 
— were a dead letter. The ordinary mode in 
which the republic was governed, was by 
coups d'etat. On one occasion, the legislative 
councils were placed under military restraint 
by the directors. Then again, directors were 
deposed by the legislative councils. Elections 
were set aside by the executive authority. 
Ship loads of writers and speakers were sent, 
without a legal trial, to die of fever in Guiana. 
France, in short, was in that state in which re- 
volutions, effected by violence, almost always 
leave a nation. The habit of obedience had 
been lost. The spell of proscription had been 
broken. Those associations on which, far 
more than on any arguments about property 
and order, the authority of magistrates rests, 
had completely passed away. The power of 
the government consisted merely in the physi« 
cal force which it could bring to its support 
Moral force it had none. It was itself a. go- 
vernment sprung from a recent convulsion. Its 
own fundamental maxim was, that rebellion 
might be justifiable. Its own existence proved 
that rebellion might be successful. The people 
had been accustomed, during several years, to 
offer resistance to the constituted authorities on 
the slightest provocation, and to see the con- 
stituted authorities yield to that resistance 
The whole political world was " without form 
and void" — an incessant whirl of hostile 
atoms, which every moment formed seme new 
combination. The only man who could fix th« 



DUMONT'S RECOLLECTIONS OF MIRABEAU. 



133 



agitated elements of society in a stable form, 
was following a wild vision of glory and em- 
pire through the Syrian deserts. The time was 
not yet come, when 

" Confusion heard his voice, and wild uproar stood 
ruled;" 

when, out of the chaos into which the old so- 
ciety had been resolved, were to rise a new 
dynasty, a new peerage, a new church, and a 
new code. 

The dying words of Madame Roland, " Oh 
Liberty ! how many crimes are committed in 
thy name !" were at that time echoed by many 
of the most upright and benevolent of mankind. 
M. Guizot has, in one of his admirable pam- 
phlets, happily and justly described M. Laine 
as "an honest and liberal man, discouraged by 
die Revolution." This description, at the time 
when M. Dumont's Memoirs were written, 
would have applied to almost every honest and 
liberal man in Europe ; and would, beyond all 
doubt, have applied to M. Dumont himself. To 
that fanatical worship of the all-wise and all- 
good people, which had been common a few 
years before, had succeeded an uneasy suspi- 
cion that th» follies and vices of the people 
would frustrate all attempts to serve them. 
The wild and joyous exultation with which the 
meeting of the States-General and the fall of 
the Bastile had been hailed, had passed away. 
In its place was dejection, and a gloomy dis- 
trust of specious appearances. The philoso- 
phers and philanthropists had reigned. And 
what had their reign produced 1 Philosophy 
had brought with it mummeries as absurd as 
any which had been practised by the most su- 
perstitious zealot of the darkest age. Philan- 
; thropy had brought with it crimes as horrible 
as the massacre of St. Bartholomew. This 
fewas the emancipation of the human mind. 
[These were the fruits of the great victory of 
^reason over prejudice. France had rejected 
the faith of Pascal and Descartes as a nursery 
fable, that a courtesan might be her idol, and a 
madman her priest. She had asserted her free- 
dom against Louis, that she might bow down 
before Robespierre. For a time men thought, 
that all the boasted wisdom of the eighteenth 
century was folly; and that those hopes of 
great political and social ameliorations, which 
had been cherished by Voltaire and Cordorcet, 
were utterly delusive. 

I Under the influence of these feelings, M. 
fJDumont has gone so far as to say, that the 
.(writings of Mr. Burke on the French Revolu- 
tion, though disfigured by exaggeration, and 
| though containing doctrines subversive of all 
jpublic liberty, had been, on the whole, justified 
jby events, and had probably saved Europe from 
jgreat disasters. That such a man as the friend 

and fellow-laboarer of Mr. Bentham, should 

have expressed such an opinion, is a circum- 
. stance which well deserves the consideration 
J of uncharitable politicians. These Memoirs 
: have not convinced us that the French Revo- 
! lution was not a great blessing to mankind. 

But they have convinced us that very great 
i indulgence is due to those, who, while the Re- 
: volution was actually taking place, regarded it 

with unmixed aversion and horror. We can 



perceive where their error lay. We can per. 
ceive that the evil was temporary, and the 
good durable. But we cannot be sure, that, if 
our lot had been cast in their times, we should 
not, like them, have been discouraged and dis- j 
gusted; that we should not, like them, have 
seen, in that great victory of the French peo- 
pie, only insanity and crime. 

It is curious to observe how some men are ■ 
applauded, and others reviled, for merely being 
what all their neighbours are, for merely going 
positively down the stream of events, for merely 
representing the opinions and passions of a 
whole generation. The friends of popular 
government ordinarily speak with extreme 
severity of Mr. Pitt, and with respect and ten- 
derness of Mr. Canning. Yet the whole dif- 
ference, we suspect, consisted merely in this : 
that Mr. Pitt died in 1806, and Mr. Canning in 
1827. During the years which were common 
to the public life of both, Mr. Canning was 
assuredly not a more illiberal statesman than 
his patron. The truth is, that Mr. Pitt began 
his political life at the end of the American 
War, when the nation was suffering from the 
effects of corruption. He closed it in the midst 
of the calamities produced by the French Re- 
volution, when the nation was strongly im- 
pressed with the horrors of anarchy. He 
changed, undoubtedly. In his youth he had 
brought in reform bills. In his manhood he 
brought in gagging bills. But the change, 
though lamentable, was, in our opinion, per- 
fectly natural, and might have been perfect- 
ly honest. He changed with the great body 
of his countrymen. Mr. Canning, on the 
other hand, entered into public life when 
Europe was in dread of the Jacobins. He 
closed his public life when Europe was suffer- 
ing under the tyranny of the Holy Alliance 
He, too, changed with the nation. As the 
crimes of the Jacobins had turned the master 
into something very like a Tory, the events 
which followed the Congress of Vienna turned 
the pupil into something very like a Whig. 

So much are men the creatures of circum- 
stances. We see that, if M. Dumont had died 
in 1799, he would have died, to use the new 
cant word, a decided " conservative." If Mr. 
Pitt had lived to 1832, it is our firm belief that 
he would have been a decided reformer. 

The judgment passed by M. Dumont in this 
work on the French Revolution must be taken 
with considerable allowances. It resembks a 
criticism on a play, of which only the first act 
has been performed, or on a building from 
which the scaffolding has not yet been taken 
down. We have no doubt, that if the excellent 
author had revised these memoirs thirty years 
after the time at which they were written, he 
would hav^ seen reason to omit a few pas- 
sages, and to add many qualifications and ex 
planations. 

He would not probably have been incline 
to retract the censures, just, though seven 
which he has passed on the ignorance, the pie 
sumption, and the pedantry of the National As-- 
sembly. But he would have admitted rhat, in 
spite of those faults, perhaps even by reason 
of these faults, that Assembly had conferred 
inestimable benefits on mankind. It is clear 



.84 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



what among the French of that day, political 
Knowledge was absolutely in its infancy. It 
would indeed have been strange if it had at- 
tained maturity in the time of censors, of let- 
tres-de-cachet, and of beds of justice. The elect- 
ors did not know how to elect. The repre- 
sentatives did not know how to deliberate. 
M. Dumont taught the constituent body of 
Montreuil how to perform their functions, and 
found them apt to learn. He afterwards tried 
in concert with Mirabeau, to instruct the Na- 
tional Assembly in that admirable system of 
parliamentary tactics which has been long 
established in the English House of Commons, 
and which has made the House of Commons, 
in spite of all the defects in its composition, 
the best and fairest debating society in the 
world. But these accomplished legislators, 
though quite as ignorant as the mob of Mon- 
treuil, proved much less docile, and cried out 
that they did not want to go to school to the 
English. Their debates consisted of endless 
successions of trashy pamphlets, all beginning 
with something about the original compact of 
society, man in the hunting state, and other 
such foolery. They sometimes diversified and 
enlivened these long readings by a little riot- 
ing. They bawled; they hooted; they shook 
their fists. They kept no order among them- 
selves. They were insulted with impunity by 
the crowd which filled their galleries. They 
gave long and solemn consideration to trifles. 
They hurried through the most important re- 
solutions With fearful expedition. They wast- 
ed months in quibbling about the words of that 
false and childish Declaration of Rights on 
which they professed to found their new con- 
stitution, and which was at irreconcilable 
variance with every clause of that constitu- 
tion. They annihilated in a single night pri- 
vileges, many of which partook of the nature 
of property, and ought therefore to have been 
most delicately handled. 

They are called the Constituent Assembly. 
Never was a name less appropriate. They 
were not constituent, but the very reverse of 
constituent They constituted nothing that 
stood, or that deserved to last. They had not, 
and they could not possibly have, the informa- 
tion or the habits of mind which are necessary 
for the framing of that most exquisite of all 
machines, a government. The metaphysical 
cant with which they prefaced their constitu- 
tion has long been the scoff of all parties. 
Their constitution itself, that constitution which 
they described as absolutely perfect, and to 
which they predicted immortality, disappeared 
ifi a few months, and left no trace behind it. 
They were great only in the work of destruc 
tion. 

The glory of the National Assembly is this, 
that they were in truth, what Mr. Burke called 
them in austere irony, the ablest architects of 
ruin that ever the world saw. They were 
utterly incompetent to perform any work which 
required a discriminating eye and a skilful 
hand. But the work which was then to be 
done was a work of devastation. They had to 
deal with abuses so horrible and so deeply 
rooted, that the highest political wisdom could 
scarcely have raroduced greater good to man- 



kind than was produced by their fierce and 
senseless temerity. Demolition is undoubtedly 
a vulgar task ; the highest glory of the states* 
man is to construct. But there is a time for 
every thing, a time to set up, and a time to pall 
down. The talents of revolutionary leaders, 
and those of the legislator, have equally their 
use and their season. It is the natural, the al- 
most universal law, that the age of insurrec- 
tions and proscriptions shall precede the age 
of good government, of temperate liberty, and 
liberal order. 

And how should it be otherwise 1 It is not 
in swaddling-bands that we learn to walk. It 
is not in the dark that we learn to distinguish 
colours. It is not under oppression that we 
learn how to use freedom. The ordinary 
sophism by which misrule is defended is, 
when truly stated, this : The people must con- 
tinue in slavery, because slavery has gene- 
rated in them all the vices of slaves. Because 
they are ignorant, they must remain under a 
power which has made and which keeps them 
ignorant. Because they have been made fero- 
cious by misgovernment, they must be mis- 
governed forever. If the system under which 
they live were so mild and liberal, that under 
its operation they had become humane and 
enlightened, it would be safe to venture on a 
change. But as this system has destroyed 
morality, and prevented the development of 
the intellect; as it has turned men who might, 
under different training, have formed a virtu- 
ous and happy community, into savage and 
stupid wild beasts, therefore it ought to last for- 
ever. The English Revolution, it is said, wa3 
truly a glorious revolution. Practical evils 
were redressed; no excesses were committed j 
no sweeping confiscations took place ; the au- 
thority of the laws was scarcely for a moment 
suspended ; the fullest and freest discussion 
was tolerated in Parliament ; the nation show- 
ed by the calm and temperate manner in which 
it asserted its liberty, that it was fit to enjoy 
liberty. The French Revolution was, on the 
other hand, the most horrible event recorded 
in history, all madness and wickedness, ab- 
surdity in theory, and atrocity in practice. 
What folly and injustice in the revolutionary 
laws ! What grotesque affectation in the 
revolutionary ceremonies ! . What fanaticism ! 
What licentiousness! What cruelty! Ana*_ 
charsis Clootz and Marat, feasts of the Su- 
preme Being, and marriages of the Loire, trees 
of liberty, and heads dancing on pikes— the 
whole forms a kind of infernal farce, made up 
of every thing ridiculous and every thing 
frightful. This it is to give freedom to those 
who have neither wisdom nor virtue. It is 
not only by bad men interested in the defence 
of abuses, that arguments like these have been 
urged against all schemes of political improve- 
ment. Some of the highest and purest of hu- 
man beings conceived such scorn and aver- 
sion for the follies and crimes of the French 
Revolution, that they recanted, in the moment 
of triumph, those liberal opinions to which 
they had clung in defiance of persecution 
And if we inquire why it was that they began 
to doubt whether liberty were a blessing, we 
shall find that it was only because events Had 



DUMONT'S RECOLLECTIONS OF MIRABEAU. 



185 



proved, in the clearest manner, that liberty is 
the parent of virtue and of order. They ceased 
to abhor tyranny merely because it had been 
signally shown, that the effect of tyranny on the 
hearts and understandings of men is more de- 
moralizing and more stupefying than had ever 
been imagined by the most zealous friend of 
popular rights. The truth is, that a stronger 
argument against the old monarchy of France 
may be drawn from the noyades and the fu&i- 
lades, than from the Bastille and the Parc-aux- 
cerfr. We believe it to be a rule without an 
exception, that the violence of a revolution 
corresponds to the degree of misgovernment 
which has produced that revolution. Why was 
the French Revolution so bloody and destruc- 
tive? Why was our revolution of 1641 com- 
paratively mild 1 Why was our revolution of 
1688 milder still 1 Why was the American 
Revolution, considered as an internal move- 
ment, the mildest of all 1 There is an obvious 
and complete solution of the problem. The 
English under James the First and Charles the 
First were less oppressed than the French 
under Louis the Fifteenth and Louis the Six- 
teenth. The English were less oppressed 
after the Restoration than before the great Re- 
bellion. And America, under George the Third, 
was less oppressed than England under the 
Stuarts. The reaction was exactly proportion- 
ed to the pressure — the vengeance to the pro- 
vocation. 

When Mr. Burke was reminded in his later 
years of the zeal which he had displayed in 
the cause of the Americans, he vindicated him- 
self from the charge of inconsistency, by con- 
trasting the wisdom and moderation of the 
colonial insurgents of 1776, with the fanaticism 
and wickedness of the Jacobins of 1792. He 
was in fact bringing an argument d fortiori 
against himself. The circumstances on which 
he rested his vindication fully proved that the 
old government of France stood in far more need 
of a complete change than the old government 
of America. The difference between Wash- 
ington and Robespierre, the difference between 
Franklin and Barrere, the difference between 
the destruction of a few barrels of tea and the 
confiscation of thousands of square miles, the 
difference between the tarring and feathering 
of a tax-gatherer and the massacres of Sep- 
tember, measure the difference between the 
government of America under the rule of Eng- 
land, and the government of France under the 
rule of the Bourbons. 

Louis the Sixteenth made great voluntary 
concessions to his people; and they sent him 
to the scaffold. Charles the Tenth violated the 
fundamental laws of the state, established a 
despotism, and butchered his subjects for not 
submitting quietly to that despotism. He fail- 
ed in his wicked attempt. He was at the 
mercy of those whom he had injured. The 
pavements of Paris were still heaped up in 
barricades ; the hospitals were still full of the 
wounded; the dead were still unburied; a 
thousand families were in mourning ; a hun- 
dred thousand citizens were in arms. The 
crime was recent; the life of the criminal was 
in the hands of the sufferers ; and they touched 
not one hair of his head. In the first revolu- 



tion, victims were sent to death by scores foi 
the most trifling acts proved by the lowest tes« 
timony, before the most partial tribunals. Af 
ter the second revolution, those ministers 'who 
had signed the ordinances — those ministers 
whose guilt, as it was of the foulest kind, was 
proved by the clearest evidence — were punish- 
ed only with imprisonment. In the first revo- 
lution, property was attacked. In the second, 
it was held sacred. Both revolutions, it is 
true, left the public mind of France in an un- 
settled state. Both revolutions were followed 
by insurrectionary movements. But after the 
first revolution, the insurgents were almost 
always stronger than the law ; and since the 
second revolution, the law has invariably been 
found stronger than the insurgents. There is, 
indeed, much in the present state of France 
which may well excite the uneasiness of those 
who desire to see her free, happy, powerful, 
and secure. Yet if we compare the present 
state of France with the state in which she 
was forty years ago, how vast a change for 
the better has taken place ! How little effect, 
for example, during the first revolution, would 
the sentence of a judicial body have produced 
on an armed and victorious party ! If, after 
the tenth of August, or after the proscription 
of the Gironde, or after the ninth of Thermidor, 
or after the carnage of Vendemiaire, or after 
the arrests of Fructidor, any tribunal had de- 
cided against the conquerors in favour of the 
conquered, with what contempt, with what de 
rision, would its award have been received J 
The judges would have lost their heads, oj 
would have been sent to die in some unwhole- 
some colony. The fate of the victim whom 
they had endeavoured to save would only 
have been made darker and more hopeless by 
their interference. We have lately seen a sig- 
nal proof that in France, the law is now strong- 
er than the sword. We have seen a govern- 
ment, in the very moment of triumph and 
revenge, submitting itself to the authority of a 
court of law. A just and independent sentence 
has been pronounced ; — a sentence worthy of 
the ancient renown of that magistracy, to 
which belong the noblest recollections of 
French history ; which, in an age of persecu- 
tors, produced L'Hopital ; which, in an age of 
courtiers, produced D'Aguesseau; which, in 
an age of wickedness and madness, exhibited 
to mankind a pattern of every virtue in the 
life and in the death of Malesherbes. The re- 
spectful manner in which that sentence has 
been received, is alone sufficient to show how 
widely the French of this generation differ 
from their fathers. Arid how is the difference 
to be explained 1 The race, the soil, the cli- 
mate, are the same. If those dull, honest Eng- 
lishmen, who explain the evnts of 1793 and 
1794, by saying that the French are naturally 
frivolous and cruel, were in the right, why is 
the guillotine now standing idle T Not surely 
for want of Carlists, of aristocrats, of people 
guilty of incivism, of people suspected of 
being suspicious characters. Is not the true 
explanation this, that the Frenchman of 1§33 
has been far better governed than the French 
man of 1789, that his soul has never been 
galled by the oppressive privileges of a sepa 



186 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



rate caste, that he has been in some degree 
accustomed to discuss political questions, and 
to perform political functions, that he has 
lived for seventeen or eighteen years under in- 
stitutions which, however defective, have yet 
been far superior to any institutions that had 
before existed in France 1 

As the second French Revolution has been 
far milder than the first, so that great change 
which has just been effected in England, has 
been milder even than the second French Re- 
volution ; milder than any revolution recorded 
in history. Some orators have described the 
reform of the House of Commons as a revolu- 
tion. Others have denied the propriety of the 
term. The question, though in seeming mere- 
ly a question of definition, suggests much cu- 
rious and interesting matter for reflection. If 
we look at the magnitude of the reform, it may 
well be called a revolution. If we look at the 
means by which it has been effected, it is 
merely an act of Parliament, regularly brought 
in, read, committed, and passed. In the whole 
history of England, there is no prouder cir- 
cumstance than this; that a change which 
could not, in any other age, or in any other 
country, have been effected without physical 
violence, should here have been effected by 
the force of reason, and under the forms of 
law. The work of three civil wars has been 
accomplished by three sessions of Parliament. 
An ancient and deeply rooted system of abuses 
has been fiercely attacked and stubbornly de- 
fended. It has fallen ; and not one sword has 
been drawn; not one estate has been confis- 
cated ; not one family has been forced to emi- 
grate. The bank has kept its credit. The 
funds have kept their price. Every man has 
gone forth to his work and to his labour till the 
evening. During the fiercest excitement of 
the contest, during the first fortnight of that 
immortal May, there was not one moment at 
which any sanguinary act committed on the 
person of any of the most unpopular men in 
England, would not have filled the country 
with horror and indignation. 

And now that the victory is won, has it been 
abused 1 An immense mass of power has 
been transferred from an oligarchy to the na- 
tion. Are the members of the vanquished 
oligarchy insecure 1 Does the nation seem 
disposed to play the tyrant 1 Are not those 
who, in any other state of society, would have 
been visit' d with the severest vengeance of 
the triumphant party — would have been pining 
in dungeons, or flying to foreign countries — 
still enjoying their possessions and their ho- 
nours, still taking part as freely as ever in 
public affairs ] Two years ago they were 
dominant. They are now vanquished. Yet 
the whole people would regard with horror 
any man who should dare to propose any vin- 
dictive measure. So common is this feeling, 
to much is it a matter of course among* us, 
that many of our readers will scarcely under- 
stand what we see to admire in it. 

To what are we to attribute the unparalleled 
moderation and humanity which the English 
people have displayed at this great conjunc- 
ture '.' The answer is plain. This moderation, 
■ his humanity, are the fruits of a hundred and 



fifty years of liberty. During many genera- 
tions we have had legislative assemblies which, 
however defective their constitution might be, 
have always contained many members chosen 
by the people, and many others eager to obtain 
the approbation of the people ; assemblies in 
which perfect freedom of debate was allowed ; 
assemblies in which the smallest minority had 
a fair hearing; assemblies in which abuses, 
even when they were not redressed, were al 
least exposed. For many generations we have 
had the trial by jury, the Habeas Corpus Act, 
the freedom of the press, the right of meeting 
to diseuss public affairs, the right of petition- 
:<ng the legislature. A vast portion of the po- 
pulation has long been accustomed to the 
exercise of political functions, and has been 
thoroughly seasoned to political excitement. 
In most' other countries there is no middle 
course between absolute submission and open 
rebellion. In England there has always been 
for centuries a constitutional opposition. Thus 
our institutions had been so good, that they 
had educated us into a capacity for better insti- 
tutions. There is not a large town in the king- 
dom which does not contain better materials 
for a legislature than all France could furnish 
in 1789. There is not a spouting-club at any 
pothouse in London in which the rules of de- 
bate are not better understood, and more 
strictly observed, than in the Constituent As- 
sembly. There is scarcely a Political Union 
which could not frame in half an hour a de 
claration of rights superior to that which occu- 
pied the collective wisdom of France for seve- 
ral months. 

It would be impossible even to glance at all 
the causes of the French Revolution within the 
limits to which we must confine ourselves. 
One thing is clear. The government, the 
aristocracy, and the church, were rewarded 
after their works. They reaped that which 
they had sown. They found the nation such 
as they had made it. That the people had 
become possessed of irresistible power before 
they had attained the slightest knowledge of 
the art of government; that practical questions 
of vast moment were left to be solved by men 
to whom politics had been only matter of 
theory; that a legislature was composed of 
persons who were scarcely fit to compose a 
debating society ; that the whole nation was 
ready to lend an ear to any flatterer who ap- 
pealed to its cupidity, to its fears, or to its 
thirst for vengeance — all this was the effect 
of misrule, obstinately continued, in defiance 
of solemn warnings and of the visible signs 
of an approaching retribution. 

Even while the monarchy seemed to be 
in its highest and most palmy state, the 
causes of that great destruction had already 
begun to operate. They may be distinctly 
traced even under the reign of Louis the 
Fourteenth. That reign is the time to which 
the Ultra-Royalists refer as the Golden Age 
of France. It was in truth one of those 
periods which shine with an unnatural and 
delusive splendour, and which are rapidly 
followed by gloom and decay. 

Concerning Louis the Fourteenth himself, 
the world seems at last to have formed a cor> 



DUMONT'S RECOLLECTIONS OF MIRABEAU. 



187 



rect judgment. He was not a great general ; 
he was not a great statesman ; but he was, in 
one sense of the words, a great king. Never 
was there so consummate a master of what 
our James the First would have called king- 
craft — of all those arts which most advantage- 
ously display the merits of a prince, and most 
completely hide his defects. Though his in- 
ternal administration was bad, though the mi- 
litary triumphs which gave splendour to the 
early part of his reign were not achieved by 
himself, though his later years were crowded 
with defeats and humiliations, though he was 
so ignorant that he scarcely understood the 
Latin of his massbook, though he fell under 
the control of a cunning Jesuit and of a more 
cunning qld woman, he succeeded in passing 
himself off on his people as a being above 
humanity. And this is the more extraordinary, 
because he did not seclude himself from the 
public gaze like those Oriental despots whose 
faces are never seen, and whose very names 
it is a crime to pronounce lightly. It has been 
said that no man is a hero to his valet ; and 
all the world saw as much of Louis the Four- 
teenth as his valet could see. Five hundred 
people assembled to see him shave and put on 
his breeches in the morning. He then kneeled 
down at the side of his bed, and said his prayer, 
while the whole assembly awaited the end in 
solemn silence, the ecclesiastics on their knees, 
and the laymen with their hats before their 
faces. He walked about his gardens with a 
train of two hundred courtiers at his heels. 
All Versailles came to see him dine and sup. 
He was put to bed at night in the midst of a 
crowd as great as that which had met to see 
him rise in the morning. He took his very 
emetics in state, and vomited majestically in 
the presence of all the grandes and petites en- 
trees. Yet though he constantly exposed him- 
self to the public gaze in situations in which 
it is scarcely possible for any man to preserve 
much personal dignity, he to the last impress- 
ed those who surrounded him with the deepest 
awe and reverence. The illusion which he 
produced on his worshippers can be compared 
only to those illusions to which lovers are 
proverbially subject during the season of 
courtship. It was an illusion which affected 
even the senses. The contemporaries of 
Louis thought him tall. Voltaire, who might 
have seen him, and who had lived with some 
of the most distinguished members of his 
court, speaks repeatedly of his majestic sta- 
ture. Yet it is as certain as any fact can be, 
that he was rather below than above the middle 
size. He had, it seems, a way of holding him- 
self, a way of walking, a way of swelling his 
chest and rearing his head, which deceived 
the eyes of the multitude. Eighty years after 
his death, the royal cemetery was violated by 
he revolutionists ; his coffin was opened ; his 
body was dragged out ; and it appeared that 
the prince, whose majestic figure had been so 
long and loudly extolled, was in truth a little 
man.* That fine expression of Juvenal is 

* Even M. de Chateaubriand, to whom, we should 
have thought, a!! the Bourbons would have seemed at 
ea-t six feet high, admits this fact. " C'est une er- 
»eur." says he in his strange memoirs of the Duke of 



singularly applicable, both in its literal and in 
its metaphorical sense, to Louis the Four* 
teenth : 

" Mora sola fatetur 
Quantula sint hominum corpuscula." 

His person and his government have had 
the same fate. He had the art of making 
both appear gran 1 and august, in spite of the 
clearest evidence that both were below the 
ordinary standard. Death and time have ex- 
posed both the deceptions. The body of the 
great king has been measured more justly than 
it was measured by the courtiers who were 
afraid to look above his shoe-tie. His public 
character has been scrutinized by men free 
from the hopes and fears of Boileau and 
Moliere. In the grave, the most majestic of 
princes is only five feet eight. In history, the 
hero and the politician dwindles into a vain and 
feeble tyrant, the slave of priests and women, 
little in war, little in government, little in 
every thing but the art of simulating great- 
ness. 

He left to his infant successor a famished 
and miserable people, a beaten and humbled 
army, provinces turned into deserts by misgo- 
vernment and persecution, factions dividing 
the court, a schism raging in the church, an 
immense debt, an empty treasury, immeasura- 
ble palaces, an innumerable household, ines- 
timable jewels and furniture. All the sap and 
nutriment of the state seemed to have been 
drawn to feed one bloated and unwholesome 
excrescence. The nation was withered. The 
court was morbidly flourishing. Yet it does 
not appear that the associations which attach 
ed the people to the monarchy had lost strength 
during his reign. He had neglected or sacri- 
ficed their dearest interests ; but he had struck 
their imaginations. The very things which 
ought to have made him most unpopular — the 
prodigies of luxury and magnificence with 
which his person was surrounded, while, be- 
yond the enclosure of his parks, nothing was 
to be seen but starvation and despair — seemed 
to increase the respectful attachment which 
his subjects felt for him. That governments 
exist only for the good of the people, appears 
to be the most obvious and simple- of all 
truths. Yet history proves that it is one of 
the most recondite. We can scarcely wonder 
that it should be so seldom present to the 
minds of rulers, when we see how slowly, and 
through how much suffering, nations arrive at 
the knowledge of it. v^_— «*—"■—■ 

There was indeed one Frenchman who had 
discovered those principles which it now 
seems impossible to miss — that the many are 
not made for the use of one; that the truly 
good government is not that which concen- 
trates magnificence in a court, but that which 
diffuses happiness among a people ; that a 
king who gains victory after victory, and adds 
province to province, may deserve, not the 
admiration, but the abhorrence and contempt 
of mankind. These were the doctrines which 
Fenelon taught. Considered as an Epic Poem, 



Berri, "de croire que Louis XIV. etoit d'une hauie sta 
ture. Une cuirasse qui nous reste de lui, et les e.xhuma 
tions de St. Denys, n'ont laisse sur ce point aur.un 
deute." 



188 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Telemachus can scarcely be placed above 
Glover's Leonidas or Wilkie's Epigoniad. 
Considered as a treatise on politics and mo- 
rals, it abounds with errors of detail, and the 
truths which it inculcates seem trite to a 
modern reader. But if we compare the spirit 
in which it is written with the spirit which 
pervades the rest of the French literature of 
that age, we shall perceive that, though in ap- 
pearance trite, it was in truth one of the most 
original works that have ever appeared. The 
fundamental principles of Fenelon's political 
morality, the tests by which he judged of in- 
stitutions and of men, were absolutely new to 
his countrymen. He had taught them, indeed, 
with the happiest effect, to his royal pupil. 
But how incomprehensible they were to most 
people, we learn from Saint Simon. That 
amusing writer tells us, as a thing almost in- 
credible, that the Duke of Burgundy declared 
it to be his opinion, that kings existed for the 
good of the people, and not the people for the 
good of kings. Saint Simon is delighted with 
the benevolence of this saying; but startled 
by its novelty and terrified by its boldness. 
Indeed he distinctly says, that it was not safe 
to repeat the sentiment in the court of Louis. 
Saint Simon was, of all the members of that 
court, the least courtly. He was as nearly an 
oppositionist as any man of his time. His 
disposition was proud, bitter, and cynical. In 
religion he was a Jansenist ; in politics, a less 
hearty royalist than most of his neighbours. 
His opinions and his temper had preserved 
Sftimfrom the illusions which the demeanour 
of Louis produced on others. He neither 
i loved nor respected the king. Yet even this 
man, one of the most liberal men in France, 
< r was struck dumb with astonishment at hear- 
ing the fundamental axiom of all government 
propounded — an axiom which, in our time, 
nobody in England or France would dispute — 
which the stoutest Tory takes for granted as 
much as the fiercest Radical, and concerning 
which the Carlist would agree with the most 
republican deputy of the " extreme left" No 
person will do justice to Fenelon, who does 
not c-jiistantly keep in mind that Telemachus 
was written in an age and nation in which 
bold and independent thinkers stared to hear 
that twenty millions of human beings did not 
exist for the gratification of one. That work 
is commonly considered as a school-book, 
rery fit for children, because its style is easy 
and its morality blameless ; but unworthy of 
the attention of statesmen and philosophers. 
We can distinguish in it, if we are not greatly 
mistaken, the first faint dawn of a long and 
splendid day of intellectual light, the dim pro- 
mise of a great deliverance, the undeveloped 
germ of the charter and of the code. 

What mighty interests were staked on the 
life of the Duke of Burgundy ! and how dif- 
ferent an aspect might the history of France 
have torne, if he had attained the age of his 
grandfather or of his son; if he had been 
permitted to show how much could be done 
for hu manity by the highest virtue in the highest 
fortUHe ! There is scarcely any thing in history 
mote remarkable, than the descriptions which 



remain to us of that extraordinary man. The 
fierce and impetuous temper which he showed 
in early youth, the complete change which a 
judicious education produced in his character, 
his fervid piety, his large benevolence, the 
strictness with which he judged himself, the 
liberality with which he judged others, the 
fortitude with which alone, in the whole court, 
he stood up against the commands of Louis, 
when a religious scruple was concerned, the 
charity with which alone, in the whole court, 
he defended the profligate Orleans against 
calumniators, his great projects for the good 
of the people, his activity in business, his taste 
for letters, his strong domestic attachments, even 
the ungraceful person and the shy and awk- 
ward manner, which concealed from the eyes 
of the sneering courtiers of his grandfather so 
many rare endowments — make his character 
the most interesting that is to be found in the 
annals of his house. He had resolved, if he 
came to the throne, to disperse that ostenta 
tious court, which was supported at an ex 
pense ruinous to the nation; to preserve peace ; 
to correct the abuses which were found in 
every part of the system of revenue ; to abo- 
lish or modify oppressive privileges ; to reform 
the administration of justice; to revive the 
institution of the States-General. If he had 
ruled over France during forty or fifty years, 
that great movement of the human mind, 
which no government could have arrested, 
which bad government only rendered more 
violent, would, we are inclined to think, have 
been conducted, by peaceable means, to a 
happy termination. 

Disease and sorrow removed from the world 
that wisdom and virtue of which it was not 
worthy. During two generations France was 
ruled by men who, with all the vices of Louis 
the Fourteenth, had none of the art by whick 
that magnificent prince passed off his vices for 
virtues. The people had now to see tyranny 
naked. That foul Duessa was stripped of her 
gorgeous ornaments. She had always been 
hideous ; but a strange enchantment had made 
her seem fair and glorious in the eyes of her 
willing slaves. The spell was now broken ; 
the deformity was made manifest; and the 
lovers, lately so happy and so proud, turned 
away loathing and horror-struck. 

First came the regency. The strictness with 
which Louis had, towards the close of his life, 
exacted from those around him an outward 
attention to religious duties, produced an effect 
similar to that which the rigour of the Puritans 
had produced in England. It was the boast of 
Madame de Maintenon, in the time of her great- 
ness, that devotion had become the fashion. A 
fashion indeed it was, and, like a fashion, it 
passed away. The austerity of the tyrant's old 
age had injured the morality of the higher 
orders more than even the licentiousness of his 
youth. Not only had he not reformed their 
vices, but, by forcing them to be hypocrites, he 
had shaken their belief in virtue. They had 
found it so easy to perform the grimace of 
piety, that it was natural for tnem to consider 
all piety as grimace. The times were changed. 
Pensions, regiments, and abbeys were nc 



DUMONT'S RECOLLECTIONS OF MIRABEAU. 



18U 



longer to be obtained by regular confession and 
severe penance ; and the obsequious courtiers, 
who had kept Lent like monks of La Trappe, 
: and who had turned up the whites of their eyes 
: : at the edifying parts of sermons preached be- 
J fore the king, aspired to the title of roue as 
• ardently as they had aspired to that of devot ; 
\ and went, during Passion Week, to the revels 
lof the Palais Royal as readily as they had 
.' formerly repaired to the sermons of Massil- 
' Ion. 

The Regent was in many respects the fac- 
simile of our Charles the Second. Like Charles, 
he was a good-natured man, utterly destitute 
of sensibility. Like Charles, he had good na- 
tural talents, which a deplorable indolence 
rendered useless to the state. Like Charles, 
he thought all men corrupt and interested, and 
yet did not dislike them for being so. His opi- 
nion of human nature was Gulliver's ; but he 
, did not regard human nature with Gulliver's 
horror. He thought that he and his fellow- 
creatures were Yahoos; and he thought a 
Yahoo a very agreeable kind of animal. No 
princes were ever more social than Charles 
and Philip of Orleans ; yet no princes ever had 
less capaciiyfor friendship. The tempers of 
these clever cynics were so easy and their 
minds so languid, that habit supplied in them 
the. place of affection, and made them the 
tools of people for whom they cared not one 
straw. In love, both were mere sensualists, 
without delicacy or tenderness. In politics, 
ooth were utterly careless of faith and of na- 
tional honour. Charles shut up the Exchequer. 
Philip patronised the System. The councils 
of Charles were swayed by the gold of Baril- 
lon ; the councils of Philip by the gold of Wal- 
pole. Charles for private objects made war 
on Hollarfd, the natural ally of England. Philip 
for private objects made war on the Spanish 
branch of the house of Bourbon, the natural 
ally, indeed the creature of France. Even in 
trifling circumstances the parallel might be 
carried on. Both these princes were fond of 
experimental philosophy; and passed in the 
laboratory much time which would have been 
more advantageously passed at the council- 
table. Both were more strongly attached to 
their female relatives than to any other human 
being ; and in both cases it was suspected that 
this attachment was not perfectly innocent. In 
personal courage, and in all the virtues which 
are connected with personal courage, the 
Regent was indisputably superior to Charles. 
Indeed Charles but narrowly escaped the stain 
of cowardice. Philip was eminently brave, 
and, like most brave men, was generally open 
: and sincere. Charles added dissimulation to 
his other vices. 

The administration of the Regent was 

scarcely less pernicious, and infinitely more 

scandalous, than that of the deceased monarch. 

It was by magnificent public works, and by 

I wars conducted on a gigantic scale, that Louis 

had brought distress on his people. The Re- 

i gent aggravated that distress by frauds, of 

which a lame duck on the stock-exchange 

I would have been ashamed. France, even 

while suffering under the most severe calami- 

13 



ties, had reverenced the conqueror. She de 
spised the swindler. 

When Orleans and the wretched Dubois had 
disappeared, the power passed to the Duke ot 
Bourbon ; a prince degraded in the public eye 
by the infamously lucrative part which he had 
taken in the juggles of the System, and by the 
humility with which he bore the caprices of a 
loose and imperious woman. It seemed to be 
decreed that every branch of the royal family 
should successively incur the abhorrence and 
contempt of the nation. 

Between the fall of the Duke of Bourbon and 
the death of Fleury, a few years of frugal and 
moderate government intervened. Then re- 
commenced the downward progress of the 
monarchy. Profligacy in the court, extrava- 
gance in the finances, schism in the church, 
faction in the Parliaments, unjust war termi- 
nated by ignominious peace — all that indicates 
and all that produces the ruin of great empires, 
make up the history of that miserable period. 
Abroad, the French were beaten and humbled 
everywhere, by land and by sea, on the Elbe 
and on the Rhine, in Asia and in America. At 
home, they were turned over from vizier to 
vizier, and from sultan to sultan, till they had 
reached that point beneath which there was no 
lower abyss of infamy, till the yoke of Maupeou 
had made them pine for Choiseul, till Madame 
du Barri had taught them to regret Madame de 
Pompadour. 

But unpopular as the monarchy had become, 
the aristocracy was more unpopular still ; and 
not without reason. The tyranny of an indi- 
vidual is far more supportable than the tyranny 
of a caste. The old privileges were galling 
and hateful to the new wealth and the new 
knowledge. Every thing indicated the ap- 
proach of no common revolution ; of a revolu- 
tion destined to change, not merely the form 
of government, but the distribution of property 
and the whole social system ; of a revolution 
the effects of which were to be felt at every 
fireside in France ; of a new Jaquerie, in which 
the victory was to remain with Jaques bonhomme. 
In the van of the movement were the moneyed 
men and the men of letters — the wounded 
pride of wealth and the wounded pride of in- 
tellect. An immense multitude, made ignorant 
and cruel by oppression, was raging in the 
rear. 

We greatly doubt whether any course which 
could have been pursued by Louis the Six- 
teenth could have averted a great convulsion. 
But we are sure that, if there was such a 
course, it was the course recommended by M. 
Turgot. The church and the aristocracy, with 
that blindness to danger, that incapacity of 
believing that any thing can be except what 
has been, which the long possession of power 
seldom fails to generate, mocked at the counsel 
which might have saved them. They would 
not have reform ; and they had revolution. 
They would not pay a small contribution ii» 
place of the odious corvees ; and they lived to 
see their castles demolished, and their lands 
sold to strangers. They would not endure 
Turgot; and they were forced to endure Ro 
bespierre. 



190 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Then the rulers of France, as if smitten with 
indicia! blindness, plunged headlong into the 
American war. They thus committed at once 
two great PTors. They encouraged the spirit 
of revolution. They augmented at the same 
time those public burdens, the pressure of 
which is generally the immediate cause of 
revolutions. The event of the war carried to 
the height the enthusiasm of speculative demo- 
crats. The financial difficulties produced by 
the war carried to the height the discontent 
of that larger body of people who cared little 
about theories, and much about taxes. 

The meeting of the States-General was the 
signal for the explosion of all the hoarded pas- 
sions of a century. In that assembly mere 
were undoubtedly very able men. But they 
had no practical knowledge of the art of go- 
vernment. All the great English revolutions 
have been conducted by practical statesmen. 
The French Revolution was conducted by 
mere speculators. Our constitution has never 
been so far behind the age as to have become 
an object of aversion to the people. The Eng- 
lish revolutions have therefore been undertaken 
for the purpose of correcting, defending, and 
restoring ; never for the mere purpose of de- 
stroying. Our countrymen have always, even 
hi times of the greatest excitement, spoken 
reverently of the form of government under 
which they lived, and attacked only what they 
regarded as its corruptions. In the very act 
of innovating they have constantly appealed 
to ancient prescription ; they have seldom 
looked abroad for models ; they have seldom 
troubled themselves with Utopian theories ; 
they have not been anxious to prove that li- 
berty is a natural right of men ; they have been 
content to regard it as the lawful birthright of 
Englishmen. Their social contract is no fic- 
tion. It is still extant on the original parch- 
ment, sealed with wax which was affixed at 
Runnymede, and attested by the lordly names 
of the Marischals and Fitzherberts. No gene- 
ral arguments about the original equality of 
men, no fine stories out of Plutarch and Cor- 
nelius Nepos, have ever affected them so much 
as their own familiar words, Magna Charta, 
Habeas Corpus, Trial by Jury, Bill of Rights. 
This part of our national character has un- 
doubtedly its disadvantages. An Englishman 
too often reasons on politics in the spirit rather 
of a lawyer than of a philosopher. There is 
too often something narrow, something exclu- 
sive, something Jewish, if we may use the 
word, in his love of freedom. He is disposed 
to consider popular rights as the special heri- 
tage of the chosen race to which he belongs. 
He is inclined rather to repel than to encou- 
rage the alien proselyte who aspires to a share 
of his privileges. Very different was the spirit 
if the Constituent Assembly. They had none 
of our narrowness ; but they had none of our 
practical skill in the management of affairs 
They did rot understand how to regulate the 
order of their own debates ; and they thought 
themselves able to legislate for the whole world. 
All the past was loathsome to them. All their 
agreeable associations were connected with 
me future. Hopes were to them all that recol- 

ctions are to us. In the institutions of their 



country they found nothing to love or to ao 
mire. As far back as they could look, they 
saw only the tyranny of one class and the de* 
gradation of another — Frank and Gaul, knight 
and villein, gentleman and roturier. They hated 
the monarchy, the church, the nobility. They 
cared nothing for the States or the Parliament. 
It was long the fashion to ascribe all the follies 
which they committed to the writings of the 
philosophers. We believe that it was misrule, 
and nothing but misrule, that put the sting into 
those writings. It is not true that the French 
abandoned experience for theories. They took 
up with theories because they had no expe- 
rience of good government. It was because 
they had no charter that they ranted about the 
original contract. As soon as tolerable insti- 
tutions were given to them, they began to look 
to those institutions. In 1830 their rally iflg- 
cry was Vive la Charte. In 1789 they had no- 
thing but theories round which to rally. They 
had seen social distinctions only in a bad form; 
and it was therefore natural that they should 
be deluded by sophisms about the equality of 
men. They had experienced so much evil 
from the sovereignty of kings, that they might 
be excused for lending a ready ear to those 
Avho preached, in an exaggerated form, the 
doctrine of the sovereignty of the people. 

The English, content with their own nation 
al recollections and names, have never sought 
for models in the institutions of Greece or 
Rome. The French, having nothing in their 
own history to which they could look back 
with pleasure, had recourse to the history of 
the great ancient commonwealths : they drew 
their notions of those commonwealths, not 
from contemporary writers, but from romances 
written by pedantic moralists long after the 
extinction of public liberty. Theymegleeted 
Thucydides for Plutarch. Blind themselves, 
they took blind guides. They had no expe 
rience of freedom, and they took their opinions 
concerning it from men who had no more ex- 
perience of it than themselves, and whose ima- 
ginations, inflamed by mystery and privation, 
exaggerated the unknown enjoyment; from 
men who raved about patriotism without hav- 
ing ever had a country, and eulogized, tyranni 
cide while crouching before tyrants. The 
maxims which the French legislators learned 
in this school' were, that political liberty is an 
end, and not a means ; that it is not merely 
valuable as the great safeguard of order, of 
property, and of morality, but that it is in itself 
a high and exquisite happiness, to which order, 
property, and morality ought without one scru- 
ple to be sacrificed. The lessons which may 
be learned from ancient history are indeed 
most useful and important; but they were not 
likely to be learned by men who, in all their 
rhapsodies about the Athenian democracy, 
seemed utterly to forget that in that democracy 
there were ten slaves to one citizen ; and who 
constantly decorated their invectives against 
the aristocrats with panegyrics on Brutus and 
Cato, two aristocrats, fiercer, prouder, and 
more exclusive than any that emigrated with 
the Count of Artois. 

We have never met with so vivid and inte« 
resting a picture of the National Assembly a? 



DUMONT'S RECOLLECTIONS OF MIRABEAU. 



191 



that which M. Dumont has set before us. His 
Mirabeau, in particular, is incomparable. All 
the former Mirabeaus were daubs in compari- 
son. Some were merely painted from the ima- 
gination, others were gross caricatures; this 
is the very individual, neither god nor demon, 
but a man, a Frenchman, a Frenchman of the 
eighteenth century, with great talents, with 
strong passions, depraved by bad education, 
surrounded by temptations of every kind, made 
desperate at one time by disgrace, and then 
agiin intoxicated by fame. All his opposite 
and seemingly inconsistent qualities are in this 
representation so blended together as to make 
up a harmonious and natural whole. Till now, 
Mirabeau was to us, and, we believe, to most 
readers of history, not a man, but a string of 
antitheses. Henceforth he will be a real hu- 
man being, a remarkable and eccentric being 
indeed, but perfectly conceivable. 

He was fond, M. Dumont tells us, of giving 
odd compound nicknames. Thus, M. de La- 
fayette was Grandison-Cromwell ; the King of 
Prussia was Alaric-Cottin ; D'Espremenil was 
Crispin-Catiline. We think that Mirabeau 
himself might be described, after his own 
fashion, as*" a Wilkes-Chatham. He had 
Wilkes's sensuality, Wilkes's levity, Wilkes's 
insensibility to shame. Like Wilkes, he had 
brought on himself the censure even of men 
of pleasure by the peculiar grossness of his 
immorality, and by the obscenity of his writ- 
ings. Like Wilkes, he was heedless, not only 
of the laws of morality, but of the laws of ho- 
nour. Yet he affected, like Wilkes, to unite 
the character of the demagogue to that of the 
fine gentleman. Like Wilkes, he conciliated, 
by his good-humour and his high spirits, the 
regard of many who despised his character. 
j Like Wilkes, he was hideously ugly; like 
• Wilkes, he made a jest of his own ugliness ; 
and, like Wilkes, he was, in spite of his ugli- 
ness, very attentive to his dress, and very suc- 
cessful in affairs of gallantry. 

Resembling Wilkes in the lower and grosser 
parts of his character, he had, in his higher 
qualitits, some affinities to Chatham. His elo- 
quence, as far as we can judge of it, bore no 
inconsiderable resemblance to that of the great 
English minister. He was not eminently suc- 
, cessful in long set speeches. He was not, on 
the other hand, a close and ready debater. 
Sudden bursts, which seemed to be the effect 
i of inspiration ; short sentences, which came 
like lightning, dazzling, burning, striking down 
every thing before them; sentences which, 
spoken at critical moments, decided the fate 
of great questions; sentences which at once 
became proverbs ; sentences which everybody 
| Wui lraows by heart ; in these chiefly lay the 



oratorical power both of Chatham and of Mira 
beau. There have been far greater speakers 
and far greater statesmen than either of them; 
but we doubt whether any men have, in mo- 
dern times, exercised such vast personal in 
fluence over stormy and divided assemblies 
The power of both was as much moral as in 
tellectual. In true dignity of character, in 
private and public virtue, it may seem absurd 
to institute any comparison between them; but 
they had the same haughtiness and vehemence 
of temper. In their language and manner 
there was a disdainful self-confidence, an im- 
periousness, a fierceness of passion, before 
which all common minds quailed. Even Mur- 
ray and Charles Townshend, though intellec- 
tually not inferior to Chatham, were always 
cowed by him. Barnave, in the same manner, 
though the best debater in the National Assem- 
bly, flinched before the energy of Mirabeau. 
Men, except in bad novels, are not all good or 
all evil. It can scarcely be denied that the 
virtue of Lord Chatham was a little theatrical. 
On the other hand, there was in Mirabeau, not 
indeed any thing deserving the name of virtue, 
but that imperfect substitute for virtue which 
is found in almost all superior minds, a sensi- 
bility to the beautiful and the good, which 
sometimes amounted to sincere enthusiasm, 
and which, mingled with the desire of admira- 
tion, sometimes gave to his character a lustre 
resembling the lustre of true goodness ; as the 
"faded splendour wan" which lingered round 
the fallen archangel, resembled the exceeding 
brightness of those spirits who had kept thefr 
first estate. 

There are several other admirable p >rtraits 
of eminent men in these Memoirs. That of 
Sieyes in particular, and that of Talleyrand, 
are masterpieces, full of life and expression 
But nothing in the book has interested us more 
than the view which M. Dumont has presented 
to us, unostentatiously, and, we may say, un- 
consciously, of his own character. The sturdy 
rectitude, the large charity, the good-nature, 
the modesty, the independent spirit, the ardent 
philanthropy, the unaffected indifference to 
money and to fame, make up a character 
which, while it has nothing unnatural, seems 
to us to approach nearer to perfection . than 
any of the Grandisons and Allworthys of fic- 
tion. The work is not indeed precisely such 
a work as we had anticipated; it is more lively, 
more picturesque, more amusing than we had 
promised ourselves, and it is, on the other 
hand, less profound and philosophic. But if 
it is not, in all respects, such as might have 
been expected from the intellect of M« Dumont, 
it is assuredly such a<- might have been ex 
pected from his heart 



192 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



LORD MAHOFS WAE OE THE SUCCESSION/ 

[Edinburgh Review, 1833.] 



The days when Miscellanies in Prose and 
Verse, by a Person of Honour, and Romances 
of M. Scuderi, done into English by a Person 
of Quality, were attractive to readers and pro- 
fitable to booksellers, have long gone by. The 
literary privileges once enjoyed by lords 1 are 
as obsolete as their right to kill the king's deer 
on their way to Parliament, or as their old re- 
medy of scandalum magnatum. Yet we must 
acknowledge that, though our political opi- 
nions are by no means aristocratical, we 
always feel kindly disposed towards noble 
authors. Industry and a taste for intellectual 
pleasures are peculiarly respectable in those 
who can afford to be idle, and who have every 
temptation to be dissipated. It is impossible 
not to wish success to a man who, finding 
himself placed, without any exertion or any 
merit on his part, above the mass of society, 
voluntarily descends from his eminence in 
search of distinctions which he may justly 
call his own. 

This is, we think, the second appearance of 
Lord Mahon in the character of an author. 
His first book was creditable to him, but was 
in every respect inferior to the work which 
now lies before us. He has undoubtedly some 
of the most valuable qualities of an historian — 
great diligence in examining authorities, great 
judgment in weighing testimony, and great 
impartiality in estimating characters. We 
are not aware that he has in any instance 
forgotten the duties belonging to his literary 
functions in the feelings of a kinsman. He 
does no more than justice to his ancestor 
Stanhope : he does full justice to Stanhope's 
enemies and rivals. His narrative is very 
perspicuous, and is also entitled to the praise, 
seldom, we grieve to say, deserved by modern 
writers, of being very concise. It must be 
admitted, however, that, with many of the best 
qualities of a literary veteran, he has some of 
the faults of a literary novice. He has no 
great command of words. His style is seldom 
easy, and is sometimes unpleasantly stiff. He 
is so bigoted a purist, that he transforms the 
Abbe d'Estrees into an Abbot. We do not like 
to see French words introduced into English 
composition; but, after all, the first law of 
writing, that law to which all other laws are 
subordinate, is this — that the words employed 
shall be such as convey to the reader the 
meaning of the writer. Now an Abbot is the 
head of a religious house ; an Abbe is quite a 
different sort of person. It is better undoubt- 
edly to use an English word than a French 
arord ; but it is better to use a French word 
than to misuse an English word. 



* History of the War of the Succession in Spain. By 
I.oed Mahon. London: 183%. 



Lord Mahon is also a little too fond of utter* 
ing moral reflections, in a style too sententious 
and oracular. We will give one instance: 
" Strange as it seems, experience shows that 
we usually feel far more animosity against 
those whom we have injured, than against 
those who injure us : and this remark holds 
good with every degree of intellect, with every 
class of fortune, with a prince or a peasant, 
a stripling or an elder, a hero or a prince." 
This remark might have seemed strange at 
the court of Nimrod or Chedorlaomer ; but it 
has now been for many generations consider- 
ed as a truism rather than a paradox. Every 
man has written on the thesis " Odisse quern 
lessens" Scarcely any lines in English poetry 
are better known than that vigorous couplet : 

"Forgiveness to the injured does belong ; 
But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong." 

The historians and philosophers have quite 
done with this maxim, and have abandoned it, 
like other maxims which have lost their gloss, 
to bad novelists, by whom it will very soon be 
worn to rags. 

It is no more than justice to say, that the 
faults of Lord Mahon's book are precisely 
those faults which time seldom fails to cure; 
and that the book, in spite of its faults, is a 
valuable addition to our historical literature. 

Whoever wishes to be well acquainted with 
the morbid anatomy of governments, whoever 
wishes to know how great states may be made 
feeble and wretched, should study the history 
of Spain. The empire of Philip the Second 
was undoubtedly one of the most powerful and 
splendid that ever existed in the world. In 
Europe he ruled Spain, Portugal, the Nether- 
lands on both sides of the Rhine, Franche 
Comte, Roussillon, the Milanese, and the Two 
Sicilies. Tuscany, Parma, and the other small 
states of Italy were as completely dependent 
on him as the Nizam and the Rajah of Berar 
now are on the East India Company. In Asia, 
the King of Spain was master of the Philip- 
pines, and of all those rich settlements which 
the Portuguese had made on the coasts of 
Malabar and Coromandel, in the Peninsula of 
Malacca, and in the Spice Islands of the East- 
ern Archipelago. In America, his dominions 
extended on each side of the equator into the 
temperate zone. There is reason to believe 
that his annual revenue amounted, in the sea- 
son of his greatest power, to four millions ster- 
ling ; a sum eight times as large as that which 
England yielded to Elizabeth. He had a stand- 
ing army of fifty thousand excellent troops, at 
a time when England had not a single battalion 
in constant pay. His ordinary naval force 
consisted of a hundred and forty galleys. He 
held, what no other princt in modern times 
has held, the dominion both of the land and of 



LORD MAHON'S WAR OF THE SUCCESSION. 



193 



the sea. Daring the greater part of his reign 
ho was supreme on both elements. His sol- 
diers marched up to the capital of France ; his 
ships menaced the shores of England. 

It is no exaggeration to say, that during se- 
veral years, his power over Europe was greater 
than even that of Napoleon. The influence 
of the French conqueror never extended be- 
yond low-water mark. The narrowest strait 
was to his power what it was of old believed 
that a running stream was to the sorceries of 
a witch. While his army entered every me- 
tropolis, from Moscow to Lisbon, the English 
fleets blockaded every port, from Dantzic to 
Trieste. Sicily, Sardinia, Majorca, Guernsey, 
enjoyed security through the whole course of 
a war which endangered every throne on the 
continent. The victorious and imperial na- 
tion, which had filled its museums with the 
spoils of Antwerp, of Florence, and of Rome, 
was suffering painfully from the want of 
luxuries which use had rendered necessaries. 
While pillars and arches were rising to com- 
memorate the French conquests, the conquer- 
ors were trying to make coffee out of succory, 
and sugar out of beet-root. The influence of 
Philip on the" continent was as great as that 
of Napoleon. The Emperor of Germany was 
his kinsman. France, torn by religious dis- 
sensions, was never a formidable opponent, 
and was sometimes a dependent ally. At the 
same time, Spain had what Napoleon desired 
in vain — ships, colonies, and commerce. She 
long monopolized the trade of America and of 
the Indian Ocean. All the gold of the West, 
and all the spices of the East, were received 
and distributed by her. During many years 
of war, her commerce was interrupted only 
by the predatory enterprises of a few roving 
privateers. Even after the defeat of the Ar- 
mada, English statesmen continued to look 
with great dread on the maritime power of 
Philip. " The King of Spain," said the Lord 
Keeper to the two Houses in 1593, "since he 
hath usurped upon the kingdom of Portugal, 
hath thereby grown mighty by gaining the 
East Indies ; so as, how great soever he was 
before, he is now thereby manifestly more great. 
.... He keepeth a navy armed to impeach all 
trade of merchandise from England to Gas- 
coigne and Guienne, which he attempted to do 
this last vintage ; so as he is now become as 
a frontier enemy to all the west of England, as 
well as all the south parts, as Sussex, Hamp- 
shire, and the Isle of Wight. Yea, by means 
of his interest in St. Maloes, a port full of ship- 
ping for the war, he is a dangerous neighbour 
to the queen's isles of Jersey and Guernsey, 
aacient possessions of this crown, and never 
conquered in the greatest wars with France." 

The ascendency which Spain then had in 
Europe, was, in one sense, well deserved. It 
was an ascendency which had been gained by 
i unquestioned superiority in all the arts of 
policy and of war. In the sixteenth century, 
Italy was not more decidedly the land of the 
fine arts, Germany was not more decidedly 
the land of bold theological speculation, than 
i Spain was the land of statesmen and of sol- 
diers. The character which "Virgil has as- 
cribed, to his countrymsn might have been 



claimed by the grave and haughty chiefs whe 
surrounded the throne of Ferdinand the Catho« 
lie, and of his immediate successors. That 
majestic art, "premere imperio populos," was not 
better understood by the Romans in the proud- 
est days of their republic, than by Gonsalvo 
and Ximenes, Cortes and Alva. The skill 
of the Spanish diplomatists was renowned 
throughout Europe. In England the name of 
Gondomar is still remembered. The sovereign 
nation was unrivalled both in regular and ir- 
regular warfare. The impetuous chivalry of 
France, the serried phalanx of Switzerland, 
were alike found wanting when brought face 
to face with the Spanish infantry. In the wars 
of the New World where something different 
from ordinary strategy was required in the 
general, and something different from ordinary 
discipline in the soldier— where it was every 
day necessary to meet by some new expedient 
the varying tactics of a barbarous enemy, the 
Spanish adventurers, sprung from the common 
people, displayed a fertility of resource, and a 
talent for negotiation and command, to which 
history scarcely affords a parallel. 

The Castilian of those times was to the 
Italian what the Roman, in the days of the 
greatness of Rome, was to the Greek. The 
conqueror had less ingenuity, less taste, less 
delicacy of perception than the conquered ; but 
far more pride, firmness, and courage ; a more 
solemn demeanour, a stronger sense of honour. 
The one had more subtilty in speculation, the 
other more energy in action. The vices of the 
one were those of a coward ; the vices of the 
other were those of a tyrant. It may be added, 
that the Spaniard, like the Roman, did not dis- 
dain to study the arts and the language of those 
whom he oppressed. A revolution took place 
in the literature of Spain, not unlike to that 
revolution which, .as Horace tells us, took 
place in the poetry of Latium ; " Capta ferwm 
vidorem cepit" The slave took prisoner the 
enslaver. The old Castilian ballads gave 
place to sonnets in the style of Petrarch, and 
to heroic poems in the stanza of Ariosto ; as 
the national songs of Rome were driven out 
by imitations of Theocritus and translation?, 
from Menander. 

In no modern society, not even in England 
during the reign of Elizabeth, has there been 
so great a number of men eminent at once in 
literature and in the pursuits of active life, as 
Spain produced during the sixteenth century. 
Almost every distinguished writer was also 
distinguished as a soldier and a politician. 
Boscan bore arms with high reputation. Gar- 
cilasso de Vega, the author of the sweetest and 
most graceful pastoral poem of modern times, 
after a short but splendid military career, fell 
sword in hand at the head of a storming party. 
Alonzo de Ercilla bore a conspicuous part in 
that war of Arauco, which he afterwards cele- 
brated in the best heroic poem that Spain has 
produced. Hurtado de Mendoza, whose poeins 
have been compared to those of Horace, ana 
whose charming little novel is evidently the mo- 
del of Gil Bias, has been handed down to us by 
history as one of the sternest of those iron pro 
consuls, who were employed by the house of 
Austria to crush the lingering publto spirit of 



194 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Italy. Lope sailed in the Armada ; Cervantes 
was wounded at Lepanto. 

It is curious to consider with how much awe 
our ancestors in those times regarded a Spa- 
niard. He was, in their apprehension, a kind 
of demon, horribly malevolent, but withal most 
sagacious and powerful. "They be verye 
wyse and politicke," says an honest English- 
man, in a memorial addressed to Mary, "and 
can, thorowe ther wysdome, reform and bry- 
dell theyr owne natures for a tyme, and applye 
their conditions to the maners of those men 
with whom they meddell gladlye by friend- 
shippe; whose mischievous maners a man 
shall never knowe untyll' he come under ther 
subjection: but then shall he parfectlye par- 
ceyve and fele them : which thynge I praye 
God England never do ; for in dissimulations 
untyll they have ther purposes, and afterwards 
in oppression and tyrannye, when they can ob- 
tayne them, they do exceed all other nations 
upon the earthe." This is just such language 
as Arminius would have used about the Ro- 
mans, or as an Indian statesman of our times 
would use about the English. It is the lan- 
guage of a man burning with hatred, but cowed 
by those whom he hates ; and painfully sensi- 
ble of their superiority, not only in power, but 
in intelligence. 

But how art thou fallen from heaven, oh 
Lucifer, son of the morning ! How art thou 
cut down to the ground, that didst weaken the 
nations ! If we overleap a hundred years, and 
Look at Spain towards the close of the seven- 
teenth century, what a change do we find! 
The contrast is as great as that which the 
Rome of Gallienus and Honorius presents to 
the Rome of Marius and Caesar. Foreign con- 
quests had begun to eat into every part of that 
gigantic monarchy on which the sun never 
s?£ Holland was gone, and Portugal, and 
Artois, and Roussillon, and Franche Comte. 
In the East, the empire founded by the Dutch 
far surpassed in wealth and splendour that 
which their old tyrants still retained. In the 
West, England had seized, and still held, settle- 
tlements in the midst of the Mexican sea. The 
mere loss of territory was, however, of little 
moment. The reluctant obedience of distant 
provinces generally costs more than it is 
worth. 

Empires which branch out widely are often 
more flourishing for a little timely pruning. 
Adrian acted judiciously when he abandoned 
the conquests of Trajan. England was never 
so rich, so great, so formidable to foreign 
princes, so absolutely mistress of the sea, as 
after the loss of her American colonies. The 
Spanish empire was still, in outward appear- 
ance, great and magnificent. The European 
dominions subject to the last feeble prince of 
the house of Austria were far more extensive 
than those of Louis the Fourteenth. The 
American dependencies of the Castilian crown 
still extended to the north of Cancer and to the 
south of Capricorn. But within this immense 
body there was an incurable decay, an utter 
want of tone, an utter prostration of strength. 
An ingenious and diligent population, emi- 
nently skilled in arts and manufactures, had 
been driven into exile by stupid and remorse- 



less bigots. The glory of the Spanish penci 
had departed with Velasquez and Murillo 
The splendid age of Spanish literature had 
closed with Solis and Calderon. During the 
seventeenth century many states had formed 
great military establishments. But the Spa- 
nish army, so formidable under the command 
of Alva and Farnese, had dwindled away to a 
few thousand men, ill paid and ill disciplined. 
England, Holland, and France had great navies. 
But the Spanish navy was scarcely equal to 
the tenth part of that mighty force which, in the 
time of Philip the Second, had been the terror 
of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The 
arsenals were deserted. The magazines were 
unprovided. The frontier fortresses were un- 
garrisoned. The police was utterly inefficient 
for the protection of the people. Murders were 
committed in the face of day with perfect im 
punity. Bravoes and discarded serving-men, 
with swords at their sides, swaggered every 
day through the most public street and squares 
of the capital, disturbing the public peace, and 
setting at defiance the ministers of justice. 
The finances were in frightful disorder. The 
people paid much. The government received 
little. The American viceroys and the farmers 
of the revenue became rich, while the mer- 
chants broke, while the peasantry starved, 
while the body-servants of the sovereign re- 
mained unpaid, while the soldiers of the royal 
guard repaired daily to the doors of convents, 
and battled there with the crowd of beggars 
for a porringer of broth and a morsel of bread. 
Every remedy which was tried aggravated the 
disease. The currency was altered; and this 
frantic measure produced its never-failing 
effects. It destroyed all credit, and increased 
the misery which it was intended to relieve. 
The American gold, to use the words of Ortiz, 
was to the necessities of the state but as a 
drop of water to the lips of a man raging with 
thirst. Heaps of unopened despatches accu- 
mulated in the offices, while the ministers were 
concerting with the bedchamber-women and 
Jesuits the means of tripping up each other. 
Every foreign power could plunder and insult 
with impunity the heir of Charles the Fifth. 
Into such a state had the mighty kingdom of 
Spain fallen, while one of its smallest depend- 
encies — a country not so large as the pro- 
vince of Estremadura or Andalusia, situated 
under an inclement sky, and preserved only by 
artificial means from the inroads of the ocean 
— had become a power of the first class, and 
treated on terms of equality with the courts of 
London and Versailles. 

The manner in which Lord Mahon explains 
the financial situation of Spain by no mean.3 
satisfies us. "It will be found," says he, "thai 
those individuals deriving their chief income 
from mines whose yearly produce is uncertain 
and varying, and seems to spring rather from 
fortune than to follow industry, are usually 
careless, unthrifty, and irregular in their ex 
penditure. The example of Spain might tempt 
us to apply the same remark to states." Lord 
Mahon would find it difficult, we suspect, to 
make out his analogy. Nothing could be more 
uncertain and varying than the gains and losses 
of those who were in the habit of putting intc 



LORD MAHON'S WAR OF THE SUCCESSION. 



195 



die state lotteries. But no part of the public 
income was more certain than that which was 
derived from the lotteries. We believe that 
this case is very similar to that of the Ameri- 
can mines. Some veins of ore exceeded ex- 
pectation, some fell below it. Some of the 
private speculators drew blanks, and others 
gained prizes. But the revenue of the state 
depended not on any particular vein, but on 
the whole annual produce of two great conti- 
nents. This annual produce seems to have 
been almost constantly on the increase during 
the seventeenth century. The Mexican mines 
were, through the reigns of Philip the Fourth 
and Charles the Second, in a steady course of 
improvement ; and in South America, though 
the district of Potosi was not so productive as 
formerly, other places more than made up for 
the deficiency. We very much doubt whether 
Lord Mahon can prove that the income which 
the Spanish government derived from the mines 
of America fluctuated more than the income 
derived from the internal taxes of Spain itself. 

All the causes of the decay of Spain resolve 
themselves into one cause — bad government. 
The valour, the intelligence, the energy, which 
at the closa of the fifteenth and the beginning 
of the sixteenth century made the Spaniards 
the first nation in the world, were the fruits of 
the old institutions of Castile and Arragon — 
institutions which were eminently favourable 
to public liberty. Those institutions the first 
princes of the house of Austria attacked and 
almost wholly destroyed. Their successors ex- 
piated the crime. The effects of a change from 
good government to bad government is not 
fully felt for some time after the change has 
taken place. The talents and the virtues which 
a good constitution generates may for a time 
survive that constitution. Thus the reigns of 
princes who have established absolute mo- 
narchy on the ruins of popular forms of go- 
vernment often shine in history with a peculiar 
brilliancy. But when a generation or two has 
passed away, then comes signally to pass that 
which was written by Montesquieu, that des- 
potic governments resemble those savages who 
cut down the tree in order to get at the fruit. 
During the first years of tyranny is reaped the 
harvest sown during the last years of liberty. 
Thus the Augustan age was rich in great minds 
formed in the generation of Cicero and Caesar. 
The fruits of the policy of Augustus were re- 
served for posterity. Philip the Second was 
the heir of the Cortes and of the Justiza Mayor, 
and they left him a nation which seemed able 
to conquer all the world. What Philip left to 
his successors is well known. 

The shock which the great religious schism 
of the sixteenth century gave to Europe was 
scarcely felt in Spain. In England, Germany, 
Holland, France, Denmark, Switzerland, Swe- 
den, that shock had produced, with some tem- 
porary evil, much durable good. The princi- 
ples of the Reformation had triumphed in some 
of those countries. The Catholic Church had 
maintained its ascendency in others. But 
though the event had not been the same in all, 
all had been agitated by the conflict. Even in 
Prance, in Southern Germany, and in the Ca- 
tholic cantons of Switzerland, the public mind 



had been stirred to its inmost depths. Th« 
hold of ancient prejudice had been somewhal 
loosened. The Church of Rome, warned by 
the danger which she had narrowly escaped, 
had, in those parts of her dominion, assumed 
a milder and more liberal character. She 
sometimes condescended to submit her high 
pretensions to the scrutiny of reason, and 
availed herself more sparingly than in former 
times of the aid of the secular arm. Even 
when persecution was employed, it was not 
persecution in the worst and most frightful 
shape. The severities of Louis the Fourteenth, 
odious as they were, connot be compared with 
those which, at the first dawn of the Reforma« 
tion, had been inflicted on the heretics in many 
parts of Europe. 

The only effect which the Reformation had 
produced in Spain had been to make the In- 
quisition more vigilant and the commonalty 
more bigoted. The times of refreshing came 
to all neighbouring countries. One people 
remained, like the fleece of the Hebrew war- 
rior, dry in the midst of that benignant and 
fertilizing dew. While other nations were put- 
ting away childish things, the Spaniard still 
thought as a child and understood as a child. 
Among the men of the seventeenth century he 
was the man of the fifteenth century, or of a 
still darker period — delighted to behold an auto 
da-fe, and ready to volunteer on a crusade. 

The evils produced by a bad governm 
and a bad religion seemed to have attain 
their greatest height during the last years o 
the seventeenth centuiy. While the kingdom 
was in this deplorable state, the king was 
hastening to an early grave. His days had 
been few and evil. He had been unfortunate 
in all his wars, in every part of his internal 
administration, and in all his domestic rela- 
tions. His first wife, whom he tenderly loved, 
died very young. His second wife exercised 
great influence over him, but seems to have 
been regarded by him rather with fear than 
with love. He was childless ; and his consti- 
tution was so completely shattered, that at little 
more than thirty years of age he had given up 
all hopes of posterity. His mind was even 
more distempered than his body. He was 
sometimes sunk in listless melancholy, and 
sometimes harassed by the wildest and most 
extravagant fancies. He was not, however, 
wholly destitute of the feelings which became 
his station. His sufferings were aggravated 
by the thought that his own dissolution might 
not improbably be followed by the dissolution 
of his empire. 

Several princes laid claim to the succession. 
The king's eldest sister had married Louis the 
Fourteenth. The Dauphin would, therefore, in 
the common course of inheritance, have suc- 
ceeded to the crown. But the Infanta had, at 
the time of her espousals, solemnly renounced, 
in her own name and in that of her posterity, 
all claim to the succession. This renuncia'ijn 
had been confirmed in due form by the Curtes. 
A younger sister of the king had been the first 
wife of Leopold, Emperor of Germany. She, 
too, had at her marriage renounced her claims 
to the Spanish crown , ..at the Ccrtes had not 
sanctioned the renunciation, and it was mere 



i9C 



MAC AUL AY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



fore considered as invalid by the Spanish ju- 
rists. The fruit of this marriage was a daugh- 
ter, who had espoused the Elector of Bavaria. 
The Electoral Prince of Bavaria inherited her 
claim to the throne of Spain. The Emperor 
Leopold was son of a daughter of Philip the 
Third, and was therefore first cousin to Charles. 
No renunciation whatever had been exacted 
from his mother at the time of her marriage. 

The question was certainly very complicated. 
That claim which, according to the ordinary 
rules of inheritance, was the strongest, had 
been barred by a contract executed in the most 
binding form. The claim of the Electoral 
Prince of Bavaria was weaker. But so also 
was the contract which bound him not to pro- 
secute his claim. The only party against whom 
no instrument of renunciation could be pro- 
duced was the party who, in respect of blood, 
had the weakest claim of all. 

As it was clear that great alarm would be 
excited throughout Europe if either the Em- 
peror or the Dauphin should become King of 
Spain, each of those princes offered to waive 
his pretensions in favour of his second son ; 
the Emperor in favour of the Archduke Charles, 
the Dauphin in favour of Philip, Duke of An- 
jou. 

Soon after the peace of Ryswick, William 
the Third and Louis the Fourteenth determined 
to settle the question of the succession without 
consulting either Charles or the Emperor. 
France, England, and Holland became parties 
to a treaty by which it was stipulated that the 
Electoral Prince of Bavaria should succeed to 
Spain, the Indies, and the Netherlands. The 
imperial family were to be bought off" with the 
Milanese, and the Dauphin was to have the two 
Sicilies. 

The great object of the King of Spain, and 
of all his counsellors, was to avert the dis- 
memberment of the monarchy. In the hope 
of attaining this end, Charles determined to 
name a successor. A will was accordingly 
framed, by which the ciown was bequeathed 
to the Bavarian prince. Unhappily, this will 
had scarcely been signed when the prince 
died. The question was again unsettled, and 
presented greater difficulties than before. 

A new Treaty of Partition was concluded 
between France, England, and Holland. It 
was agreed that Spain, the Indies, and the Ne- 
therlands should descend to the Archduke 
Charles. In return for this great concession 
made by the Bourbons to a rival house, it was 
agreed that France should have the Milanese, 
or an equivalent in a more commodious situa- 
tion ; if possible, the province of Lorraine. 

Arbuthnot, some years later, ridiculed the 
Partition Treaty with exquisite humour and 
ingecuity. Everybody must remember his 
description of the paroxysm of rage into 
which poor old Lord Strutt fell, on hearing that 
his ruraway servant, Nick Frog, his clothier, 
John Bull, and his old enemy, Lewis Baboon, 
had come with quadrants, poles, and inkhorns, 
to survey his estate, and to draw his will for 
him. Lord Mahon speaks of the arrangement 
with gravfe severity. He calls it " an iniqui- 
'ous compact, concluded without the slightest 
' eierence to the welfare of the states so readily 



parcelled and allotted ; insulting to the prida 
of Spain, and tending to strip that country of 
its hard-won conquests." The most serious 
part of this charge would apply to half th« 
treaties which have been concluded in Europe 
quite as strongly as to the Partition Treaty. 
What regard was shown in the treaty of the 
Pyrenees to the welfare of the people of Dunkirk 
and Roussillon ; in the treaty of Nimeguen to 
the welfare of the people of Franche Comte ; in 
the treaty of Utrecht to the welfare of the peo- 
ple of Flanders; in the treaty of 1735 to the 
welfare of the people of Tuscany 1 All Eu- 
rope remembers, and our latest posterity will, 
we fear, have reason to remember, how coolly, 
at the last great pacification of Christendom, 
the people of Poland, of Norway, of Belgium, 
and of Lombardy, were allotted to masters 
whom they abhorred. The statesmen who ne 
gotiated the Partition Treaty were not so far 
beyond their age and hours in wisdom and vir- 
tue, as to trouble themselves much about the 
happiness of the people whom they were ap- 
portioning among foreign masters. But it will 
be difficult to prove that the stipulations which 
Lord Mahon condemns, were in any respect 
unfavourable to the happiness of those who 
were to be transferred to new rulers. The 
Neapolitans would certainly have lost nothing 
by being given to the Dauphin, or to the Great 
Turk. Addison, who visited Naples about the 
time at which the Partition Treaty was signed, 
has left us a frightful description of the mis- 
government under which that part of the 
Spanish empire groaned. As to the people of 
Lorraine, a union with France would have 
been the happiest event which could have be- 
fallen them. Louis was already their sove- 
reign for all purposes of cruelty and exaction. 
He had kept the province during many years 
in his own hands. At the peace of Ryswick, 
indeed, the duke had been allowed to return. 
But the conditions which had been imposed on 
him made him a mere vassal of France. 

We cannot admit that the Treaty of Parti- 
tion was objectionable because it "tended to 
strip Spain of hard-won conquests." The in- 
heritance was so vast, and the claimants so 
mighty, that without some dismemberment, it 
was scarcely possible to make a peaceable ar- 
rangement. If any dismemberment was to 
take place, the best way of effecting it surely, 
was to separate from the monarchy those na- 
tions which were at a great distance from 
Spain ; which were not Spanish in manners, in 
language, or in feelings ; which were both 
worse governed and less valuable than the old 
provinces of Castile and Arragon ; and which, 
having always been governed, by foreigners, 
would not be likely to feel acutely the humili- 
ation of being turned over from one master to 
another. 

That England and Holland had a right to in- 
terfere, is plain. The question of the Spanish 
succession was not an internal question, but 
a European question. And this Lord Mahon 
would admit. He thinks, that when the evil 
had been done, and a French prince was 
reigning at the Escurial, England and Holland 
would be justified in attempting, not merely to 
strip Spain of its remote dependencies, but tc 



LORD MAHON'S WAR OF THE SUCCESSION. 



197 



conquer Spain itself; that they would be justi- 
fied in attempting to put, not merely the pas- 
sive Flemings and Italians, but the reluctant 
Castilians and Asturians, under the dominion 
of a stranger. The danger against which the 
Partition Treaty was intended to guard was 
precisely the same danger which afterwards 
was made the ground of war. It will be diffi- 
cult to prove, that a danger which was suffi- 
cient to justify the war, was insufficient to 
justify the provisions of the treaty. If, as 
Lord Mahon contends, it was better that Spain 
should be subjugated by main force than that 
she should be governed by a Bourbon, it was 
surely better that she should be deprived of 
Lombardy and the Milanese than that she 
should be governed by a Bourbon. 

Whether the treaty was judiciously framed, is 
quite another question. We disapprove of the 
stipulations. But we disapprove of them, not 
because we think them bad, but because we 
think that there was no chance of their being 
executed. Louis was the most faithless of 
politicians. He hated, the Dutch. He hated 
the government which the Revolution had es- 
tablished in England. He had every disposi- 
tion to quarrel with his new allies. It was 
quite certain that he would not observe his en- 
gagements, if it should be for his interest to 
violate them. Even if it should be for his in- 
terest to observe them, it might well be doubt- 
ed whether the strongest and clearest interest 
would induce a man so haughty and self-willed 
to co-operate heartily with two governments 
which had always been the objects of his scorn 
and aversion. 

When intelligence of the second Partition 
Treaty arrived at Madr'd, it roused to mo- 
mentary energy the languishing ruler of a 
languishing state. The Spanish ambassador 
at the court of London was directed to remon- 
strate with the government of William ; and 
his remonstrances were so insolent that he was 
commanded to leave England. Charles retali- 
ated by dismissing the English and Dutch am- 
bassadors. The French king, though the chief 
author of the Partition Treaty, succeeded in 
turning the whole wrath of Charles and of the 
Spanish people from himself, and in directing 
it against the maritime powers. Those powers 
had now no agent at Madrid. Their perfidious 
ally was at liberty to carry on his intrigues 
unchecked: and he fully availed himself of 
this advantage. 

A long contest was maintained with varying 
success by the factions which surrounded the 
miserable^ king. On the side of the imperial 
family was the queen, herself a princess of 
that family ; with her were allied the confessor 
of the king, and most of the ministers. On 
the other side, were two of the most dexterous 
politicians of that age, Cardinal Porto Carrero, 
Archbishop of Toledo, and Harcourt, the am- 
bassador of Louis. 

Harcourt was a noble specimen of the French 
aristocracy in the days of its highest splendour 

a finished gentleman, a brave soldier, and a 
skilful diplomatist. His courteous and insinu- 
ating manners, his Parisian vivacity tempered 
with Castilian gravity, made him the favourite 
of the whole court. H« became intimate with 



the grandees. He caressed the clergy. He 
dazzled the multitude by his magnificent styk 
of living. The prejudices which the people of 
Madrid had conceived against the French cha 
racter, the vindictive feelings generated during 
centuries of national rivalry, gradually yielded 
to his arts ; while the Austrian ambassador, a 
surly, pompous, niggardly German, made him- 
self and his country more and more unpopular 
every day. 

Harcourt won over the court and city: Porto 
Carrero managed the king. Never were knave 
and dupe better suited to each other. Charles 
was sick, nervous, and extravagantly supersti- 
tious.. Porto Carrero had learned in the exer- 
cise of his profession the art of exciting and 
soothing such minds, and he employed that art 
with the ealm and demure cruelty which is the 
characteristic of wicked and ambitious priests. 

He first supplanted the confessor. The state 
of the poor king, during the conflict between 
his two spiritual advisers, was horrible. At 
one time he was induced to believe that his 
malady was the same with that of the wretches 
described in the New Testament, who dwelt 
among the tombs ; whom no chains could bind, 
and whom no man dared to approach. At an- 
other time, a sorceress who lived in the moun- 
tains of the Asturias was consulted about his 
malady. Several persons were accused of 
having bewitched him. Porto Carrero recom- 
mended the appalling rite of exorcism, which 
was actually performed. The ceremony made 
the poor king more nervous and miserable than 
ever. But it served the turn of the Cardinal, 
who, after much secret trickery, succeeded in 
casting out, not the devil, but the confessor. 

The next object was to get rid of the minis* 
ters. Madrid was supplied with provisions by 
a monopoly. The government looked after this 
most delicate concern, as it looked after every 
thing else. The partisans of the house of 
Bourbon took advantage of the negligence of 
the administration. On a sudden the supply 
of food failed. Exorbitant prices were de- 
manded. The people rose. The royal resi- 
dence was surrounded by an immense multi- 
tude. The queen harangued them. The 
priests exhibited the host. All was in vain. 
It was necessary to awaken the king from his 
uneasy sleep, and to carry him to the balcony. 
There a solemn promise 'was given that the 
unpopular advisers of the crown should be 
forthwith dismissed. The mob left the palace, 
and proceeded to pull down the houses of the 
ministers. The adherents of the Austrian line 
were thus driven from power, and the govern- 
ment was intrusted to the creatures of Porto 
Carrero. The king left the city in which he 
had suffered so cruel an insult, for the magni- 
ficent retreat of the Escurial. Here his hypo- 
chondriac fancy took a new turn. Like his 
ancestor, Charles the Fifth, he was haunted 
by a strange curiosity to pry into the secrets 
of that grave to which he was hastening. In 
the cemetery which Philip the Second had 
formed beneath the pavement of the church 
of St. Lawrence, reposed three generations of 
Castilian princes. Into *hese dark vaults the 
unhappy monarch descended by torchlight, ana 
penetrated to that superb and gloomy chamber 



198 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WHITINGS. 



where, round the great black crucifix, are 
ranged the coffins of the kings and queens of 
Spain. There he commanded his attendants to 
open the massy chests of bronze in which the 
relics of his predecessors decayed. He looked 
on the ghastly spectacle with little emotion till 
he coffin of his first w'fe was unclosed, and 
she appeared before him — such was the skill 
of the embalmer — in all her well-remembered 
beauty. He cast one glance on those beloved 
features unseen for eighteen years, those fea- 
tures over which corruption seemed to have no 
power, and rushed from the vault, exclaiming, 
"She is with God, and I shall soon be with 
her." The awful sight completed the ruin of his 
body and mind. The Escurial became hateful 
to him, and he hastened to Aranjuez. But the 
shades and waters of that delicious island- 
garden, so fondly celebrated in the sparkling 
verse of Calderon, brought no solace to their 
unfortunate master. Having tried medicine, 
exercise, and amusement in vain, he returned 
to Madrid to die. 

He was now beset on every side by the bold 
and skilful agents of the house of Bourbon. 
The leading politicians of his court assured 
him, that Louis, and Louis alone, was suffi- 
ciently powerful to preserve the Spanish mo- 
narchy undivided ; and that Austria would be 
utterly unable to prevent the Treaty of Parti- 
tion from being carried into effect. Some 
celebrated lawyers gave it as their opinion, 
that the act of renunciation executed by the 
late Queen of France ought to be construed 
according to the spirit, and not according to 
the letter. The letter undoubtedly excluded the 
French prince. The spirit was merely this ; 
that ample security should be taken against 
the union of the French and Spanish crowns 
on one head. 

In all probability, neither political nor legal 
reasonings would have sufficed to overcome 
the partiality which Charles felt for the house 
of Austria. There had always been a close 
connection between the two great royal lines 
which sprung from the marriage of Philip and 
Juana. Both had always regarded the French 
as their natural enemies. It was necessary to 
have recourse to religious terrors ; and Porto 
Carrero employed those terrors with true pro- 
fessional skill. The king's life was drawing 
to a close. Would the most Catholic prince 
commit a great sin on the brink of the grave ? 
And what would be a greater sin than, from an 
unreasonable attachment to a family name, 
from an unchristian antipathy to a rival house, 
to set aside the rightful heir of an immense 
heritage'? The tender conscience and the 
feeble intellect of Charles were strongly wrought 
upon by these appeals. At length Porto Car- 
rero ventured on a master-stroke. He advised 
Charles to apply for counsel to the Pope. The 
king, who, in the simplicity of his heart, con- 
sidered the successor of St. Peter as an infal- 
lible guide in spiritual matters, adopted the 
vuggestion ; and Porto Carrero, who knew that 
his holiness was a mere tool of France, awaited 
with perfect confidence the result of the appli- 
cation. In thj answer which arrived from 
Koine, the king was solemnly reminded of the 
grea* account which he was soon to 'Vender, 



and cautioned against the flagrant injustice 
which he was tempted to commit. He was 
assured that the right was with the house of 
Bourbon ; and reminded that his own salvation 
ought to be dearer to him than the house of 
Austria. Yet he still continued irresolute. 
His attachment to his family, his aversion tc 
France, were not to be overcome even by 
papal authority. At length he thought him« 
self actually dying, when the cardinal redou- 
bled his efforts. Divine after divine, well-tu- 
tored for the occasion, was brought to the bed 
of the trembling penitent. He was dying in 
the commission of known sin. He was de« 
frauding his relatives. He was bequeathing 
civil war to his people. He yielded, and signed 
that memorable testament, the cause of many 
calamities to Europe. As he affixed his name 
to" the instrument, he burst into tears. " God," 
he said, "gives kingdoms and takes them 
away. I am already as good as dead." 

The will was kept secret during the short 
remainder of his life. On the 3d of November, 
1700, he expired. All Madrid crowded to the 
palace. The gates were thronged. The ante- 
chamber was filled with ambassadors and 
grandees, eager to learn what dispositions the 
deceased sovereign had made. At length fold- 
ing doors were flung open. The Duke of 
Abrantes came forth, and announced that the 
whole Spanish monarchy was bequeathed to 
Philip, Duke of Anjou. Charles had directed 
that, during the interval which might elapse 
between his death and the arrival of his suc- 
cessor, the government should be administered 
by a council, of which Porto Carrero was the 
chief member. 

Louis acted as the English ministers might 
have guessed that he would act. With scarcely 
the show of hesitation, he broke through al". 
the obligations of the Partition Treaty, and ac • 
cepted for his grandson the splendid legacy ol 
Charles. The new sovereign hastened to take 
possession of his dominions. The whole court ' 
of France accompanied him to Sceaux. His 
brothers escorted him to that frontier, whic's 
as they weakly imagined, was to be a frontisi 
no longer. " The Pyrenees," said Louis, "ha're 
ceased to exist." Those very Pyrenees, a few 
years later, were the theatre of a war between 
the heir of Louis and the prince whom France 
was now sending to govern Spain. 

If Charles had ransacked Europe to find 9 
successor whose moral and intellectual cha 
racter resembled his own, he could not have 
chosen better. Philip was not so sickly as his 
predecessor ; but he was quite as weak, as in 
dolent, and as superstitious; he very soon be 
came quite as hypochondriacal and eccentric ; 
and he was even more uxorious. He was in- 
deed a husband of ten thousand. His first 
object, when he became King of Spain, was tc 
procure a wife. From the day of his marriage 
to the day of her death, his first object was to 
have her near him, and to do what she wished 
As soon as his wife died, his first object wa 
to procure another. Another was found, a. 
unlike the former as possible. But she was ^ 
wife, and Philip was content. Neither by da> 
nor by night, neither in sickness nor in health 
neither in time of business nor in time of re 



LORD MAKON'S WAR OF THE SUCCESSION. 



J90 



nation, did he ever suffer her to be absent 
from him for half an hour. His mind was na- 
turally feeble ; and he had received an enfee- 
bling education. He had been brought up 
amidst the dull magnificence of Versailles. His 
grandfather was as imperious and as ostenta- 
tious in his intercourse with the royal family 
as in public acts. All those who grew up im- 
mediately under the eye of Louis, had the 
manners of persons who had never, known 
what it was to be at ease. They were all 
taciturn, shy, and awkward. In all of them, 
except the Duke of Burgundy, the evil went 
further than the manners. The Dauphin, the 
Duke of Berri, Philip of Anjou, were men of 
insignificant characters. They had no energy, 
no force of will. They had been so little ac- 
customed to judge or to act for themselves, 
that implicit dependence had become neces- 
sary to their comfort. The new King of Spain, 
emancipated from control, resembled that 
wretched German captive, who, when the irons 
which he had worn for years were knocked 
off, fell prostrate on the floor of his prison. 
The restraints which had enfeebled the mind 
of the young prince were required to support 
it Till he* had a wife he could do nothing ; 
and when he had a wife he did whatever she 
chose. 

While this lounging, moping boy was on his 
way to Madrid, his grandfather was all acti- 
vity. Louis had no reason to fear a contest 
with the empire single-handed. He made 
vigorous preparations to encounter Leopold. 
He overawed the States-General by means of a 
great army. He attempted to soothe the Eng- 
lish government by fair professions. William 
was not deceived. He fully returned the hatred 
cf Louis ; and, if he had been free to act ac- 
cording to his own inclinations, he would have 
declared war as soon as the contents of the 
will were known. But he was bound by con- 
stitutional restraints. Both his person and his 
measures were unpopular in England. His 
secluded life and his cold manners disgusted a 
people accustomed to the graceful affability of 
Charles the Second. His foreign accent and 
his foreign attachments were offensive to the 
national prejudices. His reign had been a 
season of distress, following a season of ra- 
pidly-increasing prosperity. The burdens of 
the war, and the expense of restoring the cur- 
rency, had been severely felt. Nine clergymen 
out of ten were Jacobites at heart, and had 
sworn allegiance to the new dynasty only in 
order to save their benefices. A large propor- 
tion of the country gentlemen belonged to the 
same party. The whole body of agricultural 
proprietors was hostile to that interest, which 
the creation of the national debt had brought 
into notice, and which was believed to be pe- 
culiarly favoured by the court — the moneyed 
interest. The middle classes were fully deter- 
mined to keep out James and his family. But 
they regarded William only as the less of two 
rvils ; and, as long as there was no imminent 
danger of a counter-revolution, were disposed 
to thwart and mortify the sovereign by whom 
*hey were, nevertheless, ready to stand, in case 
of necessity, with their lives and fortunes. 
They isere sullen and dissatisfied. "There 



was," as Somers expressed it in a remarkable 
letter to William, "a deadness and want of 
spirit in the nation universally." 

Every thing in England was going on as 
Louis could have wished. The leaders of the 
Whig party had retired from power, and were 
extremely unpopular on account of the unfor- 
tunate issue of the Partition Treaty. The To« 
ries, some of whom still cast a lingering look 
towards St. Germains, were in office, and had 
a decided majority in the House of Commons. 
William was so much embarrassed by the 
state of parties in England, that he could not 
venture to make war on the house of Bourbon. 
He was suffering under a complication of se- 
vere and incurable diseases. There was every 
reason to believe that a few months would 
dissolve the fragile tie, which bound up that 
feeble body with that ardent and unconquera- 
ble soul. If Louis could succeed in preserving 
peace for a short time, it was probable that 
all his vast designs would be securely accom- 
plished. Just at this crisis, the most import- 
ant crisis of his life, his pride and his passions 
hurried him into an error, which undid all that 
forty years of victory and intrigue had done ; 
which produced the dismemberment of the 
kingdom of his grandson, and brought inva- 
sion, bankruptcy, and famine on his own. 

James the second died at St. Germains. 
Louis paid him a farewell visit, and was so 
much moved by the solemn parting, and by 
the grief of the exiled queen, that, losing sighs 
of all considerations of policy, and actuated, 
as it should seem, merely by compassion, and 
by a not ungenerous vanity, he acknowledged 
the Prince of Wales as King of England. 

The indignation which the Castilians had 
felt when they heard that three foreign powers 
had undertaken to regulate the Spanish suc- 
cession, was nothing to the rage with which 
the English learned that their good neighbour 
had taken the trouble to provide them with a 
king. Whigs and Tories joined in condemn- 
ing the proceedings of the French court. The 
cry for war was raised by the city of London, 
and echoed and re-echoed from every corner 
of the realm. William saw that his time was 
come. Though his wasted and suffering body 
could hardly move without support, his spirit 
was as energetic and resolute as when, at 
twenty-three, he bade defiance to the combined 
force of England and France. He left the 
Hague, where he had been engaged in nego- 
tiating with the states and the emperor a de- 
fensive treaty against the ambitious designs 
of the Bourbons. He flew to London. He re- 
modelled the ministry. He dissolved the Par- 
liament. The majority of the new House of 
Commons was with the king, and the most 
vigorous preparations were made for war. 

Before the commencement of active hostili- 
ties, William was no more. But the Grand 
Alliance of the European Princes against the 
Bourbons was already constructed. "The 
master workman died," says Mr. Burke, "but 
the work was formed on true mechanical prin- 
ciples, and it was as truly wrought." On the 
15th of May, 1702, Avar was proclaimed by 
concert at Vienna, at London, and at the 
Hague. 



200 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Thus commenced that great struggle by 
which Europe, from the Vistula to the Atlantic 
Ocean, was agitated during twelve years. The 
two hostile coalitions were, in respect of ter- 
ritory, wealth, and population, not unequally 
matched. On the one side were France, 
Spain, and Bavaria; on the other, England, 
Holland, the Empire, and a crowd of inferior 
powers. 

That part of the war which Lord Mahon 
has undertaken to relate, though not the least 
important, is certainly the least attractive. In 
Italy, in Germany, and in the Netherlands, 
great means were at the disposal of great 
generals. Mighty battles were fought. Fort- 
ress after fortress was subdued. The iron 
chain of the Belgian strongholds was broken. 
By a regular and connected series of opera- 
tions extending through several years, the 
French were driven back from the Danube 
and the Po into their own provinces. The 
war in Spain, on the contrary, is made of 
events which seem to have no dependence on 
each other. The turns of fortune resemble 
those which take place in a dream. Victory 
and defeat are not followed by their usual con- 
sequences. Armies spring out of nothing, and 
melt into nothing. Yet, to judicious readers 
of history, the Spanish conflict is perhaps 
more interesting than the campaigns of Marl- 
borough and Eugene. The fate of the Milan- 
ese, and of the Low Countries, was decided 
fey military skill. The fate of Spain was de- 
cided by the peculiarities of the national cha- 
racter. 

When the war commenced, the young king 
was in a most deplorable situation. On his 
arrival at Madrid, he found Porto Carrero at 
the head of affairs, and he did not think it fit 
to displace the man to whom he owed his 
crown. The cardinal was a mere intriguer, 
and in no sense a statesman. He had ac- 
quired in the court and in the confessional, a 
rare degree of skill in all the tricks by which 
weak minds are managed. But of the noble 
science of government, of the sources of na- 
tional prosperity, of the causes of national de- 
cay, he knew no more than his master. It is 
curious to observe the contrast between the 
dexterity with which he ruled the conscience 
of a foolish valetudinarian, and the imbecility 
which he showed when placed at the head of 
an empire. On what grounds Lord Mahon 
represents the cardinal as a man " of splendid 
genius," "of vast abilities," we are unable to 
discover. Louis was of a very different opi- 
nion, and Louis was very seldom mistaken 
in his judgment of character. " Everybody," 
says he, in a letter to his ambassador, " knows 
how incapable the cardinal is. He is an ob- 
ject of contempt to his countrymen." 

A few miserable savings were made, which 
ruined individuals, without producing any per- 
ceptible benefit to the state. The police became 
more and more inefficient. The disorders of 
(he capital were increased by the arrival of 
French adventurers — the refuse of Parisian 
prothels and gaming-houses. These wretches 
"onsidered the Spaniards as a subjugated race, 

horn the countrymen of the new sovereign 
b* cheat and insult with impunity. The 



king sate eating and drinking all night, and 
lay in bed all day; yawned at the council 
table, and suffered the most important papers 
to lie unopened for weeks. At length he was 
roused by the only excitement of which his 
sluggish nature was susceptible. His grand* 
father consented to let him have a wife. The 
choice was fortunate. Maria Louisa, Princess 
of Savoy, a beautiful and graceful girl of thir- 
teen, already a woman in person and mind, at 
an age when the females of colder climates 
are still children, was the person selected. 
The king resolved to give her the meeting in 
Catalonia. He left his capital, of which he 
was already thoroughly tired. At setting out, 
he was mobbed by a gang of beggars. He, 
however, made his way through them, and 
repaired to Barcelona. 

Louis was perfectly aware that the queen 
would govern Philip. He, accordingly, looked 
about for somebody to govern the queen. He 
selected the Princess Orsini to be first lady of 
the bedchamber — no insignificant post in the 
household of a very young wife and a very 
uxorious husband. This lady was the daugh- 
ter of a French peer, and the widow of a Spa- 
nish grandee. She was, therefore, admirably 
fitted by her position to be the instrument of 
the court of Versailles at the court of Madrid. 
The Duke of Orleans called her, in words too 
coarse for translation, the Lieutenant of Cap- 
tain Maintenon ; and the appellation was well 
deserved. She aspired to play in Spain the 
part which Madame de Maintenon had played 
in France. But, though at least equal to her 
model in wit, information, and talents for in- 
trigue, she had not that self-command, that pa- 
tience, that imperturbable evenness of temper, 
which had raised the widow of a buffoon to 
be the consort of the proudest of kings. The 
princess was more than fifty years old ; but 
was still vain of her fine eyes and her fine 
shape ; she still dressed in the style of a girl ; 
and she still carried her flirtations so far as to 
give occasion for scandal. She was, however, 
polite, eloquent, and not deficient in strength 
of mind. The bitter Saint Simon owns that 
no person whom she wished, to attach, could 
long resist the graces of her manners and of 
her conversation. 

We have not time to relate how she obtain- 
ed, and how she preserved her empire over 
the young couple in whose household she was 
placed; how she became so powerful, that 
neither minister of Spain nor ambassador 
from France could stand against her; how 
Louis himself was compelled to court her; 
how she received orders from Versailles to 
retire ; how the queen took part with the fa- 
vourite attendant ; how the king took part with 
the queen ; and how, after much squabbling, 
lying, shuffling, bullying, and coaxing, the dis- 
pute was adjusted. We turn to the events "f 
the war. 

When hostilities were proclaimed at Lon- 
don, Vienna, and the Hague, Philip was at 
Naples. He had been with great difficulty 
prevailed upon, by the most urgent representa- 
tions from Versailles, to separate himself from 
his wife, and to repair without her to his Ita 
lian dominions, which were then menaced by 



LORD MAHON'S WAR OF THE SUCCESSION. 



201 



jie emperor. The queen acted as regent, and, 
ihild as she was, seems to have been quite as 
competent to govern the kingdom as her hus- 
Dand, or any of his ministers. 

In August, 1702, an armament, under the 
command of the Duke of Ormond, appeared 
off Calais. The Spanish authorities had no 
guards and no regular troops. The national 
spirit, however, supplied in some degree what 
was wanting. The nobles and peasantry ad- 
vanced money. The peasantry were formed 
into what the Spanish writers call bands of 
heroic patriots, and what General Stanhope 
calls a " rascally foot militia." If the invaders 
had acted with vigour and judgment, Cadiz 
would probably have fallen. But the chiefs 
of the expedition were divided by national and 
professional feelings — Dutch against English, 
and land against sea. Sparre, the Dutch ge- 
neral, was sulky and perverse ; according to 
Lord Mahon, because he was a citizen of a 
republic. Bellasys, the English general, em- 
bezzled the stores ; we suppose, because he 
was the subject of a monarchy. The Duke 
of Ormond, who had the command of the 
whole expedition, proved on this occasion, as 
on every ofner, destitute of the qualities which 
great emergencies require. No discipline 
was kept; the soldiers were suffered to rob 
and insult those whom it was most desirable 
to conciliate. Churches were robbed, images 
were pulled down, nuns were violated. The 
officers shared the spoil, instead of punishing 
the spoilers ; and at last the armament, loaded, 
to use the words of Stanhope, " with a great 
deal of plunder and infamy," quitted the scene 
of Essex's glory, leaving the only Spaniard of 
note who had declared for them to be hanged 
by his countrymen. 

The fleet was off the coast of Portugal, on 
the way back to England, when the Duke of 
Ormond received intelligence that the treasure- 
ships from America had just arrived in Eu- 
rope, and had, in order to avoid his armament, 
repaired to the harbour of Vigo. The cargo 
consisted, it was said, of more than three 
millions sterling in gold and silver, besides 
much valuable merchandise. The prospect 
of plunder reconciled all disputes. Dutch and 
English, admirals and generals, were equally 
eager for action. The Spaniards might, with 
the greatest ease, have secured the treasure, 
by simply landing it ; but it was a fundamental 
"law of Spanish trade that the galleons should 
unload at Cadiz, and at Cadiz only. The 
Chamber of Commerce at Cadiz, in the true 
spirit of monopoly, refused, even at this con- 
juncture, to bate one jot of its privilege. The 
matter Avas referred to the Council of the In- 
dies : that body deliberated and hesitated just 
a day too long. Some feeble preparations for 
defence were made. Two ruined towers at 
the mouth of the bay were garrisoned by a 
few ill-armed and untrained rustics ; a boom 
was thrown across the entrance of the bay; 
and some French ships of war, which had 
convoyed the galleons from America, were 
moored in the basin within. But all was to 
no purpose. The English ships broke the 
boom; Ormond and his soldiers scaled the 
"orts; the French burned their ships, and 



escaped to the shore. The conquerors shared 
some millions of dollars ; some millions more 
were sunk. When all the galleons had been 
captured or destroyed, there came an order in 
due form allowing them to unload. 

When Philip returned to Madrid in the be- 
ginning of 1703, he found the finances more 
embarrassed, the people more discontented, 
and the hostile coalition more formidable than 
ever. The loss of the galleons had occasioned 
a great deficiency in the revenue. The Ad- 
miral of Castile, one of the greatest subjects 
in Europe, had fied to Lisbon, and sworn 
allegiance to the archduke. The King of 
Portugal soon after acknowledged Charles as 
King of Spain, and prepared to support the 
title of the house of Austria by arms. 

On the other side, Louis sent to the assist- 
ance of his grandson an army of 12,000 men, 
commanded by the Duke of Berwick. Ber- 
wick was the son of James the Second and 
Arabella Churchill. He had been brought up 
to expect the highest honours which an Eng- 
lish subject could enjoy; but the whole course 
of his life was changed by the revolution 
which overthrew his infatuated father. Ber- 
wick became an exile, a man without a coun- 
try ; and from that time forward his camp was 
to him in the place of a country, and profes- 
sional honour was his patriotism. He en- 
nobled his wretched calling. There was a 
stern, cold, Brutus-like virtue, in the manner 
in which he discharged the duties of a soldier 
of fortune. His military fidelity was tried by 
the strongest temptations, and way found in- 
vincible. At one time he fought against his 
uncle; at another time he fought against the 
cause of his trother ; yet he was never sus- 
pected of treachery, or even of slackness. 

Early in 1704, an army, composed of Eng- 
lish, Dutch, and Portuguese, was assembled 
on the western frontier of Spain. The Arch- 
duke Charles had arrived at Lisbon, and ap- 
peared in person at the head of his troops. 
The military skill of Berwick held the allies 
in check through the whole campaign. On 
the south, however, a great blow was struck. 
An English fleet, under Sir George Rooke, 
having on board several regiments, com- 
manded by the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt, 
appeared before the rock of Gibraltar. That 
celebrated stronghold, which nature has made 
all but impregnable, and against which all the 
resources of the military art have been em- 
ployed in vain, was taken as easily as if it had 
been an open village in a plain. The garrison 
went to say their prayers instead of standing 
on their guard. A few English sailors climbed 
the rock. The Spaniards capitulated ; and the 
British flag was placed on those ramparts, 
from which the combined armies and navies 
of France and Spain have never been able to 
pull it down. Rooke proceeded to Malaga, 
gave battle in the neighbourhood of that port 
to a French squadron, and after a doubtful 
action returned to England. 

But greater events were at hand. The Eng- 
lish government had determined to send an 
expedition to Spain, under the command of 
Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough. TIlia 
man was, if not the greatest, vet assuredly <h 



202 



MACAULA5TS MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



most extraordinary character of that age, the 
King of Sweden himself not excepted. In- 
deed, Peterborough may be described as a 
polite, learned, and amorous Charles the 
Twelfth. His courage had all the French im- 
petuosity and all the English steadiness. His 
fertility and activity of mind were almost be- 
yond belief. They appeared in every thing 
that he did — in his campaigns, in his nego- 
tiations, in his familiar correspondence, in his 
lightest and most unstudied conversation. He 
was a kind friend, a generous enemy, and a 
thorough gentleman. But his splendid talents 
and virtues were rendered almost useless to 
his country, by his levity, his restlessness, his 
irritability, his morbid craving for novelty and 
for excitement. He loved to fly round Eu- 
rope faster than a travelling courier. He was 
at the Hague one week, at Vienna the next. 
Then he took a fancy to see Madrid ; and he 
had scarcely reached Madrid, when he ordered 
horses and set off for Copenhagen. No at- 
tendants could keep up with his speed. No 
bodily infirmities could confine him. Old age, 
disease, imminent death, produced scarcely 
any effect on his intrepid spirit. Just before 
he underwent the most horrible of surgical 
operations, his conversation was as sprightly 
as that of a young man in the full vigour of 
health. On the day after the operation, in 
spite of the entreaties of his medical advisers, 
he would set out on a journey. His figure 
was that of a skeleton. But his elastic mind 
supported him under fatigues and sufferings 
which seemed sufficient to bring the most 
robust man to the grave. Change of employ- 
ment was as necessary to him as change of 
place. He loved to dictate six or seven letters 
at once. Those who had to transact business 
with him, complained, that though he talked 
with great ability on every subject, he could 
never be kept to the point. " Lord Peterbo- 
rough," said Pope, " would say very pretty and 
lively things in his letters, but they would be 
rather too gay and wandering ; whereas, were 
Lord Bolingbroke to write to an emperor, or to 
a statesmen, he would fix on that point which 
was the most material, would set it in the 
strongest and finest light, and manage it so as 
to make it the most serviceable to his purpose." 
What Peterborough was to Bolingbroke as a 
writer, he was to Marlborough as a general. 
He was, in truth, the last of the knights-errant ; 
brave to temerity, liberal to profusion, cour- 
teous in all his dealings with enemies, the 
protector of the oppressed, the adorer of wo- 
men. His virtues and vices were those of 
the Round Tables. Indeed, his character can 
hardly be better summed up, than in the lines 
in which the author of that clever little 
poem, Monks and Giants, has described Sir 
i'ristram. 



"His nirth, it seems, by Merlin's calculation, 
Was under Venus, Mercury, and Mars; 
His mind with all their attributes was mixed, 
And, like those planets, wandering and unfixed. 

"From realm to realm he ran, and never stayed : 
Kingdoms and crowns he won, and gave away ; 
It seemed as if his labours were repaid 
Bv the mere noise and movement of the fray ; 



No conquests nor acquirements had he made ; 

His chief delight was, on some festive day 

To ride triumphant, prodigal, and proud, 

And shower his wealth amidst tha shouting crowd. 

"His schemes of war were sudden, unforeseen, 
Inexplicable both to friend and foe; 
It seemed as if some momentary spleen 
Inspired the project, and impelled the blow ; 
And most his fortune and success w?re seen 
With means the most inadequate and low ; 
Most master of himself and least encumbered, 
When overmatched, entangled, and outnumbered." 

In June, 1705, this remarkable man arrived 
at Lisbon with five thousand Dutch and English 
soldiers. There the archduke embarked with 
a large train of attendants, whom Peterborough 
entertained magnificently during the voyage at 
hio own expense. From Lisbon the armament 
proceeded to Gibraltar, and having taken the 
Prince of Hesse Darmstadt on board, steered to 
the northeast, along the coast of Spain. 

The first place at which the expedition 
touched, after leaving Gibraltar, was Altea, in 
Valencia. The wTetched misgovernment of 
Philip had excited great discontent throughout 
the province. The invaders were eagerly wel- 
comed. The peasantry flocked to the shore, 
bearing provisions, and shouting, " Long live 
Charles the Third." The neighbouring fortress 
of Denia surrendered without a blow. 

The imagination of Peterborough took fire. 
He conceived the hope of finishing the war at 
one blow. Madrid was but one hundred and 
fifty miles distant. There was scarcely one 
fortified place on the road. The troops of 
Philip were either on the frontiers of Portugal 
or on the coast of Catalonia. At the capital 
there was no military force, except a few 
horse, who formed a guard of honour round 
the person of Philip. But the scheme of push- 
ing into the heart of a great kingdom with an 
army of only seven thousand men, was too 
daring to please the archduke. The Prince of 
Hesse Darmstadt, who, in the reign of the late 
King of Spain, had been governor of Catalonia, 
and who overrated his own influence in thai 
province, was of opinion that they ought in- 
stantly to proceed thither, and to attack Barce- 
lona. Peterborough was hampered by his in- 
structions, and found it necessary to submit. 

On the 16th of August the fleet arrived be- 
fore Barcelona; and Peterborough found, that 
the task assigned to him by the archduke and 
the prince was one of almost insuperable dif- 
ficulty. One side of the city was protected by 
the sea; the other by the strong fortifications 
of Monjuich. The walls were so extensive, 
that thirty thousand men would scarcely have 
been sufficient to invest them. The garrison 
was as numerous as the besieging army. The 
best officers in the Spanish service were in the 
town. The hopes which the Prince of Darnv 
stadt had formed of a general rising in Cata- 
lonia, were grievously disappointed. The in- 
vaders were joined only by about fifteen hun- 
dred armed peasants, whose services cost more 
than they were worth. 

No general was ever in a more deplorable 
situation than that in which Peterborough was 
now placed. He had always objected to the 
scheme of besieging Barcelona. His objso- 



I.0R1) MAHOJNJ'S WAR OF THE SUCCESSION. 



20d 



lions had been overruled. He had to execute 
a project which he had constantly represented 
as impracticable. His camp was divided into 
hostile factions, and he was censured by all. 
The archduke and the prince blamed him for 
not proceeding instantly to take the town ; but 
suggested no plan by which seven thousand 
men could be enabled to do the work of thirty 
thousand. Others blamed their general for 
giving up his own opinions to the childish 
whims of Charles, and for sacrificing his men 
in an attempt to perform what was impossible. 
The Dutch commander positively declared 
that his soldiers should not stir : Lord Peter- 
borough might give what orders he chose, but 
to engage in such a siege was madness ; and 
the men should not be sent to certain death, 
where there was no chance of obtaining any 
advantage. 

At length, after three weeks of inaction, Pe- 
terborough announced his fixed determination 
»o raise the siege. The heavy cannon were 
sent on board. Preparations were made for 
re-embarking the troops. Charles and the 
Prince of Hesse were furious ; and most of the 
officers blamed their general for having delayed 
so long the measure which he had at last found 
necessary to take. On the 12th of Septem- 
ber there were rejoicings and public entertain- 
ments in Barcelona for this great deliverance. 
On the following morning the English flag was 
flying on the ramparts of Monjuich. The genius 
and energy of one man had supplied the place 
of forty battalions. 

At midnight Peterborough had called on the 
Prince of Hesse, with whom he had not for 
some time been on speaking terms. " I have 
resolved, sir," said the earl, "to attempt an 
assault ; you may accompany us, if you think 
fit, and see whether I and my men deserve 
what you have been pleased to say of us." 
The prince was startled. The attempt, he 
said, was hopeless ; but he was ready to take 
his share ; and without further discussion, he 
called for his horse. 

Fifteen hundred English soldiers were as- 
sembled under the earl. A thousand more 
had been posted as a body of reserve, at a 
neighbouring convent, under the command of 
Stanhope. After a winding march along the 
foot of the hills, Peterborough and his little 
army reached the walls of Monjuich. There 
they halted till daybreak. As soon as they 
were descried, the enemy advanced into the 
outer ditch to meet them. This was the event 
on which Peterborough had reckoned, and for 
which his men were prepared. The English 
received the fire, rushed forward, leaped into 
the ditch, put the Spaniards to flight, and en- 
tered the works together with the fugitives. 
Before the garrison had recovered from their 
first surprise, the earl was master of the out- 
works, had taken several pieces of cannon, 
and had thrown up a breastwork to defend his 
men. He then sent off for Stanhope's reserve 
While he was waiting for this reinforcement, 
news arrived that three thousand men were 
marching from Barcelona towards Monjuich. 
He instantly rode out to take a view of them ; 
but no sooner had he left his troops than they 
were seized with a panic. Their situation 



was indeed full of danger; they had been 
brought into Monjuich, they scarcely knew 
how •, their numbers were small; their general 
was gone : their hearts failed them, and they 
were proceeding to evacuate the fort. Peter- 
borough re teived information of these occur- 
rences in time to stop the retreat ; he galloped 
up to the fugitives, addressed a few words tc 
them, and put himself at their head. The scund 
of his voice and the sight of his face restored 
all their courage, and they marched back to 
their former position. 

The Prince of Hesse had fallen in the confu- 
sion of the assault, but every thing else went well. 
Stanhope arrived ; the detachment which had 
marched out of Barcelona retreated ; the heavy 
cannon were disembarked, and brought to bear 
on the inner fortifications of Monjuich, which 
speedily fell. Peterborough, with his usual 
generosity, rescued the Spanish soldiers from 
the ferocity of the victorious army, and paid 
the last honours with great pomp to his rival 
the Prince of Hesse. 

The reduction of Monjuich was the first of a 
series of brilliant exploits. Barcelona fell, and 
Peterborough had the glory of taking, with a 
handful of men, one of the largest and strongesl 
towns of Europe. He had also the glory, not 
less dear to hio chivalrous temper, of saving 
the life and honour of the beautiful Duchess of 
Popoli, whom he met flying with dishevelled 
hair from the fury of her pursuers. He availed 
himself dexterously of the jealousy with which 
the Catalonians regarded the inhabitants of 
Castile. He guarantied to the province, in the 
capital of which he was quartered, al its an- 
cient rights and liberties ; and thus succeeded 
in attaching the population to the Austrian 
cause. 

The open country declared in favour of 
Charles. Tarragona, Tortosa, Gerona, Leri- 
da, San Mateo, threw open their gates. The 
Spanish government sent the Count of Las 
Torres with seven thousand men to reduce 
San Mateo. The Earl of Peterborough, with 
only twelve hundred men, raised the siege. 
His officers advised him to be content with this 
extraordinary success. Charles urged him to 
return to Barcelona; but no remonstrances 
could stop such a spirit in the midst of such a 
career. It was the depth of winter. The 
country was mountainous. The roads were 
almost impassable. The men were ill-clothed. 
The horses were knocked up. The retreating 
army was far more numerous than the pur- 
suing army. But difficulties and dangers 
vanished before the energy of Peterborough. 
He pushed on, driving Las Torres before him. 
Nules surrendered to the mere terror of his 
name; and, on the 4th of February, 1706, he 
arrived in triumph at Valencia. There he 
learned, that a body of four thousand men was 
on the march to join Las Torres. He set oul 
at dead of night from Valencia, passed the 
Xucar, came unexpectedly on the encampment 
of the enemy, and slaughtered, dispersed, or 
took the whole reinforcement. The Valencians, 
as we are told by a person who was present, 
could scarcely believe their eyes when they 
saw the prisoners brought in. 

In the mean *ime the courts of Madrid and 



204 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Versailles, exasperated and alarmed by the fall 
9f Barcelona, and by the revolt of the surround- 
ing country, determined to make a great effort, 
A large army, nominally commanded by Philip, 
DUt really under the orders of Marshal Tesse, 
entered Catalonia. A fleet, under the Count 
of Toulouse, one of the natural children of 
Louis the Fourteenth, appeared before the 
port of Barcelona. The city was attacked at 
"ace by sea and land. The person of the arch- 
duke was in considerable danger. Peterbo- 
rough, at the head of about three thousand men, 
marched with great rapidity from Valencia. 
To give battle with so small a force to a great 
regular army, under the conduct of a marshal 
of France, would have been madness. The 
earl therefore took his post on the neighbour- 
ing mountains, harassed the enemy with in- 
cessant alarms, cut off their stragglers, inter- 
cepted their communications with the interior, 
and introduced supplies, both of men and pro- 
visions, into the town. He saw, however, that 
the only hope of the besieged was on the side 
of the sea. His commission from the British 
government gave him supreme power, not only 
over the army, but, whenever he should be ac- 
tually on board, over the navy also. He put 
out to sea at night in an open boat, without 
communicating his design to any person. He 
was picked up, several leagues from the shore, 
by one of the ships of the English squadron. 
As soon as he was on board, he announced 
himself as first in command, and sent a pin- 
nace with his orders to the admiral. Had 
these orders been given a few hours earlier, it 
is probable that the whole French fleet would 
have been taken. As it was, the Count of 
Toulouse stood out to sea. The port was open. 
The town was relieved. On the following 
night the enemy raised the siege, and retreated 
to Roussillon. Peterborough returned to Va- 
lencia ; and Philip, who had been some weeks 
absent from his wife, could endure the misery 
of separation no longer, and flew to rejoin her 
at Madrid. 

At Madrid, however, it was impossible for 
him or for her to remain. The splendid suc- 
cess which Peterborough had obtained on the 
eastern coast of the Peninsula, had inspired 
the sluggish Galway with emulation. He ad- 
vanced into the heart of Spain. Berwick 
retreated. Alcantara, Ciudad Rodrigo, and 
Salamanca fell, and the conquerors marched 
towards the capital. 

Philip was earnestly pressed by his advisers 
to remove the seat of government to Burgos. 
The advanced guard of the allied army was 
already seen on the heights above Madrid. It 
was known that the main body was at hand. 
The unfortunate prince fled with his queen and 
the household. The royal wanderers, after 
travelling eight days on bad roads, under a 
burning sun, and sleeping eight nights in 
miserable hovels, one of which fell down and 
nearly crushed them both to death, reached 
die metropolis of Old Castile. In the mean 
time the invaders had entered Madrid in 
tnumph, and ha<i proclaimed the archduke in 
the streets of the imperial city. Arragon, ever 
jealous of the Castilian ascendency, followed 
the example of Catalcmia. Saragossa revolted 



without seeing an enemy. The governor, 
whom Philip had set over Carthagena, be- 
trayed his trust, and surrendered to the allies 
the best arsenal and the last ships which Spain 
possessed. 

Toledo had been for some time the retrea', 
of two ambitious, turbulent, and vindictive 
intriguers — the queen-dowager and Cardinal 
Porto Carrero. They had long been deadly 
enemies. They had led the adverse factions 
of Austria and France. Each had in turn do- 
mineered over the weak and disordered mind 
of the late king. At length the impostures of 
the priest had triumphed over the blandish- 
ments of the woman; Porto Carrero had re- 
mained victorious, and the queen had fled, in 
shame and mortification, from the court, where 
she had bnce been supreme. In her retire- 
ment she was soon joined by him whose arts 
had destroyed her influence. The cardinal, 
having held power just long enough to con- 
vince all parties of his incompetency, had 
been dismissed to his see, cursing his own 
folly and the ingratitude of the house which he 
had served too well. Common interests and 
common enmities reconciled the fallen rivals. 
The Austrian troops were admitted into Tole- 
do without opposition. The queen-dowager 
flung off that mourning garb which the widow 
of a King of Spain wears through her whole 
life, and blazed forth in jewels. The cardinal 
blessed the standards of the invaders in his 
magnificent cathedral, and lighted up his pa- 
lace in honour of the great event. It seemed 
that the struggle had terminated in favour oi 
the archduke, and that nothing remained for 
Philip but a prompt flight into the dominions of 
his grandfather. 

So judged those who were ignorant of the 
character and habits of the Spanish people. 
There is no country in Europe which it is so 
easy to overrun as Spain ; there is no country 
in Europe which is more difficult to conquer. 
Nothing can be more contemptible than the 
regular military resistance which it offers to 
an invader ; nothing more formidable than the 
energy which it puts forth when its regular 
military resistance has been beaten down. Its 
armies have long borne too much resemblance 
to mobs ; but its mobs have had, in an unusual 
degree, the spirit of armies. The soldier, as 
compared with other soldiers, is deficient in 
military qualities ; but the peasant has as 
much of those qualities as the soldier. In to 
country have such strong fortresses been taken 
by a mere coup-de-main ; in no country have 
unfortified towns made so furious and obsti- 
nate a resistance to great armies. War in 
Spain has, from the days of the Romans, had 
a character of its own ; it is a fire which can- 
not be raked out ; it burns fiercely under the 
embers ; and long after it has, to all seeming, 
been extinguished, bursts forth more violently 
than ever. This was seen in the last Avar. 
Spain had no army which could have looked 
in the face an equal number of French or 
Prussian soldiers ; but one day laid the Prus- 
sian monarchy in the dust; one day put the 
crown of France at the disposal of invaders. 
No Jena, no Waterloo, would have enabled 
Joseph to reign in quiet at Madrid. 



LORD MAHON'S WAR OF THE SUCCESSION. 



2QI 



The conduct of the Castilians throughout 
the War of the Succession was most charac- 
teristic. With all the odds of numher and 
situation on their side, they had been ignomi- 
niously beaten. All the European dependen- 
cies of the Spanish crown were lost. Catalo- 
nia, Arragon, and Valencia had acknowledged 
the Austrian prince. Gibraltar had been taken 
by a few sailors; Barcelona stormed by a few 
dismounted dragoons ; the invaders had pene- 
trated into the centre of the Peninsula, and 
were quartered at Madrid and Toledo. While 
these events had been in progress, the nation 
had scarcely given a sign of life. The rich 
could not be prevailed on to give or to lend 
for the support of war ; the troops had shown 
neither discipline nor courage; and now at 
last, when it seemed that all was lost, when it 
seemed that the most sanguine must relinquish 
all hope, the national spirit awoke, fierce, 
proud, and unconquerable. The people had 
been sluggish, when the circumstances might 
well have inspired hope ; they reserved all 
their energy for what appeared to be a season 
of despair. Castile, Leon, Andalusia, Estre- 
madura, rose at once ; every peasant procured 
a firelock or a pike ; the allies were masters 
only of the ground on which they trode. No 
soldier could wander a hundred yards from 
the main body of the army without the most 
imminent risk of being poniarded ; the coun- 
try through which the conquerors had passed 
to Madrid, and which, as they thought, they 
had subdued, was all in arms behind them; 
their communications with Portugal were cut 
off. In the mean time, money began, for the 
first time, to flow rapidly into the treasury of 
the fugitive king. "The day before yester- 
day," says the Princess Orsini, in a letter 
written at this time, " the priests of a village, 
which contains only a hundred and twenty 
houses, brought a hundred and twenty pistoles 
to the queen. ■ ' My flock,' said he, ' are ashamed 
to send you so little; but they beg you to be- 
lieve, that in this purse there are a hundred 
and twenty hearts faithful even to the death.' 
The good man wept as he spoke, and indeed 
we wept too. Yesterday another small village, 
in which there are only twenty houses, sent us 
fifty pistoles." 

While the Castilians were everywhere arm- 
ing in the cause of I hilip, the allies were serv- 
ing that cause as tffectually by their misma- 
nagement. Gal way stayed at Madrid, where his 
soldiers indulged in such boundless licentious- 
ness, that one-half of them were in the hospi- 
tals. Charles remained dawdling in Catalonia. 
Peterborough had taken Requena, and wished 
to march toward Madrid, and to effect a junc- 
tion with Galway; but the archduke refused 
his consent to the plan. The indignant gene- 
ral remained accordingly in his favourite city, 
on the beautiful shores of the Mediterranean, 
reading Don Quixote, giving balls and sup- 
pers, trying in vain to get some good sport out 
of the Valencian bulls, and making love, not 
in vain, to the Valencian women. 

At length the archduke advanced into Cas- 
tile, and ordered Peterborough to join him. 
But it was too late. Berwick had already 
•impelled Galway to evacuate Madrid; and 
14 



when the whole force of the allies a as collect, 
ed at Guadalaxara, it was found to be decided- 
ly inferior in numbers to that of the enemy. 

Peterborough formed a plan for regaining 
possession of the capital. His plan was re- 
jected by Charles. The patience of the sensi- 
tive and vainglorious hero was worn out. He 
had none of that serenity of temper which ena- 
bled Marlborough to act in perfect harmony 
with Eugene, and to endure the vexatious in- 
terference of the Dutch deputies. He demand- 
ed permission to leave the army. Permission 
was readily granted, and he set out for Italy. 
That there might be some pretext for his de- 
parture, he was commissioned by the archduke 
to raise a loan at Genoa, on the credit of the 
revenues of Spain. 

From that moment to the end of the cam- 
paign, the tide of fortune ran strong against the 
Austrian cause. Berwick had placed his army 
between the allies and the frontiers of Portu- 
gal. They retreated on Valencia, and arrived 
in that province, leaving about ten thousand 
prisoners in the hands of the enemy. 

In January, 1707, Peterborough arrived at 
Valencia from Italy, no longer bearing a pub- 
lic character, but merely as a volunteer. His 
advice was asked, and it seems to have been 
most judicious. He gave it as his decided 
opinion, that no offensive operation against 
Castile ought to be undertaken. It would be 
easy, he said, to defend Arragon, Catalonia, 
and Valencia against Philip. The inhabitants 
of those parts of Spain were attached to the 
cause of the archduke ; and the armies of the 
house of Bourbon would be resisted by the 
whole population. In a short time, the enthu- 
siasm of the Castilians might abate. The go- 
vernment of Philip might commit unpopular 
acts. Defeats in the Netherlands might com- 
pel Louis to withdraw the succours which he 
had furnished to his grandson. Then would 
be the time to strike a decisive blow. This 
excellent advice was rejected. Peterborough, 
who had now received formal letters of recall 
from England, departed before the opening of 
the campaign; and with him departed the gcod 
fortune of the allies. Scarcely any geneial 
had ever done so much with means so small. 
Scarcely any general had ever displayed equal 
originality and boldness. He possessed, in the 
highest degree, the art of conciliating those 
whom he had subdued. But he was not equally 
successful in winning the attachment of these 
with whom he acted. He was adored by the 
Catalonians and Valencians ; but he was hated 
by the prince, whom he had all but made a 
great king ; and by the generals, whose fortune 
and reputation were staked on the same ven 
ture with his own. The English government 
could not understand him. He was so eccen- 
tric, that they gave him no credit for the judg 
ment which he really possessed. One day he 
took towns with horse-soldiers ; then again h« 
turned some hundreds of infantry into cavalrj 
at a minute's notice. He obtained his politi- 
cal intelligence chiefly by means of love affair.', 
and filled his despatches with opigrams. Tho 
ministers thought that it would be nigh'iy im- 
politic to intrust the conduct of the Spanish 
war to so volatile and romantic a persr.n. 



206 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



They therefore gave the command to Lord 
Galway, an experienced veteran — a man who 
was in war what Moliere's doctors were in 
medicine ; who thought it much more honour- 
able to fail according to rule, than to succeed 
by innovation ; and who would have been very 
much ashamed of himself if he had taken 
Monjuich by means so strange as those which 
Peterborough employed. This great command- 
er conducted the campaign of 1707 in the most 
scientific manner. On the plain of Almanza 
he encountered the army of the Bourbons. He 
drew up his troops according to the methods 
prescribed by the best writers ; and in a few 
hours lost eighteen thousand men, a hundred 
and twenty standards, all his baggage and all 
h ■ s artillery. Valencia and Arragon were in- 
stantly conquered by the French, and at the 
close of the year, the mountainous province of 
Catalonia was the only part of Spafti which 
sfill adhered to Charles. 

" Do you remember, child," says the foolish 
w oman in the Spectator to her husband, " that 
tl'e pigeon-house fell the very afternoon that 
our careless wench spilt the salt upon the ta- 
ble V " Yes, my dear," replies the gentleman, 
" and the next post brought us an account of 
the battle of Almanza." The approach of dis- 
aster in Spain had been for some time indi- 
cated by omens much clearer than the mishap 
of the saltcellar; — an ungrateful prince, an 
andisciplined army, a divided council, envy 
triumphant over merit, a man of genius re- 
called, a pedant and a sluggard intrusted with 
supreme command. The battle of Almanza 
decided the fate of Spain. The loss was such 
as Marlborough or Eugene could scarcely 
have retrieved, and was certainly not to be re- 
trieved by Stanhope and Staremberg. 

Stanhope, who took the command of the 
English army in Catalonia, was a man of re- 
spectable abilities, both in military and civil 
iilVairs ; but fitter, we conceive, for a second 
Ik an for a first place. Lord Mahon, with his 
tii ual candour, tells us, what we believe was 
n. t known before, that his ancestor's most 
distinguished exploit, the conquest of Minorca, 
xas suggested by Marlborough. Staremberg, 
a cold and methodical tactician of the German 
school, was sent by the emperor to command 
m Catalonia. Two languid campaigns fol- 
lowed, during which neither of the hostile 
armies did any thing memorable ; but, during 
which^both were nearly starved. 

At length, in 1710, the chiefs of the allied 
forces resolved to venture on bolder measures. 
They began the campaign with a daring move ; 
pushed into Arragon, defeated the troops of 
Philip at Almenara, defeated them again at 
Saragossa, and advanced to Madrid. The king 
was again a fugitive The Castilians sprang 
to arms with the same enthusiasm which they 
had displayed in 1706. The conquerors found 
the capital a desert. The people shut them- 
selves up in their houses, and refused to pay 
any mark of respect to the Austrian prince. It 
was necessary to hire a few children to shout 
before him in the streets. Meanwhile, the 
court of Philip at Valladolid was thronged by 
nobles and prelates. Thirty thousand people 
lollowod their kins from Madrid to his new 



residence. Women of rank, rather than re 
main behind, performed the journey on foot 
The peasants enlisted by thousands. Money 
arms, and provisions were supplied in abun« 
dance by the zeal of the people. The country 
round Madrid was infested by small parties of 
irregular horse. The allies could not send 
off a despatch to Arragon, or introduce a sup- 
ply of provisions into the capital. It was un- 
safe for the archduke to hunt in the immediate 
vicinity of the palace which he occupied. 

The wish of Stanhope was to winter in Cas- 
tile. But he stood alone in the council of war; 
and, indeed, it is not easy to understand how 
the allies could have maintained themselves 
through so unpropitious a season, in the midst 
of so hostile a population. Charles, whose 
personal safety was the first object of the 
generals, was sent with an escort of cavalry to 
Catalonia, in November; and, in December, 
the army commenced its retreat towards Ar- 
ragon. 

But the allies had to do with a master-spirit 
The King of France had lately sent the Duke 
of Vendome to command in Spain. This man 
was distinguished by the filthiness of his per- 
son, by the brutality of his demeanour, by the 
gross buffoonery of his conversation, and by 
the impudence with which he abandoned him- 
self to the most nauseous of all vices. His 
sluggishness was almost incredible. Even 
when engaged in a campaign, he often passed 
whole days in his bed. His strange torpidity 
had been the cause of some of the most severe 
defeats which the French had sustained in 
Italy and Flanders. But when he was roused 
by, any great emergency, his resources, his 
energy, and his presence of mind were such 
as had been found in no French general since 
the days of Luxembourg. 

At this crisis, Vendome was all himself. 
He set out from Talavera with his troops ; and 
pursued the retreating army of the allies with 
a speed, perhaps never equalled, in such a 
season and in such a country. He marched 
night and day. He swam, at the head of his 
cavalry, the flooded stream of Henares ; and, 
in a few days, overtook Stanhope, who was at 
Brihuega with the left wing of the allied army. 
" Nobody with me," says the English general, 
" imagined that they had any foot within some 
days' march of us : and our misfortune is 
owing to the incredible diligence which their 
army made." Stanhope had but just time to 
send off a messenger to the centre of the army, 
which was some leagues from Brihuega, be- 
fore Vendome was upon him. The town was 
invested on every side. The walls were bat- 
tered with cannon. A mine was sprung under 
one of the gates. The English kept up a ter- 
rible fire till their powder was spent. They 
then fought desperately with the bayonet 
against overwhelming odds. They burned 
the houses which the assailants had taken, 
But all was to no purpose. The British ge- 
neral saw that resistance could produce only 
a useless carnage. He concluded a capitula- 
tion, and his gallant little army became pri- 
soners of war on honourable terms. 

Scarcely had Vendome signed the capitula- 
tion, when he learned that Staremberg vrM 



LORD MAHON'S WAR OF THE SUCCESSION. 



5807 



marching to the relief of Stanhope. Prepara- 
tions were instantly made for a general action. 
On the day following that on which the Eng- 
lish had delivered their arms, was fought the 
obstinate and bloody battle of Villa Viciosa. 
Staremberg remained master of the field. Ven- 
dome reaped all the fruits of the engagement. 
The allies spiked their cannon, and retired to- 
wards An agon. But even in Arragon they 
found ,10 place of rest. Vendome was behind 
them. The guerilla parties were around them. 
They fled to Catalonia; but Catalonia was in- 
vaded by a French army from Roussillon. At 
length the Austrian general with six thousand 
harassed and dispirited men, the remains of a 
great and victorious army, took refuge in Bar- 
celona; almost the only place in Spain which 
recognised the authority of Charles. 

Philip was now much safer at Madrid than 
his grandfather at Paris. All hope of conquer- 
ing Spain in Spain was at an end. But in 
other quarters the house of Bourbon was re- 
duced to the last extremity. The French 
armies had undergone a series of defeats in 
Germany, in Italy, and in the Netherlands. An 
immense force, flushed with victory, and com- 
manded by-the greatest generals of the age, 
was on the borders of France. Louis had 
been forced to humble himself before the con- 
querors. He had even offered to abandon the 
cause of his grandson ; and his offer had been 
rejected. But a great turn in affairs was ap- 
proaching. 

The English administration, which had com- 
menced the war against the house of Bourbon, 
was an administration composed of Tories. 
But the war was a Whig war. It was the 
favourite scheme of William, the Whig king. 
Louis had provoked it, by recognising, as 
sovereign of England, a prince peculiarly hate- 
ful t& the Whigs. It had placed England in a 
position of marked hostility to that power, 
from which alone the Pretender could expect 
sufficient succour. It had joined England, in 
the closest union to a Protestant and republi- 
can state; a state which had assisted in bring- 
ing about the Revolution, and which was 
willing to guaranty the execution of the Act of 
Settlement. Marlborough and Godolphin found 
that they were more zealously supported by 
their old opponents than by their old associ- 
ates. Those ministers who were zealous for 
the war were gradually converted to Whigism. 
The rest dropped off, and were succeeded by 
Whigs. Cowper became Chancellor. Sun- 
derland, in spite of the very just antipathy of 
Anne, was made Secretary of State. On the 
death of the Prince of Denmark, a more exten- 
sive change took place. Wharton became 
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and Somers Presi- 
dent of the Council. At length the administra- 
tion was wholly in the hands of the Low 
Church party. 

In the year 1710, a violent change took 
place. The queen had always been a Tory at 
heart. Her religious feelings were all on the 
siue of the Established Church. Her family 
feelings pleaded in favour of her exiled bro- 
ther. Her interest disposed her to favour the 
eealots of prerogative. The affection which 
i she felt for the Duchess of Marlborough was 



the greatest security of the Whigs. Thai 
affection had at length turned to deadly aver 
sion. While the great party which had long 
swayed the destinies of Europe was under- 
mined by bedchamber-women at St. James's, a 
violent storm gathered in the country. A fool- 
ish parson had preached a foolish sermon 
against the principles of the Revolution. The 
wisest members of the government were for 
letting the man alone. But Godolphin, in- 
flamed with all the zeal of a new-made Whig, 
and exasperated by a nickname which was 
applied to him in this unfortunate discourse, 
insisted that the preacher should be impeached. 
The exhortations of the mild and sagacious 
Somers were disregarded. The impeachment 
was brought ; the doctor was convicted ; and 
the accusers were ruined. The clergy came 
to the rescue of the persecuted clergyman. 
The country gentlemen came to the rescue of 
the clergy. A display of Tory feelings, such 
as England had not witnessed since the closing 
days of Charles the Second's reign, appalled 
the ministers, and gave boldness to the queen. 
She turned out the Whigs, called Harley and 
St. John to power, and dissolved the Parlia- 
ment. The elections went strongly against 
the late government. Stanhope, who had in 
his absence been put in nomination for West- 
minster, was defeated by a Tory candidate 
The new ministers, finding themselves masters 
of the new Parliament, were induced by the 
strongest motives to conclude a peace with 
France. The whole system of alliance in 
which the country was engaged was a Whig 
system. The general by whom the English 
armies had constantly been led to victory, and 
for whom it was impossible to find a substi- 
tute, was now, whatever he might formerly 
have been, a Whig general. If Marlborough 
were discarded, it was probable that some 
great disaster would follow. Yet, if he w r ere 
to retain his command, every great action 
which he might perform would raise the credit 
of the party in opposition. 

A peace was therefore concluded between 
England and the princes of the house of Bour 
bon. Of that peace Lord Mahon speaks in 
terms of the severest reprehension. He is 
indeed, an excellent Whig of the time of the 
first Lord Stanhope. "I cannot but pause for 
a moment," says he, " to observe how much 
the course of a century has inverted the mean 
ing of our party nicknames ; how much a mo- 
dern Tory resembles a Whig of Queen Anne's 
reign, and a Tory of Queen Anne's reign a 
modern Whig." 

We grant one-half of Lord Mahon's proposi 
tion ; from the other half we altogether dissent 
We allow that a modern Tory resembles, in 
many things, a Whig of Queen Anne's reign. 
It is natural that such should be the case. The 
worst things of one age or nation often resem- 
ble the best things of another. The l ; Tery of 
an English footman outshines the royal robes 
of King Pomarre. A modern shopkeeper's 
house is as well furnished as the house of a 
considerable merchant in Anne's reign. Very 
plain people now wear finer cloth than Beau 
Fielding or Beau Edgworth could have pro 
cured in Queen Anne's reign. We wou.d 



208 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



rather trust to the apothecary of a modern vil- 
lage than to the physician of a large town in 
Anne's reign. A modern boarding-school miss 
could tell the most learned professor of Anne's 
reign some things in geography, astronomy, 
and chemistry, which would surprise him. 

The science of government is an experi- 
mental science ; and therefore it is, like all 
other experimental sciences, a progressive 
science. Lord Mahon would have been a 
very good Whig in the days of Harley. But 
Harley, whom Lord Mahon censures so se- 
verely, was very Whigish when compared 
even with Clarendon; and Clarendon was 
quite a democrat, when compared with Lord 
Burleigh. If Lord Mahon lives, as we hope 
he will, fifty years longer, we have no doubt 
that, as he now boasts of the resemblance 
which the Tories of our time bear to the 
Whigs of the Revolution, he will then boast of 
the resemblance borne by the Tories of 1882, 
to those immortal patriots, the Whigs of the 
Reform Bill. 

Society, we believe, is constantly advancing 
in knowledge. The tail is now where the 
head was some generations ago. But the head 
and the tail still keep their distance. A nurse 
of this century is as wise as a justice of the 
quorum and cust-alorum in Shallow's time. 
The wooden spoon of this year would puzzle 
a senior wrangler of the reign of George the 
Second. A boy from the National School 
reads and spells better than half the knights 
of the shire in the October Club. But there is 
still as wide a difference as ever between jus- 
tices and nurses, senior wranglers and wooden 
spoons, members of Parliament and children 
at charity schools. In the same way, though 
a Tory may now be very like what a Whig 
was one hundred and twenty years, the Whig 
Is as much in advance of the Tory as ever. 
The stag, in the Treatise on the Bathos, who 
"feared his hind feet would overtake the fore," 
was not more mistaken than Lord Mahon, if 
he thinks that he has really come up with the 
Whigs. The absolute position of the parties 
has been altered ; the relative position remains 
unchanged. Through the whole of that great 
movement, which began before these party 
names existed, and which will continue after 
they have become obsolete ; through the whole 
of that great movement, of which the char- 
ter of John, the institution of the House of 
Commons, the extinction of villanage, the 
separation from the See of Rome, the expul- 
sion of the Stuarts, the reform of the repre- 
sentative system, are successive stages, there 
have been, under some name or other, two sets 
of men ; those who were before their age, and 
those wno were behind it ; those who were the 
wisest among their contemporaries, and those 
who gloried in being no wiser than their great- 
grandfathers. It is delightful to think, that in 
due time the last of those who struggle in the 
rear of the great march, will occupy the place 
now occupied by the advanced guard. The 
Tory Parliament of 1710 would have passed 
for a most liberal Parliament in the days of 
Elizabeth ; and there are few members of the 
Conservative Club, who would not have been 



fully qualified to sit with Halifax and Somen 
at the Kit- Cat. 

Though, therefore, we admit that a modern 
Tory bears some resemblance to a Whig of 
Queen Anne's reign, we can by no means ad- 
mit that a Tory of Anne's reign resembled 
a modern Whig. Have the modern Whigs 
passed laws for the purpose of closing the en. 
trance of the House of Commons against the 
new interests created by trade 1 Do the mo- 
dern Whigs hold the doctrine of divine right 1 
Have the modern Whigs laboured to exclude 
all dissenters from office and power] Tho 
modern Whigs are, indeed, like the Tories of 
1712, desirous of peace and of close union 
with France. But is there no difference be. 
tween the France of 1712 and the France of 
1832 ? Is France now the stronghold of the 
"Popish tyranny" and the " arbitrary power" 
against which our ancestors fought and pray- 
ed ? Lord Mahon will find, we think, that his 
parallel is, in all essential circumstances, as 
incorrect as that which Fluellen drew between 
Macedon and Monmouth; or as that which 
an ingenious Tory lately discovered between 
Archbishop Williams and Archbishop Ver 
non. 

We agree with Lord Mahon in thinking 
highly of the Whigs of Queen Anne's reign. 
But that part of their conduct which he selects 
for especial praise, is precisely the part which 
we think most objectionable. We revere them 
as the great champions of political and intel- 
lectual liberty. It is true, that, when raised to 
power, they were not exempt from the faults 
which power naturally engenders. It is true, 
that they were men born in the seventeenth 
century, and that they were therefore ignorant 
of many truths which are familiar to the men 
of the nineteenth century. But they were, 
what the reformers of the Church were before 
them, and what the reformers of the House of 
Commons have been since — the leaders of 
their species in a right direction. It is true, 
that they did not allow to political discussion 
that latitude which to us appears reasonable 
and safe ; but to them we owe the removal of 
the Censorship. It is true that they did not 
carry the principle of religious liberty to its 
full extent ; but to them we owe the Tolera- 
tion Act. 

Though, however, we think that the Whigs 
of Anne's reign were, as a body, far superior 
in wisdom and public virtue to their contempo- 
raries the Tories, we by no means hold our- 
selves bound to defend all the measures of our 
favourite party. A life of action, if it is to be 
useful, must be a life of compromise. But 
speculation admits of no compromise. A pub- 
lic man is often under the necessity of con- 
senting to measures which he dislikes, lest he 
should endanger the success of measures which 
he thinks of vital importance. But the histo- 
rian lies under no such necessity. On the con- 
trary, it is one of his most sacred duties to 
point out clearly the errors of those whose 
general conduct he admires. 

It seems to us, then, that on the great ques- 
tion which divided England during the last four 
years of Anne's reign, the Tories were in th« 



LORD MAHON'S WAR OF THE SUCCESSION. 



309 



right and the Whigs in the wrong. That ques- 
tion was, whether England ought to conclude 
peace without exacting from Philip a resigna- 
tion of the Spanish crown. 

No parliamentary struggle from the time of 
the Exclusion Bill to the time of the Reform 
Bill, has been so violent as that which took 
place between the authors of the Treaty of 
Utrecht and the War Party. The Commons 
were for peace ; the Lords were fox vigorous 
hostilities. The queen was compelled to 
choose which of her two highest prerogatives 
she would exercise: whether she would create 
Peers or dissolve the Parliament. The ties 
of party superseded the ties of neighbourhood 
and of blood ; the members of the hostile fac- 
tions would scarcely speak to each other or 
bow to each other ; the women appeared at the 
theatres bearing the badges of their political 
sect. The schism extended to the most remote 
counties of England. Talents such as had 
aever before been displayed in political con- 
trovery were enlisted in the service of the hos- 
tile parties. On the one side was Steele, gay, 
lively, drunk with animal spirits and with fac- 
tious animosity; and Addison, with his polished 
satire, his inexhaustible fertility of fancy, and 
his graceful simplicity of style. In the front 
of the opposite ranks appeared a darker and 
fiercer spirit — the apostate politician, the ribald 
priest, the perjured lover — a heart burning with 
hatred against the whole human race — a mind 
richly stored with images from the dunghill 
and the lazar-house. The ministers triumphed, 
and the peace was concluded. Then came the 
reaction. A new sovereign ascended the throne. 
The Whigs enjoyed the confidence of the king 
and of the Parliament. The unjust severity 
with which" the Tories had treated Marlborough 
and Walpole was more than retaliated. Har- 
ley and Prior were thrown into prison; Boling- 
broke and Ormond were compelled to take re- 
fuge in a foreign land. The wounds inflicted 
in this desperate conflict continued to rankle 
for many years. It was long before the mem- 
bers of eiiher party could discuss the question 
of the peace of Utrecht with calmness and im- 
partiality. That the Whig ministers had sold 
us to the Dutch, and the Tory ministers had 
sold us to the French ; that the war had been 
carried on only to fill the pockets of Marlbo- 
rough; that the peace had been concluded only 
to facilitate the bringing over the Pretender ; 
these imputations and many others, utterly un- 
founded or grossly exaggerated, were hurled 
backward and forward by the political dis- 
putants of the last century. In our time the 
question may be discussed without irritation. 
We will state, as concisely as possible, the 
reasons which have led us to the conclusion 
at which we have arrived. 

The dangers which were to be apprehended 
from the peace were rwo ; first, the danger that 
Philip might be induced, by feelings of private 
affection, to act in strict concert with the elder 
branch of his house, to favour the French trade 
at the expense of England, and to side with the 
French government in future wars ; secondly, 
the danger that the posterity of the Duke of 
Burgundy might become extinct, that Philip 



might become heir by blood to the French 
crown, and that thus two great monarchies 
might be united under one sovereign. 

The first danger appears to us altogether 
chimerical. Family affection has seldom pro- 
duced much effect on the policy of princes. 
The state of Europe at the time of the peace 
of Utrecht proved that in politics the lies of 
interest are much stronger than those of con- 
sanguinity. The Elector of Bavaria had been 
driven from his dominions by his father-in- 
law ; Victor Amadeus was in arms against his 
sons-in-law; Anne was seated on a throne 
from which she had assisted to push a most 
indulgent father. It is true that Philip had 
been accustomed from childhood to regard 
his grandfather with profound veneration. It 
was probable, therefore, that the influence of 
Louis at Madrid would be very great; but 
Louis was more than seventy years old; he 
could not live long; his heir was an infant 
in the cradle. There was surely no reason to 
think that the policy of the King of Spain 
would be swayed by his regard for a nephew 
whom he had never seen. 

In fact, soon after the peace the two branches 
of the house of Bourbon began to quarrel. A 
close alliance was formed between Philip and 
Charles, lately competitors for the Castilian 
crown. A Spanish princess, betrothed to the 
King of France, was sent back in the most in- 
sulting manner to her native country, and a 
decree was put forth by the court of Madrid 
commanding every Frenchman to leave Spain. 
It is true that, fifty years after the peace of 
Utrecht, an alliance of peculiar strictness was 
formed between the French and Spanish go- 
vernments. But it is certain that both govern- 
ments were actuated on that occasion, not by 
domestic affection, but by common interests 
and common enmities. Their compact, though 
called the Family Compact, was as purely a 
political compact as the league of Cambrai or 
the league of Pilnitz. 

The second danger was, that Philip might 
have succeeded to the crown of his native 
country. This did not happen. But it might 
have happened ; and at one time it seemed 
very likely to happen. A sickly child alone 
stood between the King of Spain and the heri- 
tage of Louis the Fourteenth. Philip, it is true, 
solemnly renounced his claims to the Fi-ench 
crown. But the manner in which he had ob- 
tained possession of the Spanish crown had 
lately proved the inefiicacy of such renancia 
tions. The French lawyers declared the re- 
nunciation null, as being inconsistent with 
the fundamental law of the monarchy. The 
French people would probably have sided with 
him whom they would have considered as the 
rightful heir. Saint Simon, though much less 
the slave of prejudice than most of his coun 
trymen, and though strongly attached to the 
regent, deelared, in the presence of that prince, 
that he never would support the claims of the 
house of Orleans against those of the King 
of Spain. "If such," he said, "be my feel- 
ings, what must be the feelings of others]" 
Bolingbroke, it is certain, was fully convinced 
that the renunciation was worth no more than 



210 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



{he paper on which it was written, and de- 
manded it only for the purpose of blinding the 
English Parliament and people. 

Yet, though it was at one time probable that 
the posterity of the Duke of Burgundy would 
become extinct, and though it is almost certain 
that if the posterity of the Duke of Burgundy 
had become extinct, Philip would have suc- 
cessfully preferred his claim to the crown of 
France, we still defend the principle of the 
Treaty of Utrecht. In the first place, Charles 
had, soon after the battle of Villa Viciosa, in- 
herited, by the death of his elder brother, all 
the dominions of the house of Austria. It 
might be argued, that if to these dominions he 
had added the whole monarchy of Spain, the 
balance of power would be seriously endan- 
gered. The union of the Austrian dominions 
and Spain would not, it is true, have been so 
alarming an event as the union of France and 
Spain. But Charles was actually emperor. 
Philip was not, and never might be, King of 
France. The certainty of the less evil might 
well be set against the chance of the greater 
evil. 

But, in fact, we do not believe that Spain 
would long have remained under the govern- 
ment either of the emperor or of the King of 
France. The character of the Spanish people 
was a better security to the nations of Europe 
chan any will, any instrument of renunciation, 
or any treaty. The same energy which the 
people of Castile had put forth when Madrid 
was occupied by the allied armies, they would 
have again put forth as soon as it appeared 
that their country was about to become a pro- 
vince of France. Though they were no longer 
masters abroad, they were by no means dis- 
posed to see foreigners set over them at home. 
If Philip had become King of France, and had 
attempted to govern Spain by mandates from 
Versailles, a second Grand Alliance would 
easily have effected what the first had failed to 
accomplish. The Spanish nation would have 
rallied against him as zealously as it had be- 
fore rallied round him. And of this he seems 
to have been fully aware. For many years the 
favourite hope of his heart was that he might 
ascend the throne of his grandfather ; but he 
aeems never to have thought it possible that 
he could reign at once in the country of his 
adoption and in the country of his birth. 

These were the dangers of the peace ; and 
they seem to us to be of no very formidable 
kind. Against these dangers are to be set off 
the evils of war and the risk of failure. The 
evils of the war — the waste of life, the suspen- 
sion of trade, the expenditure of wealth, the 
accumulation of debt — require no illustration. 
The chances of failure it is difficult at this dis- 
>ancc of time to calculate with accuracy. But 



we think that an estimate approximating tu 
the truth, may, without much difficulty, b« 
formed. The allies had been victorious in 
Germany, Italy, and Flanders. It was by no 
means improbable that they might fight theif 
way into the very heart of France. But at no 
time since the commencement of the war had 
their prospects b?en so dark in that country 
which was the -very object of the struggle. la 
Spain they held only a few square leagues. 
The temper of the great majority of the nation 
was decidedly hostile to them. If they had 
persisted, if they had obtained success equal to 
their highest expectations, if they had gained a 
series of victories as splendid as those of 
Blenheim and Ramilies, if Paris had fallen, if 
Louis had been a prisoner, we still doubt 
whether they would have accomplished their 
object. They would still have had to carry on 
interminable hostilities against the whole po- 
pulation of a country which affords peculiar 
facilities to irregular warfare; and in which 
invading armies suffer more from famine than 
from the sword. 

We are, therefore, for the peace of Utrecht. 
It is true, that we by no means admire the 
statesmen who concluded that peace. Hariey, 
we believe, was a solemn trifler. St. John a 
brilliant knave. The great body of their fol- 
lowers consisted of the country clergy and the 
country gentry; two classes of men who were 
then immeasurably inferior in respectability 
and intelligence to decent shopkeepers 01 
farmers of our time. Parson Barnabas, Par 
son Trulliber, Sir Wilful Witwould, Sir Fran- 
cis Wronghead, Squire Western, Squire Sul 
len — such were the people who composed the 
irjain strength of the Tory party for sixty years 
after the Revolution. It is true, that the means 
by which the Tories came into power in 1710 
were most disreputable. It is true, that the 
manner in which they used their power was 
often unjust and cruel. It is true, that in order 
to bring about their favourite project of peace, 
they resorted to slander and deception, without 
the slightest scruple. It is true, that they 
passed off on the British nation a renunciation 
which they knew to be invalid. It is true, that 
they gave up the Catalans to the vengeance of 
Philip, in a manner inconsistent with huma- 
nity and national honour. But on the great 
question of Peace or War, we cannot but think . 
that, though their motives may have been 
selfish and malevolent, their decision was 
beneficial to the state. 

But we have already exceeded our limits. II 
remains only for us to bid Lord Mahon heartily 
farewell, and to assure him, that whatever dis« 
like we may feel for his political opinions, wo 
shall always meet ,him with pleasure on this 
neutral ground of literature. 



WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 



211 



WALPOLFS LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MAM. 3 



[Edinburgh Review, 1833.] 



We cannot transcribe this title-page without 
strong feelings of regret. The editing of these 
volumes was the last of the useful and modest 
services rendered to literature by a nobleman 
of amiable manners, of untarnished public and 
private character, and of cultivated mind. On 
this, as on other occasions, Lord Dover per- 
formed his part diligently, judiciously, and 
without the slightest ostentation. He had two 
merits, both of which are rarely found together 
in a commentator. He was content to be 
merely a commentator — to keep in the back- 
ground, and to leave the foreground to the 
author whom he had undertaken to illustrate. 
Yet, though willing to be an attendant, he was 
by no means a slave ; nor did he consider it as 
part of his editorial duty to see no faults in the 
writer to whom he faithfully and assiduously 
rendered the humblest literary offices. 

The faults of Horace Walpole's head and 
heart are indeed sufficiently glaring. His 
writings, it is true, rank as high among the 
delicacies of intellectual epicures as the Stras- 
burgh pies among the dishes described in the 
Almanack des Gourmands. But, as the pate-de- 
foie-gra$ owes its excellence to the diseases of 
tha wretched animal which furnishes it, and 
wou'ii be good for nothing if it were not made 
of livers preternaturally swollen, so none but 
an unhealthy and disorganized mind could 
have produced such literary luxuries as the 
works of Walpole. 

He was, unless we have formed a very erro- 
neous judgment of his character, the most 
eccentric, the most artificial, the most fastidi- 
ous, the most capricious of men. His mind 
was a bundle of inconsistent whims and affecta- 
tions. His features were covered by mask 
within mask. When the outer disguise of 
obvious affectation was removed, you were 
still as far as ever from seeing the real man. 
He played innumerable parts, and overacted 
them all. When he talked misanthropy, he 
out-Timoned Timon. When he talked philan- 
thropy, he left Howard at an immeasurable 
distance. He scoffed at courts, and kept a 
chronicle of their most trifling scandal ; at 
society, and was blown about by its slightest 
veerings of opinion ; at literary fame, and left 
fair copies of his private letters, with copious 
notes, to be published after his decease ; at 
rank, and never for a moment forgot that he 
was an honourable; at the practice of entail, 
and tasked the ingenuity of conveyancers to tie 
up his villa in the strictest settlement. 



* Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, to Sir Ho. 
rate Mann, British Envoy at the Court of Tuscany. Now 
first published from the Originala in the possession of the 
Earl of Waldgrave. Edited by Lord Dover. 3 vols. 
Ivo. London. 1833. 



The conformation of his mind was such, 
that whatever was little, seemed to him great, 
and whatever was great, seemed to him little. 
Serious business was a trifle to him, and trifles 
were his serious business. To chat with blue- 
stockings; to write little copies of compliment- 
ary verses on little occasions ; to superintend 
a private press ; to preserve from natural decay 
the perishable topics of Ranelagh and White's; 
to record divorces and bets, Miss Chudleigh's 
absurdities and George Selwyn's good sa)- 
ings; to decorate a grotesque house with pie- 
crust battlements ; to procure rare engravings 
and antique chimney-boards ; to match odd 
gauntlets ; to lay out a maze of walks within 
five acres of ground — these were the grave 
employments of his long life. From these he 
turned to politics as to an amusement. After 
the labours of the print-shop and the auction- 
room, he unbent his mind in the House of 
Commons. And, having indulged in the re- 
creation of making laws and voting millions 
he returned to more important pursuits — to 
researches after Queen Mary's comb, Wolsey's 
red hat, the pipe which Van Tromp smoked 
during his last seafight, and the spur which 
King William struck into the flank of Sorrel. 

In every thing in which he busied himself— 
in the fine arts, in literature, in public affairs 
— he was drawn by some strange attraction 
from the great to the little, and from the useful 
to the odd. The politics in which he took the 
keenest interest were politics scarcely deserv- 
ing of the name. The growlings of George the 
Second, the flirtations of Princess Emily with 
the Duke of Grafton, the amours of Prince 
Frederic with Lady Middlesex, the squabbles 
between Gold Stick and the Master of the Buck- 
hounds, the disagreements between the tutors 
of Prince George— these matters engaged 
almost all the attention which Walpole could 
spare from matters more important still; — from 
bidding for Zinckes and Petitots, from cheap- 
ening fragments of tapestry, and handles of old 
lances, from joining bits of painted glass, and 
from setting up memorials of departed cats and 
dogs. While he was fetching and carrying 
the gossip of Kensington Palace and Carlton 
House, he fancied that he was engaged in 
politics, and when he recorded that gossip, he 
fancied that he was writing history. 

He was, as he has himself told us, fond of 
faction as an amusement. He loved mischief- 
but he loved quiet ; and he was constantly on 
the watch for opportunities of gratifying btrth 
his tastes at once. He sometimes contrived- 
without showing himself, to disturb the course 
of ministerial negotiations, and to spread con- 
fusion through the political circles. He dees 
not himself pretend that, on these occasions, 



18 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



he was actuated by public spirit ; nor does he 
appear to have had any private advantage in 
view. He thought it a good practical joke to 
set public men together by the ears ; and he 
enjoyed their perplexities, their accusations, 
and their recriminations, as a malicious boy 
enjoys the embarrassment of a misdirected 
traveller. 

About politics, in the high sense of the word, 
he knew nothing and cared nothing. He called 
himself a Whig. His father's son could scarce- 
ly assume any other name. It pleased him 
also to affect a foolish aversion to kings as 
kings, and a foolish love and admiration of 
rebels as rebels; and, perhaps, while kings 
were not in danger, and while rebels were not 
in being, he really believed that he held the 
doctrines which he professed. To go no far- 
ther than the letters now before us, he is per- 
petually boasting to his friend Mann of his 
aversion to royalty and to royal persons. He 
calls the crime of Damien " that least bad of 
murders, the murder of a king." He hung up 
in his villa a fac-simile of the death-warrant 
ef Charles, with the inscription, "Major Charta." 
Yet the most superficial knowledge of history 
might have taught him that the Restoration, 
and the crimes and follies of the twenty-eight 
years which followed the Restoration, were the 
effects of this "Greater Charter." Nor was 
there much in the means by which the instru- 
ment was obtained which could gratify a judi- 
cious lover of liberty. A man must hate kings 
very bitterly, before he can think it desirable 
that the representatives of the people should 
be turned out of doors by dragoons, in order 
to get at a king's head. Walpole's Whigism, 
however, was of a very harmless kind. He 
kept it, as he kept the old spears and helmets 
at Strawberry Hill, merely for show. He 
would just as soon have thought of taking 
down the arms of the ancient Templars and 
Hospitallers from the walls of his hall, and 
setting off on a crusade to the Holy Land, as 
of acting in the spirit of those daring warriors 
and statesmen, great even in their errors, whose 
names and seals were affixed to the warrant 
which he prized so highly. He liked revolu- 
tion and regicide only when they were a hun- 
dred years old. His republicanism, like the 
courage of a bully or the love of a fribble, was 
strong and ardent when there was no occasion 
for it, and subsided when he had an opportu- 
nity of bringing it to the proof. As soon as 
the revolutionary spirit really began to stir in 
Europe, as soon as the hatred of kings became 
bomething more than a sonorous phrase, he 
was frightened into a fanatical royalist, and 
became one of the most extravagant alarmists 
of those wretched times. In truth, his talk 
about liberty, whether he knew it or not, was 
from the beginning a mere cant, the remains 
of a phraseology which had meant something 
m the mouths of those from whom he had 
learned it, but which, in his mouth, meant 
about as much as the oath by which the 
Knights of the Bath bind themselves to redress 
the wrongs of all injured ladies. He had been 
fed m his boyhood with Whig speculations on 
government. He must often have seen, at 



Houghton or in Downing street, men who nad 
been Whigs when it was as dangerous tc be a 
Whig as to be a highwayman ; men who had 
voted for the exclusion bill, who had been con 
cealed in garrets and cellars after the battle of 
Sedgmoor, and who had set their names to the 
declaration that they would' live and die with 
the Prince of Orange. He had acquired the 
language of these men, and he repeated it by 
rote, though it was at variance with all his 
tastes and feelings ; just as some old Jacobite 
families persisted in praying for the Pretender, 
and passing their glasses over the water-de- 
canter when they drank the king's health, long 
after they had become zealous supporters of 
the government of George the Third. He was 
a Whig by the accident of hereditary connec- 
tion; but he was essentially a courtier, and 
not the less a courtier because he pretended to 
sneer at the object which excited his admira- 
tion and envy. His real tastes perpetually 
show themselves through the thin disguise. 
While professing all the contempt of Bradshaw 
or Ludlow for crowned heads, he took the 
trouble to write a book concerning Royal Au- 
thors. He pried with the utmost anxiety into 
the most minute particulars relating to the 
royal family. When he was a child, he was 
haunted with a longing to see George the First, 
and gave his mother no peace till she had 
found a way of gratifying his curiosity. The 
same feeling, covered with a thousand dis- 
guises, attended him to the grave. No obser- 
vation that'dropped from the lips of majesty 
seemed to him too trifling to be recorded. The 
French songs of Prince Frederic, compositions 
certainly not deserving of preservation on ac- 
count of their intrinsic merit, have been care- 
fully preserved for us by this contemner of 
royalty. In truth, every page of Walpole's 
works betrayed him. This Diogenes, who 
would be thought to prefer his tub to a palace, 
and who has nothing to ask of the masters of 
Windsor and Versailles but that they will 
stand out of his light, is a gentleman-usher at 
heart. 

He had, it is plain, an uneasy consciousness 
of the frivolity of his favourite pursuits ; and 
this consciousness produced one of the most 
diverting of his ten thousand affectations. Hi? 
busy idleness, his indifference to matters which 
the world generally regards as important, his 
passion for trifles, he thought fit to dignify with 
the name of philosophy. He spoke of himself 
as of a man whose equanimity was proof to 
ambitious hopes and fears ; who had learned 
to rate power, wealth, and fame at their true 
value, and whom the conflict of parties, the 
rise and fall of statesmen, the ebbs and flows 
of public opinion, moved only to a smile of 
mingled compassion and disdain. It was owing 
to the peculiar elevation of his character, that 
he cared about a lath and plaster pinnacle 
more than about the Middlesex election, and 
about a miniature of Grammont more than 
about the American Revolution. Pitt and 
Murray might talk themselves hoarse aboul 
trifles. But questions of government and wa: 
were too insignificant to detain a mind which 
was occupied in recording the scandal of club 



WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 



213 



rooms ail the whispers of the backstairs, and 
which -was even capable of selecting and dis- 
posing chairs of ebony and shields of rhinoce- 
ros-skin. 

One of his innumerable whims was an ex- 
treme dislike to be considered as a man of let- 
ters. Not that he was indifferent to literary 
fame. Far from it. Scarcely any writer has 
ever troubled himself so much about the ap- 
pearance which his works were to make before 
posterity. But he had set his heart on incom- 
patible objects. He wished to be a celebrated 
author, and yet to be a mere idle gentleman — 
one of those epicurean gods of the earth who 
do nothing at all, and who pass their existence 
in the contemplation of their own perfections. 
He did not like to have any thing in common 
with the wretches who lodged in the little 
courts behind St. Martin's Church, and stole 
out on Sundays to dine with their bookseller. 
He avoided the society of authors. He spoke 
with lordly contempt of the most distinguished 
among them. He tried to find out some way 
v>f writing books, as M. Jourdain's father sold 
cloth, without derogating from his character 
of gentilhomme. " Lui, marchand ? C'est pure 
medisance : -il ne l'a jamais eta. Tout ce qu'il 
faisait, c'est qu'il etait fort obligeant, fort offi- 
cieux; et comme il se connaissait, fort bien 
en etoffes, il en allait choisir de tous les cotes, 
les faisait aj. sorter chez lui, et en donnait a 
ses amis pour de }'argent." There are several 
amusing instances of Li's feeling on this sub- 
ject in the letters now before us. Mann had 
complimented him on the learning which ap- 
peared in the " Catalogue of Royal and Noble 
Authors ;" and it is curious to see how impa- 
tiently Walpole bore the imputation of having 
attended to any thing so unfashionable as the 
improvement of his mind. " I know nothing. 
How should I ] I who have always lived in 
the big busy world; who lie a-bed all the morn- 
ing, calling it morning as long as you please ; 
who sup in company ; who have played at faro 
half my life, and now at loo till two and three 
in the morning ; who have always loved plea- 
sure, haunted auctions. . . How I have laughed 
when some of the Magazines have called me 
the learned gentleman. Pray don't be like the 
Magazines." This folly might be pardoned in 
a boy. But a man of forty-three, as Walpole 
then was, ought to be quite as much ashamed 
of playing at loo till three every morning, as 
of being so vulgar a thing as a learned gen- 
tleman. 

The literary character has undoubtedly its 
full share of faults, and of very serious and 
offensive faults. If Walpole had avoided those 
faults, we could have pardoned the fastidious- 
ness with which he declined all fellowship 
with men of learning. But from those faults 
Walpole was not one jot more free than the 
garreteers from whose contact he shrank. Of 
literary meannesses and literary vices, his life 
and his works contain as many instances as 
the life and the works of any member of 
Johnson's club. The fact is, that Walpole had 
the faults of Grub street, with a Jarge addition 
from St. James's street, the vanity, the jea- 
lousy, the irritability of a man of letters, the 



affected superciliousness and apathy of a man 
of ton. 

His judgment of literature, of contemporarj 
literature especially, was altogether perverted 
by his aristocratical feelings. No writer surely 
was ever guilty of so much false and absurd 
criticism. He almost invariably speaks with 
contempt of those books which are now univer* 
sally allowed to be the best that appeared in 
his^time ; and, on the other hand, he speaks of 
writers of rank and fashion as if they were 
entitled to the same precedence in literature 
which would have been allowed to them in a 
drawing-room. In these letters, for example, 
he says, that he would rather have written the 
most absurd lines in Lee than Thomson's 
" Seasons." The periodical paper called " The 
World," or the other hand, was by " our first 
writers." Who, then, were the first writers of 
England in the year 1753 1 Walpole has told 
us in a note. Our readers will probably guess 
that Hume, Fielding, Smollett, Richardson, 
Johnson, Warburton, Collins, Akensidc, Gray, 
Dyer, Young, Warton, Mason, or some of 
those distinguished men, were on the list. Not 
one of them. Our first writers, it seems, were 
Lord Chesterfield, Lord Bath, Mr. W. White ■ 
head, Sir Charles Williams, Mr. Soame Jenyns, 
Mr. Cambridge, Mr. Coventry. Of these seven 
gentlemen, Whitehead was the lowest in sta- 
tion, but was the most accomplished tuft-hunter 
of his time. Coventry was of a noble family. 
The other five had among them two peerages, 
two seats in the House of Commons, three 
seats in the Privy Council, a baronetcy, a blue 
riband, a red riband, about a hundred thousand 
pounds a year, and not ten pages that are worth 
reading. The writings of Whitehead, Cam- 
bridge, Coventry, and Lord Bath are forgotten, 
Soame Jenyns is remembered chiefly by John 
son's review of the foolish Essay on the Origin 
of Evil. Lord Chesterfield stands much lower 
in the estimation of posterity than he wo-'d 
have done if his letters had never been p 
lished. The lampoons of Sir Charles Williams 
are now read only by the curious ; and, though 
not without occasional flashes of wit, have al- 
ways seemed to us, we must own, very poor 
performances. 

Walpole judged of French literature after 
the same fashion. He understood and loved 
the^French language. Indeed, he loved it too 
well. His style is more deeply tainted with 
Gallieisms than that of any other English 
writer with whom we are acquainted. His 
composition often reads, for a page together, 
like a rude translation from the French. We 
meet every minute with such sentences as 
these, "One knows what temperaments Annibal 
Caracci painted." "The impertinent person- 
age !" " She is dead rich." " Lord Dalkeith 
is dead of the small-pox in three days." 
" What was ridiculous, the man who seconded 
the motion happened to be shut out." "It wil, 
now be seen whether he or they are most pa 
triot." 

His love of the Fr°nch language was of a 
peculiar kind. He lovea it as having been fo* 
a century the vehicle of all the polite nothings 
cf Europe : as the sign by which the freema 



a 14 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



sons of fashion recognised each other in every 
capital from Petersburg to Naples ; as the lan- 
guage of raillery, as the language of anecdote, 
as the language of memoirs, as the language 
of correspondence. Its higher uses he alto- 
gether disregarded. The literature of France 
has been to ours what Aaron was to Moses — 
the expositor of great truths, which would else 
have perished for want of a voice to utter 
them with distinctness. The relation which 
existed between Mr. Bentham and M. Dumont 
is an exact illustration of the intellectual rela- 
tion in which the two countries stand to each 
other. The great discoveries in physics, in 
metaphysics, in political science, are ours. 
But no foreign nation except France has re- 
ceived them from us by direct communication. 
Isolated in our situation, isolated by our man- 
ners, we found truth, but we did not impart it. 
France has been the interpreter between Eng- 
land and mankind. 

In the time of , Walpole, this process of in- 
terpretation was in full activity. The great 
French writers were busy in proclaiming 
through Europe the names of Bacon, of New- 
ton, and of Locke. The English principles of 
toleration, the English respect for personal 
liberty, the English doctrine that all power is 
a trust for the public good, were making rapid 
progress. There is scarcely any thing in his- 
tory so interesting as that great stirring up of 
the mind of France, that shaking of the foun- 
dations of all established opinions, that up- 
rooting of old truth and old error. It was plain 
that mighty principles were at work, whether 
for evil or for good. It was plain that a great 
change in the whole social system was at 
hand. Fanatics of one kind might anticipate 
a golden age, in which men should live under 
the simple dominion of reason, in perfect 
equality and perfect amity, without property, 
or marriage, or king, or God. A fanatic of 
another kind might see nothing in the doc- 
trines of the philosophers but anarchy and 
atheism, might cling more closely to every old 
abuse, and might regret the good old days 
when St. Dominic and Simon de Montfort put 
down the growing heresies of Provence. A 
wise man would have seen with regret the ex- 
cesses into which the reformers were running, 
but he would have done justice to their genius 
and to their philanthropy. He would have 
censured their errors ; but he would have re- 
membered that, as Milton has sa I, error is but 
opinion in the making. While he condemned 
their hostility to religion, he would have ac- 
knowledged that it was the natural effect of a 
system under which religion had been con- 
stantly exhibited to them, in forms which com- 
mon sense rejected, and at which humanity 
shuddered. While he condemned some of 
their political doctrines as incompatible with 
all law, all property, and all civilization, he 
would have acknowledged that the subjects of 
Louis the Fifteenth had every excuse which 
men could have for being eager to pull down, 
and for being ignorant of the far higher art of 
netting up. While anticipating a fierce con- 
flict, a great and wide-wasting destruction, he 
would yet have looked forward tc the final 



close with a good hope for France and ten 
mankind. 

Walpole had neither hopss nor fears 
Though the most Frenchified English writel 
of the eighteenth century, he troubled himself 
little about the portents which were daily to be 
discerned in the French literature of his time. 
While the most eminent Frenchmen were 
studying with enthusiastic delight English poli- 
tics and English philosophy, he was study, 
ing as intently the gossip of the old court of 
France. The fashions and scandal of Ver- 
sailles and Marli, fashions and scandal a hun- 
dred years old, occupied him infinitely more 
than a great moral revolution which was 
taking place in his sight. He took a prodi- 
gious interest in every noble sharper whose 
vast volume of wig and infinite length of 
riband had figured at the dressing or at the 
tucking up of Louis the Fourteenth, and of 
every profligate woman of quality who had 
carried her train of lovers backward and for- 
ward from king to Parliament, and from Par- 
liament to king, during the wars of the Fronde. 
These were the people of whom he treasured 
up the smallest memorial, of whom he loved 
to hear the most trifling anecdote, and for 
whose likenesses he would have given any 
price. Of the great French writers of his own 
time, Montesquieu is the only one of whom he 
speaks with enthusiasm. And even of Mon- 
tesquieu he speaks with less enthusiasm than 
of that abject thing, Crebillon the younger, a 
scribbler as licentious as Louvet and as dull 
as Rapin. A man must be strangely consti- 
tuted who can take interest in pedantic jour> 
nals of the blockades laid by the Duke of A. tc 
the hearts of the Marquise de B. and the Com 
tesse de C. This trash Walpole extols in Ian 
guage sufficiently high for the merits of "Don 
Quixote." He wished to possess a likeness of 
Crebillon, and Liotard, the first painter of 
miniatures then living, was employed to pie- 
serve the features of the profligate twaddler 
The admirer of the Sopha and of the Lettret 
Mhcnienncs had little respect to spare for th« 
men who were then at the head of French 
literature. He kept carefully out of their way. 
He tried to keep other people from paying 
them any attention. He could not deny that 
Voltaire and Rousseau were clever men; but 
he took every opportunity of depreciating 
them. Of D'Alembert he spoke with a con- 
tempt, which, when the intellectual powers of 
the two men are compared, seems exquisitely 
ridiculous. D'Alembert complained that he 
was accused of having written Walpole's 
squib against Rousseau. "I hope," says Wal- 
pole, " that nobody will attribute D'Alembert's 
works to me." He was in little danger. 

It is impossible to deny, however, that Wal- 
pole's works have real merit, and merit of a 
very rare, though not of a very high kind. 
Sir Joshua Reynolds used to say, that though 
nobody would for a moment compare Claude 
to Raphael, there would be another Raphael 
before there was another Claude. And we 
own that we expect to see fresh Humes and 
fresh Burkes before we again fall in with thai 
peculiar combination of moral andintellecnia. 



wALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 



216 



qualities to which the writings of Walpole owe 
tneir extraordinary popularity. 

It is easy to describe him by negatives. He 
had not a creative imagination. He had not 
a pure taste. He was not a great reasoner. 
There is indeed scarcely any writer, in whose 
works it would be possible to find so many 
contradictory judgments, so many sentences 
of extravagant nonsense. Nor was it only in 
his familiar correspondence that he wrote in 
this flighty and inconsistent manner; but in 
lorg and elaborate books, in books repeatedly 
transcribed and intended for the public eye. 
We will give an instance or two; for, without 
instances, readers not very familiar with his 
works will scarcely understand our meaning. 
In the "Anecdotes of Painting," he states, very 
truly, that the art declined after the commence- 
ment of the civil wars. He proceeds to in- 
quire why this happened. The explanation, 
we should have thought, would have been 
easily found. The loss of the most munificent 
and judicious patron that the fine arts ever 
had in England — for such undoubtedly was 
Charles — the troubled state of the country, the 
distressed condition of many of the aristocracy, 
perhaps als$ the austerity of the victorious 
pariv — these circumstances, we conceive, fully 
account for the phenomenon. But this solu- 
tion was not odd enough to satisfy Walpole. 
He discovers another cause for the decline of 
the art, the want of models. Nothing worth 
painting, it seems, was left to paint. "How 
picturesque," he exclaims, " was the figure of 
an Anabaptist !" As if puritanism had put out 
the sun and withered the trees ; as if the civil 
wars had blotted out the expression of charac- 
ter and passion from the human lip and brow ; 
as if many of the men whom Vandyke painted, 
had not been living in the time of the Com- 
monwealth, with faces little the worse for 
wear; as if many of the beauties afterwards 
portrayed by Lely were not in their prime be- 
fore the Restoration ; as if the costume or the 
features of Cromwell and Milton were less pic- 
turesque than those of the round-faced peers, 
as like each other as eggs to eggs, who look 
out from the middle of the periwigs of Kneller. 
In the "Memoirs," again, Walpole sneers at 
the Prince of Wales, afterwards George the 
Third, for presenting a collection of books to 
one of the American colleges during the Seven 
Years' War, and says that, instead of books, 
His Royal Highness ought to have sent arms 
and ammunition ; as if a war ought to suspend 
all study and all education ; or as if it were the 
business of the Prince of Wales to supply the 
colonies with military stores out of his own 
pocket. We have perhaps dwelt too long on 
these passages, but we have done so because 
they are specimens of Walpole's manner. 
Everybody who reads his works with atten- 
tion, will find that they swarm with loose and 
foolish observations like those which we have 
cited ; observations which might pass in con- 
versation or in a hasty letter, but which are 
unpardonable in booKo deliberately written 
and repeatedly corrected. 

He appears to have thought that he saw 
very far into men* but we are under the ne- 



cessity of altogether dissenting from his opi< 
nion. We do not conceive that he had any 
power of discerning the finer shades of cha- 
racter. He practised an art, however, which, 
though easy and even vulgar, obtains for those 
who practise it the reputation of discernment 
with ninety-nine people out of a hundred. He 
sneered at everybody, put on every action the 
worst construction which it would bear, " spelt 
every man backward;" to borrow the Lady 
Hero's phrase, 

"Turned every ninn the wrong side out, 
And never gave to truth and virtue that 
Which sitii'iloncsa and merit purcliuseth." 

In this way any man may, with little saga- 
city and little trouble, be considered, by those 
whose good opinion is not worth having, as a 
great judge of character. 

It is said that the hasty and rapacious Kne' 
ler ns»d to send away the ladies who sate to 
him ter sketching their faces, and to paint 
the ire and hands from his housemaid. It 
was much in the same way that Walpole por- 
trayed the minds of others. He copied from 
the life only those glaring and obvious pecu- 
liarities, which could not escape the most su- 
perficial observation. The rest of the canvass 
he filled up in a careless dashing way, with 
knave and fool, mixed in such proportions as 
pleased Heaven. What a difference between 
these daubs and the masterly portraits of Cla- 
rendon ! 

There are contradictions without end in the 
sketches of character which abound in Wal 
pole's works. But if we were to form our 
opinion of his eminent contemporaries from a 
general survey of what he has written con- 
cerning them, we should say that Pitt was a 
strutting, ranting, mouthing actor ; Charles 
Townshend, an impudent and voluble jack- 
pudding ; Murray, a demure, cold-blooded, 
cowardly hypocrite ; Hardwicke, an insolent 
upstart, with the understanding of a pettifog 
ger and the heart of a hangman ; Temple, an 
impertinent poltroon ; Egmont, a solemn cox- 
comb ; Lyttleton, a poor creature, whose only 
wish was to go to heaven in a coronet, 
Onslow, a pompous proser ; Washington, a 
braggart; Lord Camden, sullen ; Lord Town- 
shend, malevolent ; Seeker, an atheist who 
had shammed Christian for a mitre ; White- 
field, an impostor who swindled his converts 
out of their watches. The Walpoles fare little 
better than their neighbours. Old Horace is 
constantly represented as a coarse, brutal, nig- 
gardly buffoon, and his son as worthy of such 
a father. In short, if we are to trust this dis- 
cerning judge of human nature, England in 
his time contained little sense and no virtue, 
except what was distributed between himself, 
Lord Waldgrave, and Marshal Conway. 

Of such a writer it is scarcely necessary 
to say, that his works are destitute of every 
charm which is derived from elevation or from 
tenderness of sentiment. When he chose to 
be humane and magnanimous — for he somo- 
times, by way of variety, tried this affectation 
— he overdid his part most ludicrously. None 
of his many disguises sate so awkwardly upon 
him. For example, he tells us that he did not 



S16 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



choose to be intimate with Mr. Pitt ; and why] 
Because Mr. Pitt had been among the perse- 
cutors of his father ; or because, as he repeat- 
edly assures us, Mr. Pitt was a disagreeable 
man in private life 1 Not at all ; but because 
Mr. Pitt was too fond of war, and was great 
with . too little reluctance. Strange, that an 
habitual scoffer like Walpole should imagine 
that this cant could impose on the dullest 
reader! If Moliere had put such a speech 
into the mouth of Tartuffe, we should have 
said that the fiction was unskilful, and that 
Orgon could not have been such a fool as to 
be taken in by it. Of the twenty-six years 
during which Walpole sat in Parliament, thir- 
teen were years of war. Yet he did not, during 
all those thirteen years, utter a single word, or 
frive a single vote, tending to peace. His most 
intimate friend, the only friend, indeed, to whom 
he appears to have been sincerely attached, 
Conway, was a soldier, was fond of his pro- 
fession, and was perpetually entreating Mr. 
Pitt to give him employment. In this, Wal- 
pole saw nothing but what was admirable. 
Conway was a hero for soliciting the com- 
mand of expeditions, which Mr. Pitt was a 
monster for sending out. 

What then is the charm, the irresistible 
charm of Walpole's writings 1 It consists, 
we think, in the art of amusing without ex- 
citing. He never convinces the reason, nor 
fills the imagination, nor touches the heart ; 
but he keeps the mind of the reader constantly 
attentive and constantly entertained. He had 
a strange ingenuity peculiarly his own, an 
ingenuity which appeared in all that he did, 
in his building, in his gardening, in his up- 
holstery, in the matter and in the manner of 
his writings. If we were to adopt the classi- 
fication — not a very accurate classification — 
which Akenside has given of the pleasures of 
the Imagination, we should say that with the 
Sublime and the Beautiful Walpole had no- 
thing to do, but that the third province, the 
Odd, was his peculiar domain. The motto 
which he prefixed to his " Catalogue of Eoyal 
and Noble Authors," might have been in- 
scribed with perfect propriety over the door 
of every room in his house, and on the title- 
page of every one of his books. " Dove dia- 
volo, Messer Ludovico, avete pigliate tante 
coglionerie V In his villa, every apartment 
is a museum, every piece of furniture is a cu- 
riosity ; there is something strange in the form 
of the shovel ; there is a long story belonging 
to the bell-rope. We wander among a profu- 
sion of rarities, of trifling intrinsic value, but 
so quaint in fashion, or connected with such 
remarkable names and events, that they may 
well detain our attention for a moment. A 
moment is enough. Some new relic, some 
new unique, some new carved work, some 
new enamel, is forthcoming in an instant. 
One cabinet of trinkets is no sooner closed 
than another is opened. It is the same with 
Walpole's writings. It is not in their utility, 
it is not in their beauty, that their attraction 
lies. They are to the works of great histori- j 
b.qs and poets, what Strawberry Hill is to the 
museum of Sir Hans Sloane, or to the Gallery I 



of Florence. Walpole is constantly showing 
us things — not of very great value indeed — ye{ 
things which we are pleased to see, and which 
we can see nowhere e.'se. They are baubles 
but they are made curiosities either by his gro- 
tesque workmanship, or by some association 
belonging to them. His style is one of those 
peculiar styles by which everybody is attract- 
ed, and which nobody can safely venture to 
imitate. He is a mannerist whose manner 
has become perfectly easy to him. His affecta- 
tion is so habitual, and so universal, that it 
can hardly be called affectation. The affecta- 
tion is the essence of the man. It pervades 
all his thoughts and all his expressions. If it 
were taken away, nothing would be left. . He 
coins new words, distorts the senses of old 
words, and - twists sentences into forms which 
make grammarians stare. But all this he 
does, not only with an air of ease, but as if he 
could not help doing it. His wit was, in its 
essential properties, of the same kind with that 
of Cowley and Donne. Like theirs, it con- 
sisted in an exquisite perception of points of 
analogy, and points of contrast too subtle for 
common observation. Like them, Walpole 
perpetually startles us by the ease with which 
he yokes together ideas between which there 
would seem, at first sight, to be no connection. 
But he did not, like them, affect the gravity of 
a lecture, and draw his illustrations from the 
laboratory and from the schools. His tone 
was light and fleering; his topics were the 
topics of the club and the ball-room. And 
therefore his strange combinations and far- 
fetched allusions, though very closely resem- 
bling those which tire us to death in the poems 
of the time of Charles the First, are read with 
pleasure constantly new. 

No man who has written so much is so seldom 
tiresome. In his books there are scarcely an} 
of those passages which, in our school days, 
we used to call skip. Yet he often wrote on 
subjects which are generally considered as 
dull ; on subjects which men of great talents 
have in vain endeavoured to render popular. 
When we compare the " Historic Doubts" 
about Richard the Third with Whitaker's and 
Chalmer's book on a far more interesting 
question, the character of Mary Queen of 
Scots ; when we compare the " Anecdotes of 
Painting" with Nichols's " Anecdotes," or even 
with Mr. D'Israeli's " Quarrels of Authors," 
and "Calamities of Authors," we at-once see 
Walpole's superiority, not in industry, not in 
learning, not in accuracy, not in logical power, 
but in the art of writing what people will like 
to read. He rejects all but the attractive parts 
of his subject. He keeps only what is in itself 
amusing, or what can be made so by the arti- 
fice of his diction. The coarser morsels of 
antiquarian learning he abandons to others; 
and sets out an entertainment worthy of a 
Roman epicure, an entertainment consisting 
of nothing but delicacies — the brains of sing- 
ing birds, the roe of mullets, the sunny halves 
of peaches. This, we think, is the great merit 
of his " Romance." There is little skill in the 
delineation of the characters. Manfred is as 
commonplace a tyrant, Jerome as commonplace 



WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 



ai7 



a confessor, Theodore as commonplace a young 
gentleman, Isabella and Matilda as common- 
place a pair of yoang ladies, as are to be found in 
any of the thousand Italian castles in which con- 
dottieri have revelled, or in which imprisoned 
duchesses have pined. We cannot say that we 
much admire the big man whose sword is dug 
up in one quarter of the globe, whose helmet 
drops from the clouds in another, and who, 
after clattering and rustling for some days, 
snds by kicking the house down. But the 
story, whatever its value may be, never flags 
for a single moment. There are no digres- 
sions, or unseasonable descriptions, or long 
speeches. Every sentence carries the action 
forward. The excitement is constantly re- 
newed. Absurd as is the machinery, and in- 
sipid as are the human actors, no reader pro- 
bably ever thought the book dull. 

Walpole's " Letters" are generally consider- 
ed as his best performances, and we think 
with reason. His faults are far less offensive 
to us in his correspondence than in his books. 
His wild, absurd, and ever-changing opinions 
about men and things are easily pardoned in 
familiar letters. His bitter, scoffing, depre- 
ciating disposition, does not show itself in so 
unmitigated a manner as in his "Memoirs." 
A writer of letters must be civil and friendly 
to his correspondent at least, if to no other per- 
son. 

He loved letter-writing, and had evidently 
studied it as an art. It was, in truth, the very 
kind of writing for such a man ; for a man 
very ambitious to rank among wits, yet ner- 
vously afraid that, while obtaining the reputa- 
tion of a wit, he might lose caste as a gentle- 
man. There was nothing vulgar in writing a 
letter. Not even Ensign Northerton, not even 
the captain described in Hamilton's Baron — 
and Walpole, though the author of many 
quartos, had some feelings in common with 
those gallant officers — would have denied that 
a gentleman might sometimes correspond with 
a friend. Whether Walpole bestowed much 
labour on the composition of his letters, it is 
impossible to judge from internal evidence. 
There are passages which seem perfectly un- 
studied. But the appearance of ease may be 
the effect of labour. There are passages'which 
have a very artificial air. But they may have 
been produced without effort by a mind of 
which the natural ingenuity had been im- 
proved into morbid quickness by constant ex- 
ercise. We are never sure that we see him 
as he was. We are never sure that what 
appears to be nature is not an effect of art. 
We are never sure that what appears to be art 
is not merely habit which has become second 
nature. 

In wit and animation the present collection 
is not superior to those which have preceded 
it. But it has one great advantage over them 
all. It forms a connected whole — a regular 
journal of what appeared to Walpole the most 
important transactions of the last twenty years 
of George the Second's reign. It contains much 
new information concerning the history of that 
time, the portion of English history of which 
common readers know the least. 



The earlier letters contain the most livelj 
and interesting account which we possess of 
that " great Walpolean battle," to use the words 
of Junius, which terminated in the retirement 
of Sir Robert. Horace Walpcle entered the 
House of Commons just in time to witness the 
last desperate struggle which his father, sur- 
rounded by enemies and traitors, maintained, 
with a spirit as brave as that of the column at 
Fontenoy, first for victory, and then for ho- 
nourable retreat. Horace was, of course, on 
the side of his family. Lord Dover seems to 
have been enthusiastic on the same side, and 
goes so far as to call Sir Robert " the glory of 
the Whigs." 

Sir Robert deserved this high eulogium, we 
think, as little as he deserved the abusive epi- 
thets which have often been coupled with his 
name. A fair character of him still remains 
to be drawn ; and, whenever it shall be drawn 
it will be equally unlike the portrait by Coxe 
and the portrait by Smollett. 

He had, undoubtedly, great talents and great 
virtues. He was not, indeed, like the leaders 
of the party which opposed his government, a 
brilliant orator. He was not a profound scho- 
lar, like Carteret, or a wit and a fine gentle- 
man, like Chesterfield. In all these respects, 
hie deficiencies were remarkable. His litera- 
ture consisted of a scrap or two of Horace, 
and an anecdote or two from the end of the 
Dictionary. His knowledge of history was so 
limited, that, in the great debate on the Excise 
Bill, he was forced to ask Attorney-General 
Yorke who Empson and Dudley were. His 
manners were a little too coarse and boiste- 
rous even for the age of Westerns and Top- 
halls. When he ceased to talk of politics, he 
could talk of nothing but women ; and he di- 
lated on his favourite theme with a freedom 
which shocked even that plain-spoken genera- 
tion, and which was quite unsuited to his age 
and station. The noisy revelry of his summer 
festivities at Houghton gave much scandal to 
grave people, and annually drove his kinsman 
and colleague, Lord Townshend, from the 
neighbouring mansion of Rainham. 

But, however ignorant he might be of ge- 
neral history and of general literature, he was 
better acquainted than any man of his day 
with what it concerned him most to know, 
mankind, the English nation, the aourt, the 
House of Commons, and his own office. Of 
foreign affairs he knew little ; but his judgment 
was so good, that his little knowledge went 
very far. He was an excellent parliamentary 
debater, an excellent parliamentary tactician, 
an excellent man of business. No man ever 
brought more industry or more method to the 
transacting of affairs. No minister in his time 
did so much ; yet no minister had so much 
leisure. 

He was a good-natured man, who had for 
thirty years seen nothing but the worst parts 
of human nature in other men. He was fami- 
liar with the malice of kind people, and the 
perfidy of honourable people. Proud men had 
licked the dust before him Patriots had beg- 
ged nim to come up to the price of their puffed 
and advertised integrity. He said, after his 



i318 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



fall, that it was a dangerous thing to be a minis- 
ter ; that there were few minds which would 
not be injured by the constant spectacle of 
meanness and depravity. To his honour, it 
must be confessed, hat few minds have come 
out of such a trial so little damaged in the 
most important parts. He retired, after more 
than twenty years of power, with a temper not 
soured, with a heart not hardened, with simple 
tastes, with frank manners, and with a capa- 
city for friendship. No stain of treachery, of 
ingratitude, or of cruelty rests on his memory. 
Factious hatred, while flinging on his name 
every other foul aspersion, was compelled to 
own that he was not a man of blood. This 
would scarcely seem a high eulogium on a 
statesman of our times. It was then a rare 
and honourable distinction. The contest of 
parties in England had long been carried on 
with a ferocity unworthy of a civilized people. 
Sir Robert Walpole was the minister who gave 
to our government- that character of lenity 
which it has since generally preserved. It 
was perfectly known to him that many of his 
opponents had dealings with the Pretender. 
The lives of some were at his mercy. He 
wanted neither Whig nor Tory precedents for 
using his advantage unsparingly. But, with a 
clemency to which posterity has never done 
justice, he suffered himself to be thwarted, vi- 
lified, and at last overthrown, by a party which 
included many men whose necks were in his 
power. 

That he practised corruption on a large 
scale is, we think, indisputable. But whether 
he deserved all the invectives which have been 
uttered against him on that account, may be 
questioned. No man ought to be severely cen- 
sured for not being beyond his age in virtue. 
To buy the votes of constituents is as im- 
moral as to buy the votes of representatives. 
The candidate who gives five guineas to the 
freeman is as culpable as the man who gives 
three hundred guineas to the member. Yet 
we know that, in our own time, no man is 
thought wicked or dishonourable, no man is 
cut, no man is black-balled, because, under 
the old system of election, he was returned, in 
the only way in which he could be returned, for 
East Retford, for Liverpool, or for Stafford. 
Walpole governed by corruption, because, in 
his time, it was impossible to govern other- 
wise. Corruption was unnecessary to the 
Tudors : for their Parliaments were feeble. 
The publicity which has of late years been 
given to parliamentary proceedings has raised 
the standard of morality among public men. 
The power of public opinion is so great, that, 
even before the reform of the representation, 
a faint suspicion that a minister had given 
pecuniary gratifications to members of Par- 
liament in return for their votes, would have 
been enough to ruin him. But, during the 
century which followed the restoration, the 
House of Commons was in that situation 
m which assemblies must be managed by 
corruption, or cannot be managed at all. It 
was not held in awe, as in the sixteenth centu- 
ry, by the throne. It was not held in awe, as 
in the nineteenth century, by the opinion of the 



psople. Its constitution was oligarchical, lia 
deliberations were secret. Its power in the 
state was immense. The government hac 1 
every conceivable motive to offer bribes. Many 
of the members, if they were not men of strict 
honour and probity, had no cone jivable motive 
to refuse what the government offered. In the 
reign of Charles the Second, accordingly, the 
practice of buying votes in the House of Com 
mons was commenced by the daring Clifford 
and carried to a great extent by the crafty and 
shameless Danby. The Revolution, great and 
manifold as were the blessings of which it waa 
directly or remotely the cause, at first aggra- 
vated this evil. The importance of the House 
of Commons was now greater than ever. The 
prerogatives of the crown were more strictly 
limited than ever, and those associations in 
which, more than in its legal prerogatives, its 
power had consisted, were completely broken. 
No prince was ever in so helpless, so distressing 
a situation as William the Third. The party 
which defended his title was, on general grounds, 
disposed to curtail his prerogative. The party 
which was, on general grounds, friendly to the 
prerogative, was adverse to his title. There was 
no quarter in which both his office and his person 
could find favour. But while the influence of 
the House of Commons in the government was 
becoming paramount, the influence of the peo- 
ple over the House of Commons was declining. 
It mattered little in the time of Charles the 
First, whether that House were or were not 
chosen by the people, it was certain to act for 
the people ; because it would have been at 
the mercy of the court, but for the support of 
the people. Now that the court was at the 
mercy of the House of Commons, that large 
body of members who were not returned by 
popular election had nobody to please but 
themselves. Even those who were returned 
by popular election did not live, as now, under 
a constant sense of responsibility. The con- 
stituents were not, as now, daily apprized of 
the votes and speeches of their representatives. 
The privileges which had, in old times, beun 
indispensably necessary to the security and 
efficiency of Parliaments, were now superflu- 
ous. But they were still carefully maintained ; 
by honest legJsJators, from superstitious vene- 
ration ; by dishonest legislators, for their own 
selfish ends. They had been a useful defence 
to the Commons during a long and doubtful 
conflict with powerful sovereigns. They were 
now no longer necessary for that purpose ; and 
they became a defence to the members against 
their constituents. That secresy which had 
been absolutely necessary in times when the 
Privy Council was in the habit of sending the 
leaders of opposition to the Tower, was pre- 
served in times when a vote of the House of 
Commons was sufficient to hurl the most 
powerful minister from his post. 

The government could not go on unless the 
Parliament could be kept in order. And how 
was the Parliament to be kept in order 1 Three 
hundred years ago it would have been enough 
for a statesman to have the support of t'na 
crown. It would now, we hope and believe, 
be enough for him to enjoy the confidence 



WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 



219 



and approbation of the great body of the mid- 
lie class. A hundred years ago it would not 
aave been enough to have both crown and 
people on his side. The Parliament had shak- 
en off the control of the royal prerogative. It 
had not yet fallen under the control of public 
opinion. A large proportion of the members 
had absolutely no motive to support any admi- 
nistration except their own interest, and in the 
lowest sense of the word. Under these cir- 
cumstances, the country could be governed 
on]y by corruption. Bolingbroke, who was the 
ahiest and the most vehement of those who 
raised the cry of corruption, had no better re- 
medy to propose than that the royal prero- 
gative should be strengthened. The remedy 
would no doubt have been efficient. The only 
question, is, whether it would not have been 
worse than the disease. The fault was in the 
constitution of the legislature ; and to blame 
those ministers who managed the legislature in 
the only way in which it could be managed, is 
gross injustice. They submitted to extortion 
because they could not help themselves. We 
might as well accuse the poor Lowland fanners 
who paid "black mail" to Rob Roy, of cor- 
rupting the virtue of the Highlanders, as Sir 
Robert Walpole of corrupting the virtue of 
Parliament. His crime was merely this ; 
that he employed his money more dexterously, 
and got more support in return for it, than any 
of those who preceded or followed him. 

He was himself incorruptible by money. 
His dominant passion was the love of power ; 
and the heaviest charge which can be brought 
against him is, that to this passion he never 
scrupled to sacrifice the interests of his 
country. 

One of the maxims which, as his son tells 
us, he was most in the habit of repeating was, 
quieta non movere. It was indeed the maxim by 
which he generally regulated his public conduct. 
It is the maxim of a man more solicitous to hold 
power long than to use it well. It is remark- 
able that, though he was at the head of affairs 
during more than twenty years, not one great 
measure, not one important change for the bet- 
ter or for the worse in any part of our institu- 
tions, marks the period of his supremacy. Nor 
wis this because he did not clearly see that 
many changes were very desirable. He had 
been brought up in the school of toleration at 
the feet of Somers and of Burnet. He disliked 
the shameful laws against Dissenters. But he 
never could be induced to bring forward a 
proposition for repealing them. The sufferers 
represented to him the injustice with which 
they were treated, boasted of their firm attach- 
ment to the house of Brunswick and to the 
Whig party, and reminded him of his own re- 
peater', declarations of good-will to their cause. 
He listened, assented, promised, and did no- 
thing. At length the question was brought 
forward by others; and the minister, after a 
hesitating and evasive speech, voted against it. 
The truth was, that he remembered to the latest 
day of his life that terrible explosion of high- 
church feeling which the foolish prosecution 
of a foolish parson had occasioned in the days 
if Queen Anne. If the Dissenters had been 



turbulent, he would probably have relieved 
them ; but while he apprehended no danger 
from them, he would not run the slightest risk 
for their sake. He acted in the same manner 
with respect to other questions. He knew the 
state of the Scotch Highlands. He was con 
stantly predicting another insurrection in that 
part of the empire. Yet during his long tenure 
of power, he never attempted to perform what 
was then the most obvious and pressing duty 
of a British statesman — to break the power of 
the chiefs, and to establish the authority of law 
through the farthest corners of the island. No- 
body knew better than he that, if this were not 
done, great mischiefs would follow. But the 
Highlands were tolerably quiet at this time 
He was content to meet daily emergencies by 
daily expedients ; and he left the rest to his 
successors. They had to conquer the High 
lands in the midst of a war with France and 
Spain, because he had not regulated the High- 
lands in a time of profound peace. 

Sometimes, in spite of all his caution, he 
found that measures, which he had hoped to 
carry through quietly, had caused great agita- 
tion. When this was the case, he generally 
modified or withdrew them. It wa? thus that 
he cancelled Wood's patent in compliance with 
the absurd outcry of the Irish.* It was thus 
that he frittered away the Porteous Bill to no- 
thing, for fear of exasperating the Scotch. It 
was thus that he abandonedthe Excise Bill, as 
soon as he found that it was offensive to all the 
great towns of England. The language which 
he held about that measure in a subsequent 
session is eminently characteristic. Pulteney 
had insinuated that the scheme would be again 
brought forward. "As to the wicked scheme," 
said Walpole, " as the gentleman is pleased tc 
call it, which he would persuade gentlemen is 
not yet laid aside, I, for my part, assure this 
House, I am not so mad as ever again to en- 
gage in any thing that looks like an excise ; 
though, in my private opinion, I still think it 
was a scheme that would have tended verv 
much to the interest of the nation." 

The conduct of Walpole with regaid to the 
Spanish War is the great blemish of his pub- 
lic life. Archdeacon Coxe imagined that he 
had discovered one grand principle of action 
to which the whole public conduct of his hero 
ought to be referred. " Did the administration 
of Walpole," says the biographer, "present 
any uniform principle which may be traced in 
every part, and which gave combination and 
consistency to the whole 1 Yes, and that prin- 
ciple was, The Love of Peace." It would be 
difficult, we think, to bestow a higher eulogium 
on any statesman. But the eulogium is far too 
high for the merits of Walpole. The great 
ruling principle of his public conduct was in- 
deed a love of peace, but not in the sense in 
which Archdeacon Coxe uses the phrase. The 
peace which Walpole sought was not the 
peace of the country, but the peace of his own 
administration. During the greater part of hi* 
public life, indeed, the two objects were inse 
parably connected. At length he was reduced 
to the necessity of choosing between them — of 
plunging the state into hostilities, for whicV 



220 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WHITINGS. 



ihere was no just ground, and by which no- 
thing was to be got; or of facing a violent 
opposition in the country, in Parliament, and 
even in the royal closet. No person was more 
thoroughly convinced than he of the absurdity 
of the cry against Spain. But his darling 
power was at stake, and his choice was soon 
made. He preferred an unjust war to a stormy 
session. It is impossible to say of a minister 
who acted thus, that the love of peace was the 
one grand principle to which all his conduct is 
to be referred. The governing principle of his 
conduct was neither love of peace nor love of 
war, but love of power. 

The praise to which he is fairly entitled is 
this, that he understood the true interest of his 
country better than any of his contemporaries, 
and that he pursued that interest whenever ft 
was not incompatible with the interest of his 
own intense and grasping ambition. Itwas only 
in matters of public moment that he shrunk 
from agitation, and had recourse to compromise. 
In his contest for personal influence there was 
no timidity, nor flinching. He would have all 
or none. Every member of the government 
who would not submit to his ascendency was 
turned out or forced to resign. Liberal of 
every thing else, he was avaricious of nothing 
but power. Cautious everywhere else, when 
pewer was at stake, he had all the boldness of 
Wolsey or Chatham. He might easily have 
secured his authority if he could have been in- 
duced to divide it with others. But he would 
not part with one fragment of it to purchase de- 
fenders for all the rest. The effect of this policy 
was, that he had able enemies and feeble allies. 
His most distinguished coadjutors left him one 
by one, and joined the ranks of the opposition. 
He faced the increasing array of his enemies 
with unbroken spirit, and thought it far better 
that they should inveigh against his power 
than that they should share it. 

The opposition was in every sense formida- 
ble. At its head were two royal personages, 
the exiled head of the house of Stuart, the 
disgraced heir of the house of Brunswick. 
One set of members received directions from 
Avignon. Another set held their consultations 
and banquets at Norfolk House. The majority 
of the landed gentry, the majority of the paro- 
chial clergy, one of the universities, and a 
stiong party in the city of London, and in the 
other great towns, were decidedly averse to 
the government. Of the men of letters, some 
were exasperated by the neglect with which the 
minister treated them — a neglect which was the 
more remarkable, because his predecessors, 
both Whig and Tory, had paid court, with 
emulous munificence, to the wits and the 
poets ; others were honestly inflamed by party 
zeal ; almost all lent their aid to the opposition. 
In truth, all that was alluring to ardent and 
imaginative minds was on that side : — old asso- 
ciations, new visions of political improvement, 
high-flown theories of loyalty, high-flown theo- 
ries of liberty, the enthusiasm of the Cavalier, 
*.he enthusiasm of the Roundhead. The Tory 
gentleman, fed in the common-rooms of Oxford 
with the doctrines of Filmer and Sacheverell, 
■ad proud of the exploits of his great-grand- 



father, who had charged with Rupert at Mars- 
ton, who had held out the old manor-house 
against Fairfax, and who, after the king's re- 
turn, had been set down for a Knight of the 
Royal Oak, flew to that section of the opposi- 
tion which, under pretence of assailing the 
existing administration, was in truth assailing 
the reigning dynasty. The young republican, 
fresh from his Livy and his Lucan, and flowing 
with admiration of Hampden, of Russell, and 
of Sydney, hastened with equal eagerness to 
those benches from which eloquent voices 
thundered nightly against the tyranny and per- 
fidy of courts. So many young politicians 
were caught by these declarations, that Sir Ro- 
bert, in one of his best speeches, observed, that 
the opposition against him consisted of three 
bodies — the Tories, the discontented Whigs, 
who were known by the name of the patriots, 
and the boys. In fact, every young man 
of warm temper and lively imagination, what- 
ever his political bias might be, was drawn 
into the party adverse to the government ; and 
some of the most distinguished among them — 
Pitt, for example, among public men, and 
Johnson, among men of letters — afterwards 
openly acknowledged their mistake. 

The aspect of the opposition, even while it 
was still a minority in the House of Commons, 
was very imposing. Among those who, in 
Parliament or out of Parliament, assailed the 
administration of Walpole, were Bolingbroke, 
Carteret, Chesterfield, Argyle, Pulteney, Wynd- 
ham, Doddington,Pht,Lyttleton,Barnard, Pope, 
Swift,Gay, Arbuthnot, Fielding, Johnson, Thom- 
son, Akenside, Glover. 

The circumstance that the opposition was 
divided into two parties, diametrically opposed 
to each other in political opinions, was long 
the safety of Walpole. It was at last his ruin. 
The leaders of the minority knew that it would 
be difficult for them to bring forward any im- 
portant measure, without producing an imme- 
diate schism in their party. It was with very 
great difficulty that the Whigs in opposition 
had been induced to give a sullen and silent 
vote for the repeal of the Septennial Act. The 
Tories, on the other hand, could not be induced 
to support Pulteney's motion for an addition to 
the income of Prince Frederic. The two par- 
ties had cordially joined in calling out for a 
war with Spain : but they had now their war. 
Hatred of Walpole was almost the only feeling 
which was common to them. On this one 
point, therefore, they concentrated their whole 
strength. With gross ignorance, or gross dis- 
honesty, they represented the minister as the 
main grievance of the state. His dismissal, 
his punishment, would prove the certain cure 
for all the evils which the nation suffered. 
What was to be done after his fall, how mis- 
government was to be prevented in future, 
were questions to which there were as many 
answers as there were noisy and ill-informed 
members of the opposition. The only cry in 
which all could join was, " Down with Wal- 
pole !" So much did they narrow the disputed 
grounds, so purely personal did they make the 
question, that they threw out friendly hints to 
the other members of the administration, and 



WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 



SSI 



declared Jiat they refused quarter to the prime 
minister alone. His tools might keep their 
heads, their fortunes, even their places, if only 
the great father of corruption were given up to 
tie just vengeance of the nation. 

If the fate of Walpole's colleagues had been 
inseparably bound up with his, he probably 
would, even after the unfavourable elections 
of 1741, have been able to weather the storm. 
But as soon as it was understood that the at- 
tack -was directed against him alone, and that, 
if he were sacrificed, his associates might ex- 
pect advantageous and honourable terms, the 
ministerial ranks began to waver, and the mur- 
mur of sauve quipeut was heard. That Wal- 
pole had foul play is almost certain : but to 
what extent it is difficult to say. Lord Islay 
was suspected ; the Duke of Newcastle some- 
thing more than suspected. It would have 
been strange, indeed, if his grace had been 
idle when treason was hatching. 

" Che Gan fu traditor prima che nato." "His 
name," said Sir Robert, "is perfidy." 

Never was a battle more manfully fought 
out than the last struggle of the old statesman. 
His clear judgment, his long experience, and 
his fearless spirit, enabled him to maintain a 
defensive war through half a session. To the 
last his heart never failed him ; and, when at 
length he yielded, he yielded, not to the threats 
of his enemies, but to the entreaties of his dis- 
pirited and refractory followers. When he 
could no longer retain his power, he com- 
pounded for honour and security, and retired to 
his garden and his paintings, leaving to those 
who had overthrown him — shame, discord, and 
ruin. 

Every thing was in confusion. It has been 
said that the confusion was produced by the 
dexterous policy of Walpole ; and undoubtedly, 
he did his best to sow dissensions amongst his 
triumphant enemies. But there was little for 
him to do. Victory had completely dissolved 
the hollow truce which the two sections of the 
opposition had but imperfectly observed, even 
while the event of the contest was still doubt- 
ful. A thousand questions were opened in a 
moment. A thousand conflicting claims were 
preferred. It was impossible to follow any 
line of policy, which would not have been of- 
fensive to a large portion of the successful 
party. It was impossible to find places for a 
tenth part of those who thought that they had 
a right to be considered. While the parlia- 
mentary leaders were preaching patience and 
confidence, while their followers were clamor- 
ing for reward, a still louder voice was heard 
from without — the terrible cry of a people 
angry, they hardly knew with whom, and im- 
patient, they hardly knew for what. The day 
of retribution had arrived. The opposition 
reaped what they had sown: inflamed with 
hatred and cupidity, despairing of success by 
any ordinary mode of political warfare, and 
blind to consequences which, though remote, 
were certain, they had conjured up a devil 
which they could not lay. They had made the 
public mind drunk with calumny and declama- 
tion. They had raised expectations which it 
vas impossible tr satisfy. The downfall of 
15 » 



Walpole was to be the beginning of a political 
millennium; and every enthusiast had figured 
to himself that millennium according to the 
fashion of his own wishes. The republican 
expected that the power of the crown would 
be reduced to a mere shadow ; the high Tory 
that the Stuarts would be restored ; the mode- 
rate Toiy that the golden days which the 
church and the landed interest had enjoyed 
during the last years of Queen Anne, would 
immediately return. It would have been im- 
possible to satisfy everybody. The conquerors 
satisfied nobody. 

We have no reverence for the memory of 
those who were then called the patriots. We 
are for the principles of good government 
against Walpole ; and for Walpole against the 
opposition. It was most desirable that a purer 
system should be introduced; but if the old 
system was to be retained, no man was so fit 
as Walpole to be at the head of affairs. There 
were frightful abuses in the government, 
abuses more than sufficient to justify a strong 
opposition ; but the party opposed to Walpole, 
while they stimulated the popular fury to the 
highest point, were at no pains to direct it 
aright. Indeed, they studiously misdirected it. 
They misrepresented the evil. They pre- 
scribed inefficient and pernicious remedies. 
They held up a single man as the sole cause 
of all the vices of a bad system, which had 
been in full operation before his entrance into 
public life, and which continued to be in full 
operation when some of these very bawlers 
had succeeded to his power. They thwarted 
his best measures. They drove him into an 
unjustifiable war against his will. Constantly 
talking in magnificent language about tyranny, 
corruption, wicked ministers, servile courtiers, 
the liberties of Englishmen, the Great Charter, 
the rights for which our fathers bled — Timo 
leon, Brutus, Hampden, Sydney — they had 
absolutely nothing to propose which would 
have been an improvement on our institutions. 
Instead of directing the public mind to definite 
reforms, which might have completed th<* 
work of the Revolution, which might have 
brought the legislature into harmony with the 
nation, and which might have prevented the 
crown from doing by influence what it could 
no longer do by prerogative, they exciied a 
vague craving for change, by which they pro- 
fited for a single moment, and of which, as 
they well deserved, they were soon the victims. 

Among the reforms which the state then 
required, there were two of paramount im- 
portance, two which would alone have reme- 
died almost every abuse, and without which 
all other remedies would have been unavail- 
ing — the publicity of parliamentary proceed- 
ings, and the abolition of the rotten boroughs. 
Neither of these was thought of. It seems to 
us clear, that if these were not adopted, ali 
other measures would have been illusory- 
Some of the patriots suggested changes which 
would, beyond all doubt, have increased thu 
existing evils a hundredfold. These men 
wished to transfer the disposal of employ 
ments, and the command of the army, from 
the crown to the Parliament ; and this on tur 



Vi* 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



very ground that the Parliament had long 
been a grossly corrupt body. The security 
against corruption was to be, that the mem- 
bers, instead of having a portion of the public 
plunder doled out to them by a minister, were 
to help themselves. 

The other schemes, of which the public 
mind was full, were less dangerous than this. 
Some of them were in themselves harmless. 
But none of them would have done much 
good, and most of them were extravagantly 
absurd. What they were we may learn from 
the instructions which many constituent bodies, 
immediately after the change of administra- 
tion, sent up to their representatives. A more 
deplorable collection of follies can hardly be 
imagined. There is, in the first place, a gene- 
ral cry for Walpole's head. Then there are 
bitter complaints of the decay of trade — decay 
which, in the judgment of those enlightened 
politicians, was all brought about by Walpole 
and corruption. They would have been nearer 
to the truth, if they had attributed their suffer- 
ings to the war into which they had driven 
Walpole against his better judgment. He had 
foretold the effects of his unwilling conces- 
sion. On the day when hostilities against 
Spain were proclaimed, Avhen the heralds were 
attended into the city by the chiefs of the op- 
position, when the Prince of Walei^ himself 
stopped at Temple-Bar to drink success to the 
English arms, the minister heard all th^ stee- 
ples of the city jingling with a merry pea!, and 
muttered: "They may ring the bells now: 
they will be wringing their hands before long." 

Another grievance, for which of course 
Walpole and corruption were answerable, was 
the great exportation of English wool. In the 
judgment of the sagacious electors of several 
large towns, the remedying of this evil was a 
matter second only in importance to the hang- 
ing of Sir Robert. There are also earnest 
injunctions on the members to veto against 
standing armies in time of peace ; injunctions 
which were, to say the least, ridiculously un- 
reasonable in the midst of a war which was 
Likely to last, and which did actually last, as long 
as the Parliament. The repeal of the Septen- 
nial Act, as was to be expected, was strongly 
"ressed. Nothing was more natural than that 
the voters should wish for a triennial recur- 
rence of their bribes and their ale. We feel 
firmly convinced that the repeal of the Sep- 
tennial Act, unaccompanied by a complete 
reform of the constitution of the elective body, 
would have been an unmixed curse to the 
country. The only rational recommendation 
which we can find in all these instructions is, 
that the number of placemen in Parliament 
should be limited, and that pensioners should 
not be allowed to sit there. It is plain, how- 
ever, that this reform was far from going to the 
root of the evil ; and that, if it had been adopt- 
ed, the consequence would probably have 
been, that secret bribery would have been 
■nore practised than ever. 

We will give one more instance of the ab- 
surd expectations which the declamations of 
Ihff opposition had raised in the country. 
\kensidj was one of the fiercest and most 



uncompromising of the young patriots out of 
Parliament. When he found that the chang* 
of administration had produced no change of 
system, he gave vent to his indignation in the 
" Epistle to Curio," the best poem that he ever 
wrote; a poem, indeed, which seems to indi- 
cate, that, if he had left lyric composition to 
Gray and Collins, and had employed his pow- 
ers in grave and elevated satire, he might 
have disputed the pre-eminence of Dryden. 
But whatever be the literary merits of the 
epistle, we can say nothing in praise of the 
political doctrines which it inculcates. The 
poet, in a rapturous apostrophe to the Spirits 
of the Great Men of Antiquity, tells us what 
he expected from Pulteney at the moment of 
the fall of the tyrant. 

" See private life by wisest arts reclaimed, 
See ardent youth to noblest manners framed, 
See us achieve whate'er was sought by you, 
If Curio, only Curio, will be true." 

It was Pulteney's business, it seems, to abolisn 
faro and masquerades, to stint the young Duke 
of Marlborough to a bottle of brandy a dav, 
and to prevail on Lady Vane to be content 
with three lovers at a time. 

Whatever the people wanted, they certainly 
got nothing. Walpole retired in safety, and 
the multitude were defrauded of the expected 
show on Tower Hill. The Septennial Act was 
not repealed. The placemen were not turned 
out of the House of Commons. Wool, we 
believe, was still exported. "Private life" 
afforded as much scandal as if the reign of 
Walpole and corruption had continued ; and 
"ardent youth" fought with watchmen, and 
betted with blacklegs as much as ever. 

The colleagues of Walpole had, after his re- 
treat, admitted some of the chiefs of the oppo- 
sition into the government. They soon found 
themselves compelled to submit to the ascend- 
ency of one of their new allies. This was 
Lord Carteret, afterwards Earl Granville. No 
public man of that age had greater courage, 
greater ambition, greater activity, greater 
talents for debate or for declamation. No 
public man had such profound and extensive 
learning. He was familiar with the ancient 
writers. His knowledge of modern languages 
was prodigious. The Privy Council, when he 
was present, needed no interpreter. He spoke 
and wrote French, Italian, Spanish, Portu- 
guese, German, even Swedish. He had pushed 
his researches into the most obscure nooks of 
literature. He was as familiar with canonists 
and schoolmen as with orators and poets. He 
had read all that the universities of Saxony 
and Holland had produced on the most intri' 
cate questions of public law. Harte, in the 
preface to the second edition of the "History 
of Gustavus Adolphus," bears a remarkable 
testimony to the extent and accuracy of Lord 
Carteret's knowledge. " It was my good for- 
tune or prudence to keep the main body of 
my army (or in other words my matters of 
fact) safe and entire. The late Earl of Gran- 
ville was pleased to declare himself of this 
opinion ; especially when he found that I had 
made Chemnitius one of Jiy principal guides; 



WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MAI\N. 



223 



.or his lordship was apprehensive I might not 
have seen that valuable and authentic book, 
which is extremely scarce. I thought myself 
happy to have contented his lordship even in 
the lowest degree : for he understood the Ger- 
man and Swedish histories to the highest 
perfection." 

With all this learning, Carteret was far from 
being a pedant. He was not one of those cold 
spirits, of which the fire is put out by the fuel. 
In council, in debate, in society, he was all 
life and energy. His measures were strong, 
prompt, and daring; his oratory animated and 
glowing. His spirits were . constantly high. 
No misfortune, public or private, could de- 
press him. He was at once the most unlucky 
and the happiest public man of his time. 

He had been Secretary of State in Walpole's 
administration, and had acquired considerable 
influence over the mind of George the First. 
The other ministers could speak no German. 
The king could speak no English. All the 
communication that Walpole held with his 
master was in very bad Latin. Carteret dis- 
mayed his colleagues by the volubility with 
which he addressed his majesty in German. 
They listenetl with envy and terror to the 
mysterious gutturals, which might possibly 
convey suggestions very little in unison with 
their wishes. 

Walpole was not a man to endure such a 
colleague as Carteret. The king was induced 
to give up his favourite. Carteret joined the 
opposition, and signalized himself at the head 
of that party, till, after the retirement of his 
old rival, he again became Secretary of State. 

During some months he was chief minister, 
indeed sole minister. He gained the confi- 
dence and regard of George the Second. He 
was at the same time in high favour with the 
Prince of Wales. As a debater in the House 
of Lords, he had no equal among his col- 
leagues. Among his opponents, Chesterfield 
alone could be considered as his match. Con- 
fident in his talents and in the royal favour, he 
neglected all those means by which the power 
of Walpole had been created and maintained. 
His head was full of treaties and expeditions, 
of schemes for supporting the Queen of Hun- 
gary, and humbling the house of Bourbon. 
He contemptuously abandoned to others all the 
drudgery, and with the drudgery, all the fruits 
of corruption. The patronage of the church 
and the bar he left to the Pelhams as a trifle 
unworthy of his care. One of the judges, 
Chief Justice Willis, if we remember rightly, 
went to him to beg some ecclesiastical prefer- 
ment for a friend. Cartere. 3aid, that he was 
too much occupied with continental politics 
to think about the disposal of places and bene- 
fices. "You may rely on it, then," said the 
Chief Justice, "that people who want places 
and benefices will go to those who have more 

• leisure." The prediction was accomplished. 
' It would have been a busy time indeed in 

which the Pelhams had wanted leisure for job- 
bing; and to the Pelhams the whole cry of 

• place-hunters and pension-hunters resorted. 
| The parliamentary influence of the two bro- 
thers became stronger every day, till at length 



they were at the head of a decided majority in 
the House of Commons. Their rival, mean 
while, conscious of his powers, sanguine in 
his hopes, and proud of the storm which he 
had conjured up on the Continent, would brook 
neither superior nor equal. " His rants," says 
Horace Walpole, " are amazing : so are his 
parts and his spirits." He encountered the 
opposition of his colleagues, not with the fierce 
haughtiness of the first Pitt, or the cold un 
bending arrogance of the second, but with a 
gay vehemence, a good-humoured imperious 
ness that bore every thing down before it 
The period of his ascendency was known by 
the name of the " Drunken Administration ;" 
and the expression was not altogether figura- 
tive. His habits were extremely convivial, 
and champagne probably lent its aid to keep 
him in that state of joyous excitement in 
which his life was passed. 

That a rash and impetuous man of genius 
like Carteret should not have been able to 
maintain his ground in Parliament against 
the crafty and selfish Pelhams, is not strange. 
But it is less easy to understand why he should 
have been generally unpopular throughout the 
country. His brilliant talents, his bold and 
open temper, ought, it should seem, to have 
made him a favourite with the public. But 
the people had been bitterly disappointed; and 
he had to face the first burst of their rage 
His close connection with Pulteney, now the 
most detested man in the nation, was an un- 
fortunate circumstance. He had, indeed, only 
three partisans, Pulteney, the King, and the 
Prince of Wales — a most singular assem 
blage. 

He was driven from his office. He shortly 
after made a bold, indeed a desperate attempt 
to recover power. The attempt failed. From 
that time he relinquished all ambitious hopes ; 
and retired laughing to his books and his bot- 
tle. No statesman ever enjoyed success with 
so exquisite a zest, or submitted to a defeat 
with so genuine and unforced a cheerfulness. 
Ill as he had been used, he did not seem, says 
Horace Walpole, to have any resentment, or 
indeed any feeling except thirst. 

These letters contain many good stories, 
some of them no doubt grossly exaggerated, 
about Lord Carteret ; how, in the height of his 
greatness, he fell in love at first sight on a 
birth-day with Lady Sophia Fermor, the hand- 
some daughter of Lord Pomfret ; how he 
plagued the cabinet every day with reading t*. 
them her ladyship's letters ; how strangely he 
brought home his bride; what fine jewels he 
gave her ; how he fondled her at Ranelagh ; 
and what queen-like state she kept in Arling- 
ton street. Horace Walpole has spoken less 
bitterly of Carteret than of any public man of 
that time, Fox, perhaps, excepted ; and this if 
the more remarkable, because Carteret was 
one of the most inveterate enemies of Sir Ro- 
bert. In the "Memoirs," Horace Walpole, 
after passing in review all the gieat men 
whom England had produced within his mp 
mory, concludes by saying, that in genius nonr 
of them equalled Lord Granville. Smollett, ai 
"Humphry Clinker," pronounces a similar 



224 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



judgment in coarser language. " Since Gran- 
ville was turned out, there has been no minis- 
ter in this nation worth the meal that whitened 
his periwig." 

He fell ; and the reign of the Pelhams com- 
menced. It was Carteret's misfortune to be 
raised to power when the public mind was 
still smarting from recent disappointment. 
The nation had been duped, and was eager 
for revenge. A victim was necessary; and 
on such occasions, the victims of popular 
rage are selected like the victim of Jephthah. 
The first person who comes in the way is 
made the sacrifice. The wrath of the people 
had now spent itself, and the unnatural excite- 
ment was succeeded by an unnatural calm. 
To an irrational eagerness for something new, 
succeeded an equally irrational disposition to 
acquiesce in every thing established. A few 
months back the people had been disposed to 
impute every crime to men in power, and to 
lend a ready ear to the high professions of 
men in opposition ; they were now disposed to 
surrender themselves implicitly to the manage- 
ment of ministers, and to look with suspicion 
and contempt on all who pretended to public 
spirit. The name of patriot had become a 
byword of derision. Horace Walpoie scarcely 
exaggerated, when he said, that in those times, 
the most popular declaration which a candi- 
date could make on the hustings, was, that he 
had never been and never would be a patriot. 
At this juncture took place the rebellion of the 
Highland clans. The alarm produced by that 
event quieted the strife of internal factions. 
The suppression of the insurrection crushed 
forever the spirit of the Jacobite party. Room 
was nade in the government for a few Tories. 
Peaca was patched up with France and Spain. 
Death removed the Prince of Wales, who had 
contrived to keep together a small portion of 
that formidable opposition, of which he had 
been the leader in the time of Sir Robert Wal- 
poie. Almost every man of weight in the 
House of Commons was officially connected 
with the government. The even tenor of the 
session of Parliament was ruffled only by an 
occasional harangue from Lord Egmont on 
the army estimates. For the first time since 
the accession of the Stuarts there was no op- 
position. This singular good fortune, denied 
to the ablest statesmen — to Salisbury, to Straf- 
ford, to Clarendon, to Walpoie — had been re- 
served for the Pelhams. 

Henry Pelham, it is true, was by no means 
a contemptible person. His understanding 
was that of Walpoie on a somewhat smaller 
scale. Though not a brilliant orator, he was, 
like his master, a good debater, a good parlia- 
mentary tactician, a good man of business. 
Like his master, he distinguished himself by 
the neatness and clearness of his financial 
expositions. Here the resemblance ceased. 
Their characters were altogether dissimilar. 
Walpoie was good-humoured, but would have 
his way; his spirits were high, and his man- 
ners frank even to coarseness. The temper 
!>i Pelham was yielding, but peevish ; his 
habits were regular, and his deportment 
•trietly decorous. Walpoie was constitution- 



ally fearless, Pelham constitutionally timid 
Walpoie had to face a strong opposition ; bu 
no man in the government durst wag a finge! 
against him. Almost all the opposition which 
Pelham had, was from members of the govern- 
ment of which he was the head. His own 
paymaster spoke against his estimates. His 
own secretary at war spoke against his Re- 
gency Bill. In one day Walpoie turned Lord 
Chesterfield, Lord Burlington, and Lord Clin- 
ton out of the royal household, dismissed the 
highest dignitaries of Scotland from their posts, 
and took away the regiments of the Duke of 
Bolton and Lord Cobham, because he sus- 
pected them of having encouraged the resist- 
ance to his Excise Bill. He would far rathei 
have contended with a strong minority, under 
able leaders, than have tolerated mutiny in his 
own party. It would have gone hard with any 
of his colleagues who had ventured to divide 
the House of Commons against him. Pelham, 
on the other hand, was disposed to bear any 
thing rather than to drive from office any man 
round whom a new opposition could form. 
He therefore endured with fretful patience the 
insubordination of Pitt and Fox. He thought 
it far better to connive at their occasional in- 
fractions of discipline, than to hear them, night 
after night, thundering against corruption and 
wicked ministers from the other side of the 
House. 

We wonder that Sir Walter Scott never tiied 
his hand on the Duke of Newcastle. An inter- 
view between his Grace and Jeanie Deans 
would have been delightful, and by no means 
unnatural. There is scarcely any public man 
in our history of whose manners and conver- 
sation so many particulars have been pre- 
served. Single stories may be unfounded or 
exaggerated. But all the stories, whether told 
by people who were perpetually seeing him in 
Parliament and attending his levee in Lin- 
coln's Inn Fields, or by Grub street writers 
who never had more than a glimpse of his 
star through the windows of his gilded coach, 
are of the same character. Horace Walpoie 
and Smollett differed in their tastes and opi- 
nions as much as two human beings could 
differ. They kept quite different society. The 
one played at cards with countesses and corres- 
ponded with ambassadors. The other passed 
his life surrounded by a knot of famished 
scribblers. Yet Walpole's Duke and Smollett'? 
Duke are as like as if they were both from one 
hand. Smollett's Newcastle runs out of his 
dressing-room with his face covered with soap 
suds to embrace the Moorish envoy. Walpole's 
Newcastle pushes his way into the Duke of 
Grafton's sick-room to kiss the old nobleman's 
plasters. No man was ever so unmercifully 
satirized. But in truth he was himself a satire 
ready made. All that the art of the satirist 
does for other ridiculous men nature had done 
for him. Whatever was absurd about him 
stood out with grotesque prominence from the 
rest of the character. He was a living, mov- 
ing, talking caricature. His gait was a shuf- 
fling trot; his utterance a rapid stutter; he 
was always in a hurry; he was never in time; 
he abounded in fulsome, caresses and in hys- 



WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIE HORACE MANN 



rerical tears. His oratory resembles that of 
Justice Shallow. It was nonsense effervescent 
with ajimal spirits and impertinence. Of his 
ignorance many anecdotes remain, some well 
authenticated, some probably invented at cof- 
fee-houses, but all exquisitely characteristic. 
" Oh — yes — yes — to be sure — Annapolis must 
be defended — troops must be sent to Annapo- 
lis — Pray, where is Annapolis 1" — "Cape Bre- 
ton an island ! wonderful — show it me in the 
map. So it is, sure enough. My dear sir, you 
always bring us good news. I must go and 
tell the king that Cape Breton is an island." 

And this man was during nearly thirty years 
secretary of state, and during nearly ten years 
first lord of the treasury ! His large fortune, 
hi.s strong hereditary connection, his great 
parliamentary interest, will not alone explain 
this extraordinary fact. His success is a sig- 
nal instance of what may be effected by a man 
who devotes his whole heart and soul without 
reserve to one object. He was eaten up by 
ambition. His love of influence and authority 
resembled the avarice of the old usurer in the 
" Fortunes of Nigel." It was so intense a pas- 
sion that iUsupplied the place of talents, that 
it inspired even fatuity with cunning. "Have 
no money dealings with my father," says Mar- 
tha to Lord Glenvarloch ; " for, dotard as he 



225 



is, he will make an ass of you.' It was as 
dangerous to have any political connection 
with Newcastle as to buy and sell with old 
Trapbois. He was greedy after power with a 
greediness all his own. He was jealous of all 
his colleagues, and even of his own brother. 
Under the disguise of levity he was false be- 
yond all example of political falsehood. All 
the able men of his time ridiculed him &t a 
dunce, a driveller, a child who never knew his 
own mind for an hour together, and he over- 
reached them all round. 

If the country had remained at peace, it is 
not impossible that this man would have con- 
tinued at the head of affairs, without admitting 
any other person to a share of his authority, 
until the throne was filled by a new prince, 
who brought with him new maxims of govern- 
ment, new favourites, and a strong will. But 
the inauspicious commencement of the Seven 
Years' War brought on a crisis to which New- 
castle was altogether unequal. After a calm of 
fifteen years the spirit of the nation was again 
stirred to its inmost depths. In a few days the 
whole aspect of the political world was changed. 

But that change is too remarkable an event 
to be discussed at the end of an article already 
too long. It is probable that we may, at no re 
mote time resume the subject. 



226 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



THACKERAY'S HISTOIIY OE THE EAEL OF 
CHATHAM.* 

[Edinburgh Review, 1834.1 



Though several years have elapsed since 
the publication of this work, it is still, we be- 
lieve, a new publication to most of our read- 
ers. Nor are we surprised at this. The book 
is large and the style heavy. The information 
which Mr. Thackeray has obtained from the 
State Paper Office is new, but much of it is to 
us very uninteresting. The rest of his narra- 
tive is very little better than Gifford's or Tom- 
line's Life of the Second Pitt, and tells us little 
or nothing that may not be found quite as well 
told in the "Parliamentary History," the "An- 
nual Register," and other works equally com- 
mon. 

Almost every mechanical employment, it is 
said, has a tendency to injure some one or 
other of the bodily organs of the artisan. Grind- 
ers of cutlery die of consumption ; weavers are 
stunted in their growth; and smiths become 
blear-eyed. In the same manner almost every 
intellectual employment has a tendency to pro- 
duce some intellectual malady. Biographers, 
translators, editors — all, in short, who employ 
themselves in illustrating the lives or the 
writings of others, are peculiarly exposed to 
the Lues Boswelliana, or disease of admiration. 
But we scarcely remember ever to have seen 
a patient so far gone in this distemper as Mr. 
Thackeray. He is not satisfied with forcing 
us to confess that Pitt was a great orator, a 
vigorous minister, an honourable and high- 
spirited gentleman. He will have it that all 
virtues and all accomplishments met in his 
hero. In spite of gods, men, and columns, Pitt 
must be a poet — a poet capable of producing a 
heroic poem of the first order ; and we are as- 
sured that we ougkt to find many charms in 
such lines as these : 

"Midst all the tumults of the warring sphere, 
My light-charged bark may haply glide ; 

Some gale may waft, some conscious thought shall 
cheer, 
And the small freight unanxious glide." 

Pitt was in the army for a few months in 
time of peace. Mr. Thackeray accordingly 
'nsists on our confessing that, if the young 
cornet had remained in the service, he would 
have been one of the ablest commanders that 
ever lived. But this is not all. Pitt, it seems, 
was not merely a great poet in esse, and a great 
general in, posse, but a finished example of mo- 

* A History of the Right Honourable William Pitt, Earl 
of Chatham, containing his Speeches in Parliament, a con- 
siderable portion of his Correspondence when Secretary of 
State, upon French, Spanish, and American Affairs, never 
before published ; and an account of the principal Events 
and Persons of his Time, connected with his Life, Sen- 
timents, and Administration. By the Rev. Francis 
Thackeray, A.M. 2 vela. 4to. London. 1827. s 



ral excellence — the just man made perfect 
He was in the right when he attempted to esta^ 
blish an inquisition, and to give bounties for 
perjury, in order to get Walpole's head. He 
was in the right when he declared Walpole to 
have been an excellent minister. He was in 
the right when, being in opposition, he main- 
tained that no peace ought to be made with 
Spain, till she should formally renounce the 
right of search. He was in the right when, 
being in office, he silently acquiesced in a 
treaty by which Spain did not renounce the 
right of search. When he left the Duke of 
Newcastle, when he coalesced with the Duke 
of Newcastle ; when he thundered against sub- 
sidies, when he lavished subsidies with unex- 
ampled profusion ; when he execrated the 
Hanoverian connection ; when he declared 
that Hanover ought to be as dear to us as 
Hampshire ; he was still invariably speaking 
the language of a virtuous and enlightened 
statesman. 

The truth is, that there scarcely ever lived a 
person who had so little claim to this sort of 
praise as Pitt. He was undoubtedly a great 
man. But his was not a complete and well- 
proportioned greatness. The public life of 
Hampden, or of Somers, resembles a regular 
drama, which can be criticised as a whole, and 
every scene of which is to be viewed in con- 
nection with the main action. The public life 
of Pitt, on the other hand, is a rude though 
striking piece — a piece abounding in incon- 
gruities — a piece without any unity of plan, 
but redeemed by some noble passages, the 
effect of which is increased by the tameness 
or extravagance of what precedes and of whu 
follows. His opinions were unfixed. His con- 
duct at some of the most important conjunc- 
tures of his life was evidently determined by 
pride and resentment. He had one fault, which 
of all human faults is most rarely found in 
company with true greatness. He was ex- 
tremely affected. He was an almost solitary 
instance of a man of real genius, and of a 
brave, lofty, and commanding spirit, without 
simplicity of character. He was an actor in the 
closet, an actor at Council, an actor in Parlia- 
ment; and even in private society he could 
not lay aside his theatrical tones and attitudes. 
We know that one of the most distinguished 
of his partisans often complained that he could 
never obtain admittance to Lord Chatham's 
room till every thing was ready for the repre- 
sentation, till the dresses and properties were 
all correctly disposed, till the light was thrown 
with Rembrandt-like effect on the head of the 
illustrious performer, till the flannels had been 



THACKERAY'S CHATHAM. 



22? 



arranged with the air of a Grecian drapery, 
and the crutch placed as gracefully as that of 
Belisarius or Lear. 

Yet, with all his faults and affectations, Pitt 
had, in a very extraordinary degree, many of 
Ihe elements of greatness. He had splendid 
talents, strong passions, quick sensibility, and 
vehement enthusiasm for the grand and the 
beautiful. There was something about him 
which ennobled tergiversation itself. He often 
went wrong, very wrong. But to quote the 
language of Wordsworth, 

" He still retained, 
'Mid such abasement, what he had received 
From nature, an intense and glowing mind." 

In an age of low and dirty prostitution — in 
the age of Doddington and Sandys — it was 
something to have a man who might, perhaps, 
under some strong excitement, have been 
tempted to ruin his country, but who never 
would have stooped to pilfer from her ; — a man 
whose errors arose, not from a sordid desire 
of gain, but from a fierce thirst for power, for 
glory, and for vengeance. History owes to 
him this attestation — that, at a time when any 
thing short of direct embezzlement of the pub- 
lic money was considered as quite fair in pub- 
lic men, he showed the most scrupulous dis- 
interestedness ; that, at a time when it seemed 
to be generally taken for granted that govern- 
ment could be upheld only by the basest and 
most immoral arts, he appealed to the better 
and nobler parts of human nature ; that he 
made a brave and splendid attempt to do, by 
means of public opinion, what no other states- 
man of his day thought it possible to do, ex- 
cept by means of corruption : that he looked 
for support, not like the Pelhams, to a strong 
aristocratical connection, not, like Bute, to the 
personal favour of the sovereign, but to the 
middle class of Englishmen; that he inspired 
that class with a firm confidence in his inte- 
grity and ability ; that, backed by them, he 
forced an unwilling court and an unwilling 
oligarchy to admit him to an ample share of 
power; and that he used his power in such a 
manner as clearly proved that he had sought 
it, not for the sake of profit or patronage, but 
from a wish to establish for himself a great and 
durable reputation by means of eminent ser- 
vices rendered to the state. 

The family of Pitt was wealthy and respect- 
able. His grandfather was Governor of Madras ; 
and brought back from India that celebrated 
diamond which the Regent Orleans, by the ad- 
vice of Saint Simon, purchased for upwards 
of three millions of livres, and which is still 
considered as the most precious of the crown 
jewels of France. Governor Pitt bought estates 
and rotten boroughs, and sat in the House of 
Commons for Old Sarum. His son Robert was 
at one time member for Old Sarum, and at an- 
other for Oakhampton. Robert had two sons. 
Thomas, the elder, inherited the estates and 
the parliamentary interest of his father. The 
second was the celebrated William Pitt. 

He was born in November, 1708. About the 
early part of his life little more is known than 
that he was educated at Eton, and that at se- 



venteen he was entered at Trinity College 
Oxford. During the second year of his resi. 
dence at the University, George the First died 
and the event was, after the fashion of that ge- 
neration, celebrated by the Oxonians in many 
very middling copies of verses. On this occa- 
sion Pitt published some Latin lines, which 
Mr. Thackeray has preserved. They prove 
that he had but a very limited knowledge even 
of the mechanical part of his art. All true 
Etonians will hear with concern, that their 
illustrious school-fellow is guilty of making 
the first syllable in lubenti short. The matter 
of the poem is as worthless as that of any 
college exercise that was ever written before 
or since. There is, of course, much about 
Mars, Themis, Neptune, and Cocytus. The 
Muses are earnestly entreated to weep for 
Ca;sar; for Caesar, says the poet, loved the 
Muses ; — Caesar, who could not read a line of 
Pope, and who lcved nothing but punch and 
fat women. 

Pitt had been, from his schooldays, cruelly 
tormented by the gout; and was at last advised 
to travel for his health. He accordingly left 
Oxford without taking a degree, and visited 
France and Italy. He returned, however, 
without having received much benefit from his 
excursion, and continued, till the close of his 
life, to suffer most severely from his constitu 
tional malady. 

His father was now dead, and had left very 
little to the younger children. It was neces- 
sary that William should choose a profession. 
He decided for the army, and a cornet's com- 
mission was procured for him in the Blues. 

But, small as his fortune was, his family had 
both the power and the inclination to serve 
him. At the general election of 1734, his elder 
brother Thomas was chosen both for Old Sa- 
rum and for Oakhampton. When Parliament 
met in 1735, Thomas made his election to 
serve for Oakhampton, and William was re- 
turned for Old Sarum. 

Walpole had now been, during fourteen 
years, at the head of affairs. He had risen to 
power under the most favourable circum- 
stances. The whole of the Whig party — of 
that party -which professed peculiar attachment 
to the principles of the Revolution, and which 
exclusively enjoyed the confidence of the 
reigning house — had been united in support 
of his administration. Happily for him, he 
had been out of office when the South Sea Act 
was passed; and, though he does not appear 
to have foreseen all the consequences of that 
measure, he had strenuously opposed it^as he 
opposed almost all the measures, good or bad, 
of Sunderland's administration. When the 
South Sea Company were voting dividends of 
fifty per cent. — when a hundred pounds of their 
stock were selling for eleven hundred pounds ' 
— when Threadneedle street was daily crowd- 
ed with the coaches of dukes and prelates 
when divines and philosophers turned gamblers 
— when a thousand kindred bubbles weir, daily 
blown into existence — the periwig company, 
and the Spanish-jackass company, and the 
quicksilver-fixation company — Walpole's calm 
good sense preserved him from the general iu 



228 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



fatuation. He condemned the prevailing mad- 
ness in public, and turned a considerable sum 
by taking advantage of it in private. When 
the crash came — when ten thousand families 
were reduced to beggary in a day — when the 
people, in the frenzy of their rage and despair, 
clamoured not only against the lower agents 
in the juggle, but against the Hanoverian fa- 
vourites, against the English ministers, against 
the king himself — when Parliament met, eager 
for confiscation and blood — when members of 
the House of Commons proposed that the di- 
rectors should be treated like parricides in 
ancient Rome, tied up in sacks, and thrown 
into the Thames, Walpole was the man on 
whom all parties turned their eyes. Four years 
before he had been driven from power by the 
intrigues of Sunderland and Stanhope, and the 
lead in the House of Commons had been in- 
trusted to Craggs and Aislabie. Stanhope was 
no more, Aislabie was expelled from Parlia- 
ment, on account of his disgraceful conduct 
regarding the South Sea scheme. Craggs was 
saved by a timely death from a similar mark 
of infamy. A large minority in the House of 
Commons voted for a severe censure on Sun- 
derland, who, finding it impossible to withstand 
the force of the prevailing sentiment, retired 
from office, and outlived his retirement but a 
very short time. The schism which had di- 
vided the Whig party was now completely 
healed. Walpole had no opposition to en- 
counter except that of the Tories, and the 
Tories were naturally regarded by the king 
with the strongest suspicion and dislike. 

For a time business went on with a smooth- 
ness and a despatch such as had not been 
known since the days of the Tudors. During 
the session of 1724, for example, there was 
only a single division. It was not impossible 
that, by taking the course which Pelham after- 
wards took — by admitting into the government 
all the rising talents and ambition of the Whig 
party, and by making room here and there for 
a Tory not unfriendly to the House of Bruns- 
wick — Walpole might have averted the tre- 
mendous conflict -in which he passed the lat- 
ter years of his administration, and in which 
he, was at length vanquished. The Opposition 
\\ hich overthrew him was an opposition cre- 
ated by his own policy, by his own insatiable 
love of power. 

In the very act of forming his ministry, he 
turned one of the ablest and most attached of 
his supporters into a deadly enemy. Pulteney 
had strong public and private claims to a high 
situation in the new arrangement. His fortune 
was immense. His private character was 
respectable. He was already a distinguished 
speaker. He had acquired official experience 
in an important post. He had been, through 
• all changes of fortune, a consistent Whig. 
When the Whig party was split into two sec- 
tions, Pulteney had resigned a valuable place, 
and had followed the fortunes of Walpole. Yet 
when Walpole returned to power, Pulteney 
was not invited to take office. An angry dis- 
cussion took place between the friends. The 
minister offered a peerage. It was impossible 
r 'er Pulteney not to discern the motive of such 



an offer. He indignantly refused to acceptV 
For some time he continued to brood over hi* 
wrongs, and to watch for an opportunity of 
revenge. As soon as a favourable conjunc 
ture arrived, he joined the minority, and be. 
came the greatest leader of Opposition that ^ie 
House of Commons had ever seen. 

Of ail the members of the cabinet, Carteret 
was the most eloquent and accomplished. Hip 
talents for debate were of the first order ; his 
knowledge of foreign affairs superior to thai 
of any living statesman ; his attachment to the 
Protestant succession was undoubted. But 
there was not room in one government for him 
and Walpole. Carteret retired, and was, from 
that time forward, one of the most persevering 
and formidable enemies of his old colleague. 

If there was any man with whom Walpole 
could have consented to make a partition of 
power, that man was Lord Townshend. They 
were distant kinsmen by birth, near kinsmen 
by marriage. They had been friends from 
childhood. They had been schoolfellows at 
Eton. They were country-neighbours in Nor- 
folk. They had been in office together under 
Godolphin. They had gone into opposition 
together when Harley rose to power. They 
had been persecuted by the same House of 
Commons. They had, after the death of Anne, 
been recalled together to office. They had 
again been driven out by Sunderland, and had 
again come back together when the influence 
of Sunderland had declined. Their opinions 
on public affairs almost always coincided 
They were both men of frank, generous, and 
compassionate natures ; their intercourse had 
been for many years most affectionate and cor- 
dial. But the ties of blood, of marriage, and 
of friendship, the memory of mutual services 
and common persecutions, were insufficient to 
restrain that ambition which domineered over 
all the virtues and vices of Walpole. He was 
resolved, to use his own metaphor, that the firm 
of the house should be, not " Townshend and 
Walpole," but "Walpole and Townshend." 
At length the rivals proceeded to personal 
abuse before witnesses, seized each other by 
the collar, and grasped their swords. The 
women squalled. The men parted the combat- 
ants.* By friendly intervention the scandal 
of a duel between cousins, brothers-in-law, old 
friends, and old colleagues, was prevented. 
But the disputants could not long continue to 
act together. Tcwnshend retired, and with 
rare moderation and public spirit, refused to 
take any part in politics. He could not, he 
said, trust his temper. He feared that the re- 
collection of his private wrongs might impel 
him to follow the example of Pulteney, and to 
oppose measures which he thought generally 
beneficial to the country. He, therefore, never 
visited London after his resignation ; but pass- 
ed the closing years of his life in d ignity and 
repose among his trees and pictures at Rain- 
ham. 

Next went Chesterfield. He too was a Whig 



* The scene of this extraordinary quarrel was- we be- 
lieve, a house in Cleveland Square, now occupied by 
Mr. Ell ice, the Secretary at War. It was then the resi- 
dence of Colonel Selwvn. . 



THACKERAY'S CHATHAM. 



229 



Mid a friend of the Protestant succession. He 
was an orator, a courtier, a wit, and a man of 
tetters. He was at the head of ton in days 
when, in order to be at the head of ton, it was 
not sufficient to be dull and supercilious. It 
was evident that he submitted impatiently to 
the ascendency of Walpole. He murmured 
against the Excise Bill. His brothers voted 
against it in the House of Commons. The 
minister acted with characteristic caution and 
characteristic energy ; — caution in the conduct 
of public affairs ; energy where his own ad- 
ministration was concerned. He withdrew 
his bill, and turned out all his hostile or waver- 
ing colleagues. Chesterfield was stopped on 
the great staircase of St. James's, and sum- 
moned to deliver up the staff which he bore as 
Lord Steward of the Household. A crowd of 
noble and powerful functionaries — the Dukes 
of Montrose and Bolton, Lord B Arlington, 
Lord Stair, Lord Cobham, Lord Marchmont, 
L9rd Clinton — were at the same time dis- 
missed from the service of the crown. 

Not long after these events, the Opposition 
was reinforced by the Duke of Argyle, a man 
vainglorious indeed and fickle, but brave, elo- 
quent, and* popular. It was in a great mea- 
sure owing to his exertions that the Act of Set- 
tlement had been peaceably executed in Eng- 
land immediately after the death of Anne, and 
that the Jacobite rebellion which, during the 
following year, broke out in Scotland, was sup- 
pressed. He too carried over to the minority 
the aid of his great name, his talents, and his 
paramount influence in his native country. 

In each of these cases taken separately, a 
skilful defender of Walpole might perhaps 
make out a case for him. But when we see 
that during a long course of years all the foot- 
steps are turned the same way — that all the 
most eminent of those public men who agreed 
with the minister in their general views of 
policy left him, one after another, with sore and 
irritated minds, we find it impossible not to 
believe that the real explanation of the phe- 
nomenon is to be found in the words of his son, 
"Sir Robert Walpole loved power so much 
that he would not endure a rival."* Hume has 
described this famous minister with great feli- 
city in one short sentence. — " moderate in exer- 
cising power, not equitable in engrossing it." 
Kind-hearted, jovial, and placible as Walpole 
was, he was yet a man with whom no person 
of high pretensions and high spirit could long 
continue to act. He had, therefore, to stand 
against an Opposition containing all the most 
accomplished statesmen of the age, with no 
better support than that which he received from 
persons like his brother Horace, or Henry Pel- 
ham, whose industrious mediocrity gave him 
no cause for jealousy ; or from clever adven- 
turers, whose situation and character diminish- 
ed the dread which their talents might other- 
wise have inspired. To this last class belong- 
ed Fox, who was too poor to live without office ; 
Sir William Yonge, of whom Walpole himself 
said, that nothing but such parts could buoy up 
BUch a character, that nothing but such a 



♦Memoirs, vol. i. p. 201. 



character could drag down such parts; and 
Winnington, whose private morals lay, justly or 
unjustly, under imputations of the worst kind. 

The discontented Whigs were, not perhaps 
in number, but certainly in ability, experience, 
and weight, by far the most important part of 
the Opposition. The Tories furnished littla 
more than rows of ponderous fox-hunters, fat 
with Staffordshire or Devonshire ale — men 
who drank to the king over the water, and be- 
lieved that all the fundholders were Jews — 
men whose religion consisted in hating the 
Dissenters, and whose political researches had 
led them to fear, like Squire Western, that their 
land might be sent over to Hanover to be put 
into the sinking-fund. The eloquence of these 
patriotic squires, the remnant of the on ie for- 
midable October Club, seldom went be) ond a 
hearty Ay or No. Very few members c f this 
party had distinguished themselves much in 
Parliament, or could, under any circumstances, 
have been called to fill any high office ; and 
those few had generally, like Sir William 
Wyndham, learned in the company of their 
new associates the doctrines of toleration and 
political liberty, and might indeed with strict 
propriety be called Whigs. 

It was to the Whigs in opposition, the pa- 
triots, as they were called, that the most dis- 
tinguished of the English youth, who at this 
season entered into public life, attached them- 
selves. These inexperienced politicians felt 
all the enthusiasm which the name of liberty 
naturally excites in young and ardent minds. 
They conceived that the theory of the Tory 
Opposition, and the practice of Walpole's go- 
vernment, were alike inconsistent with the 
principles of liberty. They accordingly re- 
paired to the standard which Pulteney had set 
up. While opposing the Whig minister, they 
professed a firm adherence to the purest doc- 
trines of Whigism. He was the schismatic ; 
they were the true Catholics, the peculiar peo- 
ple, the depositaries of the orthodox faith of 
Hampden and Russell; the one sect which, 
amidst the corruptions generated by time, and 
by the long possession of power, had preserved 
inviolate the principles of the Revolution. Of 
the young men who attached themselves to 
this portion of the Opposition, the most dis- 
tinguished were Lyttleton and Pitt. 

When Pitt entered Parliament, the whole 
political world was attentively watching the 
progress of an event which soon added great 
strength to the Opposition, and particularly 
to that section of the Opposition in which the 
young statesman enrolled himself. The Prince 
of Wales was gradually becoming more and 
more estranged from his father and his fa- 
ther's ministers, and more and more friendly 
to the patriots. 

Nothing is more natural than that, in a mo 
narchy, where a constitutional Opposition ex 
ists, the heir-apparent of the throne should put 
himself at the head of that Opposition. He is 
impelled to such a course by every feeling of 
ambition and of vanity. He cannot be more 
than second in the estimation of the party 
which is in. He is sure to be the first mem* 
ber of the party which is out. The highest 



230 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



favour which the existing administration can 
expect from him is, that he will not discard 
them. But, if he joins the Opposition, all his 
associates expect that he will promote them ; 
and the feelings which men entertain towards 
one from whom they hope to obtain great ad- 
vantages which they have not, are far warmer 
than the feelings with which they regard one 
who, at the very utmost, can only leave them 
in possession of what they already have. An 
heir-apparent, therefore, who wishes to enjoy, 
in the highest perfection, all the pleasure that 
can be derived from eloquent flattery and pro- 
found respect, will always join those who are 
struggling to force themselves into power. 
This is, we believe, the true explanation of a 
fact which Lord Granville attributed to some 
natural peculiarity in the illustrious house of 
Brunswick. "This family," said he at Council, 
we suppose after his daily half-gallon of Bur- 
gundy, " always has quarrelled and always 
will quarrel, from generation to generation." 
He should have known something of the mat- 
ter ; for he had been a favourite with three suc- 
cessive generations of the royal house. We 
cannot quite admit his explanation ; but the 
fact is indisputable. Since the accession of 
George the First, there have been four Princes 
of Wales, and they have all been almost con- 
stantly in opposition. 

Whatever might have been the motives 
which induced Prince Frederic to join the 
party opposed to Sir Robert Walpole, his sup- 
port infused into many members of that party 
a courage and an energy, of which they stood 
greatly in need. Hitherto, it had been impos- 
sible for the discontented Whigs not to feel 
some misgivings when they found themselves 
dividing night after night, with uncompromis- 
ing Jacobites, who were known to be in con- 
stant communication with the exiled family ; 
or with Tories who had impeached Somers, 
who had murmured against Harley and St. 
John as too remiss in the cause of the Church 
and the landed interest ; and who, if they were 
not inclined to attack the reigning family, yet 
considered the introduction of that family as, 
at best, only the less of two great evils — as a 
necessary, but a painful and humiliating pre- 
servative against Popery. The minister might 
plausibly say that Pulteney and Carteret, in 
the hope of gratifying their own appetite for 
office and for revenge, did not scruple to serve 
the purposes of a faction hostile to the Pro- 
testant succession. The appearance of Fre- 
deric at the head of the patriots silenced this 
reproach. The leaders of the Opposition might 
now boast that their proceedings were sanc- 
tioned by a person as deeply interested as the 
king himself in maintaining the Act of Settle- 
ment; and that, instead of serving the pur- 
poses of the Tory party, they had brought that 
party over to the side of Whigism. It must 
indeed be admitted that, though both the king 
and the prince behaved in a manner little to 
their honour — though the father acted harshly, 
the son disrespectfully, and both childish- 
ly — the royal family was rather strengthened 
than weakened by the disagreement of its two 
most distinguished members. A large class 



of politicians, who had considered themseh es 
as placed under sentence of perpetual exclu. 
sion from office, and who, in their despair, had 
been almost ready to join in a counter-revolu- 
tion, as the only mode of removing the pro« 
scription under which they lay, now saw with 
pleasure an easier and safer road to power 
opening before them, and thought it far better 
to wait till, in the natural course of things, the 
crown should descend to the heir of the house 
of Brunswick, than to risk their lands and 
their necks in a rising for the house of Stuart. 
The situation of the royal family resembled 
the situation of those Scotch families in which 
father and son took opposite sides during the 
rebellion, in order that, come what might, the 
estate might not be forfeited. 

In April, 1736, Frederic was married to the 
Princess of Saxe-Gotha, with whom he after- 
wards lived on terms very similar to those on 
which his father had lived with Queen Caro- 
line. The prince adored his wife, and thought 
her in mind and person the most attractive of 
her sex. But he thought that conjugal fidelity 
was an unprincely virtue ; and, in order to be 
like Henry the Fourth and the Regent Orleans, 
he affected a libertinism for which he had no 
taste, and frequently quitted the only woman 
whom he loved for ugly and disagreeable 
mistresses. 

The address which the House of Commons 
presented to the king on occasion of the 
prince's marriage, was moved, not by the mi- 
nister, but by Pulteney, the leader of the Whigs 
in opposition. It was on this motion that Pitt, 
who had not broken silence during the session 
in which he took his seat, addressed the House 
for the first time. " A contemporary historian," 
says Mr. Thackeray, " describes Mr. Pitt's first 
speech as superior even to the models of an- 
cient eloquence. According to Tindal, it was 
more ornamented than the speeches of De- 
mosthenes, and less diffuse than those of Ci- 
cero." This unmeaning phrase has been a 
hundred times quoted. That it should ever 
have been quoted, except to be laughed at, is 
strange. The vogue which it has obtained 
may serve to show in how slovenly a way 
most people are content to think. Did Tindal, 
who first used it, or Archdeacon Coxe, or Mr. 
Thackeray, who have borrowed it, ever in their 
lives hear any speaking which did not deserve 
the same compliment 1 Did they ever hear 
speaking less ornamented than that cf De- 
mosthenes, or more diffuse than that of Ci- 
cero 1 We know no living orator, from Lord 
Brougham down to Mr. Hunt, who is not en 
titled to the same magnificent eulogy. It would 
be no very flattering compliment to a man's 
figure to say, that he was taller than the Polish 
Count, and shorter than Giant O'Brien ; — fatter 
than the Anatomie Vivante, and more slender 
than Daniel Lambert. 

Pitt's speech, as it is reported in the Gentle- 
man's Magazine, certainly deserves Tindal's 
compliment, and deserves no other. It is just 
as empty and wordy as a maiden speech on 
such an occasion might be expected to be 
But the fluency and the personal advantages 
of the young orator instantlv caught the eai 



THACKERAY'S CHATHAM. 



231 



and eye of his audience. He was, from the 
day of his first appearance, always heard with 
attention; and exercise soon developed the 
great powers which he possessed. . 

In our time, the audience of a member of 
Parliament is the nation. The three or four 
hundred persons who may he present while a 
speech is delivered may be pleased or disgust- 
ed by the voice and action of the orator ; but 
in the reports which are read the next day by 
hundreds of thousands, the difference between 
the noblest and the meanest figure, between 
the richest and the shrillest tones, between the 
most graceful and the most uncouth gesture, 
altogether vanishes. A hundred years ago, 
scarcely any report of what passed within the 
walls of the House of Commons was suffered 
to get abroad. In those times, therefore, the 
impression which a speaker might make on 
the persons who actually heard him was every 
»hing. 'The impression out of doors was hard- 
ly worth a thought. In the Parliaments of 
that time, therefore, as in the ancient common- 
wealths, those qualifications which enhance 
the immediate effect of a speech, were far 
more important ingredients in the composition 
of an orator than they would appear to be in 
our time. All those qualifications Pitt pos- 
sessed in the highest degree. On the stage, he 
would have been the finest Brutus or Coriola- 
nus ever seen. Those who saw him in his 
decay, when his health was broken, when his 
mind Avas jangled, when he had been removed 
t'Tcm that stormy assembly of which he tho- 
roughly knew the temper, and over which he 
possessed unbounded influence, to a small, a 
torpid, and an unfriendly audience, say that 
his speaking was then, for the most part, a 
low, monotonous muttering, audible only to 
those who sat close to him — that, when vio- 
lently excited, he sometimes raised his voice 
for a few minutes, but that it soon sank again 
into an unintelligible murmur. Such was the 
Earl of Chatham ; but such was not William 
Pitt. His figure, when he first appeared in 
Parliament, was strikingly graceful and com- 
manding, his features high and noble, his eye 
full of fire. His voice, even when it sank to a 
whisper, Avas heard to the remotest benches ; 
when he strained it to its full extent, the sound 
rose like the swell of the organ of a great ca- 
thedral, shook the house with its peal, and was 
heard through lobbies and down staircases, to 
the Court of Requests and the precincts of 
Westminster Hall. He cultivated all these 
eminent advantages with the most assiduous 
care. His action is described by a very ma- 
lignant observer as equal to that of Garrick. 
His play of countenance was wonderful; he 
frequently disconcerted a hostile orator by a 
single glance of indignation or scorn. Every 
tone, from the impassioned cry to the thrilling 
aside, was perfectly at his command. It is by 
no means improbable that the pains which he 
took to improve his great personal advantages 
had, in some respects, a prejudicial operation, 
and tended to nourish in him that passion for 
theatrical effect which, as we have already re- 
marked, was one of the most conspicuous 
blemishes in his character. 



But it was not solely or principally to onfc 
ward accomplishments that Pitt owed the vast 
influence which, during nearly thirty years, he 
exercised over the House of Commons. He 
was undoubtedly a great orator ; and, from the 
descriptions of his contemporaries, and the 
fragments of his speeches which still remain, 
it is not difficult to discover the nature and ex- 
tent of his oratorical powers. 

He was no speaker of set speeches. His 
few prepared discourses were complete fail- 
ures. The elaborate panegyric which he pro- 
nounced on General Wolfe was considered as 
the very worst of all his performances. "No 
man," says a critic who had often heard him, 
"ever knew so little what he was going t» 
say." Indeed his facility amounted to a vice. 
He was not the master, but the slave of his 
own speech. So little self-command had he 
when once he felt the impulse, that he did not 
like to take part in a debate when his mind 
was full of an important secret of state. "1 
must sit still," he once said to Lord Shelburne 
on such an occasion ; " for when once I am 
up, every thing that is in my mind comes 
out." 

Yet he was not a great debater. That he 
should not have been so when first he enter- 
ed the House of Commons, is not strange. 
Scarcely any person had ever become so 
without long practice an I many failures. It 
was by slow degrees, as Burke said, that the 
late Mr. Fox became the most brilliant and 
powerful debater that ever Parliament saw. 
Mr. Fox himself attributed his own success to 
the resolution which he formed when very 
young, of speaking, well or ill, at least once 
every night. " During five whole sessions," 
he used to say, "I spoke every night but one: 
and I regret only that I did not speak on thai 
night too." Indeed, it would be difficult to 
name any great debater, except Mr. Stanley 
whose knowledge of the science of parliament- 
ary defence resembles an instinct, who has 
not made himself a master of his art at the 
expense of his audience. 

But as this art is one which even the ablest 
men have seldom acquired without long prac- 
tice, so it is one which men of respectable 
abilities, with assiduous and intrepid practice, 
seldom fail to acquire. It is singular that in 
such an art, Pitt, a man of splendid talents, el 
great fluency, of great boldness — a man whose 
whole life was passed in parliamentary con- 
flict — a man who, during several years, was 
the leading minister of the crown in the House 
of Commons — should never have attained to 
high excellence. He spoke without premedi- 
tation ; but his speech followed the course of 
his own thoughts, and not the course of the 
previous discussion. He could, indeed, trea 
sure up in his memory some detached expres 
sion of a hostile orator, and make it the text 
for sparkling ridicule or burning invective. 
Some of the most celebrated bursts of his elo- 
quence were called forth by an unguarded 
word, a laugh, or a cheer. But this was the 
only sort of reply in which he appears to have 
excelled. He was perhaps the only great Eng- 
lish orator who did not think it any advantage 



233 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



to have the last word; and who generally 
spoke by choice before his most formidable 
opponents. His merit was almost entirely 
rhetorical. He did not succeed either in ex- 
position or in refutation; but his speeches 
abounded with lively illustrations, striking 
apophthegms, well-told anecdotes, happy allu- 
sions, passionate appeals. His invective and 
sarcasm were tremendous. Perhaps no Eng- 
lish orator was ever so much feared. 

But that which gave most effect to his de- 
clamation, was the air of sincerity, of vehe- 
ment feeling, of moral elevation, which be- 
longed to all that he said. His style was not 
always in the purest taste. Several contem- 
porary judges pronounced it too florid. Wal- 
pole, in the midst of the rapturous eulogy 
which he pronounces on one of Pitt's greatest 
orations, owns that some of the metaphors 
mere too forced. The quotations and classical 
stories of the great orator are sometimes too 
trite for a clever schoolboy. But these were 
niceties for which the audience cared little. 
The enthusiasm of the orator infected all who 
were near him; his ardour and his noble 
bearing put fire into the most frigid conceit, 
and gave dignity to the most puerile allusion. 

His powers soon began to give annoyance 
to the government, and Walpole determined to 
make an example of the p atriotic cornet. Pitt was 
accordingly dismissed from the service. Mr. 
Thackeray absurdly says that the minister took 
this step, because he plainly saw that it would 
have been vain to think of buying over so ho- 
nourable and disinterested an opponent. We 
do not dispute Pitt's integrity ; but we do not 
know what proof he had given of it, when he 
was turned out of the army ; and we are sure 
that Walpole was not likely to give credit for 
inflexible honesty to a young adventurer who 
had never had an opportunity of refusing any 
thing. The truth is, that it was not Walpole's 
practice to buy off enemies. Mr. Burke truly 
says, in the Appeal to the old Whigs, " Wal- 
pole gained very few over from the Opposi- 
tion." He knew his business far too well. 
He knew that for one mouth that is stopped 
with a place, fifty other mouths will instantly 
be opened. He knew that it would have been 
very bad policy in him to give the world to 
understand that more was to be got by thwart- 
ing his measures than by supporting them. 
These maxims are as old as the origin of par- 
liamentary, corruption in England. Pepys 
teamed them, as he tells us, from the coun- 
sellors of Charles the Second. 

Pitt was no loser. He was made Groom of 
the Bed-chamber to the Prince of Wales, and 
continued to declaim against the minister with 
tinabated violence and with increasing ability. 
The question of maritime right, then agitated 
4 between Spain and England, called forth all 
his powers. He clamoured for war with a 
vehemence which it is n ot easy to reconcile 
with reason or humanity, but which appears 
to Mr. Thackeray worthy of the highest admi- 
ration. We will not stop to argue a point on 
which we had long thought that all well-in- 
formed people were agreed. We could easily 
how, we think, that, if any respect be due to 



international law — if right, where societies of 
men are concerned, be any thing but another 
name for might — if we do not adopt the doc- 
trine of the Buccaniers, -which seems to be 
also the doctrine of Mr. Thackeray, that trea- 
ties mean nothing within thirty degrees of the 
line — the war with Spain was altogether un- 
justifiable. But the truth is, that the promoters 
of that war have saved the historian the trouble 
of trying them : they have pleaded guilty. " I 
have seen," says Burke, "and with some care 
examined, the original documents concerning 
certain important transactions of those times. 
They perfectly satisfied me of the extreme in- 
justice of that war, and of the falsehood of the 
colours which Walpole, to his ruin, and guided 
by a mistaken policy, suffered to be daubed 
over that measure. Some years after, it was 
my fortune to converse with many of the prin- 
cipal actors against that minister, and with 
those who principally excited that clamour. 
None of them, no, not one, did in the least de- 
fend the measure, or attempt to justify their 
conduct. They condemned it as freely as they 
would have done in commenting upon any 
proceeding in history in which they were to- 
tally unconcerned."* Pitt, on subsequent oc- 
casions, gave ample proof that he was not one 
of those tardy penitents. 

The elections of 1741 were unfavourat.e to 
Walpole ; and after a long and obstinate strug- 
gle he found it necessary to resign. The Duke 
of Newcastle and Lord Hardwicke opened a 
negotiation with the leading patriots, in the 
hope of forming an administration on a Whig 
basis. At this conjuncture, Pitt, Lyttleton, and 
those persons who were most nearly connected 
with them, acted in a manner very little to 
their honour. They attempted to come to an 
understanding with Walpole, and offered, if he 
would use his influence with the king in their 
favour, to screen him from prosecution. They 
even went so far as to engage for the concur- 
rence of the Prince of Wales. But Walpole 
knew that the assistance of the Boys, as he called 
the young patriots, would avail him nothing if 
Pulteney and Carteret should prove intractable, 
and would be superfluous, if the great leaders 
of the Opposition could be gained. He, there- 
fore, declined the proposal. It is remarkable 
that Mr. Thackeray, who has thought it worth 
while to preserve Pitt's bad college verses, has 
not even alluded to this story — a story which 
is supported by strong testimony, and which 
may be found in so common a book as Coxe's 
Life of Walpole. 

The new arrangements disappointed almost 
every member of the Opposition, and none 
more than Pitt. He was not invited to become a 
placeman; and he, therefore, stuck firmly to his 
old trade of patriot. Fortunate it was for him 
that he did so. Had he taken office at this time, 
he would in all probability have shared largely 
in the unpopularity of Pulteney, Sandys, and 
Carteret. He was now the fiercest and most 
implacable of those who called for vengeance 
on Walpole. He spoke with great energy and 
ability in favour of the most unjust and violen 



* Letter on a Regicide Peace. 



THACKERAY'S CHATHAM. 



233 



propositions which the enemies of the fallen 
minister could invent. He urged the House 
of Commons to appoint a secret tribunal for 
the purpose of investigating the conduct of the 
late First Lord of the Treasury. This was done. 
The great majority of the inquisitors were no- 
toriously hostile to the accused statesman. 
Yet they were compelled to own that they 
could find no fault in him. They therefore 
called for new powers, for a bill of indemnity 
to witnesses ; or, in plain words, for a bill to 
reward all who might give evidence, true or 
false, against the Earl of Orford. This bill 
Pitt supported — Pitt, who had offered to be a 
screen between Lord Orford and public justice ! 
These are melancholy facts. Mr. Thackeray 
omits them, or hurries over them as fast as he 
can ; and, as eulogy is his business, he is in 
the right to do so. But, though there are many 
parts in the life of Pitt which it is more agree- 
able to contemplate, we know none more in- 
structive. What must have been the general 
state of political morality, when a young man, 
considered, and justly considered, as the most 
public-spirited and spotless statesmen of his 
time, couloir attempt to force his way into office 
by means so disgraceful 1 

The bill of indemnity was rejected by the 
Lords. Walpole withdrew himself quietly 
from the public eye ; and the ample space 
which he had left vacant was soon occupied 
by Carteret. Against Carteret Pitt began to 
thunder with as much zeal as he had ever 
manifested against Sir Robert. To Carteret 
he transferred most of the hard names which 
were familiar to his eloquence — sole minister, 
wicked minister, odious minister, execrable 
minister. The great topic of his invective was 
the favour shown to the German dominions of 
King George. He attacked with great vio- 
lence, and with an ability which raised him to 
the very first rank among the parliamentary 
speakers, the practice of paying the Hanove- 
rian troops with English money. The House 
of Commons had lately lost some of its most 
distinguished ornaments. Walpole and Pul- 
teney had accepted peerages; Sir William 
Wyndham was dead ; and among the rising 
men none could be considered as, on the whole, 
a match for Pitt. 

During the recess of 1744, the old Duchess 
of Marlborough died. She carried to her grave 
the reputation of being decidedly the best hater 
of her time. Yet her love had been infinitely 
more destructive than her hatred. In the time 
of Anne, her temper had ruined the party to 
which she belonged, and the husband whom 
she adored. Time had made her neither wiser 
nor kinder. Whoever was at any moment 
great and prosperous, was the object of her 
fiercest detestation. She had hated Walpole 
— she now hated Carteret. 

Pope, long before her death, predicted the 
fate of her vast property : — 

"To heirs unknown descends the unguarded store, 
Or wanders, Heaven-directed, to the poor." 

Pitt was poor enough ; and to him Heaven 
directed a portion of the wealth of the haughty 
dowager. She left him a legacy of £10,000, 



in consideration of "the noble defence he haci 
made for the support of the laws of England, 
and to prevent the ruin of his country." 

The will was made in August. The Duch- 
ess died in October. In November Pitt had 
become a courtier. The Pelhams had forced 
the king, much against his will, to part with 
Lord Carteret, now Earl Granville. They pro- 
ceeded, after this victory, to form the govern- 
ment on that basis, called by the cant name of 
the " broad bottom." Lyttleton had a seat at 
the treasury, and several other friends of Pitt 
were provided for. But Pitt himself was, for 
the present, forced to be content with promises. 
The king resented most highly some expres- 
sions which the ardent orator had used in the 
debate on the Hanoverian troops. But New- 
castle and Pelham expressed the strongest 
confidence that time, and their exertions, would 
soften the royal displeasure. 

Pitt, on his part, omitted nothing that might 
facilitate his admission to office. He resigned 
his place in the household of Prince Frederic, 
and, when Parliament met, exerted his elo- 
quence in support of the government. The 
Pelhams were really sincere in their endea- 
vours to remove the strong prejudices that had 
taken root in the king's mind. They knew 
that Pitt was not a man to be deceived with 
ease, or offended with impunity. They were 
afraid that they should not be long able to put 
him off with promises. Nor was it their inte- 
rest so to put him off. There was a strong tie 
between him and them. He was the enemy of 
their enemy. The brothers hated and dreaded 
the eloquent, aspiring, and imperious Granville. 
They had traced his intrigues in many quarters. 
They knew his influence over the royal mind. 
They knew that, as soon as a favourable oppor- 
tunity might arrive, he would be recalled to the 
head of affairs. They resolved to bring things 
to a crisis; and the question on which they took 
issue with their master was, whether Pitt should 
or should not be admitted to office? They 
chose their time with more skill than generosi- 
ty. It was when rebellion was actually raging 
in Britain, when the Pretender was master of 
the northern extremity of the island, that they 
tendered their resignations. The king found 
himself deserted, in one day, by the whole 
strength of that party which had placed his 
family on the throne. Lord Granville tried to 
form a government ; but it soon appeared that 
the parliamentary interest of the Pelhams was 
irresistible; and that the king's favourite 
statesman could count only on about thirty 
Lords, and eighty members of the House of 
Commons. The scheme was given up. Gran- 
ville went away laughing. The ministers came 
back stronger than ever, and the king was now 
no longer able to refuse any thing that they 
might be pleased to demand. All that he could 
do, was to mutter that it was very hard that 
Newcastle, who was not fit to be chamberlain 
to the most insignificant prince in Germany 
should dictate to the King of England. 

One concession the ministers graciously 
made. They agreed that Pitt should not be 
placed in a situation in which it would be ne- 
cessary for him to have frequent interviews 



234 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



with the king. Instead, therefore, of making 
Iheir new ally Secretary of War, as they had in- 
tended, they appointed him Vice-Treasurer of 
Ireland, and in a few months promoted him to 
the office of Paymaster of the Forces. 

This was, at that time, one of the most lu- 
crative offices in the government. The salary 
vas but a small part of the emolument which 
•he Paymaster derived from his place. He 
was allowed to keep a large sum — seldom less 
than £100,000 — constantly in his hands ; and 
the interest on this sum, probably about £4,000 
a year, he might appropriate to his own use. 
This practice was not secret, nor was it con- 
sidered as disreputable. It was the practice 
of men of undoubted honour, both before and 
after the time of Pitt. He, however, refused 
to accept one farthing beyond the salary which 
the law had annexed to his office. It had been 
usual for foreign princes, who received the pay 
of England, to give to the Paymaster of the 
Forces a small per centage on the subsidies. 
These ignominious vails Pitt resolutely de- 
clined. 

Disinterestedness of this kind was, in his 
days, very rare. His conduct surprised and 
amused politicians. It excited the warmest 
admiration throughout the body of the people. 
In spite of the inconsistencies of which Pitt 
had been guilty, in spite of the strange contrast 
between his violence in Opposition and his 
tameness in office, he still possessed a large 
share of the public confidence. The motives 
which may lead a politician to change his con- 
nections, or his general line of conduct, are often 
obscure ; but disinterestedness in money mat- 
ters everybody can understand. Pitt was thence- 
forth considered as a man who was proof to all 
sordid temptations. If he acted ill, it might be 
from an error in judgment ; it might be from 
resentment ; it might be from ambition. But, 
poor as he was, he had vindicated himself from 
all suspicion of covetousness. 

Eight quiet years followed — eight years dur- 
ing which the minority, feeble from the time 
of- Lord Granville's defeat, continued to dwin- 
dle till it became almost invisible. Peace was 
made with France and Spain in 1748. Prince 
Frederick died in 1751, and with him died the 
very semblance of opposition. All the most 
distinguished survivors of the party which had 
supported Walpole and of the party which had 
opposed him were united under his successor. 
The fiery and vehement spirit of Pitt had for a 
time been laid to rest. He silently acquiesced 
in that very system of Continental measures 
which he had lately condemned. He ceased 
to talk disrespectfully about Hanover. He did 
not object to the treaty with Spain, though that 
treaty left us exactly where we had been when 
he uttered his spirit-stirring harangues against 
the pacific policy of Walpole. Now and then 
glimpses of his former self appeared, but they 
were few and transient. Pelham knew with 
whom he had to deal, and felt that an ally so 
little used to control and so capable of inflict- 
ing injury might well be indulged in an occa- 
sional fit of waywardness. 

Two men, little, if at all, inferior to Pitt in 
wers of mind, held, like him, subordinate 



offices in the government. One of these, Mui 
ray, was successively Solicitor-general and At. 
torney-general. This distinguished person fai 
surpassed Pitt in correctness of taste, in power 
of reasoning, in depth and variety of know- 
ledge. His parliamentary eloquence never 
blazed into sudden flashes of dazzling bril- 
liancy; but its clear, placid, and mellow splen- 
dour was never for an instant overclouded. 
Intellectually he was, we believe, fully equal 
to Pitt; but he was deficient in the moral qua- 
lities to which Pitt owed most of his success. 
Murray wanted the energy, the courage, the 
all-grasping and all-risking ambition which 
make men great in stirring times. His heart 
was a little cold ; his temper cautious even to 
timidity; his manners decorous even to forma- 
lity. He never exposed his fortunes or his 
fame to any risk which he could avoid. At 
one time he might in all probability have been 
Prime Minister. But the object of all his wishes 
Avas the judicial bench. The situation of Chief 
Justice might not be so splendid as that of First 
Lord of the Treasury; but it was dignified; it 
was quiet ; it was secure ; and therefore it was 
the favourite situation of Murray. 

Fox, the father of that great man whose 
mighty efforts in the cause of peace, of truth, 
and of liberty have made that name immortal, 
was secretary at war. He was a favourite with 
the king, with the Duke of Cumberland, and 
with some of the most powerful individuals of 
the great Whig connection. His parliament 
ary talents were of the highest order. As a 
speaker he was in almost all respects the very 
opposite of Pitt. His figure was ungraceful ; 
his face, as Reynolds and Roubiliac have pre- 
served it to us, indicated a strong understand., 
ing; but the features were coarse, and the ge- 
neral aspect dark and lowering. His manner 
was awkward; his delivery was hesitating; he 
was often at a stand for want of a word ; but 
as a debater — as a master of that keen, weighty, 
manly logic which is suited to the discussion 
of political questions — he has perhaps never 
been surpassed except by his son. In reply 
he was as decidedly superior to Pitt as in de- 
clamation he was inferior. Intellectually, the 
balance was nearly equal between the rivals. 
But here, again, the moral qualities of Pitt 
turned the scale. Fox had undoubtedly many 
virtues. In natural disposition as well as in 
talents he bore a great resemblance to his 
more celebrated son. He had the same sweet- 
ness of temper, the same strong passions, the 
same openness, boldness, and impetuosity, the 
same cordiality towards friends, the same pla- 
cability towards enemies. No man was more 
warmly or justly beloved by his family or by 
his associates. But unhappily he had been 
trained in a bad political school — in a school 
the doctrines of which were, that political vir- 
tue is the mere coquetry of political prostitu- 
tion; that every patriot has his price; that 
government can be carried on only by means 
of corruption ; and that the state is given as a 
prey to statesmen. These maxims were too 
much in vogue throughout the lower ranks of 
Walpole's party, and were too much encou* 
raged by Walpole himself, who, from contempt 



THACKERAY'S CHATHAM. 



285 



nf what is in our day called humbug, often ran 
extravagantly and offensively into the opposite 
extreme. The loose political morality of Fox 
presented a remarkable contrast to the osten- 
tatious purity of Pitt. The nation distrusted 
the former, and placed implicit confidence in 
the latter. But almost all the statesmen of the 
age had still to learn that the confidence of the 
nation was worth having. While things went 
on quietly, while there was no opposition, while 
every thing was given by the favour of a small 
ruling junto, Fox had a decided advantage over 
Pitt; but when dangerous times came, when 
Europe was convulsed with war, when Parlia- 
ment was broken up into factions, when the 
public mind was violently excited, the favour- 
ite of the people rose to supreme power, while 
his rival sank into insignificance. 

Early in the year 1754, Henry Pelham died 
unexpectedly. "Now I shall have no more 
peace," exclaimed the old king when he heard 
the news. He was in the right. Pelham had 
succeeded in bringing together and keeping to- 
gether all the talents of the kingdom. By his 
death the highest post to which an English 
subject can aspire was left vacant, and at the 
same moment the influence which had yoked 
together and reined, in so many turbulent and 
ambitious spirits was withdrawn. 

Within a week after Pelham's death it was 
determined that the Duke of Newcastle should 
be placed at the head of the treasury; but the 
arrangement was still far from complete. Who 
was to be the leading minister of the crown in 
the House of Commons 1 Was the office to be 
intrusted to a man of eminent talents ? And 
would not such a man in such a place demand 
and obtain a larger share of power and patron- 
age than Newcastle would be disposed to con- 
cede ? Was a mere drudge to be employed ? 
And what probability was there that a mere 
drudge would be able to manage a large and 
stormy assembly abounding with able and ex- 
perienced men? 

Pope has said of that wretched miser, Sir 
John Cutler — 

" Cutler saw tenants break and houses fall 
For very want; he could not build a wall." 

Newcastle's love of power resembled Cutler's 
love of money. It was an avarice which 
thwarted itself — a penny-wise and pound-fool- 
ish cupidity. An immediate outlay was so 
painful to him, that he would not venture to 
make the most desirable improvement. If he 
could have found the heart to cede at once a 
portion of his authority, he might probably 
have insured the continuance of what re- 
mained ; but he thought it better to construct 
a weak and rotten government, which tottered 
at the smallest breath and fell in the first 
storm, than to pay the necessary price for 
sound and durable materials. He wished to 
find some person who would be willing to ac- 
cept the lead of the House of Commons on 
terms similar to those on which Secretary 
Craggs had acted under Sunderland five-and- 
thirty years before. Craggs could hardly be 
called a minister. He was a mere agent for 
tie minister. He was not trusted with the 



nigher secrets of state, but obeyed implicitlj 
the directions of his superior, and was, to use 
Doddington's expression, merely Lord Sunder, 
land's man. But times were changed. Since 
the days of Sunderland the importance of the 
House of Commons had been constantly on 
the increase. During many years the person 
who conducted the business of the government 
in that house had almost always been Prime 
Minister. Under these circumstance it was 
not to be supposed that any person who pos- 
sessed the talents necessary to the situation 
would stoop to accept it on such terms as 
Newcastle was disposed to offer. 

Pitt was ill at Bath; and had he been well 
and in London, neither the king nor Newcastle 
would have been disposed to make any over- 
tures to him. The cool and wary Murray had 
set his heart on professional objects. Nego- 
tiations were opened with Fox. Newcastle 
behaved like himself — that is to say, childishly 
and basely. The proposition which he made 
was, that Fox should be Secretary of State, with 
the lead of the House of Commons ; that the 
disposal of the secret-service money, or in 
plain words, the business of buying members 
of Parliament, should be left to the First Lord 
of the Treasury, but that Fox should be exactly 
informed of the way in which this fund was 
employed. 

To these conditions Fox assented. But the 
next day every thing was confusion. New- 
castle had changed his mind. The conver- 
sation which took place between Fox and the 
duke is one of the most curious in English his- 
tory. "My brother," said Newcastle, "when 
he was at the treasury, never told anybody 
what he did with the secret-service money. No 
more will I." The answer was obvious. Pel 
ham had been not only First Lord of the Trea 
sury, but manager of the House of Commons, 
and it was therefore unnecessary for him to 
confide to any other person his dealings with 
the members of that house. " But how," said 
Fox, "can I lead in the Commons without in 
formation on this head ? How can I talk to 
gentlemen when I do not know which of them 
have received gratifications and which have 
not? And who," he continued, "is to have 
the disposal of places ?" "I myself," said the 
duke. "How then am I to manage the House 
of Commons ?" " Oh, let the members of the 
House of Commons come to me." Fox then 
mentioned the general election which was ap- 
proaching, and asked how the ministerial 
burghs were to be filled up. " Do not trouble 
yourself," said Newcastle, "that is all settled." 
This was too much for human nature to bear. 
Fox refused to accept the secretaryship of state 
on such terms, and the duke confided the ma- 
nagement of the House of Commons to a dull, 
harmless man, whose name is almost forgotten 
in our time — Sir Thomas Robinson 

When Pitt returned from Bath, he affect( d 
great moderation, though his haughty soul was 
boiling with resentment. He did not complain 
of the manner in which he had been passed 
by; and said openly, that in his opinion, Fox 
was the fittest man to lead the He use of Com- 
mons. The rivals were reconciled by their 



836 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



common interests and their common enmities, 
and concerted a plan of operations for the next 
session. "Sir Thomas Robinson lead us I" 
said Pitt to Fox; "the duke might as well 
send his jack-boot to lead us." 

The elections of 1754 were favourable to 
the administration. But the aspect of foreign 
affairs was threatening. In India the English 
and the French had been employed ever since 
the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in cutting each 
other's throats. They had lately taken to the 
same practice in America. It might have 
been foreseen that stirring times were at hand 
—times which would call for abilities very dif- 
ferent from those of Newcastle and Robinson. 

In November, the Parliament met ; and be- 
fore the end of that month the new Secretary 
of State had been so unmercifully baited by 
the Paymaster of the Forces, and the Secre- 
tary at War, that he was thoroughly sick of 
his situation. Fox attacked him with great 
force and acrimony. Pitt affected a kind of 
contemptuous tenderness for Sir Thomas, and 
directed his attacks principally against New- 
castle. On one occasion, he asked in tones 
of thunder, whether Parliament sat only to 
register the edicts of one too-powerful subject] 
The duke was scared out of his wits. He was 
afraid to dismiss the mutineers ; he was afraid 
to promote them ; but it was absolutely neces- 
sary to do something. Fox, as the less proud 
and intractable of the refractory pair, was pre- 
ferred. A seat in the cabinet was offered to 
him, on condition that he would give efficient 
support to the ministry in Parliament. In an 
evil hour for his fame and his fortunes, he ac- 
cepted the offer, and abandoned his connection 
with Pitt, who never forgave this desertion. 

Sir Thomas, assisted by Fox, contrived to 
get through the business of the year without 
much trouble. Pitt was waiting his time. 
The negotiations pending between France and 
England took every day a more unfavourable 
aspect. Towards the close of the session the 
king sent a message to inform the House of 
Commons, that he had found it necessary to 
make preparations for war. The Hpuse re- 
turned an address of thanks, and passed a 
vote of credit. During the recess, the old 
animosity of both nations was inflamed by a. 
series of disastrous events. An English force 
was cut off in America; and several French 
merchantmen were taken in the West Indian 
seas. It was plain that war was at hand. 

The first object of the king was to secure 
Hanover ; and Newcastle was disposed to gra- 
tify his master. Treaties were concluded, after 
the fashion of those times, with several petty 
German princes, who bound themselves to find 
soldiers if England would find money; and as 
it was suspected that Frederic the Second had 
set his heart on the electoral dominions of his 
uncle, Russia was hired to keep Prussia in 
awe; 

When the stipulations of these treaties were 
made known, there arose throughout the king- 
dom a murmur, from which a judicious ob- 
server might easily prognosticate the approach 
ol a tempest. Newcastle encountered strong 
pposition, even from those, whom he had 



always considered as his tools. Legge, the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, refused to sigi, 
the treasury warrants which were necessary 
to give effect to the treaties. Those persons 
who were supposed to possess the confidence 
of the young Prince of Wales and his mother, 
held very menacing language. In this per- 
plexity Newcastle sent for Pitt, hugged him, 
patted him, smirked at him, wept over him, 
and lisped out the highest compliments and 
the most splendid promises. The king, who 
had hitherto been as svlky as possible, would 
be civil to him at the levee; he should be 
brought into the cabinet; he should be con- 
sulted about every thing* if he would only be 
so good as to support the Hessian subsidy in 
the House of Commons. Pitt coldly declined 
the proffered seat in the cabinet, expressed the 
highest love and reverence for the king, and 
said that if his majesty felt a strong personal 
interest in the Hessian treaty, he would so far 
deviate from the line which he had traced out 
for himself as to give that treaty his support. 
" Well, and the Russian subsidy V said New- 
castle. "No," said Pitt, "not a system of 
subsidies." The duke summoned Lord Hard- 
wicke to his aid ; but Pitt was inflexible. 
Murray would do nothing, Robinson could do 
nothing. It was necessary to have recourse 
to Fox. He became Secretary of State, with 
the full authority of a leader in the House of 
Commons ; and Sir Thomas was pensioned 
off on the Irish establishment. 

In November, 1755, the House met. Public 
expectation was wound up to the height. After 
ten quiet years there was to be an Opposi- 
tion, countenanced by the heir-apparent of the 
throne, headed by the most brilliant orator of 
the age, and backed by a strong party through- 
out the country. The debate on the address 
was long remembered as one of the greatest 
parliamentary conflicts of that generation. It 
began at three in the afternoon, and lasted till 
five the next morning. It was on this night 
that Gerard Hamilton delivered that single 
speech from which his nickname was derived. 
His eloquence threw into the shade every 
orator except Pitt, who declaimed against the 
subsidies for an hour and a half with extraor- 
dinary energy and effect. Those powers which 
had formerly spread terror through the majori 
ties of Walpole and Carteret, were now dis- 
played in their highest perfection before an 
audience long accustomed to such exhibi- 
tions. One fragment of this celebrated oration 
remains in a state of tolerable preservation. It 
is the comparison between the coalition of 
Fox and Newcastle, and the junction of the 
Rhone and the Saone. "At Lyons," he said, 
" I was taken to see the place where the two 
rivers meet — the one gentle, feeble, languid, 
and though languid, yet of no depth, the other . 
a boisterous and impetuous torrent ; but dif- 
ferent, as they are, they meet at last." The 
amendment moved by the Opposition was re- 
jected by a great majority, and Pitt and Legge 
were immediately dismissed from their offices. 
Lyttleton, whose friendship for Pitt had, during 
some time, been cooling, succeeded Legge as 
Chancellor of the Exchequer. 



THACKERAY'S CHATHAM. 



237 



During several months the contest in the 
House of Commons was extremely sharp. 
Warm debates took plade on the estimates, 
debates still warmer on the subsidiary treaties. 
The government succeeded in every division ; 
but the fame of Pitt's eloquence, and the influ- 
ence of his lofty and determined character, 
continued to increase through the session ; 
and the events which followed the prorogation 
rendered it utterly impossible for any other 
person to manage the Parliament or the coun- 
try. 

The war began in every part of the world 
with events disastrous to England, and even 
more shameful than disastrous. But the most 
humiliating of these events was the loss of 
Minorca. The Duke of Richelieu, an old fop, 
who had passed his life from sixteen to sixty 
in seducing women, for whom he cared not 
one straw, landed on that island, with a French 
army, and succeeded in reducing it. Admiral 
Byng was sent from Gibraltar to throw suc- 
cours into Port Mahon ; but he did not think 
fit to engage the French squadron, and sailed 
back without having effected his purpose. 
The peop!e*were inflamed to madness. A 
storm broke forth, which appalled even those 
who remembered the days of "Excise" and 
of "South Sea." The shops were filled with 
libels and caricatures. The walls were cover- 
ed with placards. The city of London called for 
vengeance, and the cry was echoed from every 
corner of the kingdom. Dorsetshire, Hunting- 
donshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, So- 
mersetshire, Lancashire, Suffolk, Shropshire, 
Surrey, sent up strong addresses to the throne; 
and instructed their representatives to vote for 
a strict inquiry into the causes of the late dis- 
asters. In the great towns the feeling was as 
strong as in the counties. In some of the in- 
structions it was even recommended that the 
supplies should be stopped. 

The nation was in a state of angry and sul- 
len despondency, almost unparalleled in histo- 
ry. People have, in all ages, been in the habit 
of talking about the good old times of their 
ancestors, and the degeneracy of their contem- 
poraries. This is in general merely a cant. 
But in 1756 it was something more. At this 
time appeared Brown's "Estimate" — a book 
now remembered only by the allusions in 
Cowper's "Table Talk," and Burke's "Let- 
ters on a Regicide Peace." It was universally 
read, admired, and believed. The author fully 
convinced his readers, that they were a race 
of cowards and scoundrels ; that nothing could 
save them ; that they were on the point of be- 
ing enslaved by their enemies, and that they 
richly deserved their fate. Such were the 
speculations to which ready credence was 
given, at the outset of the most glorious war in 
which England had ever been engaged. 

Newcastle now began to tremble for his 
place, and for the only thing which was dearer 
to him than his place — his neck. The people 
were not in a mood to be trifled with. Their 
cry was for blood. For this once they might 
be contented with the sacrifice of Byng. But 
what if fresh disasters should take place 1 
What if an unfriendly sovereign should ascend 
16 



the throne ? What if a hostile House of Com 
mons should be chosen 7 

At length, in October, the decisive crisis 
came. Fox had been long sick of the perfidy 
and levity of Newcastle, and now began to fear 
that he might be made a scape-goat to save the 
old intriguer, who, imbecile as he seemed, ne- 
ver wanted dexterity where danger was to be 
avoided. He threw up his office. Nev/castle 
had recourse to Murray; but Murray had now 
within his reach the favourite object of his 
ambition. The situation of Chief Justice of 
the King's Bench was vacant; and the attor- 
ney-general was fully resolved to obtain it, or 
to go into Opposition. Newcastle offered him 
any terms — the Duchy of Lancaster for life, a 
tellership of the Exchequer, any pension that 
he chose to ask, two thousand a year, six thou- 
sand a year. When the ministers found that 
Murray's mind was made up, they pressed for 
delay; the delay of a session, a month, a week, a 
day. Would he only make his appearance once 
more in the House of Commons ? Would he 
only speak in favour of the address ? He was 
inexorable ; and peremptorily said, that they 
might give or withhold the chief-justiceship ; 
but that he would be attorney-general no longer. 
Newcastle contrived to overcome the preju- 
dices of the king, and overtures were made to 
Pitt, through Lord Hardwicke. Pitt knew his 
power, and showed that he knew it. He de- 
manded as an indispensable condition, that 
Newcastle should be altogether excluded from 
the new arrangement. 

The duke was now in a state of ludicrous 
distress. He ran about chattering and crying, 
asking advice and listening to none. In the 
mean time, the session drew near. The public 
excitement was unabated. Nobody could be 
found to face Pitt and Fox in the House of 
Commons. Newcastle's heart failed him, and 
he tendered his resignation. 

The king sent for Fox, and directed him to 
form the plan of an administration in concerl 
with Pitt. But Pitt had not forgotten old inju- 
ries, and positively refused to act with Fox. 

The king now applied to the Duke of Devon- 
shire, and this mediator succeeded in making 
an arrangement. He consented to take the 
Treasury. Pitt became Secretary of State, 
with the lead of the House of Commons. The 
Great Seal was put into commission. Legge 
returned to the exchequer ; and^Lord Temple, 
whose sister Pitt had lately married, was 
placed at the head of the Admiralty. 

It was clear from the first that this adminis- 
tration would last but a very short time. It 
lasted not quite five months ; and during those 
five months, Pitt and Lord Temple were 
treated with rudeness by the king, and found 
but a feeble support in the House of Commons. 
It is a remarkable fact, that the Opposition pre- 
vented the re-election of some of the new ini. 
nisters. Pitt, who sat for one of the boroughs 
which were in the Pelham interest, found some 
difficulty in obtaining a seat after his accept- 
ance of the seals. So destitute was the new 
government of that sort of influence without 
which no government could then be durab'e 
One of the arguments most frequently urged 



238 



MACAULAtf S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



against the Reform Bill was that, under a sys- 
tem of popular representation, men, whose 
presence in the House of Commons was ne- 
cessary to the conducting of public business, 
might often find it impossible to find seats. 
Should this inconvenience ever be felt, there 
cannot be the slightest difficulty in devising 
and applying a remedy. But those who threat- 
ened us with this evil ought to have remem- 
bered that, under the old system, a great man, 
called to power at a great crisis, by the voice 
of the whole nation, was in danger of being 
excluded by an aristocratical coterie from the 
House, of which he was the most distinguished 
ornament. 

The most important event of this short ad- 
ministration was the trial of Byng. On that 
subject public opinion is still divided. We 
think the punishment of the admiral altogether 
unjust and absurd. Treachery, cowardice, 
ignorance, amounting to what lawyers have 
called crassa ignorantia, are fit objects of severe 
penal inflictions. But Byng was not found 
guilty of treachery, or cowardice, or ef gross 
ignorance of his profession. He died for do- 
ing what the most loyal subject, the most in- 
trepid warrior, the most experienced seaman, 
might have done. He died for an error in 
judgment — an error such as the greatest com- 
manders, Frederic, Napoleon, Wellington, 
have often committed, and have often acknow- 
ledged. Such errors are not proper objects of 
punishment, for this reason — that the punish- 
ing of them tends not to prevent them, but to 
produce them. The dread of an ignominious 
death may stimulate sluggishness to exertion, 
may keep a traitor to his standard, may pre- 
vent a coward from leaving the ranks, but it has 
no tendency to bring out those qualities which 
enable men to form prompt and judicious de- 
cisions in great emergencies. The best marks- 
man may be expected to fail when the apple 
which is to be his mark, is set on his child's head. 
We cannot conceive- any thing more likely to 
deprive an officer of his self-possession at the 
time when he most needs it, than the know- 
ledge that, if the judgment of his superiors 
should not agree with his, he will be executed 
with every circumstance of shame. Queens, 
it has often been said, run far greater risk in 
childbed than private women, merely because 
Aieir medical attendants are more anxious. 
The surgeon who attended Marie Louise was 
altogether unnerved by his emotions. " Com- 
pose yourself," said Bonaparte — "imagine 
that you are assisting a poor girl in the Faux- 
bourg St. Antoine." This was surely, a far 
wiser course than that of the Eastern king in 
the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments," who 
proclaimed that the physicians who failed to 
cure his daughter should have their heads 
chopped off. Bonaparte knew mankind well ; 
and, as he acted towards this surgeon, he acted 
towards his officers. No sovereign was ever 
so indulgent to mere errors of judgment; and 
it is certain that no sovereign ever had in his 
service so many military men fit for the high- 
est commands. 

Pitt certainly acted a brave and honest part 
"H this occasion. He ventured to put both his 



power and his popularity to hazard, and spokt 
manfully for Byng, both in Parliament and in 
the royal presence. But the king was inexo- 
rable. "The House of Commons, sire," said 
Pitt, " seems inclined to mercy." " Sir," an- 
swered the king, " you have taught me to look 
for the sense of my people in other places than 
the House of Commons." The saying has 
more point than most of those which are re- 
corded of George the Second; and, though 
sarcastically meant, contains a high and just 
compliment to Pitt. 

The king disliked Pitt, but absolutely hated 
Temple. The new Secretary of State, his ma- 
jesty said, had read Vattel, and was tedious ■ 
and pompous, but respectful. The First Lord 
of the Admiralty was grossly impertinent. 
Walpole tells one story, which, we fear, is 
much too good to be true. He assures us, that 
Temple entertained his royal master with an 
elaborate parallel between Byng's behaviour at 
Minorca, and his majesty's behaviour at Oude- 
narde. The advantage was all on the side of 
the admiral ; and the obvious inference was, 
that if Byng ought to be shot, the king must 
richly deserve to be hanged. 

This state of things could not last. Early in 
April, Pitt and all his friends were turned out, 
and Newcastle was summoned to St. James's. 
But the public discontent was not extinguished. 
It had subsided when Pitt was called to power. 
But it still glowed under the embers ; and it 
now burst at once into a flame. The stocks fell. 
The Common Council met. The freedom of 
the city was voted to Pitt. All the greatest 
corporate towns followed the example. " For 
some weeks," says Walpole, "it rained gold 
boxes." 

This was the turning point of Pitt's life. It 
might have been expected that a man of so 
haughty and vehement a nature, treated so un- 
graciously Y>y the court, and supported so en- 
thusiastically "by the people, would have eager- 
ly taken the first opportunity of showing his 
power, and gratifying his resentment ; for an 
opportunity was not -wanting. The members 
for many counties and large towns had been 
instructed to vote for an inquiry into the cir 
cumstances which had produced the miscar. 
riage of the preceding year. A motion for in 
quiry had been carried in the Hou.se of Com- 
mons, without opposition ; and a few days 
after Pitt's dismissal, the investigation, com- 
menced. Newcastle and his colleagues ob- 
tained a vote of acquittal ; but the minority 
was so strong, that they could not venture to 
ask for a vote of approbation, as they had at 
first intended ; and it was thought by some 
shrewd observers, that if Pitt had exerted him- 
self to the utmost of his power, the inquiry 
might have ended in a censure, if not in an 
impeachment. 

Pitt showed on this occasion a moderation 
and self-government which were not habitual 
to him. He had found by experience, that he 
could not stand alone. His eloquence and his 
popularity had done much, very much for 
him. Without rank, without fortune, without 
borough interest, hated by the king, hated by 
the aristocracy, he was a person of the firsf 



THACKERAY'S CHATHAM. 



239 



importance m the state. He had been, suffered 
(jo form a ministry, and to pronounce sentence 
of exclusion on all his rivals — on the most 
powerful noblemen of the "Whig party — on the 
ablest debater in the House of Commons. And 
he now found that he had gone too far. The 
English Constitution was not, indeed, without 
a popular element. But other elements gene- 
rally predominated. The confidence and 
admiration of the nation might make a states- 
man formidable at the head of an Opposition — 
might load him with framed and glazed parch- 
ments, and gold boxes — might possibly, under 
very peculiar circumstances, such as those of 
the preceding year, raise him for a time to 
power. But, constituted as Parliament then 
was, the favourite of the people could not de- 
pend on a majority in the people's own House. 
The Duke of Newcastle, however contemptible 
in morals, manners, and understanding, was a 
dangerous enemy. His rank, his wealth, his 
unrivalled parliamentary interest, would alone 
have made him important. But this was not 
all. The Whig aristocracy regarded him as 
their leader. His long possession of power 
had given him a kind of prescriptive right to 
possess it still. The House of Commons had 
been elected when he was at the head of affairs. 
The members for the ministerial boroughs had 
all been nominated by him. The public offices 
swarmed with his creatures. 

Pitt desired power; and he desired it, we 
really believe, from high and generous mo- 
tives. He was in the strict sense of the word 
a patriot. He had no general liberality — none 
of that philanthropy which the great French 
writers of his time preached to all the nations 
of Europe. He loved England as an Athenian 
loved the city of the Violet Crown — as a Ro- 
man loved the "maxima rerum Roma." He 
saw his country insulted and defeated. He 
saw the national spirit sinking. Yet he knew 
what the resources <af the empire, vigorously 
employed, could effect ; and he felt that he was 
the man to employ them vigorously. "My 
lord," he said to the Duke of Devonshire, "I 
am sure that I can save this country, and that 
nobody else can." 

Desiring, then, to be in power, and feeling 
that his abilities and the public confidence 
were not alone sufficient to keep him in power 
against the wishes of the court and the aristo- 
cracy, he began to think of a coalition with 
Newcastle. 

Newcastle was equally disposed to a recon- 
ciliation. He, too, had profited by his recent 
experience. He had found that the court and 
the aristocracy, though powerful, were not 
every thing in the state. A strong oligarchical 
connection, a great borough interest;, ample 
patronage, and secret-service money, might, 
in quiet times, be all that a minister needed ; 
but it was unsafe to trust wholly to such sup- 
port, in time of war, of discontent, and of 
agitation. The composition of the House of 
Commons was not wholly aristocratical, and 
whatever be the composition of large delibera- 
tive assemblies, their spirit is always in some 
degree popular. Where there are free debates, 
eloauence must have admirers, and reason 



must make converts. Where there is a free 
press, the governors must liv* in constant awe 
of the opinions of the governed. 

Thus these two men, so unlike in character, 
so lately mortal enemies, were necessary to 
each other. Newcastle had fallen in Novem- 
ber, for want of that public confidence which 
Pitt possessed, and of that parliamentary sup- 
port which Pitt was better qualified than any 
man of his time to give. Pitt had fallen in 
April, for want of that species of influence 
which Newcastle had passed his whole life ic 
acquiring and hoarding. Neither of them hac 
power enough to support himself. Each of 
them had power enough to overturn the other 
Their union would be irresistible. Neither 
the king nor any party in the state would be 
able to stand against them. 

Under these circumstances, Pitt was noi 
disposed to proceed to extremities against his 
predecessors in office. Something, however, 
was due to consistency; something was neces- 
sary for the preservation of his popularity 
He did little ; but that little he did in such a 
manner as to produce great effect He came 
down to the House in all the pomp of gout: 
his legs swathed in flannels, his arms dangling 
in a sling. He kept his seat through several 
fatiguing days, in spite of pain and languor. 
He uttered a few sharp and vehement sen- 
tences ; but during the greater part of the dis- 
cussion, his language was unusually gentle. 

When the inquiry had terminated, without 
a vote either of approbation or of censure, the 
great obstacle to a coalition was removed. 
Many obstacles, however, remained. The 
king was still rejoicing in his deliverance 
from the proud and aspiring minister, who had 
been forced on him by the cry of the nation. 
His majesty's indignation was excited to the 
highest point, when it appeared that New- 
castle, who had, during thirty years, been 
loaded with marks of royal favour, and whe 
had bound himself, by a solemn promise,, 
never to coalesce with Pitt, was meditating a 
new perfidy. Of all the statesmen of that age, 
Fox had the largest share of royal favour. A 
coalition between Fox and Newcastle was the 
arrangement which the king wished to bring 
about. But the duke was too cunning to fall 
into such a snare. As a speaker in Parlia- 
ment, Fox might perhaps be as useful to an 
administration as his great rival ; but he was 
one of the most unpopular men in England. 
Then, again, Newcastle felt all that jealousy 
of Fox which, according to the proverb, gene- 
rally exists between two of a trade. Fox would 
certainly intermeddle with that department, 
which the duke was most desirous to reserve, 
entire to himself— the jobbing department. 
Pitt, on the other hand, was quite willing to 
leave the drudgery of corruption to any who 
might be inclined to undertake it. 

During eleven weeks England remained 
without a ministry; and, in the mean time. 
Parliament was sitting, and a war was raging 
The prejudices of the king, the haughtiness 
of Pitt, the jealousy, levity, and treachery of 
Newcastle, delayed the settlement. Pitt knew 
the duke too well to trust him withr-at security 



240 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



The duke loved power too much to be inclined 
to give security. While they were haggling, 
the king was in vain attempting to produce a 
final rupture between them, or to form a go- 
vernment without them. At one time he ap- 
plied to Lord Waldegrave, an honest and 
sensible man, but unpractised in affairs. 
Lord Waldegrave had the courage to accept 
the Treasury, but soon found that no adminis- 
tration formed by him had the smallest chance 
of standing a single week. 

At length the king's pertinacity yielded to 
the necessity of the case. After exclaiming 
with great bitterness, and with some justice, 
against the Whigs, who ought, he said, to be 
ashamed to talk about liberty, while they 
submitted to be the footmen of the Duke of 
Newcastle, he notified his submission. The 
influence of the Prince of Wales prevailed on 
Pitt to abate a little, and but a little, of his high 
demands ; and all at once, out of the chaos in 
which parties had for some time been rising, 
falling, meeting, separating, arose a govern- 
ment as strong at home as that of Pelham, as 
successful abroad as that of Godolphin. 

Newcastle took the Treasury ; Pitt was 
Secretary of State, with the lead in the House 
of Commons, and the supreme direction of the 
war and of foreign affairs. Fox, the only man 
who could have given much annoyance to the 
new government, was silenced with the office 
of Paymaster, which, during the continuance 
of that war, was probably the most lucrative 
place in the whole government. He was poor, 
and the situation was tempting ; yet it cannot 
but seem extraordinary, that a man who had 
played a first part in politics, and whose abili- 
ties had been found not unequal to that part, 
Who had sat in the cabinet, who had led the 
House of Commons, who had been twice in- 
trusted by the king with the office of forming 
a ministry, who was regarded as the rival of 
Pitt, and who at one time seemed likely to be 
a successful rival — should have consented, for 
the sake of emolument, to take a subordinate 
place, and to give silent votes for all the mea- 
sures of a government, to the deliberations of 
which he was not summoned. 

The first measures of the new administra- 
tion were characterized rather by vigour than 
by judgment. Expeditions were sent against 
different parts of the French coast, with little 
success. The small island of Aix was taken, 
Rochefort threatened, a few ships burned in 
the harbour of St. Maloes, and a few guns and 
mortars brought home as trophies from the 
fortifications of Cherbourg. But, before long, 
conquests of a very different kind filled the 
kingdom with pride and rejoicing. A succes- 
sion of victories, undoubtedly br'lliant, and, as 
it was thought, not barren, raised to the high- 
est point the fame of the minister to whom the 
conduct of the war had been intrusted. In 
July, 1753, Louisbourg fell. The whole island 
of Cape Breton was reduced: the fleet, to 
which the court of Versailles had confided 
the defence of French America, was de- 
stroyed. The captured standards were borne 
triumph from Kensington palace to the city, 
were suspended in St. Paul's church, 



amidst the roar of guns and kettledrums, and 
the shouts of an immense multitude. Ad 
dresses of congratulation came in from all the 
great towns of England. Parliament met only 
to decree thanks and monuments, and to be- 
stow, without one murmur, supplies more 
than double of those which had beer, given 
during the war of the Grand Alliance. 

The year 1759 opened with the conquest 01 
Goree. Next fell Guadaloupe ; then Ticon- 
deroga ; then Niagara. The Toulon squadron 
was completely defeated by Boscawen off Cape 
Lagos. But the greatest exploit of the year 
was the achievement of Wolfe on the heights 
of Abraham. The news of his glorious death, 
and of the fall of Quebec, reached London in 
the very week in which the Houses met. All 
was joy and triumph ; envy and faction were 
forced to join in the general applause. Whigs 
and Tories vied with each other in extolling 
the genius 2nd energy of Pitt. His colleagues 
were never talked of or thought of. The 
House of Commons, the nation, the colonies, 
our allies, our enemies, had their eyes fixed on 
him alone. 

Scarcely had Parliament voted a monument 
to Wolfe, when another great event called /or 
fresh rejoicings. The Brest fleet, under the 
command of Conflans, had put out to sea. It 
was overtaken by an English squadron, under 
Hawke. Conflans attempted to take shelter 
close under the French coast. The shore was 
rocky, the night was black, the wind was furi- 
ous, the Bay of Biscay ran high. But Pitt had 
infused into every branch of the service a 
spirit which had been long unknown. No 
British seaman was disposed to err on the 
same side with Byng. The pilot told Hawke 
that the attack could not be made without the 
greatest danger. " You have done your duty 
in remonstrating," answered Hawke ; " I will 
answer for every thing. I command you to 
lay me alongside the French admiral." The 
result was a complete victory. 

The year 1760 came, and still triumph 
followed triumph. Montreal was taken, the 
whole province of Canada was subjugated; 
the French fleets underwent a succession of 
disasters in the seas of Europe and America. 

In the mean time, conquests equalling in 
rapidity, and far surpassing in magnitude those 
of Cortes and Pizarro, had been achieved in 
the East. In the space of three years the 
English had founded a mighty empire. The 
French had been defeated in every part of In- 
dia. Chandernagore had yielded to Clive, 
Pondicherry to Coote. Throughout Bengal, 
Bahar, Orissa, and the Carnatic, the authority 
of the East India Company was more abso- 
lute than that of Acbar or Aurungzebe had 
ever been. 

On the continent of Europe the odds were 
against England. We had but one important 
ally, the King of Prussia, and he was attacked, 
not only by France, but by Russia and Austria. 
Yet even on the continent the energy of Pitt 
triumphed over all difficulties. Vehemently 
as he had condemned the practice of subsi- 
dizing foreign princes, he now carried that 
practice farther than Carteret himself would 



THACKERAY'S CHATHAM. 



241 



have ventured or would have wished to do 
The active and able sovereign of Prussia re- 
ceived such pecuniary assistance as enabled 
him to maintain the conflict on equal terms 
against his powerful enemies. On no subject 
had Pitt ever spoken with so much eloquence 
and ardour, as on the mischiefs of the Hano- 
verian connection. He now declared, not 
without much show of reason, that it would be 
unworthy of the English people to suffer their 
king to be deprived of his electoral dominion 
in an English quarrel. He assured his coun- 
trymen that they should be no losers, and that 
be would conquer America for them in Ger- 
many. By taking this line he conciliated the 
king, and lost no part of his influence with 
the nation. In Parliament, such was the as- 
cendency which his eloquence, his success, his 
high situation, his pride, and his intrepidity 
had obtained for him, that he took liberties 
with the House, of which there had been no ex- 
ample, and which has never since been imi- 
tated. No orator could there venture to reproach 
him with inconsistency. One unfortunate man 
made the attempt, and was so much discon- 
certed by the«6cornful demeanour of the minis- 
ter that he stammered, stopped, and sat down. 
Even the old Tory country gentlemen, to whom 
me very name of Hanover had been odious, 
gave their hearty ayes to subsidy after subsidy. 
In a lively contemporary satire, much more 
lively indeed than delicate, this remarkable 
•onversion is not unhappily described. 

*• No more they make a fiddle-faddle 
About a Hessian horse or saddle ; 
No more of continental measures; 
No more of wasting British treasures. 
Ten millions, and a vote of credit — 
Tis right. He can't be wrong who did it." 

The success of Pitt's continental measures 
was such as might have been expected from 
their vigour. When he came into power, 
Hanover was in imminent danger ; and before 
he had been in office three months, the whole 
electorate was in the hands of France. But 
the face of affairs was speedily changed. The 
invaders were driven out. An army, partly 
English, partly Hanoverian, partly composed 
of soldiers furnished by the petty princes of 
Germany, was placed under the command of 
Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. The French 
were beaten in 1758 at Creveldt. In 1759, 
they received a still more complete and humi- 
liating defeat at Minden. 

In the mean time, the nation exhibited all 
the signs of wealth and prosperity. The mer- 
chants of London had never been more thriv- 
ing. The importance of several great com- 
mercial and manufacturing towns, Glasgow, 
in particular, dates from this period. The 
fine inscription on the monument of Lord 
Chatham, in Guildhall, records the general 
opinion of the citizens of London, that under 
ihis administration commerce had been "united 
with and made to flourish by war." 

It must be owned, that these signs of pros- 
perity were in some degree delusive. It must 
be owned, that some of our conquests were 
rather splendid than useful. It must be own- 
ed, that the expense of the war never en- 



tered into Pitt's consideration Perhaps i. 
would be more correct to say, that the cost cf 
his victories increased the pride and pleasure 
with which he contemplated them. Unlike 
other men in his situation, he loved to exag 
gerate the sums which the nation was laying 
out under his direction. He was proud of the 
sacrifices and efforts which his eloquence and 
his success had induced his countrymen to 
make. The price at which he purchased faith- 
ful service and complete victory, though far 
smaller than that which his son, the most pro- 
fuse and incapable of war ministers, paid for 
treachery, defeat, and shame, was severely felt 
by the nation. 

Even as a war minister, Pitt is scarcely en- 
titled to all the praise which his contempo- 
raries lavished on him. We, perhaps from 
ignorance, cannot discern in his arrangements 
any appearance of profound or dexterous com- 
bination. Several of his expeditions, parti- 
cularly those which were A sent to the coast of 
France, were at once costly and absurd. Our 
Indian conquests, though they add to the splen- 
dour of the period during which he was at the 
head of affairs, were not planned by him. He 
had great energy, great determination, great 
means at his command. His temper was en- 
terprising, and, situated as he was, he had only 
to follow his temper. The wealth of a rich 
nation, the valour of a brave nation, were 
ready to support him in every attempt. 

In one respect, however, he deserved all the 
praise that he has ever received. The success 
of our arms was perhaps owing less to th« 
skill of his dispositions, than to the national 
resources and the national spirit. But that the 
national spirit rose to the emergency, that the 
national resources were contributed with un 
exampled cheerfulness — this was undoubtedly 
his work. The ardour of his spirit had set the 
whole kingdom on fire. It inflamed every sol- 
dier who dragged the cannon up the heights 
of Quebec, and every sailor who boarded the 
French ships amidst the rocks of Brittany. 
The minister, before he had been long in office, 
had imparted to the commanders whom he 
employed his own impetuous, adventurous, 
and defying character. They, like him, were 
disposed to risk every thing, to pay double or 
quits to the last, to think nothing done while 
any thing remained, to fail rather than not to 
attempt. For the errors of rashness there 
might be indulgence. For over-caution, for 
faults like those of Lord George Sackville, 
there was no mercy. In other times, and 
against other enemies, this mode of warfare 
might have failed. But the state of the French 
government and of the French nation gave 
every advantage to Pitt. The fops and in- 
triguers of Versailles were appalled and be- 
wildered by his vigour. A panic spread 
through all ranks of society. Our enemies 
soon considered it as a settled thing that they 
were always to be beaten. Thus victory begot 
victory ; till, at last, wherever the forces of the 
two nations met, they met with disdainful con 
fidence on the one side, and with a craven fcaj 
on the other. 

The situation which Pi't occupied at th» 



242 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



close of the reign of George the SeccncTwas 
the most enviable ever occupied by any public 
man in English history. He had conciliated 
the king; he domineered over the House of 
Commons ; he was adored by the people ; he 
was admired by all Europe. He was the first 
Englishman of h'is time ; and he had made 
England the first country in the world. The 
Great Commoner — the name by which he was 
often designated — might look dcwn with scorn 
on coronets and garters. The nation was 
drunk with joy and pride. The Parliament 
was as quiet as it had been under Pelham. 
The old party distinctions were almost effaced ; 
nor was their place yet supplied by distinctions 
of a yet more important kind. A new genera- 
tion of country-squires and rectors had arisen 
who knew not the Stuarts. The Dissenters 
were tolerated ; the Catholics not cruelly per- 
secuted. The Church was drowsy and indul- 
gent. The great civil and religious conflict 
which began at the Reformation seemed to have 
terminated in universal repose. Whigs and 



Tories, Churchman and Puritans, spoke with 
equal reverence of the constitution, and with 
equal enthusiasm of the talents, virtues, and 
services of the minister. 

A few years sufficed to change the whole 
aspect of affairs. A nation convulsed by fac- 
tion, a throne assailed by the fiercest invective, 
a House of Commons hated and despised by 
the nation, England set against Scotland, Bri- 
tain set against America, a rival legislature 
sitting beyond the Atlantic, English blood shed 
by English bayonets, our armies capitulating, 
our conquests wrested from us, our enemies 
hastening to take vengeance for past humilia- 
tion, our flag scarcely able to maintain itself 
in our own seas — such was the spectacle Pitt 
lived to s.ee. But the history of this great re- 
volution requires far more space than we can 
at present bestow. We leave the " Great 
Commoner" in the zenith of his glory. It ii 
not impossible that we may take some other 
opportunity of tracing his life to its melancholy 
yet not inglorious, close 



LORD BACON. 



843 



LOKD BACON/ 



[Edinburgh Review, 1S37.] 



We return our hearty thanks to Mr. Mon- 
tagu, as well for his very valuable edition of 
Lord Bacon's Works, as for the instructive 
Life of the immortal author, contained in the 
last volume. We have much to say on the 
subject of this Life, and will often find our- 
selves obliged to dissent from the opinions of 
the biographer. But about his merit as a col- 
lector of the materials out of which opinions 
are formed, there can be no dispute ; and we 
readily acknowledge that we are in a great 
measure indebted to his minute and accurate 
researches, for the means of refuting what we 
cannot but consider his errors. 

The labour which has been bestowed on this 
volume, has been a labour of love. The 
writer is eiridently enamoured of the subject. 
It fills his heart. It constantly overflows from 
his lips and his pen. Those who are acquainted 
with the courts in which Mr. Montagu prac- 
tises with so much ability and success, well 
know how often he enlivens the discussion of a 
point of law by citing some weighty aphorism, 
or some brilliant illustration, from the De 
dugmentis or the Novum Organum. The Life 
before us, doubtless, owes much of its value to 
the honest and generous enthusiasm of the 
writer. This feeling has stimulated his acti- 
vity; has sustained his perseverance; has 
called forth all his ingenuity and eloquence : 
but, on the other hand, we must frankly say, 
that it has, to a great extent, perverted his 
judgment. 

We are by no means without sympathy for 
Mr. Montagu even in what we consider as his 
weakness. There is scarcely any delusion, 
which has a better claim to be indulgently 
treated than that, under the influence of which 
a man ascribes every moral excellence to 
those who have left imperishable monuments 
of their genius. The causes of this error lie 
deep in the inmost recesses of human nature. 
We are all inclined to judge of others as we 
find them. Our estimate of a character always 
depends much on the manner in which that 
character affects our own interests and pas- 
sions. We find it difficult to think well of 
those by whom we are thwarted or depressed ; 
and we are ready to admit every excuse for 
the vices of those who are useful or agreeable 
to us. This is, we believe, one of those illu- 
sions to which the whole human race is sub- 
ject, and which experience and reflection can 
only partially remove. It is, in the phraseolo- 
gy of Bacon, one of the idola tribus. Hence it 
is, that the moral character of a man eminent 
in letters, or in the fine arts, is treated — often 
by contemporaries — almost always by posterity 
—with extraordinary tenderness. The world 

* The Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of Eng- 
land. A new Edition. By Basil Montagu, Esq. 16 
vols. 8vo. London. 1825-1834. 



derives pleasure and advantage from the per- 
formances of such a man. The number of 
those who suffer by his personal vices is small, 
even in his own time, when compared with the 
number of those to whom his talents are a 
source of gratification. In a few years, all 
those whom he has injured disappear. But his 
works remain, and are a source of delight to 
millions. The genius of Sallust is still with 
us. But the Numidians whom he plundered, 
and the unfortunate husbands who caught him 
in their houses at unseasonable hours, are for- 
gotten. We suffer ourselves to be delighted by 
the keenness of Clarendon's observation, and 
by the sober majesty of his style, till we forget 
the oppressor and the bigot in the historian. 
Falstaff and Tom Jones have survived the 
gamekeepers whom Shakspeare cudgelled, and 
the landladies whom Fielding bilked. A great 
writer is the friend and benefactor of his 
readers ; and they cannot but judge of him 
under the deluding influence of friendship and 
gratitude. We all know how unwilling we are 
to admit the truth of any disgraceful story 
about a person whose society we like, and 
from whom we have received favours, how 
long we struggle against evidence, how fondly, 
when the facts cannot be disputed, we cling to 
the hope that there may be some explanation 
or some extenuating circumstance with which 
we are unacquainted. Just such is the feeling 
which a man of liberal education naturally en- 
tertains towards the great minds of former 
ages. The debt which he owes to them is in- 
calculable. They have guided him to truth. 
They have filled his mind with noble and 
graceful images. They have stood by him in 
all vicissitudes — comforters in sorrow, nurses 
in sickness, companions in solitude. These 
friendships are exposed to no danger from the 
occurrences by which other attachments are 
weakened or dissolved. Time glides by ; for- 
tune is inconstant ; tempers are soured ; bonds 
which seemed indissoluble are daily sundered 
by interest, by emulation, or by caprice. But 
no such cause can affect the silent converse 
which we hold with the highest of human in- 
tellects. That placid intercourse is disturbed 
by no jealousies or resentments. These are 
the old friends who are never seen with new 
faces, who are the same in wealth and in 
poverty, in glory and in obscurity. With the 
dead there is no rivalry. In the dead there is 
no change. Plato is never sullen. Cervantes 
is never petulant. Demosthenes never comes 
unseasonably. Dante never stays too long. 
No difference of political opinion can alienate 
Cicero. No heresy can excite the honor of 
Bossuet. 

Nothing, then, can be more natural than thai 
a person of sensibility and imagination should 
entertain a respectful and affectionate feeling 



244 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



towards those great men with whose minds he 
holds daily communion. Yet nothing can be 
more certain than that such men have not 
always deserved, in their own persons, to be 
regarded with respect or affection. Some 
writers, whose works will continue to instruct 
and delight mankind to the remotest ages, have 
seen placed in such situations, that their actions 
and motives are as well known to us as the ac- 
tions and motives of one human being can be 
known to another ; and unhappily their conduct 
has not always been such as an impartial judge 
can contemplate with approbation. But the 
fanaticism of the devout worshipper of genius 
is proof against all evidence and all argument. 
The character of his idol is matter of faith ; 
and the province of faith is not to be invaded 
by reason. He maintains his superstition with 
a credulity as boundless, and a zeal as unscru- 
pulous, as can be found in the most ardent par- 
tisans of religious or political factions. The 
most overwhelming proofs are rejected; the 
plainest rules of morality are explained away ; 
extensive and important portions of history are 
completely distorted ; the enthusiast misrepre- 
sents facts with all the effrontery of an advo- 
cate, and confounds right and wrong with all 
the dexterity of a Jesuit — and all this only in 
order that some man who has been in his 
grave for ages may have a fairer character 
than he deserves. 

Middleton's " Life of Cicero" is a striking 
instance of the influence of this sort of par- 
tiality. Never was there a character which it 
was easier to read than that of Cicero. Never 
was there a mind keener or more critical than 
that of Middleton. Had the doctor brought to 
the examination of his favourite statesman's 
conduct but a very small part of the acuteness 
and severity which he displayed when he was 
engaged in investigating the high pretensions 
of Epiphanius and Justin Martyr, he could not 
have failed to produce a most valuable history 
of a most interesting portion of time. But this 
most ingenious and learned man, though 
" So wary held and wise 
That, as't was said, he scarce received 
For g03pel what the church believed," 

had a superstition of his own. The great 
Iconoclast was himself an idolater. The great 
Avvocata del Diavolo, while he disputed, with no 
small ability, the claims of Cyprian and Athana- 
sius to a place in the Calendar, was himself 
composing a lying legend in honour of St. 
Tully! He was holding up as a model of 
every virtue a man whose talents and acquire- 
ments, indeed, can never be too highly extol- 
led, and who was by no means destitute of 
amiable qualities, but whose whole soul was 
under the dominion of a girlish vanity and a 
craven fear. Actions for which Cicero him- 
self, the most eloquent and skilful of advocates, 
could contrive no excuse, actions which in his 
confidential correspondence he mentioned with 
remorse &n A shame, are represented by his 
biographer as wise, virtuous, heroic. The 
whale history of that great revolution which 
overthrew the Roman aristocracy, the whole 
staf of parties, the character cf every public 
oian, is elaborately misrepresented, in order to 
make ou» something which may look like a 



defence of one most eloquent and accompUshei 
Trimmer. 

The volume before us reminds us now and 
then of the " Life of Cicero." But there is this 
marked difference. Dr. Middleton evidently 
had an uneasy consciousness of the weakness 
of his cause, and therefore resorted to the most 
disingenuous shifts, to unpardonable distortions 
and suppressions of facts. Mr. Montagu's 
faith is sincere and implicit. He practises no 
trickery. He conceals nothing. He puts the 
facts before us in the full confidence that they 
will produce on our minds the effect which 
they have produced on his own. It is not till 
he comes to reason from facts to motives, that 
his partiality shows itself; and then he leaves 
Middleton himself far behind. His work pro- 
ceeds on the assumption that Bacon was an 
eminently virtuous man. From the tree Mr. 
Montagu judges of the fruit. He is forced to 
relate many actions, which, if any man but 
Bacon had committed them, nobody would have 
dreamed of defending — actions which are 
readily and completely explained by supposing 
Bacon to have been a man whose principles 
were not strict, and whose spirit was not high 
— actions which can be explained in no other 
way, without resorting to some grotesque hy- 
pothesis for which there is not a title of evi- 
dence. But any hypothesis is, in Mr. Montagu's 
opinion, more probable than that his hero should 
ever have done any thing very wrong. 

This mode of defending Bacon seems to us 
by no means Baconian. To take a man's cha- 
racter for granted, and then from his character 
to infer the moral quality of all his actions, is 
surely a process the very reverse of that which 
is recommended in the Novum Organum. No- 
thing, we are sure, could have led Mr. Montagu 
to depart so far from his master's precepts, 
except zeal for his master's honour. We shall 
follow a different course. We shall attempt, 
with the valuable assistance which Mr. Mon- 
tagu has afforded us, to frame such an account 
of Bacon's life as may enable our readers cor- 
rectly to estimate his character. 

It is hardly necessary to say that Francis 
Bacon was the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, who 
held the great seal of England during the first 
twenty years of the reign of Elizabeth. The 
fame of the father has been thrown into shade 
by that of the son. But Sir Nicholas was no 
ordinary man. He belonged to a set of men 
whom it is easier to describe collectively than 
separately; whose minds were formed by one 
system of discipline ; who belonged to one 
rank in society, to one university, to one party, 
to one sect, to one administration; and who 
resembled each other so much in talents, in 
opinions, in habits, in fortunes, that one cha- 
racter, we had almost said one life, may, to a 
considerable extent, serve for them all. 

They were the first generation of statesmen 
by profession that England produced. Before 
their time the division of labour had, in this 
respect, been very imperfect. Those who hai 
directed public affairs had been, with few ex- 
ceptions, warriors or priests : warriors whose 
rude courage was neither guided by science 
nor softened by humanity ; priests whose 
learning and abilities were habitually devoted 



LORD BACON. 



246 



lo the defence of tyranny and imposture. The 
Hotspurs, the Nevilles, the Cliffords — rough, 
illiterate, and unreflecting — brought to the 
council-board the fierce and imperious disposi- 
tion which they had acquired amidst the tu- 
mult of predatory war, or in the gloomy repose 
of the garrisoned and moated castle. On the 
other side was the calm and subtle prelate, 
versed in all that was then considered as 
learning; trained in the schools to manage 
words, and in the confessional to manage 
hearts; seldom superstitious, but skilful in 
practising on the superstition of others ; false 
as it was natural that a man should be, whose 
profession imposed on all who were not saints 
the necessity of being hypocrites ; selfish as it 
was natural that a man should be, who could 
form no domestic ties, and cherish no hope of 
legitimate posterity; more attached to his order 
than to his country, and guiding the politics of 
England with a constant side-glance at Rome. 
But the increase of wealth, the progress of 
knowledge, and the reformation of religion 
produced a great change. The nobles ceased 
to be military chieftains ; the priests ceased to 
possess a monopoly of learning ; and a new and 
remarkable species of politicians appeared. 

These men came from neither of the classes 
which had, till then, almost exclusively fur- 
nished ministers of state. They were all lay- 
men ; yet they were all men of learning, and 
they were all men of peace. They were not 
members of the aristocracy. They inherited 
no titles, no large domains, no armies of re- 
tainers, no fortified castles. Yet they were not 
ow men, such as those whom princes, jealous 
of the power of a nobility, have sometimes 
raised from forges, and cobblers' stalls, to the 
highest situations. They were all gentlemen 
by birth. They had all received a liberal edu- 
cation. It is a remarkable fact that they were 
all members of the same university. The two 
great national seats of learning had even then 
acquired the characters which they still retain. 
In intellectual activity, and in readiness to 
admit improvements, the superiority was then, 
as it has ever since been, on the side of the 
less ancient and splendid institution. Cam- 
bridge had the honour of educating those cele- 
brated Protestant bishops whom Oxford had 
the honour of burning; and at Cambridge 
were formed the minds of all those statesmen 
to whom chiefly is to be attributed the secure 
establishment of the reformed religion in the 
north of Europe. 

The statesmen of whom we speak passed 
their youth surrounded by the incessant din of 
theological controversy. Opinions were still 
in a state of chaotic anarchy, intermingling, 
separating, advancing, receding. Sometimes 
the stubborn bigotry of the Conservatives 
seemed likely to prevail. Then the impetuous 
onset of the Reformers for a moment carried 
all before it. Then again the resisting mass 
made a desperate stand, arrested the move- 
ment, and forced it slowly back. The vacilla- 
tion which at that time appeared in English 
legislation, and which it has been the fashion 
to attribute to the caprice and to the power of 
one or two individuals, was truly a national 
vacillation. It was not only in the mind of 



Henry that the new theology obtained the as- 
cendant at one time, and that the lessons of the 
nurse and of the priest regained their influence 
at another. It was not only in the house of 
Tudor that the husband was exasperated by 
the opposition of the wife, that the son dissented 
from the opinions of the father, that the brother 
persecuted the sister, the one sister persecuted 
another. The principles of conservation and 
reform carried on their warfare in every part 
of society, in every congregation, in every 
school of learning, round the hearth of every 
private family, in the recesses of every reflect- 
ing mind. 

It was in the midst of this ferment that the 
minds of the persons whom we are describing 
were developed. They were born Reformers. 
They belonged by nature to that order of men 
who always form the front ranks in the great 
intellectual progress. They were, therefore, 
one and all Protectants. In religious matters, 
however, though there is no reason to doubt 
that they were sincere, they were by no means 
zealous. None of them chose to run the small- 
est personal risk during the reign of Mary. 
None of them favoured the unhappy attempt 
of Northumberland in favour of his daughter- 
in-law. None of them shared in the desperate 
councils of Wyatt. They contrived to have 
business on the Continent; or, if they stayed in 
England, they heard Mass and kept Lent with 
great decorum. When those dark and peril- 
ous years had gone by, and when the crown 
had descended to a new sovereign, they took 
the lead in the reformation of the church. Bui 
they proceeded not with the impetuosity of 
theologians, but with the calm determination 
of statesmen. They acted, not like men who 
considered the Romish worship as a system 
too offensive to God and tbo destructive of 
souls to be tolerated for an hour ; but like men 
who regarded the points in dispute among 
Christians as in themselves unimportant ; and 
who were not restrained by any scruple of 
conscience from professing, as they had before 
professed, the Catholic faith of Mary, the Pro- 
testant faith of Edward, or any of the numerous 
intermediate combinations which the caprice 
of Henry, and the temporizing policy of Cran- 
mer, had formed out of the doctrines of both 
the hostile parties. They took a deliberate 
view of the state of their own country and of 
the continent. They satisfied themselves as 
to the leaning of the public mind; and they 
chose their side. They placed themselves at 
the head of the Protestants of Europe, and 
staked all their fame and fortunes on the suc- 
cess of their party. 

It is needless to relate how dexterously, how 
resolutely, how gloriously, they directed the 
politics of England during the eventful years 
which followed ; how they succeeded in unit- 
ing their friends and separating their enemies; 
how they humbled the pride of Philip ; how 
they backed the unconquerable spirit of Co- 
ligni ; how they rescued Holland from tyran- 
ny ; how they founded the maritime greatness 
of their country; how they outwitted the artful 
politicians of Italy, and tamed the ferocious 
chieftains of Scotland. It is impossible to 
deny that they committed many acts which 



246 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



would justly bring on a statesman of our time 
censures of the most serious kind. But when 
we consider the state of morality in their age, 
and the unscrupulous character of the adver- 
saries against whom they had to contend, we 
are forced to admit, that it is not without rea- 
son that their names are still held in veneration 
by their countrymen. 

There were, doubtless, many diversities in 
their intellectual and moral character. But 
there was a strong family likeness. The con- 
stitution of their minds was remarkably sound. 
No particular faculty was pre-eminently de- 
veloped; but manly health and vigour were 
equally diffused through the whole. 

They were men of letters. Their minds 
were by nature and by exercise well-fashioned 
for speculative pursuits. It was by circum- 
stances rather than by any strong bias of in- 
clination, that they were led to take a promi- 
nent part in active life. In active life, however, 
no men could be more perfectly free from the 
faults of mere theorists and pedants. No men 
observed more accurately the signs of the 
times. No men had a greater practical ac- 
quaintance with human nature. Their policy 
was generally characterized rather by vigi- 
lance, by moderation, and by firmness, than 
by invention or by the spirit of enterprise. 

They spoke and wrote in a manner worthy 
of their excellent sense. Their eloquence 
was less copious and less ingenious, but far 
purer and more manly than that of the succeed- 
ing generation. It was the eloquence of men 
who had lived with the first translators of the 
Bible, and with the authors of the Book of 
Common Prayer. It was luminous, dignified, 
solid, and very slightly tainted with that affec- 
tation which deformed the style of the ablest 
men of the next age. If, as sometimes chanced, 
they were under the necessity of taking a part 
in those theological controversies on which the 
dearest interests of kingdoms were then staked, 
they acquitted themselves as if their whole 
lives had been passed in the schools and the 
convocation. 

There was something in the temper of these 
celebrated men which secured them against 
the proverbial inconstancy both of the court 
and of the multitude. No intrigue, no com- 
bination of rivals, could deprive them of the 
confidence of their sovereign. No Parliament 
attacked their influence. No mob coupled 
their names with any odious grievance. Their 
power ended only with their lives. In this re- 
spect their fate presents a most remarkable 
contrast to that of the enterprising and brilliant 
politicians of the preceding, and of the suc- 
ceeding generation. Burleigh was minister 
during forty years. Sir Nicholas Bacon held 
the great seal more than twenty years. Sir 
Thomas Smith was Secretary of State eighteen 
years; — Sir Francis Walsingham about as 
long. They all died in office, and in the full 
enjoyment of public respect and royal favour. 
Far different had been the fate of Wolsey, 
Ciomwell, Norfolk, Somerset, and Northum- 
berland. Far different also was the fate of 
Essex, of Raleigh, and of the still more illus- 
trious man whose life we profiose to consider. 

The explanation of this circumstance is 



perhaps contained in the motto which Sit 
Nicholas Bacon inscribed over the entrance of 
his hall at Gorhambury — Mediocria firma. This 
maxim was constantly borne in mind by him* 
self and his colleagues. They were more 
solicitous to lay the foundations of their power 
deep, than to raise the structure to a conspi- 
cuous but insecure height. None of them 
aspired to be sole minister. None of them 
provoked envy by an ostentatious display of 
wealth and influence. None of them affected 
to outshine the ancient aristocracy of the king- 
dom. They were free from that childish love 
of titles which characterized the successful 
courtiers of the generation which preceded 
them, and that which followed them. As to 
money, none of them could, in that age, justly 
be considered as rapacious. Some of them 
would, even in our time, deserve the praise of 
eminent disinterestedness. Their fidelity to 
the state was incorruptible. Their private 
morals were without stain. Their households 
were sober and well governed. 

Among these statesmen Sir Nicholas Bacon 
was generally considered as ranking next to 
Burleigh. He was called by Camden, " Sacris 
conciliis alteram columen*" and by George 
Buchanan, 

" Diu Britannici 
Regni secundum columen." 

The second wife of Sir Nicholas, and the 
mother of Francis Bacon, was Anne, one of 
the daughters of Sir Anthony Cook — a man 
of distinguished learning, who had been tutor 
to Edward the Sixth. Sir Anthony had paid 
considerable attention to the education of his 
daughters, and lived to see them all splendidly 
and happily married. Their classical acquire? 
ments made them conspicuous even among 
the women of fashion of that age. Katherine, 
who became Lady Killigrew, wrote Latin hex- 
ameters and pentameters which would appear 
with credit in the Musce Etnnenses. Mildred, 
the wife of Lord Burleigh, was described by 
Roger Ascham as the best Greek scholar 
among the young women of England, Lady 
Jane Grey always excepted. Anne, the mo- 
ther of Francis Bacon, was distinguished both 
as a linguist and as a theologian. She corres- 
ponded in Greek with Bishop Jewell, and 
translated his Apologia from the Latin, so cor- 
rectly that neither he nor Archbishop Parker 
could suggest a single alteration.* She also 
translated a series of sermons on fate and 
freewill from the Tuscan of Bernardo Ochino. 
This fact is the more curious, as Ochino was 
one of that small and audacious band of Ita- 
lian reformers — anathematized alike by Wit- 
tenberg, by Geneva, by Zurich, and by Rome 
— from which the Socinian sect deduces its 
origin. 

Lady Bacon was doubtless a lady of highly 
cultivated mind after the fashion of her age. 
But we must not suffer ourselves to be deluded 
into the belief, that she and her sisters were 
more accomplished women than many whc 
are now living. On this subject there is, wt 
think, much misapprehension. We have often 
heard men who wish, as almost all men of 



* Strype's Life of Parker. 



LORD BACON. 



247 



sense wish r that women should be highly edu- 
cated, speak with rapture of the English ladies 
of the sixteenth century, and lament that they 
can find no modern damsel resembling those 
fair pupils of Ascham and Aylmer who com- 
pared, over their embroidery, the styles of Iso- 
crates and Lysias, and who, while the horns 
were sounding and the dogs in full cry, sat in 
the lonely oriel, with eyes riveted to that 
immortal page which tells how meekly and 
bravely the first great martyr of intellectual 
liberty took the cup from his weeping jailer. 
But surely these complaints have very little 
foundation. We would by no means dispa- 
rage the 'adics of the sixteenth century or their 
pursuits But we conceive that those who 
extol them at the expense of the women of 
our time forget one very obvious and very 
important circumstance. In the reign of 
Henry the Eighth, and Edward the Sixth, a 
person who did not read Greek and Latin 
could read nothing, or next to nothing. The 
Italian was the only modern language which 
possessed any thing that could be called a 
literature. All the valuable books then extant 
in all thewernacular dialects of Europe would 
hardly have filled a single shelf. England did 
not yet possess Shakspeare's plays, and the 
Faerie Queen ; nor France Montaigne's Essays; 
nor Spain Don Quixote. In looking round 
a well-furnished library, how few English or 
French books can we find which were extant 
when Lady Jane Grey and Queen Elizabeth 
received their education. Chaucer, Gower, 
Froissart, Comines, Rabelais, nearly complete 
the list. It was therefore absolutely necessary 
that a woman should be uneducated or classi- 
cally educated. Indeed, without a knowledge 
of one of the ancient languages no person 
could then have any clear notions of what was 
passing in the political, the literary, or the 
religious world. The Latin was in the six- 
teenth century all and more than all that the 
French was in the eighteenth. It was the lan- 
guage of courts as well as of the schools. It 
was the language of diplomacy; it was the 
language of theological and political contro- 
versy. Being a fixed language, while the living 
languages were in a state of fluctuation, be- 
ing universally known to the learned and the 
polite, it was employed by almost every writer 
who aspired to a wide and durable reputation. 
A person who was ignorant of it was shut out 
from all acquaintance — not merely with Ci- 
cero and Virgil — not merely with heavy trea- 
tises on canon-law and school divinity — but 
with the most interesting memoirs, state pa- 
pers, and pamphlets of his own time ; nay, 
even with the most admired poetry and the 
most popular squibs which appeared on the 
fleeting topics of the day — with Buchanan's 
complimentary verses, with Erasmus's dia- 
logues, with Hutton's epistles. 

This is no longer the case. All political 
and religious controversy is now conducted in 
the modern languages. The ancient tongues 
are used only in comments on the ancient 
writers. The great productions of Athenian 
and Roman genius are indeed still what they 
were. But though their positive value is un- 



changed, their relative value, when compared 
with the whole mass of mental wealth possess- 
ed by mankind, has been constantly falling 
They were the intellectual all of our ancestors. 
They are but a part of our. treasures. Over 
what tragedy could Lady Jane Grey have wept, 
over what comedy could she have smiled, if 
the ancient dramatists had not been in her 
library] A modern reader can make shift 
without CEdipus and Medea, while he pos- 
sesses Othello and Hamlet. If he knows no- 
thing of Pyrgopolynices and Thraso, he is fa- 
miliar with Bobadil, and Bessus, and Pistol, 
and Parolles. If he cannot enjoy the delicious 
irony of Plate, he may find some compensation 
in that of Pascal. If he is shut out from Ne- 
phelococcygia, he may take refuge in Lilliput. 
We are guilty, we hope, of no irreverence 
towards those great nations to which the hu- 
man race owes art, science, taste, civil and 
intellectual freedom, when we say, that the 
stock bequeathed by them to us has been so 
carefully improved that the accumulated in- 
terest now exceeds the principal. We believe 
that the books which have been written in the 
languages of western Europe, during the last 
two hundred and fifty years, are of greater 
value than all the books which, at the beginning 
of that period, were extant in the world. With 
the modern languages of Europe English wo- 
men are at least as well acquainted as English 
men. When, therefore, we compare the ac- 
quirements of Lady Jane Grey and those of aa 
accomplished young woman of our own time, 
we have no hesitation in awarding the supe- 
riority to the latter. We hope that our readers 
will pardon this digression. It is long ; but it 
can hardly be called unseasonable, if it tends 
to convince them that they are mistaken in 
thinking that their great-great-grandmothers 
were superior women to their sisters and thei? 
wives. 

Francis Bacon, the youngest son of Si? 
Nicholas, was born at York House, his father's 
residence in the Strand, on the 22d of January, 
1561. His health was very delicate, and to 
this circumstance may be partly attributed 
that gravity of carriage, and that love of se- 
dentary pursuits, which distinguished him from 
other boys. Everybody knows how much his 
premature readiness of wit and sobriety of 
deportment amused the queen ; and how she 
used to call him her young Lord Keeper. W« 
are told that while still a mere child he stole 
away from his playfellows 1o a vault iu St. 
James's Fields, for the purpose of investi- 
gating the cause of a singular echo which he 
had observed there. It is certain that, at only 
twelve, he busied himself with very ingeni- 
ous speculations on the art of legerdemain — 
a subject which, as Professor Dugald Stewart 
has most justly observed, merits much more 
attention from philosophers than it has ever 
received. These are trifles. But the eminence 
which Bacon afterwards attained renders thera 
interesting. 

In the thirteenth year of his age he was en- 
tered at Trinity College, Cambridge. Tha 
celebrated school of learning enjoyed the pe- 
culiar favour of the Lord Treasurer and th« 



248 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Lord Keeper; and acknowledged the advan- 
tages which it derived from their patronage in 
a public letter which bears date just a month 
after the admission of Francis Bacon.* The 
master was Whitgift, afterwards Archbishop 
of Canterbury, a narrow-minded, mean, and 
tyrannical priest, who gained power by servili- 
ty and adulation, and employed in persecuting 
with impartial cruelty those who agreed with 
Calvin about church government, and those 
who differed from Calvin touching the doc- 
trine of reprobation. He was now in the chry- 
salis state — putting off the worm and putting 
on the dragon-fly — a kind of intermediate grub 
between sycophant and oppressor. He was 
indemnifying himself for the court which he 
found it expedient to pay to the ministers, by 
exercising much petty tyranny within his own 
college. It would be unjust, however, to deny 
him the praise of having rendered about this 
time one important service to letters. He stood 
np manfully against those who wished to make 
Trinity College a mere appendage to West- 
minster school, and by this act, the only good 
act, as far as we remember, of his long public 
life, he saved the noblest place of education 
in England from the degrading fate of King's 
College and New College. 

It has often been said that Bacon, while still 
at college, planned that great intellectual revo- 
lution with which his name is inseparably 
connected. The evidence on this subject, 
however, is hardly sufficient to prove what is 
in itself so improbable as that any definite 
scheme of that kind should have been so early 
formed, even by so powerful and active a 
mind. But it is certain that, after a residence 
of three ytMrs at Cambridge, Bacon departed, 
c-arrying witn him a profound contempt for the 
course of study pursued there ; a fixed convic- 
tion that the system of academic education in 
England was radically vicious ; a just^ scorn 
for the trifles on which the followers of Aris- 
totle had wasted their powers, and no great 
reverence for Aristotle himself. 

In his sixteenth year he visited Paris, and 
resided there for some time, under the care of 
Sir Amias Paulet, Elizabeth's minister at the 
French court, and one of the ablest and most 
upright of the many valuable servants whom 
she employed. France was at that time in a 
deplorable state of agitation. The Huguenots 
and the Catholics were mustering all their 
force for the fiercest and most protracted of 
their many struggles : while the prince, whose 
duty it was to protect and to restrain both, had 
by his vices and follies degraded himself so 
deeply that he had no authority over either. 
Bacon, however, made a tour through several 
provinces, and appears to have passed some 
time at Poitiers. We have abundant proof 
that during his stay on the continent he did 
not neglect literary and scientific pursuits. 
But nis attention seems to have been chiefly 
directed to statistics and diplomacy. It was at 
this time that he wrote those Notes on the 
State of Europe which are printed in his 
trorks. He studied the principles of the art 



* Strype's Life of Whitgift. 



of deciphering with great interest; and in /ent 
ed one cipher so ingenious that many yeara 
later he thought it deserving of a place in the 
De Augmentis. In February, 1580, while en« 
gaged in these pursuits, he received intelli- 
gence of the almost sudden death of his father 
and instantly returned to England. 

His prospects were greatly overcast by this 
event. He was most desirous to obtain a pro- 
vision which might enable him to devote him- 
self to literature and politics. He applied to 
the government, and it seems strange that he 
should have applied in vain. His wishes 
were moderate. His hereditary claims on the 
administration were great. He had himself 
been favourably noticed by the queen. His 
uncle was Prime Minister. His own talents 
were such as any minister might have been 
eager to enlist in the public service. But his 
solicitations were unsuccessful. The truth is, 
that the Cecils disliked him, and did all that 
they could decently do to keep him down. It 
has never been alleged that Bacon had done 
any thing to merit this dislike ; nor is it at all 
probable that a man whose temper was natu- 
rally mild, whose manners were courteous, 
who, through life, nursed his fortunes with the 
utmost care, and who was fearful even to a 
fault of offending the powerful, would have 
given any just cause of displeasure to a kins- 
man who had the means of rendering him es- 
sential service, and of doing him irreparable 
injury. The real explanation, we have no 
doubt, is this : Robert Cecil, the Treasurer's 
second son, was younger by a few months 
than Bacon. He had been educated with the 
utmost care ; had been initiated, while still a 
boy, in the mysteries of diplomacy and court 
intrigue ; and was just at this time about to be 
introduced on the stage of public life. The 
wish nearest to Burleigh's heart was that his 
own greatness might descend to this favourite 
child. But even Burleigh's fatherly partiality 
could hardly prevent him from perceiving that 
Robert, with all his abilities and acquirements, 
was no match for his cousin Francis. This 
seems to us the only rational explanation of 
the Treasurer's conduct. Mr. Montagu is 
more charitable. He supposes that Burleigh 
was influenced merely by affection for his 
nephew, and was "little disposed to encourage 
him to rely on others rather than on himself, 
and to venture on the quicksands of politics, 
instead of the certain profession of the law." 
If such were Burleigh's feelings, it seems 
strange that he should have suffered his son to 
venture on those quicksands from which he so 
carefully preserved his nephew. But the 
truth is, that if Burleigh had been so disposed, 
he might easily have secured to Bacon a com- 
fortable provision which should have been ex- 
posed to no risk. And it is equally certain 
that he showed as little disposition to enable 
his nephew to live by a profession as to enable 
him to live without a profession. That Bacoa 
himself attributed the conduct of his relatives 
to jealousy of his superior talents, we have 
not the smallest doubt. In a letter, written 
many years after to Villiers he expresses 
himself thus : " Countenance, encourage, and 



LORD BACON. 



249 



advance able men in all kinds, degrees, and 
professions. For in the time of the Cecils, the 
father and the son, able men were by design 
and of purpose suppressed."* 

Whatever Burleigh's motives might be, his 
purpose was unalterable. The supplications 
which Francis addressed to his uncle and aunt 
were earnest, humble, and almost servile. He 
was the most promising and accomplished 
young man of his time. His father had been 
the brother-in-law, the most useful colleague, 
the nearest friend of the minister. But all this 
availed poor Francis nothing. He was forced, 
much against his will, to betake himself to the 
study of the law. He was admitted at Gray's 
Inn, and, during some years, he laboured there 
in obscurity. 

What the extent of his legal attainments 
may have been, it is difficult to say. It was 
not hard for a man of his powers to acquire 
that very moderate portion of technical know- 
ledge which, when joined to quickness, tact,' 
wit, ingenuity, eloquence, and knowledge of 
the world, is sufficient to raise an advocate to 
the highest professional eminence. The gene- 
ral opinion appears to have been that which 
was on one occasion expressed by Elizabeth. 
M Bacon," said she, " had a great wit and much 
learning ; but in law showeth to the uttermost 
of his knowledge, and is not deep." The Ce- 
cils, we suspect, did their best to spread this 
opinion by whispers and insinuations. Coke 
openly proclaimed it with that rancorous inso- 
lence which was habitual to him. No reports 
are more readily believed than those which 
disparage genius and soothe the envy of con- 
scious mediocrity. It must have been inex- 
pressibly consoling to a stupid sergeant, the 
forerunner of him who, a hundred and fifty 
years later, " shook his head at Murray as a 
wit," to know that the most profound thinker, 
and the most accomplished orator of the age, 
was very imperfectly acquainted with the law 
touching bastard eigne and mulier puisne", and 
confounded the right of free fishery with that 
of common of piscary. 

It is certain that no man in that age, or in- 
deed during the century and a half which 
followed, was better acquainted with the phi- 
losophy of law. His technical knowledge was 
quite sufficient, with the help of his admirable 
talents, and his insinuating address, to procure 
clients. He rose very rapidly into business, 
and soon entertained hopes of being called 
within the bar. He applied to Lord Burleigh 
for that purpose, but received a testy refusal. 
Of the grounds of that refusal we can, in some 
measure, judge by Bacon's answer, which is 
still extant. It seems that the old lord, whose 
temper, age, and gout had by no means altered 
for the better, and who omitted no opportunity 
of marking his dislike of the showy, quick- 
witted young men of the rising generation, 
took this opportunity to read Francis a very 
sharp lecture on his vanity, and want of re- 
spect for his betters. Francis returned a most 
submissive reply, thanked the Treasurer for 
the admonition, and promised to profit by it. 
Strangers meanwhile were less unjust to the 

_* See page 61, vol, xii. of the present edition. 



young barrister than his nearest kinsmen had 
been. In his twenty-sixth year he became a 
bencher of his Inn; and two years later he 
was appointed Lent reader. At length, in 
1590, he obtained for the first time some show 
of favour from the court. He was sworn in 
Queen's Counsel extraordinary. But this mark 
of honour was not accompanied by any pecu- 
niary emolument. He continued, therefore, to 
solicit his powerful relatives for some provi- 
sion which might enable him to live without 
drudging at his profession. He bore with a 
patience and serenity, which, we fear, border- 
ed on meanness, the morose humours of his 
uncle, and the sneering reflections which his 
cousin cast on speculative men, lost in philo- 
sophical dreams, and too wise to be capable 
of transacting public business. At length the 
Cecils were generous enough to procure for 
him the reversion of the Registrarship of the 
Star-Chamber. This was a lucrative place; 
but as many years elapsed before it fell in, he 
was still under the necessity of labouring for 
his daily bread. 

In the Parliament which was called in 1593 
he sat as member for the county of Middlesex, 
and soon attained eminence as a debater. It 
is easy to perceive from the scanty remains 
of his oratory, that the same compactness of 
expression and richness of fancy which appear 
in his writings characterized his speeches ; 
and that his extensive acquaintance with lite- 
rature and history enabled him to entertain 
his audience with a vast variety of illustra- 
tions and allusions which were generally hap- 
py and apposite, but which were probably not 
least pleasing to the taste of that age when 
they were such as would now be thought 
childish or pedantic. It is evident also that 
he was, as indeed might have been expected, 
perfectly free from those faults which are 
generally found in an advocate who, after hav- 
ing risen to eminence at the bar, enters the 
House of Commons ; that it was his habit to 
deal with every great question, not in small 
detached portions, but as a whole; that he re- 
fined little, and that his reasonings were those 
of a capacious rather than a subtle mind. 
Ben Jonson, a most unexceptionable judge, 
has described his eloquence in words, which, 
though often quoted, will bear to be quoted 
again. " There happened in my time one no- 
ble speaker who was full of gravity in his 
speaking. His language, where he could spare 
or pass by a jest, was nobly censorious. No 
man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, 
more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less 
idleness, in what he uttered. No member of 
his speech but consisted of his own graces. 
His hearers could not cough or look aside 
from him without loss. He commanded where 
he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased 
at his devotion. No man had iheir affections 
more in his power. The fear of every man 
that heard him was lest he should make an 
end." From the mention which is made of 
judges, it would seem that Jonson had heard 
Bacon only at the bar. Indeed, we imagine 
that the House of Commons was then almost 
inaccessible to strangers. It is not probable, 
that a man of Bacon's nice observation woulj 1 



250 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



jpeak in Parliament exactly as he spoke in 
the Court of King's Bench. But the graces 
of manner and language must, to a great ex- 
tent, have been common between the Queen's 
Counsel and the Knight of the Shire. 

Bacon tried to play a very difficult game in 
politics. He wished to be at once a favourite 
at court and popular with the multitude. If 
any man could have succeeded in this attempt, 
a man of talents so rare, of judgment so pre- 
maturely ripe, of temper so calm, and of man- 
ners so plausible, might have been expected 
to succeed. Nor indeed did he wholly fail. 
Once, however, he indulged in a burst of pa- 
triotism which cost him a long and bitter re- 
morse, and which he never ventured to repeat. 
The court asked for large subsidies, and for 
speedy payment. The remains of Bacon's 
speech breathe all the spirit of the Long Par- 
liament. "The gentlemen," said he, "must 
sell their plate, and the farmers their brass 
pots, ere this will be paid; and for us, we are 
here to search the wounds of the realm, and 
not to skin them over. The dangers are these. 
First, we shall breed discontent and endanger 
her majesty's safety, which must consist more 
in the love of the people than their wealth. 
Secondly, this being granted in this sort, other 
princes hereafter will look for the like ; so that 
we shall put an evil precedent on ourselves 
and on our posterity ; and in histories, it is to 
be observed, of all nations, the English are not 
to be subject, base, or taxable." The queen 
and her ministers resented this outbreak of 
public spirit in the highest manner. Indeed, 
many an honest member of the House of Com- 
mons had, for a much smaller matter, been 
sent to the Tower by the proud and hot-blooded 
Tudors. The young patriot condescended to 
make the most abject apologies. He adjured 
the Lord Treasurer to show some favour to 
his poor servant and ally. He bemoaned him- 
self to the Lord Keeper, in a letter which may 
keep in countenance the most unmanly of 
the epistles which Cicero wrote during his 
banishment. The lesson was not . thrown 
away. Bacon never offended in the same 
manner again. 

He was now satisfied that he had little to 
hope from the patronage of those powerful 
kinsmen whom he had solicited during twelve 
years with such meek pertinacity ; and he be- 
gan to look towards a different quarter. Among 
the courtiers of Elizabeth had lately appeared 
a new favourite — young, noble, wealthy, ac- 
complished, eloquent, brave, generous, aspiring 
— a favourite who had obtained from the gray- 
headed queen such marks of regard as she had 
scarce vouchsafed to Leicester in the season 
of the passions; who was at once the orna- 
ment of the palace and the idol of the city; 
who was the common patron of men of letters 
and of men of the sword ; who was the com- 
mon refuge of the persecuted Catholic and of 
the persecuted Puritan. The calm prudence 
which had enabled Burleigh to shape his 
course through so many dangers, and the vast 
experience which he had acquired in dealing 
with two generations of colleagues and rivals, 
seeded scarcely sufficient to support him in 
uiis new competition ; and Robert Cecil sick- 



ened with fear and envy as he ccr.templated 
the rising fame and influence of Essex. 

The history of the factions which, toward! 
the close of the reign of Elizabeth, divided her 
court and her council, though pregnant with 
instruction, is by no means interesting or pleas, 
ing. Both parties employed the means which 
are familiar to unscrupulous statesmen; and 
neither had. or even pretended to have, any im- 
portant end in view. The public mind was 
then reposing from one great effort, and col- 
lecting strength for another. That impetuous 
and appalling rush with which the human in- 
tellect had moved forward in the career of truth 
and liberty, during the fifty years which follow- 
ed the separation of Luther from the commu- 
nion of the Church of Rome, was now over. 
The boundary between Protestantism and Po • 
pery had been fixed very nearly where it stil '. 
remains. England, Scotland, the Northern 
kingdoms were on one side; Ireland, Spain, 
Portugal, Italy, on the other. The line of de- 
marcation ran, as it still runs, through the 
midst of the Netherlands, of Germany, and of 
Switzerland — dividing province from province, 
electorate from electorate, and canton from 
canton. France might be considered as a de- 
batable land, in which the contest was still un- 
decided. Since that time, the two religions 
have done little more than maintain their 
ground. A few occasional incursions have 
been made. But the general frontier remains 
the same. During two hundred and fifty years 
no great society has risen up like one man, 
and emancipated itself by one mighty effort 
from the enthralling superstition of ages. This 
spectacle was common in the middle of the 
sixteenth century. Why has it ceased to be 
sol Why has so violent a movement been 
followed by so long a repose ] The doctrines 
of the Reformers are not less agreeable to rea- 
son or to revelation now than formerly. The 
public mind is assuredly not less enlightened 
now than formerly. Why is it that Protestant- 
ism, after carrying every thing before it in a 
time of comparatively little knowledge and lit- 
tle freedom, should make no perceptible pro- 
gress in a reasoning and tolerant age ; that the 
Luthers, the Calvins, the Knoxes, the Zwingles, 
should have left no successors; that during 
two centuries and a half fewer converts should 
have been brought over from the Church of 
Rome than at the time of the Reformation were 
sometimes gained in a year 1 This has always 
appeared to us one of the most curious and 
interesting problems in history. On some 
other occasion we mayperhaps attempt to solve 
it. At present it is enough to say, that at the 
close of Elizabeth's reign, the Protestant party, 
to borrow the language of the Apocalypse, had 
left its first love and had ceased to do its first 
works. 

The great struggle of the sixteenth century 
was over. The great struggle of the seven- 
teenth century had not commenced. The con- 
fessors of Mary's reign were dead. The mem- 
bers of the Long Parliament were still in their 
cradles. The Papists had been deprived of all 
power in the state. The Puritans had not yet 
attained any formidable extent of power. True 
it is, that a student well acciuainted with the 



LORD BACON. 



25! 



history if the next generation can easily dis- 
cern in the proceedings of the last Parliaments 
of Elizabeth the germ of great and ever-memo- 
rable events. But to the eye of a contempo- 
rary nothing of this appeared. The two sec- 
tions of ambitious men who were struggling 
for power differed from each other on no im- 
portant public question. Both belonged to the 
Established Church. Both professed bound- 
less loyalty to the queen. Both approved the 
war with Spain. There is not, as far as we 
are aware, any reason to believe that they en- 
tertained different views concerning the suc- 
cession to the crown. Certainly neither fac- 
tion had any great measure of reform in view. 
Neither attempted to redress any public griev- 
ance. The most odious and pernicious griev- 
ance under which the nation then suffered was 
a source of profit to both, and was defended by 
both with equal zeal. Raleigh held a monopoly 
of cards — Essex a monopoly of sweet wines. 
In fact, the only ground of quarrel between the 
parties was, that they could not agree as to 
their respective shares of power and patron- 
age. 

Nothing in the political conduct of Essex 
entitles him to esteem ; and the pity with which 
we regard his early and terrible end is dimi- 
nished by the consideration, that he put to ha- 
zard the lives and fortunes of his most attached 
friends, and endeavoured to throw the whole 
country into confusion, for objects purely per- 
sonal. Still, it is impossible not to be deeply 
interested for a man so brave, high-spirited, 
and generous ; — for a man who, while he con- 
ducted himself towards his sovereign with a 
boldness such as was then found in no other 
subject, conducted himself towards his depend- 
ants with a delicacy such as has rarely been 
found in any other patron. Unlike the vulgar 
herd of benefactors, he desired to inspire, not 
gratitude, but affection. He tried to make those 
whom he befriended to feel towards him as 
towards an equal. His mind, ardent, suscepti- 
ble, naturally disposed to admiration of all that 
is great and beautiful, was fascinated by the 
genius and the accomplishments of Bacon. A 
close friendship was soon formed between them 
— a friendship destined to have a dark, a 
mournful, a shameful end. 

In 1594 the office of Attorney-General be- 
came vacant, and Bacon hoped, to obtain it. 
Essex made his friend's cause his own — sued, 
expostulated, promised, threatened, — but all in 
vain. It is probable that the dislike felt by the 
Cecils for Bacon had been increased by the 
connection which he had lately formed with 
the earl. Robert was then on the point of 
being made Secretary of State. He happened 
one day to be in the same coach with Essex, 
and a remarkable conversation took place be- 
tween them. " My lord," said Sir Robert, " the 
queen has d atermined to appoint an Attorney- 
General without more delay. I pray your 
lordship to let me know whom you will fa- 
vour." " I wonder at your question," replied 
the earl. "You cannot but know that reso- 
lutely, against all the world, I stand for your 
cousin, Francis Bacon." " Good Lord," cried 
Cecil, unable to bridle his temper, " I wonder 
your lordship should spend your strength on 



sc unlikely a matter. Can you name one pre 
cedent of so raw a youth promoted to so great 
a place?" This objection came with a singu« 
larly bad grace from a man who, though young, 
er than Bacon, was in daily expectation of 
being made Secretary of State. The blot was 
too obvious to be missed by Essex, who seldom 
forbore to speak his mind. " I have made no 
search," said he, " for precedents of young men 
who have filled the office of Attorney-General. 
But I could name to you, Sir Robert, a man 
younger than Francis, less learned, and equally 
inexperienced, who is suing and striving with 
all his might for an office of far greater weight." 
Sir Robert had nothing to say but that he 
thought his own abilities equal to the place 
which he hoped to obtain ; and that his father's 
long services deserved such a mark of gratitude 
from the queen ; as if his abilities were com- 
parable to his cousin's, or as if Sir Nicholas 
Bacon had done no service to the state. Cecil 
then hinted that if Bacon would be satisfied 
with the Solicitorship, that might be of easier 
digestion to the queen. " Digest me no diges- 
tions," said the generous and ardent earl. "The 
Attorneyship for Francis is that I must have; 
and in that I will spend all my power, might, 
authority, and amity ; and with tooth and nail 
procure the same for him against whomso- 
ever ; whosoever getteth this office out of my 
hands for any ether, before he have it, it shall 
cost him the coming by. And this be you as- 
sured of, Sir Robert, for now I fully declare 
myself; and for my own part, Sir Robert, 1 
think strange both of my Lord Treasurer and 
you, that can have the mind to seek the pre- 
ference of a stranger before so near a kins- 
man ; for if you weigh in a balance the parts 
every way of his competitor and him, only ex- 
cepting five poor years of admitting to a house 
of court before Francis, you shall find in all 
other respects whatsoever no comparison be- 
tween them." 

When the office of Attorney-General was 
filled up, the earl pressed the queen to make 
Bacon Solicitor-General, and, on this occasion, 
the old Lord Treasurer professed himself not 
unfavourable to his nephew's pretensions. 
But after a contest which lasted more than a 
year and a half, and in which Essex, to use 
his own words, " spent all his power, might, 
authority, and amity," the place was given to 
another. Essex felt this disappcintment keen- 
ly, but found consolation in the most munifi- 
cent and delicate liberality. He presented 
Bacon with an estate, worth near two thousand 
pounds, situated at Twickenham, and this, as 
Bacon owned many years after, " with so kind 
and noble circumstances as the manner was 
worth more than the matter." 

It was soon after these events that I aeon firai 
appeared before the public as a writer. Early in 
1597 he published a small volume of Essays, 
which was afterwards enlarged by successive 
additions to many times its original bulk. This 
little work was, as it well deserved to be, ex 
ceedingly popular. It was reprinted in a few 
months ; it was translated into Latin, French, 
and Italian ; and it seems to have at once es« 
tablished the literary reputation of its author 
But though Bacon's reputation rose, h:s for 



252 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



tunes were still depressed. He was in great 
pecuniary difficulties ; and, on one occasion, 
was arrested in the street at the suit of a gold- 
smith, for a debt of £300, and was carried to a 
spunging-house in Coleman street. 

The kindness of Essex was in the mean 
time indefatigable. In 1596 he sailed on his 
memorable expedition to the coast of Spain. 
At the very moment of his embarcation, he 
wrote to several of his friends, commending to 
them, during his own absence, the interests of 
Bacon. He returned, after performing the most 
brilliant military exploit that was achieved on 
the Continent by English arms, during the long 
interval which elapsed between the battle of 
Agincourt and that of Blenheim. His valour, 
his talents, his humane and generous disposi- 
tion, had made him the idol of his countrymen, 
and had extorted praise from the enemies 
whom he had conquered.* He had always 
been proud and headstrong ; and his splendid 
success seems to have rendered his faults more 
offensive than ever. But to his friend Francis 
he was still the same. Bacon had some 
thoughts of making his fortune by marriage; 
and had begun to pay court to a widow of the 
name of Hatton. The eccentric manners and 
violent temper of this woman made her a dis- 
grace and a torment to her connections. But 
Bacon was not aware of her faults, or was dis- 
posed to overlook them for the sake of her 
ample fortune. Essex pleaded his friend's 
cause with his usual ardour. The letters 
which the earl addressed to Lady Hatton and 
to her mother are still extant, and are highly 
honourable to him. " If," he wrote, " she were 
my sister or my daughter, I protest I would as 
confidently resolve to further it as I now per- 
suade you." And again : " If my faith be any 
thing, I protest, if I had one as near me as she 
is to you, I had rather match her with him, 
than with men of far greater titles." This 
suit, happily for Bacon, was unsuccessful. 
The lady, indeed, was kind to him in more 
ways than one. She rejected him, and she 
accepted his enemy. She married that narrow- 
minded, bad-hearted pedant, Sir Edward Coke, 
and did her best to make him as miserable as 
he deserved to be. 

The fortunes of Essex had now reached 
their height, and began to decline. He pos- 
sessed indeed all the qualities which raise 
men to greatness rapidly. But he had neither 
the virtues nor the vices which enable men to 
retain greatness long. His frankness, his keen 
sensibility to insult and injustice, were by no 
means agreeable to a sovereign naturally im- 
patient of opposition, and accustomed, during 
forty years, to the most extravagant flattery 
and the most abject submission. The daring 
and contemptuous manner in which he bade 
defiance to his enemies excited their deadly 
hatred. His administration in Ireland was 
unfortunate, and in many respects hignly 
blamable. Though his brilliant courage, and 
his impetuous activity fitted him admirably 
for such enterprises as that of Cadiz, he did 
n.rt possess the caution, patience, and resolu- 
tion necessary for the conduct of a protracted 

* flee Cetvantes's JVvvela de la Espanola Ivglesa. 



war ; in which difficulties were to be gradually 
surmounted, in which much discomfort was tc 
be endured, and in which few splendid exploits 
could be achieved. For the civil duties of his 
high place he was still less qualified. Though 
eloquent and accomplished, he was in no 
sense a statesman. The multitude indeed still 
continued to regard even his faults with fond- 
ness. But the court had ceased to give him 
credit, even for the merit which he really pos- 
sessed. The person on whom, during the de- 
cline of his influence, he chiefly depended, to 
whom he confided his perplexities, whose ad- 
vice he solicited, whose intercession he em- 
ployed, was his friend Bacon. The lamentable 
truth must be told. This friend, so loved, so 
trusted, bore a principal part in ruining the 
earl's fortunes, in shedding his blood, and 
blackening his memory. 

But let us be just to Bacon. We believe 
that, to the last, he had no wish to injure 
Essex. Nay, we believe that he sincerely ex- 
erted himself to serve Essex, as long as he 
thought he could serve Essex without injuring 
himself. The advice which he gave to his 
noble benefactor was generally most judicious. 
He did all in his power to dissuade the ean 
from accepting the government of Ireland. 
" For," says he, "I did as plainly see his over- 
throw, chained as it were by destiny to that 
journey, as it is possible for a man to ground 
a judgment upon future contingents." The 
prediction was accomplished. Essex returned 
in disgrace. Bacon attempted to mediate be- 
tween his friend and the queen ; and, we 
believe, honestly employed all his address for 
that purpose. But the task which he had un- 
dertaken was too difficult, delicate, and peril- 
ous, even for so wary and dexterous an agent. 
He had to manage two spirits equally proud, 
resentful, and ungovernable. At Essex House, 
he had to calm the rage of a young hero, in- 
censed by multiplied wrongs and humiliations ; 
and then to pass to Whitehall for the purpose 
of soothing the peevishness of a sovereign, 
whose temper, never very gentle, had been 
rendered morbidly irritable by age, by de- 
clining health, and by the long habit of listen- 
ing to flattery and exacting implicit obedience. 
It is hard to serve two masters. Situated as 
Bacon was, it was scarcely possible for him to 
shape his course so as not to give one or both 
of his employers reason to complain. For a 
time he acted as fairly as, in circumstances so 
embarrassing, could reasonably be expected. 
At length, he found; that while he was trying to 
prop the fortunes of another, he was in danger 
of shaking his own. He had disobliged both 
of the parties whom he wished to reconcile. 
Essex thought him wanting in zeal as a friend; 
Elizabeth thought him wanting in duty as a 
subject. The earl looked on him as a spy of 
the queen, the queen as a creature of the earl. 
The reconciliation which he had laboured tc 
effect appeared utterly hopeless. A thousand 
signs, legible to eyes far less keen than his, an- 
nounced that the fall of his patron was at hand. 
He shaped his course accordingly. When 
Essex was brought before the council to answer 
for his conduct in Ireland, Bacon, after a faint 
attempt to excuse himself from taking pa't 



LORD BACON. 



253 



against his friend, submitted himself to the 
queen's pleasure, and appeared at the bar in 
support of the charges. But a darker scene 
was behind. The unhappy young nobleman, 
made reckless by despair, ventured on a rash 
and criminal enterprise, which rendered him 
liable to the highest penalties of the law. What 
course was Bacon to take 1 This was one of 
those conjunctures which show what men are. 
To a high-minded man, wealth, power, court- 
favour, even personal safety, would have ap- 
peared of no account, when opposed to friend- 
ship, gratitude, and honour. Such a man would 
have stood by the side of Essex at the trial ; 
would have "spent all his power,might, author- 
ity, and amity," in soliciting a mitigation of the 
sentence ; would have been a daily visiter at 
the cell, would have received the last injunc- 
tions and the last embrace on the scaffold; 
would have employed all the powers of his in- 
tellect to guard from insult the fame of his 
generous though erring friend. An ordinary 
man would neither have incurred the danger 
of succouring Essex, nor the disgrace of as- 
sailing him. Bacon did not even preserve 
neutrality. .He appeared as counsel for the 
prosecution. In that situation he did not con- 
fine himself to what would have been amply 
sufficient to procure a verdict. He employed 
all his wit, his rhetoric, and his learning — not 
to insure a conviction, for the circumstances 
were such that a conviction was inevitable ; — 
but to deprive the unhappy prisoner of all those 
excuses which, though legally of no value, yet 
tended to diminish the moral guilt of the crime ; 
and which, therefore, though they could not 
justify the peers in pronouncing an acquittal, 
might incline the queen to grant a pardon. 
The earl urged as a palliation of his frantic 
acts, that he was surrounded by powerful and 
inveterate enemies, that they had ruined his 
fortunes, that they sought his life, and that 
their persecutions had driven him to despair. 
This was true, and Bacon well knew it to be 
true. But he affected to treat it a? an idle 
pretence. He compared Essex to Pisistratus, 
who, by pretending to be in imminent danger 
of assassination, and by exhibiting self-inflict- 
ed wounds, succeeded in establishing tyranny 
at Athens. This was too much for the pri- 
soner to bear. He interrupted his ungrateful 
friend, by calling on him to quit the part of an 
advocate ; to come forward as a witness, and 
tell the lords whether, in old times, he, Francis 
Bacon, had not, under his own hand, repeated- 
ly asserted the truth of what he now repre- 
sented as idle pretexts. It is painful to go on 
with this lamentable story. Bacon returned a 
shuffling answer to the earl's question ; and, as 
if the allusion to Pisistratus were not suf- 
ficiently offensive, made another allusion still 
more unjustifiable. He compared Essex to 
Henry Duke of Guise, and the rash attempt in 
tiie city, to the day of the barricades at Paris. 
Why Bacon had recourse to such a topic it is 
difficult to say. It was quite unnecessary for 
(he. purpose *f obtaining a verdict. It was 
certain to produce a strong impression on the 
mind of the haughty and jealous princess on 
whose pleasure the earl's fate depended. The 
faintest allu^on to the degrading tutelage in 
17 



which the last Valois had been ht^d by the 
house of Lorraine, was sufficient to harden hei 
heart against a man who, in rank, in militarj 
reputation, in popularity among the citizens of 
the capital, bore some resemblance to the 
Captain of the League. Essex was convicted, 
Bacon made no efiort to save him, though the 
queen's feelings were such, that he might havi 
pleaded his benefactor's cause, possibly with 
success, certainly without any serious danger 
to himself. The unhappy nobleman was exe- 
cuted. His fate excited strong, perhaps un- 
reasonable feelings of compassion and indig- 
nation. The queen was received by the citi- 
zens of London with gloomy looks and faint 
acclamations. She thought it expedient to 
publish a vindication of her late proceedings. 
The faithless friend who had assisted in taking 
the earl's life was now employed to murder the 
earl's fame. The queen had seen some of 
Bacon'-s writings and had been pleased with 
them. He was accordingly selected to write 
"A Declaration of the Practices and Treasons 
attempted and committed by Robert Earl of 
Essex," which was printed by authority. In 
the succeeding reign, Bacon had not a word to 
say in defence of this performance, a per- 
formance abounding in expressions which no 
generous enemy would have employed re- 
specting'a man who had so dearly expiated his 
offences. His only excuse was, that he wrot? 
it by command ; that he considered himself a* 
a mere secretary; that he had particular iD 
structions as to the way in which he was t* 
treat every part of the subject ; and that, ii 
fact, he had furnished only the arrangemen 
and the style. 

We regret to say that the whole conduct oi 
Bacon through the course of these transactions 
appears to Mr. Montagu not merely excusable, 
but deserving of high admiration. The inte- 
grity and benevolence of this gentleman are so 
well known, that our readers will probably be 
at a loss to conceive by what steps he can 
have arrived at so extraordinary a conclusion; 
and we are half afraid that they will suspect 
us of practising some artifice upon them when 
we report the principal arguments which he 
employs. 

In order to get rid of the charge of ingrati- 
tude, Mr. Montagu attempts to show that Bacon 
lay under greater obligations to the queen than 
to Essex. What these obligations were it is 
not easy to discover. The situation of queen's 
counsel and a, remote reversion were surely 
favours very far below Bacon's personal and 
hereditary claims. They were favours which 
had not cost the queen a groat, nor had they 
put a groat into Bacon's purse. It was neces- 
sary to rest Elizabeth's claims to gratitude on 
some other ground, and this Mr. Montagu felt, 
"What perhaps was her greatest kindness," 
says he, " instead of having hastily advanced 
Bacon, she had, with a continuance of her 
friendship, made him bear the yoke in his 
youth. Such were his obligations to Eliza 
beth." Such indeed they were. Being the sou 
of one of her oldest and most faithful minis- 
ters, being himself the ablest and most accom- 
plished young man of his time, he had been 
condemned by her to drudgery, to obscuritv 



ifo 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



to poverty. She had depreciated his acquire- 
ments. She had checked him in the most im- 
perious manner when in Parliament he ven- 
tured to act an independent part. She had re- 
fused to him the professional advancement to 
which he had a just claim. To her it was 
owing that while younger men, not superior to 
him in extraction and far inferior to him in 
every kind of personal merit, were filling the 
highest offices of the state, adding manor to 
manor, rearing palace after palace, he was 
lying at a spunging-house for a debt of three 
hundred pounds. Assuredly if Bacon owed 
gratitude to Elizabeth, he owed none to Essex. 
If the queen really was his best friend, the earl 
was his worst enemy. We wonder that Mr. 
Montagu did not press this argument a little 
further. He might have maintained that Bacon 
was fully justified in revenging himself on a 
man who had attempted to rescue his youth 
from the salutary yoke imposed on it %• the 
queen, who had wished to advance him hastily, 
who, not content with attempting to inflict the 
Attorney-Generalship upon him, had been so 
cruel as to present him with a landed estate. 

Again, we can hardly think Mr. Montagu 
serious when he tells us that Bacon was bound 
for the sake of the public not to destroy his 
own hopes of advancement, and that he took 
part against Essex from a wish to obtain power 
which might enable him to be useful to his coun- 
try. We really do not know how to refute such 
arguments except by stating them. Nothing is 
impossible which does not involve a contradic- 
tion. It is barely possible that Bacon's motives 
for acting as he did on this occasion may have 
been gratitude to the queen for keeping him 
poor, and a desire to benefit his fellow-crea- 
tures in some higher situation. And there is 
a possibility that Bonner may have been a 
good Protestant, who, being convinced that the 
blood of martyrs is the seed of the church, 
heroically went through all the drudgery and 
infamy of persecution that he might inspire 
the English people with an intense and lasting 
hatred of Popery. There is a possibility that 
Jeffries may have been an ardent lover of 
liberty, and that he may have beheaded Alger- 
non Sydney and burned Elizabeth Gaunt only 
in order to produce a reaction which might 
lead to the limitation of the prerogative. There 
is a possibility that Thurtell may have killed 
Weare only in order to give the youth of Eng- 
land an impressive warning against gaming 
and bad company. There is a possibility that 
Fauntleroy may have forged powers of attor- 
ney only in order that his fate might turn the 
attention of the public to the defects of the 
penal iaw. These things, we say, are possible. 
15 ut they are so extravagantly improbable, that 
a man who should act on such suppositions 
would be fit only for Saint Luke's. And we do 
not see why suppositions on which no rational 
man would act in ordinary life should be ad- 
mitted mto history. 

Mr. Montagu's notion that Bacon desired 
pewer only in order to do good to mankind 
appears somewhat strange to us when we con- 
sider how Bacon afterwards use I power and 
how he lost it. Surely the service which he 
rendered to mankind by taking Lady Whar- 



ton's broad pieces and Sir John Kennedy's 
cabinet was not of such vast importance as fc. 
sanctify all the moans which might conduce to 
that end. If the case were fairly stated, it would, 
we much fear, stand thus : Bacon was a servile 
advocate that he might be a corrupt judge. 

Mr. Montagu conceives that none but the 
ignorant and unreflecting can think Bacon 
censurable for any thing that he did as counsel 
for the crown; and maintains that no advocate 
can justifiably use any discretion as to the 
party for whom he appears. We will not at 
present inquire whether the doctrine which is 
held on this subject by English lawyers be or 
be not agreeable to reason and morality; whe- 
ther it be right that a man should, with a wig 
on his head and a band round his neck, do for 
a guinea what, without those appendages, he 
would think it wicked and infamous to do for 
an empire ; whether it be right that, not merely 
believing, but knowing a statement to be true, 
he should do all that can be done by sophistry, 
by rhetoric, by solemn asseveration, by indig- 
nant exclamation, by gestures, by play of fea- 
tures, by terrifying one honest witness, by per- 
plexing another, to cause a jury to think that 
statement false. It is not necessary on the 
present occasion to decide these questions. 
The professional rules, be they good or bad, 
are rules to which many wise and virtuous 
men have conformed, and are daily conform- 
ing. If, therefore, Bacon did no more than 
these rules required of him, we shall readily 
admit that he was blameless. But we conceive 
that his conduct was not justifiable according 
to any professional rules that now exist or that 
ever existed in England. It has always been 
held, that in criminal cases, in which the pri- 
soner was denied the help of counsel, and 
above all in capital cases, the advocate for 
the prosecution was both entitled and bound to 
exercise a discretion. It is true that after the 
Revolution, when the Parliament began to 
make inquisition "for the innocent blood which 
had teen shed by the last Stuarts, a feeble at- 
tempt was made to defend the lawyers who had 
been accomplices in the murder of Sir Thomas 
Armstrong, on the ground that they had only 
acted professionally. The wretched sophism 
■was silenced by the execrations of the House 
of Commons. "Things will never be well 
done," said Mr. Foley, " till some of that pro- 
fession be made examples." "We have a 
new sort of monsters in the world," paid the 
younger Hampden, "haranguing a man to 
death. These I call bloodhounds. Sawyer i- 
very criminal and guilty of this murder." "i 
speak to discharge my conscience," said Mr. 
Garroway. "I will not have the blood of this 
man at my door. Sawyer demanded judgment 
against him and execution. I believe him 
guilty of the death of this man. Do what you 
will with him." "If the profession of the law," 
said the elder Hampden, "gives a man autho* 
rity to murder at this rate, it is the interest of 
all men to rise and exterminate that profet* 
sion." Nor was this language held only by 
unlearned country gentlemen. Sir William 
Williams, one of the ablest and most unscru- 
pulous lawyers of the age, took the same view 
of the case. He had not hesitated, he said, fc 



LORD BACON. 



26r\ 



taue part in the prosecution i f the bishops, be- 
cause they were allowed counsel. Hut he 
maintained that where the prisoner was not 
allowed counsel, the counsel for the erown 
was bound to exercise a discretion, and that 
every lawyer who neglected this distinction 
betrayer of the law. But it is unneces- 
sary to cite authority. It is known to every- 
body who has ever looked into a court of quar- 
■ ions that lawyers do exercise a discre- 
tion in criminal cases; and it is plain to every 
if common sense that if they did not 
ich a discretion, they would be a 
more hateful body of men than those bravoes 
who used to hire out their stilettos in Italy. 

Bacon appeared against a man who was in- 
deed gudty 0I a great offence, but who had 
been his benefactor and friend. He did more 
than this. Nay, he did more than a person 
who had never seen Essex would have been 
justified in doing. He employed all the art of 
an advocate in order to make the prisoner's 
conduct appear more inexcusable, and more 
dangerous to the state, than it really had been. 
411 that professional duty could, in any case, 
have required of him, would have been to con- 
duct the cause so as to insure a conviction. 
But from the nature of the circumstances there 
could not be the smallest doubt that the earl 
would be found guilty. The character of the 
crime was unequivocal. It had been commit- 
ted recently, in broad daylight, in the streets of 
the capital, in the presence of thousands. If 
ever there was an occasion on which an advo- 
cate had no temptation to resort to extraneous 
topics for the purpose of blinding the judgment 
and inflaming the passions of a tribunal, this 
was that occasion. Why then resort to argu- 
ments which, while they could add nothing to 
the strength of the case, considered in a legal 
point of view, tended to aggravate the moral 
guilt of the fatal enterprise, and to excite fear 
and resentment in that quarter, from which 
alone the earl could now expect mercy 1 Why 
remind the audience of the arts of the ancient 
tyrants 1 Why deny, what everybody knew to 
be the truth, that a powerful faction at court 
had long sought to effect the ruin of the pri- 
soner 1 Why, above all, institute a parallel 
between the unhappy culprit and the most 
wicked and most successful rebel of the age 1 
Was it absolutely impossible to do all that pro- 
fessional duty required, without reminding a 
jealous sovereign of the League, of the barri- 
cades, and of' all the humiliations which a too 
powerful subject had heaped on Henry the 
Third. 

But if we admit the plea which Mr. Montagu 
urges in defence of what Bacon did as an 
advocate, what shall we say of the "Decla- 
ration of the Treasons of Robert Earl of 
Essex !" Here at least there was no pretence 
of professional obligation. Even those who 
may think it the duty of a lawyer to hang, 
draw, and quarter his benefactors, for a. 
proper consideration, will hardly say that it 
is his duty to write abusive pamphlets against 
them, after they are in their graves. Bacon 
excused himself by saying that^he was not an- 
swerable for the matter of the book, and that 
ue furnished only the language. But why did 



he endow such purposes with word* 1 Could 
no hack-writer, without virtue or shame, be 
found to exaggerate the errors, already so 
dearly expiate'!, of a gentle and noble spirit? 
Every age produces those links between the 
man and the baboon. Every age is fertile of 
Concanens, of Gildons, and of Antony Pas- 
quins. But was it for Bacon so to prostitute 
his intellect? Could he not feel that, while 
he rounded and pointed some period dictated 
by the envy of Cecil, or gave a plausible form 
to some slander invented by the dastardly ma- 
lignity of Cobham, he was not sinning merely 
against his friend's honour and his own ! 
Could he not feel that letters, eloquence, phi- 
losophy, were all degraded in his degradation] 
The real explanation of all this is perfectly 
obvious ; and nothing but a partiality amounting 
to a ruling passion could cause anybody to miss 
it. The moral qualities of Bacon were not of a 
high order. We do not say that he was a bad 
man. He was not inhuman or tyrannical. He 
bore with meekness his high civil honours, 
and the far higher honours gained by J 
tellect. He was very seldom, if ever, provoked 
into treating any person with malignity and in- 
solence. No man more readily held up the left 
cheek to those who had smitten the right. No 
man was more expert at the soft answer which 
turneth away wrath. He was never accused 
of intemperance in his pleasures. His even 
temper, his flowing courtesy, the general re- 
spectability of his demeanour, made a favour- 
able impression on those who saw hirn in situa- 
tions which do not severely try the principles. 
His faults were — we write it with pain— cold- 
ness of heart and meanness of spirit. He 
seems to have been incapable of feeling strong 
affection, of facing great dangers, of making 
great sacrifices. His desires were set on things 
below. Wealth, precedence, titles, patronage, 
the mace, the seals, the coronet, large houses, 
fair gardens, rich manors, massy services of 
plate, gay hangings, curious cabinets, had as 
great attractions for him as for any of the 
courtiers who dropped on their knees in the 
dirt when Elizabeth passed by, and then has- 
tened home to write to the King of Scots that 
her grace seemed to be breaking fast. For 
these objects he had stooped to every thing and 
endured every thing. For these he had sued 
in the humblest manner, and when unjustly 
and ungraciously repulsed, had thanked those 
who had repulsed him, and had begun to sue 
again. For these objects, as soon as he found 
that the smallest show of independence in 
Parliament was offensive to the queen, he had 
abased himself to the dust before her, and im- 
plored forgiveness, in terms better suited to a 
convicted thief than to a knight of the shire. 
For these he joined, and for these he forsook 
Lord Essex. He continued to plead his pa- 
tron's cause with the queen, as long as he 
thought that by pleading that cause he might 
serve himself. Nay, he went further, for his 
feelings, though not warm, were kind — he 
pleaded that cause as long as he thought he 
could plead it without injury to himself But 
when it became evident that Essex was going 
headlong to his ruin, Bacon began to tremble 
for his own for'unes. What he had to fear 



256 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



would £ot{jndeed have been very alarming to 
a man of lofty character. It was not death. 
It was not imprisonment. It was the loss of 
court favour. It was the being left behind by 
others in the career of ambition. It was the 
having leisure to finish the Instauratio Magna. 
The queen looked coldly on him. The cour- 
tiers began to consider him as a marked man. 
He determined to change his line of conduct, 
and to proceed in a new course with so much 
vigour as to make up for lost time. When 
once he had determined to act against his 
friend, knowing himself to be suspected, he 
acted with more zeal than would have been ne- 
cessary or justifiable if he had been employed 
against a stranger. He exerted his profession- 
al talents to shed the earl's blood, and his lite- 
rary talents to blacken the earl's memory. It 
is certain that his conduct excited at the time 
great and general disapprobation. While 
Elizabeth lived, indeed, this disapprobation, 
though deeply felt, was not loudly expressed. 
But a great change was at hand. 

The health of the queen had been long de- 
caying ; and the operation of age and disease 
was now assisted by acute mental suffering. 
The pitiable melancholy of her last days has 
generally been ascribed to her fond regret for 
Essex. But we are disposed to attribute her 
dejection partly to physical causes, and partly 
to the conduct of her courtiers and minis- 
ters. They did all in their power to conceal 
from her the intrigues which they were 
carrying on at the court of Scotland. * But her 
keen sagacity was not to be so deceived. She 
did not know the whole. But she knew that 
she was surrounded by men who were impa- 
tient for that new world which was to begin at 
her death, who had never been attached to her 
by affection, and who were now but very slight- 
ly attached to her by interest. Prostration 
and flattery could not conceal from her the 
cruel truth, that those whom she had trusted 
and promoted had never loved her, and were 
fast ceasing to fear her. Unable to avenge 
herself, and too proud to complain, she suffered 
sorrow and resentment to prey on her heart, 
till, after a long career of power, prosperity, 
and glory, she died sick and weary of the world. 

James mounted the throne; and Bacon em- 
ployed all his address to obtain for himself a 
share of the favour of his new master. This 
was no difficult task. The faults of James, 
both as a man and as a prince, were numerous ; 
but insensibility to the claims of genius and 
learning was not amongst them. He was in- 
deed made up of two men — a witty, well-read 
scholar, who wrote,and disputed, andharangued, 
and a nervous, drivelling idiot, who acted. If 
he had been a Canon of Christ Church, or a 
Prebendary of Westminster, it is not improba- 
ble that he would have left a highly respectable 
name to posterity ; that he would have distin- 
guished himself among the translators of the 
Bible, and among the divines who attended the 
Synod of Dort; that he would have been re- 
garded by tke literary world as no contemptible 
rival of Vosmus and Casaubon. But fortune 
placed him in a situation in which his weakness 
covered him w.th disgrace ; and in which his 
accomplishments brought him no honour. In 



a college, much eccentricity and childishness 
would have been readily pardoned in so learned 
a man. But all that learning could do for him 
on the throne, was to make people think hinj 
a pedant as well as a fool. 

Bacon was favourably received at court 
and soon found that his chance of promotion 
was not diminished by the death of the queen. 
He was solicitous to be knighted, for two rea« 
sons, which are somewhat amusing. The king 
had already dubbed half London, and Bacon 
found himself the only untitled person in his 
mess at Gray's Inn. This was not very agree- 
able to him. He had also, to quote his own 
words, "found an alderman's daughter, a 
handsome maiden, to his liking." On both 
these grounds, he begged his cousin, Robert 
Cecil, " if it might please his good lordship, ' 
to use his interest in his behalf. The applica 
tion was successful. Bacon was one of three 
hundred gentlemen who, on the coronation-day, 
received the honour, if it is to be so called, of 
knighthood. The handsome maiden, a daughter 
of Alderman Barnham, soon after consented 
to become Sir Francis's lady. 

The death of Elizabeth, though on the whole 
it improved Bacon's prospects, was in one re- 
spect an unfortunate event for him. The new 
king had always felt kindly towards Lord Es- 
sex, who had been zealous for the Scotch suc- 
cession ; and, as soon as he came to the throne, 
began to show favour to the house of Devereux, 
and to those who had stood by that house in 
its adversity. Everybody was now at liberty 
to speak out respecting those lamentable events 
in which Bacon had borne so large a share. 
Elizabeth was scarcely cold when the public 
feeling began to manifest itself by marks of 
respect towards Lord Southampton. That ac- 
complished nobleman, who will be remembered 
to the latest ages as the generous and discern- 
ing patron of Shakspeare, was held in honour 
by his contemporaries, chiefly on account of 
the devoted affection which he had borne to 
Essex. He had been tried and convicted to- 
gether with his friend; but the queen had 
spared his life, and at the time of her death, he 
was still a prisoner. A crowd of visiters 
hastened to the Tower to congratulate him on 
his approaching deliverance. With that crowd 
Bacon could not venture to mingle. The mul- 
titude loudly condemned him; and his. con- 
science told him that the multitude had but too 
much reason. He excused himself to South- 
ampton by letter, in terms which, if he had, as 
Mr. Montagu conceives, done only what as a 
subject and an advocate he was bound to do, 
must be considered as shamefully servile. He 
owns his fear that his attendance would give 
offence, and that his professions of regard 
would obtain no credit. " Yet," says he, " it is 
as true as a thing that God knoweth, that this 
great change hath wrought in me no other 
change towards your lordship than this, that I 
may safely be that to you now which I was 
truly before." 

How Southampton received these apologies 
we are not informed. But it is certain thai 
the general opinion was pronounced against 
Bacon in a manner not to be misunderstood* 
Soon after his marriage he put forth a defenc* 



LORD BACON. 



257 



of his conduct, in ihe form of a letter to the 
Earl of Devon. This tract seems to us to prove 
only the exceeding badness of a cause for 
which such talents could do so little. 

It is not probable that Bacon's defence had 
much eifect on his contemporaries. But the 
unfavourable impression which his conduct 
nad made appears to have been gradually 
effaced. Indeed, it must be some very peculiar 
cause that can make a man like him long un- 
popular. His talents secured him from con- 
tempt, his temper and his manners from hatred. 
There is scarcely any story so black that it 
may not be got over by a man of great abili- 
ties, whose abilities are united with caution, 
good-humour, patience, and affability, who 
pays daily sacrifice to Nemesis, who is a de- 
lightful companion, a serviceable though not 
an ardent friend, and a dangerous yet a placa- 
ble enemy. Waller in the next generation was 
an eminent instance of this. Indeed, Waller 
had much more than may at first sight appear 
in common with Bacon. To the higher intel- 
lectual qualities of the great English philoso- 
pher — to the genius which has made an im- 
mortal epoch in the history of science — Waller 
had indeed no pretensions. But the mind of 
Wal.er, as far as it extended, coincided with 
that if Bacon, and might, so to speak, have 
been cut out of that of Bacon. In the qualities 
which make a man an object of interest and 
veneraiion to posterity, there was no compari- 
son between them. But in the qualities by 
which chiefly a man is known to his contem- 
poraries, there was a striking similarity. Con- 
sidered as men of the world, as courtiers, as 
politicians, as associates, as allies, as enemies, 
they have nearly the same merits and the same 
defects. They were not malignant They were 
not tyrannical. But they wanted warmth of 
affection and elevation of sentiment. There 
were many things which they loved better than 
virtue, and which they feared more than guilt. 
Yet after they had stooped to acts of which it 
is impossible to read the account in the most 
partial narratives without strong disapproba- 
tion and contempt, the public still continued to 
regard them with a feeling not easily to be dis- 
tinguished from esteem. The hyperbole of 
Juliet seemed to be verified with respect to 
therc\ "Upon their brows shame was ashamed 
to sit. ' Everybody seemed as desirous to 
throw a veil over their misconduct as if it had 
been his own. Clarendon, who felt, and who 
had reason to feel, strong personal dislike to- 
wards Waller, speaks of him thus: "There 
needs no more be said to extol the excellence 
and power of his wit and pleasantness of his 
conversation, than that it was of magnitude 
enough to cover a world of very great faults — 
that is, so to cover them that they were not 
taken notice of to his reproach — namely, a 
narrowness in his nature to the lowest degree 
— an abjectness and want of courage to sup- 
port him in any virtuous undertaking — an in- 
sinuation and servile flattery to the height the 
vainest and most imperious nature could be 
contented with It had power to re- 
concile him to those whom he had most of- 
fended and provoked, and continued to his age 
with that rare felicity, that his company was 



acceptable where his spirit was odiour*, and he 
was at least pitied where he was most detest- 
ed." Much of this, with some softening, might, 
we fear, be applied to Bacon. The influence 
of Waller's talents, manners, and accomplish- 
ments, died with him ; and the world has pro- 
nounced an unbiassed sentence on his chara* 
ter. A few flowing lines t are not bribe suffi- 
cient to pervert the judgment of posterity. But 
the influence of Bacon is felt and will long be 
felt over the whole civilized world. Leniently 
as he was treated by his contemporaries, pos- 
terity has treated him more leniently still. 
Turn where we may, the trophies of that 
mighty intellect are full in view. We are 
judging Manlius in sight of the Capitol. 

Under the reign of James, Bacon grew ra- 
pidly in fortune and favour. Jn 1604 he was 
appointed king's council, with a fee of forty 
pounds a year ; and a pension of sixty pounds 
a year was settled upon him. In 1607 he be- 
came Solicitor-General ; in 1612 Attorney-Ge- 
neral. He continued to distinguish himself in 
Parliament, particularly by his exertions in 
favour of one excellent measure on which the 
king's heart was set — the union of England 
and Scotland. It was not difficult for such an 
intellect to discover many irresistible argu- 
ments in favour of such a scheme. He con- 
ducted the great case of the Post Nati in the 
Exchequer Chamber ; and the decision of the 
judges — a decision the legality of which may 
be questioned, but the beneficial effect of which 
must be acknowledged — was in a great mea- 
sure attributed to his dexterous management 
While actively engaged in the House of Com- 
mons and in the courts of law, he still found 
leisure for letters and philosophy. The noble 
treatise on the. "Advancement of Learning," 
which at a later period was expanded into the 
De Augmentis, appeared in 1605. The " Wis- 
dom of the Ancients," a work which, if it had 
proceeded from any other writer, would have 
been considered as a masterpiece of wit and 
learning, but which adds little to the fame of 
Bacon, was printed in 1609. In the mean time 
the Novum Organum was slowly proceeding. 
Several distinguished men of learning had been 
permitted to see sketches or detached portions 
of that extraordinary book ; and though they 
were not generally disposed to admit the sound- 
ness of the author's views, they spoke with the 
greatest admiration of his genius. Sir Thomas 
Bodley, the founder of the most magnificent of 
English libraries, was among those stubborn 
conservatives who considered the hopes with 
which Bacon looked forward to the future des- 
tinies of the human race as utterly chimerical ; 
and who regarded with distrust and aversion 
the innovating spirit of the new schismatics 
in philosophy. Yet even Bodley, after perusing 
the Cogitata et Visa, one of the most precious 
of those scattered leaves out of which the great 
oracular volume was afterwards made up, ac 
knowledged that in " those very points, and in 
all proposals and plots in that book, Bacoti 
showed himself a master workman ;" and that 
" it could not be gainsaid but all the treatise 
over did abound with choice conceits of tb« 
present state of learning, and with worthy con- 
templations of the means to procure it." In 



25S 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



1612, a new edition of the "Essays" appeared, 
with additions surpassing the original collec- 
tion both in bulk and quality. Nor did these 
pursuits distract Bacon's attention from a work 
the most arduous, the most glorious, and the 
most useful that even his mighty powers could 
have achieved, " the reducing and recompil- 
ing," to use his own phrase, " of the laws of 
England." 

Unhappily he was at that very time employ- 
ed in perverting those laws to the vilest pur- 
poses of tyranny. When Oliver St. John was 
brought before the Star-Chamber for main- 
taining that the king had no right to levy be- 
nevolences, and was for his manly and consti- 
tutional conduct sentenced to imprisonment 
during the royal pleasure, and to a fine of five 
thousand pounds, Bacon appeared as counsel 
for the prosecution. About the same time he 
was deeply engaged in a still more disgrace- 
ful transaction. An aged clergyman, of the 
name of Peacharn, was accused of treason on 
account of some passages of a sermon which 
was found in his study. The sermon, whether 
written by him or not, had never been preach- 
ed. It did not appear that he had any inten- 
tion of preaching it. The most servile lawyers 
of those servile times were forced to admit 
that there were great difficulties, both as to the 
facts and as to the law. Bacon was employed 
to remove those difficulties. He was employed 
to settle the question of law by tampering with 
the judges, and the question of fact by tor- 
turing the prisoner. Three judges of the 
Court of King's Bench were tractable. But 
Coke was made of different stuff. Pedant, 
bigot, and savage as he was, he had qualities 
which bore a strong, though a very disagreea- 
ble resemblance to some of the highest virtues 
which a public man can possess. He was an 
exception to a maxim which we believe to be 
generally true, that those who trample on the 
helpless are disposed to cringe to the powerful. 
He behaved with gross rudeness to his ju- 
niors at the bar, and with execrable cruelty to 
prisoners on trial for their lives. But he 
stood up manfully against the king and the 
king's favourites. No man of that age ap- 
peared to so little advantage when he was op- 
posed to an inferior, and was in the wrong. 
But, on the other hand, it is but fair to admit 
that no man of that age made so creditable a 
figure when he was opposed to a superior, and 
happened to be in the right. On such occa- 
sion, his half-suppressed insolence and his 
impracticable obstinacy had a respectable and 
interesting appearance, when compared with 
the abject servility of the bar and of the bench. 
On the present occasion he was stubborn and 
surly. He declared it was a new and highly 
improper practice in the judges to confer with 
a law officer of the crown about capital cases 
which they were afterwards to try ; and for 
some time he resolutely kept aloof. But Ba- 
con was equally artful and persevering. "I 
am not wholly out of hope," said he, in a letter 
io the king, " that my Lord Coke himself, when 
f have in some dark manner put him in doubt 
that he shall b.e .eft alone, will not be singu- 
lar." After some time Bacon's dexterity was 
successful ; and Coke, sullenly and reluctantly, 



followed the example of his brethren. But in 
order to convict Peacharn it was necessary to 
find facts as well as law. Accordingly, this 
wretched old man was put to the rack; an:!, 
while undergoing the horrible infliction, was 
examined by Bacon, but in vain. No confes- 
sion could be wrung out of him ; and Bacoc 
wrote to the king, complaining that Peacharn 
had a dumb devil. At length the trial came 
on. A conviction was obtained : but the 
charges were so obviously futile that the go- 
vernment could not for very shame carry the 
sentence into execution ; and Peacharn was 
suffered to languish away the short remainder 
of his life in a prison. 

All this frightful story Mr. Montagu relates 
fairly. He neither conceals nor distorts any 
material fact. But he can see nothing deserv- 
ing of condemnation in Bacon's conduct. He 
1 ells us most truly that we ought not to try the 
men of one age by the standard of another; 
that Sir Matthew Hale is not to be pronounced 
a bad man because he left a woman to be ex- 
ecuted for witchcraft ; that posterity will not 
be justified in censuring judges of our time for 
selling offices in their courts, according to the 
established practice, bad as that practice Avas, 
and that Bacon is entitled to similar indul- 
gence. "To persecute the lover of truth," 
says Mr. Montagu, " for opposing established 
customs, and to censure him in after ages for 
not having been more strenuous in opposition, 
are errors which will never cease until tne 
pleasure of self-elevation from the depression 
of superiority is no more." 

We have no dispute with Mr. Montagu about 
the general proposition. We assent to every 
word of it. But does it apply to the present 
case 1 Is it true that in the time of James the 
First it was the established practice for the 
law-officers of the crown to hold private con- 
sultations with the judges, touching capital 
cases which those judges were afterwards to 
try! Certainly not. In the very page in 
which Mr. Montagu asserts that " the influenc- 
ing a judge out of court seems at that period 
scarcely to have been considered as impro- 
per," he gives the very words of Sir Edward 
Coke on the subject. "I will not thus declare 
what may be my judgment by these auricular 
confessions of new and pernicious tendency, 
and not according to the customs of the realm." Is 
it possible to imagine that Coke, who had 
himself been Attorney-General during thirteen 
years, who had conducted a far greater num- 
ber of important state-prosecutions than any 
other lawyer named in English history, and 
who had passed with scarcely any interval 
from the Attorney-Generalship to the first seat 
in the first criminal court in the realm, could 
have been startled at an invitation to confer 
with the crown-lawyers, and could have pro- 
nounced the practice new, if it had really been 
an established usage'? We well know that 
where property only was at stake, it was then 
a common, though a most culpable practice, in 
the judges to listen to private solicitation. But 
the practice of tampering with judges in orde* 
to procure capital convictions, we believe to 
have been new ; first, because Coke, who un- 
derstood those matters better than any man of 



LORD BACON. 



259 



his time, asserted it to be new; and, secondly, 
because neither Bacon nor Mr. Montagu has 
shown a single precedent. 

How, then, stands the case 1 Even thus : 
Bacon was not conforming to a usage then 
generally admitted to be proper. He was not 
even the last lingering adherent of an old 
abuie. It would have been sufficiently dis- 
graceful to such a man to be in this last situa- 
iion. Yet this last situation would have been 
fconomable compared with that in which he 
stood. He was guilty of attempting to intro- 
duce into the courts of law an odious abuse 
for which no precedent could be found. In- 
tellectually, he was better fitted than any man 
that England has ever produced for the work 
of improving her institutions. But, unhappily, 
we see that he did not scruple to exert his 
great powers for the purpose of introducing 
into those institutions new corruptions of the 
foulest kind. 

The same, or nearly the same, may be said 
of the torturing of Peacham. If it be true that 
in the time of James the First the propriety of 
torturing prisoners was generally allowed, we 
should admit this as an excuse, though we 
should admit it less readily in the case of such 
a man as Bacon, than in the case of an ordina- 
ry lawyer or politician. But the fact is, that 
the practice of torturing prisoners was then 
generally acknowledged by lawyers to be ille- 
gal, and was execrated by the public as bar- 
barous. More than thirty years before Peach- 
am's trial that practice was so loudly con- 
demned by the voice of the nation, that Lord 
Burleigh found it necessary to publish an 
apology for having occasionally resorted to 
it.* But though the dangers which then 
threatened the government were of a very 
different kind from those which were to be ap- 
prehended from any thing that Peacham could 
write ; though the life of the queen and the 
dearest interests of the state were in jeopardy, 
though the circumstances were such that all 
ordinary laws might seem to be superseded by 
that highest law, the public safety, the apology 
did not satisfy the country; and the queen 
found it expedient to issue an order positively 
forbidding the torturing of state prisoners on 
any pretence whatever. From that time, the 
practice of torturing, which had always been 
unpopular, which had always been illegal, 
ha* also teen unusual. It is well known that 
in 1628, only fourteen years after the time 
when Bacon went to the Tower to listen to the 
yells of Peacham, the judges decided that Fel- 
ton, a criminal who neither deserved nor was 
likely to obtain any extraordinary indulgence, 
could not lawfully be put to the question. We 
therefore say that Bacon stands in a very dif- 
ferent situation from that in which Mr. Mon- 
tagu tries to place him. Bacon was here dis- 
tinctly behind his age. He was one of the last 
of the tools of power who persisted in a prac- 
tice the most barbarous and the most absurd 
that has ever disgraced jurisprudence — in a 
practice of which, in the preceding generation, 
Elizabeth and her ministers had been ashamed 



* This paper is contained in the Harleian Miscellany. 
't is dated L583. 



— in a practice which, a few years later, nc 
sycophant in all the Inns of Court had the 
heart or the forehead to defend. 

Bacon far behind his age ! Bacon far be- 
hind Sir Edward Coke! Bacon clinging tc 
exploded abuses ! Bacon withstanding the 
progress of improvement ! Bacon struggling 
to push back the human mind! The words 
seems strange. They sound like a contradic- 
tion in terms. Yet the fact is even so : and 
the explanation may be readily found by any 
person who is not blinded by prejudice. Mr. 
Montagu cannot believe that so extraordinary 
a man as Bacon could be guilty of a bad ac- 
tion ; as if history were not made up of the 
bad actions of extraordinary men ; as if all the 
most noted destroyers and deceivers of> our 
species, all the founders of arbitrary govern- 
ments and false religions, had not been extra- 
ordinary men ; as if nine-tenths of the calami- 
ties which had befallen the human race had 
any other origin than the union of high intel- 
ligence with low desires. 

Bacon knew this well. He has told us that 
there are persons, " scientia tanquam angeli 
alati, cupiditatibus vero tanquam serpentes qui 
humi reptant ;"* and it did not require his ad- 
mirable sagacity and his extensive converse 
with mankind to make the discovery. Indeed, 
he had only to look within. The difference 
between the soaring angel, and the creeping 
snake, was but a type of the difference between 
Bacon the philosopher and Bacon the Attorney- 
General — Bacon seeking for Truth, and Bacon 
seeking for the Seals. Those who survey only 
one-half of his character may speak of him 
with unmixed admiration or with unmixed 
contempt. But those only judge of him cor- 
rectly, who take in at one view Bacon in specu- 
lation and Bacon in action. They will have 
no difficulty in comprehending how one and 
the same man should have been far before his 
age and far behind it; in one line the boldest 
and most useful of innovators, in another line 
the most obstinate champion of the foulest 
abuses. In his library, all his rare powers 
were under the guidance of an honest ambi- 
tion, of an enlarged philanthropy, of a sincere 
love of truth. There, no temptation drew him 
away from the right course. Thomas Aquinas 
could pay no fees ; Duns Scotus could confer 
no peerages. The " Master of the Sentences" 
had no rich reversions in his gift. Far differ- 
ent was the situation of the great philosopher 
when he came forth from his study and his 
laboratory to mingle with the crowd which 
filled the galleries of Whitehall. In all that 
crowd there was no man equally qualified to 
render great and lasting services to mankind. 
But in all that crowd there was not a heart 
more set on things which no man ought to suf- 
fer to be necessary to his happiness, on things 
which can often be obtained only by the sacri- 
fice of integrity and honour. To be the leader 
of the human race in the career of improve- 
ment, to found on the ruins of ancient intel- 
lectual dynasties a more prosperous and a 
more enduring empire, to be revered to the 
latest generations as the most illustrious among 

* De Jtusmentis, Lib. v. ran ' 



S60 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS-., 



the benefactors of mankind, — all this was within 
his reach. But all this availed him nothing 
while some quibbling special pleader was pro- 
moted before him to the bench ; while some 
heavy country gentleman took precedence of 
him by virtue of a purchased coronet ; while 
some pander, happy in a fair wife, could ob- 
tain a more cordial salute from Buckingham ; 
while some buffoon, versed in all the latest 
scandal of the court, could draw a louder laugh 
from James. 

During a long course of years, his unworthy 
ambition was crowned with success. His 
sagacity early enabled him to perceive who 
was likely to become the most powerful man 
in the kingdom. He probably knew the king's 
mind before it was known to the king himself, 
and attached himself to Villiers, while the less 
discerning crowd of courtiers still continued 
to fawn on Somerset. The influence of the 
younger favourite became greater daily. The 
contest between the rivals might, however, 
have lasted long, but for that frightful crime 
which, in spite of all that could be effected by 
the research and ingenuity of historians, is 
still covered with so mysterious an obscurity. 
The descent of Somerset had been a gradual 
and almost imperceptible lapse. It now be- 
came a headlong fall ; and Villiers, left with- 
out a competitor, rapidly rose to a height of 
power such as no subject since Wolsey had 
attained. 

There were many points of resemblance 
between the two celebrated courtiers who, at 
different times, extended their patronage to 
Bacon. It is difficult to say whether Essex or 
Villiers was the more eminently distinguished 
by those graces of person and manner which 
have always been rated in courts at much more 
than their real value. Both were constitution- 
ally brave ; and both, like most men who are con- 
stitutionally brave, were open and unreserved. 
Both were rash and headstrong. Both were 
destitute of the abilities and the information 
which are necessary to statesmen. Yet both, 
rusting to the accomplishments which had 
made them conspicuous in tilt-yards and ball- 
rooms, aspired to rule the state. Both owed 
their elevation to the personal attachment of 
the sovereign ; and in both cases this attach- 
ment was of so eccentric a kind, that it per- 
plexed observers, that it still continues to per- 
plex historians, and that it gave rise to much 
scandal which we are inclined to think un- 
founded. Each of them treated the sovereign 
whose favour he enjoyed, with a rudeness 
which approached to insolence. This petu- 
lance ruined Essex, who had to deal with a' 
spirit naturally as proud as his own, and ac- 
customed, during nearly half a century, to the 
most respectful observance. But there was a 
wide difference between the haughty daughter 
of Henry and her successor. James was timid 
from the cradle. His nerves, naturally weak, 
had not been fortified by reflection or by habit. 
His life, till he came to England, had been a 
series of mortifications and humiliations. With 
all his high notions of the origin and extent of 
his prerogatives, he was never his own master 
for a day. In spite of his kingly title, in spite 
of his despotic theories, he was to the last a 



slave at heart. Villiers treated him like one, 
and this course, though adopted, we belie ye, 
merely from temper, succeeded as well as if 
it had been a system of policy formed after 
mature deliberation. 

In generosity, in sensibility, in capacity for 
friendship, Essex far surpassed Buckingham. 
Indeed, Buckingham can scarcely be said to 
have had any friend, with the exception of the 
two princes, over whom successively he exer> 
cised so wonderful an influence. Essex was 
to the last adored by the people. Buckingham 
was always a most unpopular man ; except 
perhaps for a very short time after his return 
from the childish visit to Spain. Essex fell a 
victim to the rigour of the government amidst 
the lamentations of the people. Buckingham, 
execrated by the people, and solemnly declared 
a public enemy by the representatives of the 
people, fell by the hand of one of the people, 
and was lamented by none but his master. 

The way in which the two favourites acted 
towards Bacon was highly characteristic, and 
may serve to illustrate the old and true saying, 
that a man is generally more inclined. to feel 
kindly towards one on whom he has conferred 
favours, than towards one from whom he has 
received them. Essex loaded Bacon with 
benefits, and never thought that he had done 
enough. It never seems to have crossed the 
mind of the powerful and mighty noble, tha 
the poor barrister whom he treated with such 
munificent kindness was not his equal. It 
was, we have no doubt, with perfect sincerity 
that he declared, that he would willingly give 
his sister or daughter in marriage to his friend. 
He was in general more than sufficiently sen- 
sible of his own merits ; but he did not seem 
to know that he had ever deserved well of 
Bacon. On that cruel day when they saw 
each other for the last time at the bar of the 
Lords, the earl taxed his perfidious friend with 
unkindness and insincerity, but never with in- 
gratitude. Even in such a moment, more bitter 
than the bitterness of death, that noble heart 
was too great to vent itself in such a reproach. 

Villiers, on the other hand, owed much to 
Bacon. When their acquaintance began, Sir 
Francis was a man of mature age, of high sta- 
tion, and of established fame as a politician, 
an advocate, and a writer. Villiers was little 
more than a boy, a younger son of a house then 
of no great note. He was but just entering on 
the career of court-favour ; and none but the 
most discerning observers could as yet per- 
ceive that he was likely to distance all his 
competitors. The countenance and advice of a 
man so highly distinguished as the Attorney- 
General must have been an object of the high- 
est importance to the young adventurer. But 
though Villiers was the obliged party, he was 
less warmly attached to Bacon, and far less 
delicate in his conduct towards him, than Es- 
sex had been. 

To do the new favourite justice, he eany 
exerted his influence in behalf of his illus- 
trious friend. In 1616, Sir Francis was sworr. 
of the Privy Council; and in March, 1617, on 
the retirement of Lord Brackley, was appointed 
Keeper of the Great Seal. 

On the 7th of May, the first daj if term,, he 



LORD BACON. 



261 



rode in state to Westminster Hal',, with the 
Lord Treasurer on his right hand, the Lord 
Privy Seal on his left, a long procession of 
students and ushers before him, and a crowd 
of peers, privy-councillors, and judges fol- 
lowing in his train. Having entered his court, 
he addressed the splendid auditory in a grave 
and dignified speech, which proves how well 
he understood those judicial duties which he 
afterwards performed so ill. Even at that mo- 
ment, the proudest moment of his life in the 
estimation of the vulgar, and, it may be, even 
in his own, he cast back a look of lingering 
affection towards those noble pursuits from 
which, as it seemed, he was about to be es- 
tranged. " The depth of the three long vaca- 
tions," said he, " I would reserve in some mea- 
sure free from business of estate, and for stu- 
dies, arts, and sciences, to which of my own 
nature I am most inclined." 

The years during which Bacon held the 
great seal were among the darkest and most 
shameful in English history. Every thing at 
home and abroad was mismanaged. First 
came the execution of Raleigh, an act which, 
if done ifTa proper manner, might have been 
defensible, but which, under all the circum- 
stances, must be considered as a dastardly 
murder. Worse was behind — the war of Bo- 
hemia, the successes of Tilly and Spinola, the 
Palatinate conquered, the king's son-in-law an 
exile, the house of Austria dominant on the 
continent, the Protestant religion and the li- 
berties of the Germanic body trodden under 
foot. In the mean time, the wavering and 
cowardly policy of England furnished matter 
of ridicule to all the nations of Europe. The 
love of peace which James professed would, 
even when indulged to an impolitic excess, 
have been respectable, if it had proceeded from 
tenderness for his people. But the truth is, 
that, while he had nothing to spare for the de- 
fence of the natural allies of England, he re- 
sorted without scruple to the most illegal and 
oppressive devices for the purpose of enabling 
Buckingham and Buckingham's relations to 
outshine the ancient aristocracy of the realm. 
Benevolences were exacted. Patents of mono- 
poly were multiplied. All the resources which 
could have been employed to replenish a beg- 
gared exchequer, at the close of a ruinous 
war, were put in motion during this season of 
ignominious peace. 

The vices of the administration must be 
chiefly ascribed to the weakness of the king 
and to the levity and violence of the favourite. 
But it is impossible to acquit the Lord Keeper. 
For those odious patents, in particular, which 
passed the great seal while it was in his 
charge, he must be held answerable. In the 
speech which he made on first taking his seat 
n his court, he had pledged himself to dis- 
charge this important part of his functions 
with the greatest caution and impartiality. He 
had declared that he "would walk in the light," 
" that men should see that no particular turn 
or end led him, but a general rule ;" and Mr. 
Montagu would have us believe that Bacon 
acted up to these professions. He says that 
"the power of the favourite did not deter the ! 
Lord Keeper from staying grants and patents, i 



when his public duty demanded his intorpo 
sition." Does Mr. Montagu consider patents 
of monopoly as good things 1 or does he mean 
to say that Bacon stayed every patent of mono 
poly that came before him 1 Of all the patentr 
in our history, the most disgraceful was that 
which was granted to Sir Giles Momper>son, 
supposed to be the original of Massinger's 
" Overreach," and to Sir Francis Michell, from 
whom "Justice Greedy" is supposed to have 
been drawn, for the exclusive manufacturing 
of gold and silver lace. The effect of this 
monopoly was of course that the metal em- 
ployed in the manufacture was adulterated, to 
the great loss of the public. But this was a 
trifle. The patentees were armed with power 
as great as have ever been given to farmers 
of th revenue in the worst governed coun- 
tries. They were authorized to search houses 
and to arrest interlopers ; and these formidable 
powers were used fofc purposes viler than even 
those for which they were given — for the 
wreaking of old grudges, and for the corrupt- 
ing of female chastity. Was not this a case 
in which public duty demanded the interposi- 
tion of the Lord Keeper 1 And did the Lord 
Keeper interpose 1 He did. He wrote to in- 
form the king, that he " had considered of the 
fitness and conveniency of the gold and silver 
thread business," "that it was convenient that 
it should be settled," that he "did conceive 
apparent likelihood that it would redound much 
to his majesty's profit," that, therefore, "it were 
good it were settled with all convenient speed." 
The meaning of all this was, that certain of 
the house of Villiers were to go shares with 
" Overreach" and " Greedy" in the plunder of 
the public. This was the way in which, when 
the favourite pressed for patents, lucrative to 
his relations and to his creatures, ruinous and 
vexatious to the body of the people, the chief 
guardian of the laws interposed. Having as- 
sisted the patentees to obtain this monopoly, 
Bacon assisted them also in the steps which 
they took for the purpose of guarding it. He 
committed several people to close confinement 
for disobeying his tyrannical edict. It is need- 
less to say more. Our readers are now able to 
judge whether, in the matter of patents, Bacon 
acted conformably to his professions, or de« 
served the praise which his biographer has 
bestowed on him. 

In his judicial capacity his conduct was not 
less reprehensible. He suffered Buckingham 
to dictate many of his decisions. Bacon knew 
as well as any man, that a judge who listens 
to private solicitations is a disgrace to his 
post. He had himself, before he was raised 
to the woolsack, represented this strongly to 
Villiers, then just entering on his career. "By 
no means," said Sir Francis, in a letter of ad- 
vice addressed to the young courtier, "by no 
means be you persuaded to interpose yourself, 
either by word or letter, in any cause depending 
in any court of justice, or suffer any great man 
to do it where you can hinder it. If it should 
prevail, it perverts justice ; but, if the judge 
be so just and of such courage, as he ought 
to be, as not to be inclined thereby, yet it 
always leaves a taint of suspicion behinu ii." 
Yet he had not been Lord Keeper a month 



262 



MAC AUL AY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



when Buckingham began to interfere in Chan 
eery suits, and his interference was, as might 
have been expected, successful. 

Mr. Montagu's reflections on the excellent 
passage which we have quoted above are 
exceedingly amusing. " No man," says he, 
" more deeply felt the evils which then existed 
of the interference of the crown and of states- 
men to influence judges. How beautifully did 
he admonish Buckingham, regardless as he 
proved of all admonition !" We should be 
glad to know how it can be expected that ad- 
monition will be regarded by him who receives 
it, when it is altogether neglected by him who 
gives it. We do not defend Buckingham, but 
what was his guilt to Bacon's? Buckingham 
was young, ignorant, thoughtless, dizzy with 
the rapidity of his ascent and the height of 
his position. That he should be eager to serve 
his relations, his flatterers, his mistresses ; 
that he should not fully apprehend the im- 
mense importance of a pure administration 
of justice ; that he should think more about 
those who were bound to him by private ties 
than about the public interest — all this was 
perfectly natural, and not altogether unpar- 
donable. Those who intrust a petulant, hot- 
blooded, ill-informed lad with power, are more 
to blame than he for the mischief which he 
may do with it. How could it be expected of 
a lively page, raised by a wild freak of fortune 
to the first influence in the empire, that he 
should have bestowed any serious thought on 
the principles which ought to guide judicial 
decisions 1 Bacon was the ablest public man 
then living in Europe. He was nearly sixty 
years old. He had thought much, and to good 
purpose, on the general principles of law. He 
had for many years borne a part daily in the 
administration of justice. It was impossible 
that a man with a tithe of his sagacity and 
experience should not have known, that a 
judge who suffers friends or patrons to dictate 
his decrees, violates the plainest rules of duty. 
In fact, as we have seen, he knew this well : 
he expressed it admirably. Neither on this 
occasion nor on any other could his bad ac- 
tions be attributed to any defect of the head. 
They sprang from quite a different cause. 

A man who stooped to render such services 
to others was not likely to be scrupulous as to 
the means by which he enriched himself. He 
and his dependants accepted large presents 
from persons who were engaged in Chancery 
suits. The amount of the plunder which he 
collected in this way it is impossible to es- 
timate. There can be no doubt that he received 
very much more than was proved on his trial, 
though, it may be, less than was suspected by 
the public. His enemies stated his illicit gains 
at a hundred thousand pounds. But this was 
probably an exaggeration. 

It was long before the day of reckoning ar- 
rived. During the interval between the second 
and third Parliaments of James, the nation 
was absolutely governed by the crown. The 
prospects of the Lord Keeper were bright and 
serene. His great place rendered the splen- 
dour of his talents even more conspicuous ; 
and gave an additional charm to the serenity 
of bis temper, the courtesy of his manners, 



and the eloquence of his conversation. The 
pillaged suitor might mutter. The austere 
Puritan patriot might, in his retreat, lament 
that one on whom God had bestowed without 
measure all the abilities which qualify men 
to take the lead in great reforms, should 
be found among the adherents of the worst 
iibuses. But the murmurs of the suitor, and 
the lamentations of the patriot, had scarcely 
any avenue to the ears of the powerful. The 
king, and the minister who was the king's mas- 
ter, smiled on their illustrious flatterer. The 
whole crowd of courtiers and nobles sought 
his favour with emulous eagerness. Men of 
wit and learning hailed with delight the eleva- 
tion of one who had so signally shown that a 
man of profound learning and of brilliant wit 
might understand, far better than any plodding 
dunce, the art of thriving in the world. 

Once, and but once, this course of prosperity 
was for a moment interrupted. It should seem 
that even Bacon's brain was not strong enough 
to bear, without some discomposure, the ine- 
briating effect of so much good fortune. For 
some time after his elevation, he shoAved him- 
self a little wanting in that wariness and self- 
command to which, more than even to his 
transcendent talents, his elevation was to be 
ascribed. He was by no means a good hater. 
The temperature of his revenge, like that of 
his gratitude, was scarcely ever more thar. 
lukewarm. But there was one person whorr 
he had long regarded with an animosity which 
though studiously suppressed, was perhaps the 
stronger for the suppression. The insults and 
injuries which, when a young man struggling 
into note and professional practice, he had re- 
ceived from Sir Edward Coke, were such as 
might move the most placable nature to re- 
sentment. About the time at which Bacon 
received the seals, Coke had, on account of 
his contumacious resistance to the royal plea- 
sure, been deprived of his seat in the Court of 
King's Bench, and had ever since languished 
in retirement. But Coke's opposition to the 
court, we fear, was the effect, not of good 
principles, but of a bad temper. Perverse 
and testy as he was, he wanted true fortitude 
and dignity of character. His obstinacy, un- 
supported by virtuous motives, was not proof 
against disgrace. He solicited a reconcilia- 
tion with the favourite, and his solicitations 
were successful. Sir John Villiers, the brother 
of Buckingham, was looking out for a rich 
wife. Coke had a large fortune and an un- 
married daughter. A bargain was struck. 
But Lady Coke, the lady whom twenty years 
before Essex had wooed on behalf of Bacon, 
would not hear of the match. A violent and 
scandalous family quarrel followed. The mother 
carried the girl away by stealth. The father 
pursued them, and regained possession of his 
daughter by force. The king was then in 
Scotland, and Buckingham had attended him 
thither. Bacon was, during their absence, at 
the head of affairs in England. He felt to 
wards Coke as much malevolence as it was in 
his nature to feel towards anybody. His wis- 
dom had been laid to sleep by prosperity. In 
an evil hour he determined to interfere in the 
disputes which agitated his enemy's hcase 



LORD BACON. 



203 



flold. He declared for the wife, countenanced 
the Attorney-General in filing an information 
in the Star-Chamber against the husband, and 
wrote strongly to the king and the favourite 
against the proposed marriage. The language 
which he used in those letters shows that, sa- 
gacious as he was, he did not quite know his 
place; that he was not fully acquainted with 
the extent either of Buckingham's power, or 
of the change which the possession of that 
power had produced in Buckingham's charac- 
ter. He soon had a lesson which he never 
forgot. The favourite received the news of 
the Lord Keeper's interference with feelings 
of the most violent resentment, and made the 
king even more angry than himself. Bacon's 
eyes were at once opened to his error, and to all 
its possible consequences. He had been elated, 
i£ not intoxicated, by greatness. The shock 
sobered him in an instant. He was all himself 
again. He apologized submissively for his 
interference. He directed the Attorney-General 
to stop the proceedings against Coke. He sent 
to tell Lady Coke that he could do nothing for 
her. He announced to both the families that 
he was desirous to promote the connection. 
Having given these proofs of contrition, he 
ventured to present himself before Bucking- 
ham. But the young upstart did not think that 
ne had yet sufficiently humbled an old man 
who had been his friend and his benefactor, 
who was the highest civil functionary in the 
realm, and the most eminent man of letters in 
the world. It is said that on two successive 
days Bacon repaired to Buckingham's house ; 
that on two successive days he was suffered 
to remain in an antechamber among footboys, 
seated on an old wooden box, with the great 
seal of England at his side: and that when at 
length he was admitted, he flung himself on 
the floor, kissed the favourite's feet, and vowed 
never to rise till he was forgiven. Sir Anthony 
Weldon, on whose authority this story rest, is 
likely enough to have exaggerated the mean- 
ness of Bacon and the insolence of Bucking- 
ham. But it is difficult to imagine that so 
circumstantial a narrative, written by a person 
who avers that he was present on the occasion, 
can be wholly without foundation ; and, un- 
happily, there is little in the character either 
of the favourite or of the Lord Keeper to render 
the narrative improbable. It is certain that a 
reconciliation took place on terms humiliating 
to Bacon, who never more ventured to cross 
any purpose of anybody who bore the name 
ofVilliers. He put a strong curb on those 
angry passions which had for the first time in 
his life mastered his prudence. He went 
through the forms of a reconciliation with 
Coke, and did his best, by seeking opportuni- 
ties of paying little civilities, and by avoiding 
all that could produce collision, to tame the 
untamable ferocity of his old enemy. 

In the main, however, his life, while he held 
the great seal, was, in outward appearance, 
most enviable. In London he lived with great 
dignity at York-house, the venerable mansion 
of his father. Here it was that, in January, 
1620, he celebrated his entrance into his six- 
aeth year, amidst a splendid circle of friends. 
He had then exchanged the appellation of 



Keeper for the higher title of Chancellor. Ben 
Jonson was one of the party, and wrote on 
the occasion some of the happiest of his rug- 
ged rhymes. All things, he tells us, seemed 
to smile about the old house — "the fire, the 
wine, the men." The spectacle of the accom- 
plished host, after a life marked by no great 
disaster, entering on a green old age, in the 
enjoyment of riches, power, high honours, un« 
diminished mental activity, and vast literary 
reputation, made a strong impression on the 
poet, if we may judge from those well-known 
lines : — 

" England'! high Chancellor, the destined heir, 
in hi* soft cradle, to din Gather * chair, 
Whose even thread the fates "pin round and full 
Out of their choicest and thei» whitest wool." 

In the intervals of rest which Bacon's poli 
tical and judicial functions afforded, he was 
in the habit of retiring to Gorhambury. At 
that place his business was literature, and hi3 
favourite amusement gardening, wh.ch in one 
of his most pleasing Essays he calls " the 
purest of human pleasures." In his magnifi- 
cent grounds he erected, at a cost of ten thou- 
sand pounds, a retreat to which he repaired 
when he wished to avoid all visiters, and to 
devote himself wholly to study. On such oc- 
casions, a few young men of distinguished 
talents were sometimes the companions of his 
retirement. And among them his quick eye 
soon discerned the superior abilities of Thomas 
Hobbes. It is not probable, however, that he 
fully appreciated the powers of his disciple, or 
foresaw the vast influence, both for good and 
for evil, which that most vigorous and acute 
of human intellects was destine - ! to exercise 
on the two succeeding generatioiiS. 

In January, 1621, Bacon had reached the 
zenith of his fortunes. He had just published 
the Novum Organum; and that eAlraordinary 
book had drawn forth the warmest expressions 
of admiration from the ablest men of Europe, 
He had obtained honours of a widt ly differeni 
kind, but perhaps not less valued by hirn. He 
had been created Baron Verulam. He had 
subsequently been raised to the highei dignity 
of Viscount St. Albans. His patent ivas drawn 
in the most flattering terms, and thf Prince of 
Wales signed it as a witness. The ceremony 
of investiture was performed with great state 
at Theobalds, and Buckingham condescended 
to be one of the chief actors. Po.« terity has 
felt that the greatest of English philosophers 
could derive no accession of dignity from any 
title which James could bestow ; and, in de- 
fiance of the royal letters patent, has obsti- 
nately refused to dsgrade Francis Bacon into 
Viscount St. Albans. 

In a few weeks was signally brougiit to the 
test the value of those objects for which Bacon 
had sullied his integrity, had resigned his 
independence, hid violated the most sacred 
obligations of friendship and giatitud>;, had 
flattered the worthless, had persecuted the in- 
nocent, had tampered with judges, had torUired 
prisoners, had plundered suitors, had wasted 
on paltry intrigues all the powers of the mi s! 
exquisitely constructed intellect that has ever 
been bestowed on any of the children of men. 
A sudden and terrible reverse was at hand. A 



264 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Parliament had been summoned. After six 
years of silence the voice of the nation was 
again to be heard. Only three days after the 
pageant which was performed at Theobalds in 
honour of Bacon, the Houses met. 

Want of money had, as usual, induced the 
xmg to convoke his Parliament. But it may 
De doubted whether, if he or his ministers had 
been at all aware of the state of public feeling, 
they would not have tried any expedient, or 
borne with any inconvenience, rather than 
have ventured to face the deputies of a justly 
exasperated nation. But they did not discern 
those times. Indeed, almost all the political 
blunders of James, and of his more unfortu- 
nate son, arose from one great error. During 
the fifty years which preceded the Long Par- 
liament a great and progressive change was 
taking place in the public mind. The nature 
and extent of this change were not in the least 
understood by either of the first two kings of 
the house of Stuart, or by any of their advisers. 
That the nation became more and more dis- 
contented every year, that every House of 
Commons was more unmanageable than that 
which had preceded it, were facts, which it 
was impossible not to perceive. But the court 
could not understand why these things were 
so. The court could not see that the English 
people and the English government, though 
they might once have been well suited to each 
ether, were suited to each other no longer ; 
that the nation had outgrown its old institu- 
tions, was every day more uneasy under them, 
was pressing against them, and would soon 
burst through them. The alarming pheno- 
mena, the existence of which no sycophant 
could deny, were ascribed to every cause ex- 
cept the true. " In my first Parliament," said 
James, "I was a novice. In my.next, there 
was a kind of beasts called undertakers," and 
so forth. In the third Parliament he could 
hardly be called a novice, and those beasts, 
the undertakers, did not exist. Yet his third 
Parliament gave him more trouble than either 
the first or the second. 

The Parliament had no sooner met, than the 
House of Commons proceeded, in a temperate 
and respectful, but most determined manner, 
to discuss the public grievances. Their first 
attacks were directed against those odious pa- 
tents, under cover of which Buckingham and 
his creatures had pillaged and oppressed the 
nation. The vigour with which these proceed- 
ings were conducted spread dismay through 
the court. Buckingham thought himself in 
danger, and, in his alarm, had recourse to an 
adviser who had lately acquired considerable 
influence over him, Williams, Dean of West- 
minster. This person had already been of 
great use to the favourite in a very delicate 
matter. Buckingham had set his heart on 
marrying Lady Catherine Manners, daughter 
and heiress of the Earl of Rutland. But the 
difficulties were great. The earl was haughty 
and impracticable, and the young lady was a 
Catholic. Williams soothed the pride of the 
father, and found arguments which, for a time 
at least, quieted the conscience of the daughter. 
For these services he had been rewarded with 
considerable preferment in the Church • and 



he was now rapidly rising to the same plact 
in the regard of Buckingham which had for 
merly been occupied by Bacon. 

Williams was one of those who are wiser 
for others than for themselves. His own pub- 
lic life was unfortunate, and was rendered un 
fortunate by his strange want of judgment and 
self-command at several important conjunc- 
tures. But the counsel which he gave on this 
occasion showed no want of worldly wisdom 
He advised the favourite to abandon al 
thoughts of defending the monopolies, to fini 
some foreign embassy for his brother Sir Ed- 
ward, who was deeply implicated in the vil ■ 
lanies of Mompesson, and to leave the othe-r 
offenders to the justice of Parliament. Buck- 
ingham received this advice with the warmest 
expressions of gratitude, and declared that a 
load had been lifted from his heart. He then 
repaired with Williams to the royal presence. 
They found the king engaged in earnest con- 
sultation with Prince Charles. The plan of 
operations proposed by the dean was fully dis- 
cussed and approved in all its parts. 

The first victims whom the court abandoned 
to the vengeance of the Commons were Sir 
Giles Mompesson and Sir Francis Michell. It 
was some time before Bacon began to enter- 
tain any apprehensions. His talents and his 
address gave him great influence in the House 
of which he had lately become a member, as 
indeed they must have done in any assembly. 
In the House of Commons he had many per- 
sonal friends and many warm admirers. But 
at length, about six weeks after the meeting of 
Parliament, the storm burst. 

A committee of the lower House had been 
appointed to inquire into the state of the Courts 
of Justice. On the 15th of March the chair- 
man of that committee, Sir Robert Phillips, 
member for Bath, reported that great abuses 
had been discovered. " The person," said he, 
" against whom the things are alleged is no 
less than the Lord Chancellor, a man so en* 
dued with all parts, both of nature and of art, 
as that I will say no more of him, being not 
able to say enough." Sir Robert then proceed- 
ed to state, in the most temperate manner, the 
nature of the charges. A person of the name 
of Aubrey had a case depending in Chancery. 
He had been almost ruined by law expenses, 
and his patience had been exhausted by the 
delays of the court. He received a hint from 
some of the hangers-on of the Chancellor that 
a present of one hundred pounds would expedite 
matters. The poor man had not the sum re 
quired. However, having found out a usurer 
who accommodated him with it at high inte 
rest, he carried it to York House. The Chan- 
cellor took the money, and his dependants 
assured the suitor that all would go right. Au- 
brey was, however, disappointed ; for, after 
considerable delay, " a killing decree" was pro- 
nounced against him. Another suitor of the 
name of Egerton complained that he had been 
induced by two of the Chancelh r's jackals to 
make his lordship a present of four hundred 
pounds, and that nevertheless hi had not been 
able to obtain a decree in his. favour. Tha 
evidence to these facts was overwhelming. 
Bacon's friends could only entreat the Housb 



LORD BACON. 



265 



to suspend its judgment, and to send up the 
case to the Lords in a form less offensive than 
an impeachment. 

Oil the 19th of March the king sent a mes- 
sage to the Commons expressing his deep re- 
gret that so eminent a person as the Chancel- 
lor should be suspected of misconduct. His 
majesty declared that he had no wish to screen 
the guilty from justice, and proposed to appoint 
a new kind of tribunal, consisting of eighteen 
commissioners, who might be chosen from 
among the members of the two Houses, (t in- 
vestigate the matter. The Commons were not 
disposed to depart from the regular course of 
proceeding. On the same day they held a con- 
ference with the Lords, and delivered in the 
heads of the accusation against the Chancellor. 
At this conference Bacon was not present. 
Overwhelmed with shame and remorse, and 
abandoned by all those in whom he had weakly 
put his trust, he shut himself up in his cham- 
ber from the eyes of men. The dejection of 
his mind soon disordered his body. Bucking- 
ham, who visited him by the king's order, 
"found his lordship very sick and heavy." It 
appears from a pathetic letter which the un- 
happy man addressed to the Peers on the day 
of the conference, that he neither expected nor 
wished to survive his disgrace. During seve- 
ral days he remained in his bed, refusing to 
see any human being. He passionately told 
nis attendants to leave him, to forget him, 
never again to name his name, never to re- 
member that there had been such a man in the 
world. In the mean time fresh instances of 
corruption were every day brought to the know- 
ledge of his accusers. The number of charges 
rapidly increased from two to twenty-three. 
The Lords entered on the investigation of the 
case with laudable alacrity. Some witnesses 
were examined at the bar of the house. A 
select committee was appointed to take the de- 
position of others; and the inquiry was rapidly 
proceeding when, on the 26th of March, the 
king adjourned the Parliament for three weeks. 

This measure revived Bacon's hopes. He 
made the most of his short respite. He at- 
tempted to work' on the feeble mind of the 
king. He appealed to all the strongest feelings 
of James, to his fears, to his vanity, to his high 
notions of prerogative. Would the Solomon 
of the age commit so gross an error as to en- 
courage the encroaching spirit of Parliament? 
Would God's anointed, accountable to God 
alone, pay homage to the clamorous multi- 
tude] "Those," he exclaimed, "who now 
strike at the Chancellor will soon strike at the 
crown. I am the first sacrifice. I wish I may 
be the last." But all his eloquence and ad- 
dress were employed in vain. Indeed, what- 
ever Mr. Montagu may say, we are firmly 
convinced that it was not in the king's power 
10 save Bacon without having recourse to mea- 
sures which would have convulsed the realm. 
The crown had not sufficient influence in Par- 
liament to procure an acquittal in so clear a 
case of guilt. And to dissolve a Parliament 
which is universally allowed to have been one 
of the best Parliaments that ever sat, which 
had acted liberally and respectfully towards 
the sovereign, and which enjoyed in the high- 



est degree the favour of the people, only in 
order to stop a grave, temperate, and consti- 
tutional inquiry into the personal integrity of 
the first judge in the kingdom, would have 
been a measure more scandalous and absurd 
than any of those which were the ruin of the 
house of Stuart. Such a measure, while it 
would have been as fatal to the Chancellor's 
honour as a conviction, would have endanger- 
ed the very existence of the monarchy. The 
king, acting by the advice of Williams, very 
properly refused to engage in a dangerous 
struggle with his people for the purpose of 
saving from legal condemnation a minister 
whom it was impossible to save from disho- 
nour. He advised Bacon to plead guilty, and 
promised to do all in his power to mitigate the 
punishment. Mr. Montagu is exceedingly an- 
gry with James on this account. But though 
we are in general very little inclined to admire 
that prince's conduct, we really think that his 
advice was, under all the circumstances, the 
best advice that could have been given. 

On the 17th of April the Houses reassembled, 
and the Lords resumed their inquiries into the 
abuses of the Court of Chancery. On the 22d 
Bacon addressed to the Peers a letter, which 
Prince Charles condescended to deliver. In 
this artful and pathetic composition the Chan- 
cellor acknowledged his guilt in guarded and 
general terms, and, while acknowledging, en- 
deavoured to palliate it. This, however, was 
not thought sufficient by his judges. They re- 
quired a more particular confession, and sent 
him a copy of the charges. On the 30th he 
delivered a paper, in which he admitted, with 
few and unimportant reservations, the truth 
of the accusations brought against him, and 
threw himself entirely on the mercy of his 
peers. "Upon advised consideration of the 
charges," said he, " descending into my own 
conscience, and calling my memory to account 
so far as I am able, I do plainly and ingenu 
ously confess that I am guilty of corruption, 
and do renounce all defence." 

The Lords came to a resolution that the 
Chancellor's confession appeared to be full and 
ingenuous, and sent a committee to inquire of 
him whether it was really subscribed by him- 
self. The deputies, among whom was South- 
ampton, the common friend many years before 
of Bacon and Essex, performed their duty with 
great delicacy. Indeed, the agonies of such a 
mind and the degradation of such a name; 
might well have softened the most obdurate 
natures. "My lords," said Bacon, "it is my 
act, my hand, my heart. I beseech ycur lord- 
ships to be merciful to a broken reed." They 
withdrew; and he again retired to his chamber 
in the deepest dejection. The next day the 
sergeant-at-arms and usher of the House of 
Lords came to conduct him to Westminster 
Hall, where sentence was to be pronounced. 
But they found him so unwell that he could 
not leave his bed, and this excuse for his at 
sence was readily accepted. In no quartei 
does there appear to have been the smal.esl 
desire to add to his humiliation. The sentence 
was, however, severe ; the more severe, no 
doubt, because the Loids knew that it, would 
not be executed, and that they had an excellfiTi 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



opportunity of exhibiting at small cost the in- 
flexibility of their justice and their abhorrence 
of corruption. Bacon was condemned co pay 
a fine of forty thousand pounds, and to be im- 
prisoned in the Tower during'the king's plea- 
sure. He was declared incapable of holding 
any office in the state or of sitting in Parlia- 
ment, and he was banished for life from the 
verge of the court. In such misery and shame 
ended that long career of worldly wisdom and 
worldly prosperity ! 

Even at this pass Mr. Montagu does not de- 
sert his hero. He seems indeed to think that 
the attachment of an editor ought to be as de- 
voted as that of Mr. Moore's lovers ; and can- 
not conceive what biography was made for, 

"if 'tis not the same 
Through grief and through danger, through sin and 
through shame." 

He assures us that Bacon was innocent ; that 
he had the means of making a perfectly satis- 
factory defence; that when he "plainly and 
ingenuously confessed that he was guilty of 
corruption," and when he afterwards solemnly 
affirmed that his confession was "his act, his 
hand, his heart," he was telling a great lie; 
and that he refrained from bringing forward 
proofs of his innocence, because he durst not 
disobey the king and the favourite, who, for 
their own selfish objects, pressed him to plead 
guilty. 

Now, in the first place, there is not the 
smallest ground to believe that, if James and 
Buckingham thought Bacon had a good de- 
fence, they would have prevented hi'm from 
jnaking it. What conceivable motive had they 
for doing sol Mr. Montagu perpetually re- 
peats that it was their interest, to sacrifice Ba- 
con. But he overlooks an obvious distinction. 
It was their interest to sacrifice Bacon on the 
supposition of his guilt ; but not on the suppo- 
sition of his innocence. James was very pro- 
perly unwilling to run the risk of protecting 
his Chancellor against the Parliament. But 
if the Chancellor had been able, by force of 
argument, to obtain acquittal from the Parlia- 
ment, we have no doubt that both the king and 
Villiers would have heartily rejoiced. They 
would have rejoiced, not merely on account 
of their friendship for Bacon, which seems, 
however, to have been as sincere as most 
friendships of that sort, but on selfish grounds. 
Nothing could have strengthened the govern- 
ment more than such a victory The king 
and the favourite abandoned the Chancellor, 
because they were unable to avert his disgrace 
and unwilling to share it. Mr. Montagu mis- 
takes effect for cause. He thinks that Bacon 
did not prove his innocence, because he was 
not supported by the court. The truth evi- 
dently is, that the court did not venture to 
support him, because he could not prove his 
innocence. 

Again, it seems strange that Mr. Montagu 
should not perceive that, while attempting to 
vindicate Bacon's reputation, he is really cast- 
ing on it the foulest of all aspersions. He 
imputes to his idol a degree of meanness and 
depravity more loathsome than judicial cor- 
ruption itself. A corrupt judge may have 
irwny good qualities. But a man who, to 



please a powerful patron, solemnly declare* 
himself guilty of corruption when he knows 
himself to be innocent, must be a monster of 
servility and impudence. Bacon was, to say 
nothing of his highest claims to respect, a gen- 
tleman, a nobleman, a scholar, a statesman, a 
man of the first consideration in society, a man 
far advanced in years. Is it possible to be« 
lieve that such a man would, to gratify any 
human being, irreparably ruin his own cha- 
racter by his own act 1 Imagine a gray-headed 
judge, full of years and honours, owning with 
tears, with pathetic assurances of his peni- 
tence and of his sincerity, that he had been 
guilty of shameful malpractices, repeatedly 
asseverating the truth of his confession, sub- 
scribing it with his own hand, submitting to 
conviction, receiving a humiliating sentence, 
and acknowledging its justice, and all this 
when he has it in his power to show that his 
conduct has been irreproachable ! The thing 
is incredible. But if we admit it to be true, 
what must we think of such a man, if indeed 
he deserves the name of man, who thinks any 
thing that kings and minions can bestow more 
precious than honour, or any thing that they 
can inflict more terrible than infamy? 

Of this most disgraceful imputation we fully 
acquit Bacon. He had no defence ; and Mr. 
Montagu's affectionate attempt to make a de- 
fence for him has altogether failed. 

The grounds on which Mr. Montagu rest's 
the case are two ; the first, that the taking of 
presents was usual, and, what he seems to 
consider as the same thing, not discreditable ; 
the second, that these presents were not taken 
as bribes. 

Mr. Montagu brings forward many facts in 
support of his first proposition. He is not con- 
tent with showing that many English judges 
formerly received gifts from suitors, but col- 
lects similar instances from foreign nations 
and ancient times. He goes back to the com- 
monwealths of Greece, and attempts to press 
into his service a line of Homer, and a sen- 
tence of Plutarch, which, we fear, will hardly 
serve his turn. The gold of which Homer 
speaks was not intended to fee the judges, but 
was paid into court for the benefit of the suc- 
cessful litigant ; and the gratuities which Peri- 
cles, as Plutarch states, distributed amongst 
the members of the Athenian tribunals, were 
legal wages, paid out of the public revenue. 
We can supply Mr. Montagu with passages 
much more in point. Hesiod, who, like poor 
Aubrey, had " a killing decree' made against 
him in the Chancery of Ascra, was so un- 
civil as to designate the learned persons who 
presided in that court, as 0*.o-i\»*e iago^-xyovt. 
Plutarch and Diodorus have handed down to 
the latest ages, the respectable name of Any- 
tus, the son of Anthemius, the first defendant 
who, eluding all the safeguards which the in- 
genuity of Solon could devise, succeeded in 
corrupting a bench of Athenian judges. We 
are indeed so far from grudging Mr. Montagu 
the aid of Greece, that we will give him Rome 
into the bargain. We acknowledge, that the 
honourable senators who tried Verres received 
presents which were worth more than the fee- 
simple of York House and Gcrbambury toge- 



LOED BACON. 



267 



ther ; and that the no .ess honourable senators 
and knights who professed to believe in the 
alibi of Clodius, obtained marks still more ex- 
xaordinary of the esteem and gratitude of the 
defendant. In short, we are ready to admit, that 
before Bacon's time, and in Bacon's time, judges 
were in the habit of receiving gifts from suitors. 

But is this a defence 1 We think net. The 
robberies of Cacus and Barabbas are no justi- 
fication for those of Turpin. ,The conduct of 
the two men of Belial who swore away the life 
of Naboth, has never been cited as an excuse 
.•or the perjuries of Oates and Dangerfield. 
Mr. Montagu has confounded two things which 
it is necessary carefully to distinguish from 
each other, if we wish to form a correct judg- 
ment of the characters of men of other coun- 
tries and other times. That an immoral action 
it,, in a particular society, generally considered 
as innocent, is a good plea for an individual 
who, being one of that society, and having 
adopted the notions which prevail amo-ng his 
neighbours, commits that action. But the cir- 
cumstance that a great many people are in 
the habit of committing immoral actions, is no 
plea at all. We should think it unjust to call 
St. Louis S wicked man, because in an age in 
which toleration was generally regarded as a 
sin, he persecuted heretics. We should think 
it unjust to call Cowper's friend, John New- 
ton, a hypocrite and a monster, because, at a 
;ime when the slave-trade was commonly con- 
sidered by the most respectable people as an 
innocent and beneficial traffic, he went, largely 
provided with hymn-books and hand-cuffs, on 
a Guinea-voyage. But the circumstance that 
there are fifty thousand thieves in London is 
no excuse for a fellow who is caught breaking 
into a shop. No man is to be blamed for not 
making discoveries in morality, for not finding 
out that something which everybody else thinks 
to be good is really bad. But if a man does 
that which he and all around him know to be 
bad, it is no excuse for him, that others have 
done the same. We should be ashamed of 
spending so much time in pointing out so 
clear a distinction, but that Mr. Montagu seems 
altogether to overlook it. 

Now, to apply these principles to the case 
before us ; let Mr. Montagu prove that, in Ba- 
con's age, the practices for which Bacon was 
punished were generally considered as inno- 
cent; and we admit that he has made out his 
point. But this we defy him to do. That 
these practices were common, we admit. But 
they were common, just as all wickedness to 
which there is strong temptation always was, 
and always will be common. They were com- 
mon, just as theft, cheating, perjury, adultery, 
have always been common. They were com- 
mon, not because people did not know what 
was right, but because people liked to do what 
was wrong. They were common, though pro- 
hibited by law. They were common, though 
condemned by public opinion. They were 
common, because in that age law and public 
opinion united had not sufficient force to re- 
strain the greediness of powerful and unprin- 
cipled magistrates. They were common, as 
every crime will be common when the gain 
to -which it leads Is great, and the chance of 



disgrace and punishment small. But though 
common, they were universally allowed to be 
altogether unjustifiable ; they were in the high- 
est degree odious; and, though many were 
guilty of them, none had the audacity publicly 
to avow and defend them. 

We could give a thousand proofs that the 
opinion then entertained concerning these prac- 
tices, was such as we have described. But we 
will content ourselves with calling a single 
witness, honest Hugh Latimer. His sermons, 
preached more than seventy years before the 
inquiry into Bacon's conduct, abound with the 
sharpest invectives against those very prac- 
tices of which Bacon was guilty, and which, as 
Mr. Montagu seems to think, nobody ever con- 
sidered as blarnable till Bacon was punished 
for them. We could easily fill twenty pages 
with the homely but just and forcible rhetoric 
of the brave old bishop. We shall select a few 
passages as fair specimens, and no more than 
fair specimens, of the rest. " Omnes diligunl 
munera. They all love bribes. Bribery is a 
princely kind of thieving. They will be waged 
by the rich, either to give sentence against 
the poor, or to put off the poor man's cause. 
This is the noble theft of princes and magis- 
trates. They are bribe-takers. Nowadays they 
call them gentle rewards. Let them leave their co- 
louring and call them by their Christian name, 
bribes" And again : " Cambyses was a great 
emperor, such another as our master is. He 
had many lord deputies, lord presidents, and 
lieutenants under him. It is a great while ago 
since I read the history. It chanced he had 
under him in one of his dominions a briber, a 
gift-taker, a gratifier of rich men ; he followed 
gifts as fast as he that followed the pudding, a 
handmaker in his office to make his son a great 
man, as the old saying is : Happy is the child 
whose father goeth to the devil. The cry of the 
poor widow came to the emperor's ear, and 
caused him to flay the judge quick, and laid 
his skin in the chair of judgment, that all 
judges that should give judgment afterward 
should sit in the same skin. Surely it was a 
goodly sign, a goodly monument, the sign of the 
judge's skin. J pray God ice may once see the 
skin in England." "I am sure," says he in 
another sermon, " this is scala inferni, the right 
way to hell, to be covetous, to take bribes, and 
pervert justice. If a judge should ask me the 
way to hell, I would show him this way. First, 
let him be a covetous man ; let his heart be 
poisoned with covetousness. Then let him go 
a little further and take bribes ; and, lastly, per- 
vert judgment. Lo, here is the mother, and the 
daughter, and the daughter's daughter. Ava- 
rice is the mother; she brings forth bribe-taking, 
and bribe-taking perverting of judgment. There 
lacks a fourth thing to make up the mess, which, 
so help me God, if I were judge, should be 
hangumtuum, a Tyburn tippet to take with him ; 
an it were the judge of the King's Bench, my 
Lord Chief Judge of England, yea, an it ivere 
my Lord Chancellor himself, to Tyburn with him." 
We will quote but one more passage. " Hi.- 
that took the silver basin and ewer for a bribe, 
thinkelh that it will never come out. But he 
may now know that I know it, and I know it 
not alone ; there be more beside me that know 



268 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



it. Oh, briber and bribery ! He was never a 
good man that will so take bribes. Nor can I 
bfilieve that he that is a briber will be a good 
justice. It will never be merry in England till 
we have the skins of such. For what needeth 
bribing where men do their things uprightly ?" 

This was not the language of a great philo- 
sopher, who had made new discoveries in 
moral and political science. It was the plain 
talk of a plain man, who sprang from the body 
of the people, who sympathized strongly with 
, their wants and their feelings, and who boldly 
uttered their opinions. It was on account of 
the fearless way in which stout-hearted old 
Hugh exposed the misdeeds of man in ermine 
tippets and gold collars, that the Londoners 
cheered him, as he walked down the Strand to 
preach at Whitehall, struggled for a touch of 
his gown, and bawled, " Have at them, father 
Latimer." It is plain, from the passages 
which we have quoted, and from fifty others 
which we might quote, that, long before Bacon 
was born, the accepting of presents by a judge 
was known to be a wicked and shameful act ; 
that the fine words, under which it was the 
fashion to veil such corrupt practices, were 
even then seen through by the common people ; 
that the distinction on which Mr. Montagu in- 
sists between compliments and bribes, was 
even then laughed at as a mere " colouring." 
There may be some oratorical exaggeration in 
what Latimer says about the Tyburn tippet and 
the sign of the judge's skin ; but the fact that 
he ventured to use such expressions is amply 
sufficient to prove, that the gift-taking judges, 
the receivers of silver basins and ewers, were 
regarded as such pests of the commonwealth, 
that a venerable divine might, without any 
breach of Christian charity, publicly pray to 
God for their detection and condign punish- 
ment. 

Mr. Montagu tells us, most justly, that we 
ought not to transfer the opinions of our own 
age to a former age. But he has, himself, com- 
mitted a greater error than that against which 
he has cautioned his readers. Without any 
evidence, nay, in the face of the strongest evi- 
dence, he ascribes to the people of a former 
age a set of opinions which no people ever 
held. But any hypothesis is in his view more 
probable than that Bacon should have been a 
dishonest man. We firmly believe that if 
papers were to be discovered which should 
irresistibly prove that Bacon was concerned 
in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, Mr. 
Montagu would tell us that, at the beginning of 
the seventeenth century, it was not thought im- 
proper in a man to put arsenic into the broth 
of his friends, and that we ought to blame, not 
Bacon, but the age in which he lived. 

But why should we have recourse to any 
other evidence, when the proceeding against 
Bacon is, itself, the best evidence on the sub- 
ject ■? When Mr. Montagu tells us, that we 
ought not to transfer the opinions of our age 
*o Bacon's age, he appears altogether to forget, 
rtiat it was by men of Bacon's own age, mat 
Bacon was prosecuted, tried, convicted, and 
sentenced. Did not they know what their own 
opinions were 1 Did not they know whether 
l hey thought the taking of gifts by a judge a 



crime or not? Mr. Montagu complains bit 
terly that Bacon was induced to abstain from 
making a defence. But, if Bacon's defence 
resembled that which is made for him in the 
volume before us, it would have been unneces- 
sary to trouble the House with it. The Lords 
and Commons did not want Bacon to tell them 
the thoughts of their own hearts — to inform 
them that they did not consider such practices 
as those in which they had detected him, as at 
all culpable. Mr. Montagu's proposition may 
indeed be fairly stated thus : It was very hard 
that Bacon's contemporaries should think it 
wrong in him to do what they did not think it 
wrong in him to do. Hard indeed ; and withal 
somewhat improbable. Will any person say 
that the Commons who impeached Bacon for 
taking presents, and the Lords who sentenced 
him to fine, imprisonment, and degradation, 
for taking presents, did not know that the 
taking of presents was a crime 1 Or, will any 
person say that Bacon did not know what the 
whole House of Commons and the whole 
House of Lords knew 1 Nobody who is not 
prepared to maintain one of these absurd pro- 
positions can deny that Bacon committed what 
he knew to be a crime. 

It cannot be pretended that the Houses were 
seeking occasion to ruin Bacon; and that 
they, therefore, brought him to punishment on 
charges which they themselves knew to be 
frivolous. In no quarter was there the faintest 
indication of a disposition to treat him harshly. 
Through the whole proceeding there was no 
symptom of personal animosity or of factious 
violence in either House. Indeed, we will 
venture to say that no state trial in our history 
is more creditable to all who took part in it, 
either as prosecutors or judges. The decency, 
the gravity, the public spirit, the justice mo- 
derated but not unnerved by compassion, which 
appeared in every part of the transaction, 
would do honour to the most respectable pub- 
lic men of our own times. The accusers, 
while they discharged their duty to their con- 
stituents by bringing the misdeeds of the Chan- 
cellor to light, spoke with admiration of his 
many eminent qualities. The Lords, while con- 
demning him, complimented him on the inge- 
nuousness of his confession, and spared him 
the humiliation of a public appearance at their 
bar. So strong was the contagion of good feel- 
ing, that even Sir Edward Coke, for the first 
time in his life, behaved like a gentleman. 
No criminal ever had more temperate prose- 
cutors than Bacon. No criminal ever had 
more favourable judges. If he was convicted, 
it was because it was impossible to acquit him, 
without offering the grossest outrage to justice 
and common sense. 

Mr. Montagu's other argument, namely, that 
Bacon, though he took gifts, did not take bribes, 
seems to us ajs futile as that which we have 
considered. Indeed, we might be content to 
leave it to be answered by the plainest man 
among our readers. Demosthenes noticed it 
with contempt more than two thousand years 
ago. Latimer, we have seen, treated this so- 
phistry with similar disdain. "Leave colour- 
ing," said he, "and call these things by their 
Christian name, bribes." Mr. Montagu ai» 



LORD BACON. 



369 



tempts, somewhat unfairly, we must say, to re- 
present the presents which Bacon received, as 
similar to the perquisites which suitors paid to 
the members of the Parliaments of France. 
The French magistrate had a legal right to his 
fee ; and the amount of fee was regulated by 
law. Whether this be a good mode of remu- 
nerating judges is not the question. But what 
analogy is there between payments of this sort 
and the presents which Bacon received — pre- 
sents which were not sanctioned by. the law, 
which were not made under the public eye, and 
of which the amount was regulated only by 
private bargain between the magistrate and 
the suitor 1 Again, it is mere trifling to say 
that Bacon could not have meant to act cor- 
ruptly, because he employed the agency of 
men of rank, of bishops, privy councillors, and 
members of Parliament ; as if the whole history 
of that generation was not full of the low actions 
of high people ; as if it was not notorious that 
men, as exalted in rank as any of the decoys 
Bacon employed, had pimped for Somerset, 
and poisoned Overbury. 

But, says Mr. Montagu, these presents " were 
made opealy and with the greatest publicity." 

This would indeed be a strong argument in 
favour of Bacon. But we deny the fact. In 
one, and only one of the cases in which Bacon 
was accused of corruptly receiving gifts, does 
he appear to have received a gift publicly. 
This was in a matter depending between the 
Company of Apothecaries and the Company 
of Grocers. Bacon, in his confession, insisted 
strongly on the circumstance, that he had on 
this occasion taken presents publicly, as a 
proof that he had not taken them corruptly. 
Is it not clear, that if he had taken the presents 
mentioned in the other charges in the same 
public manner, he would have dwelt on this 
point in his answer to those charges V The fact, 
that he insists so strongly on the publicity of 
one particular present, is of itself sufficient to 
prove that the other presents were not publicly 
taken. Why he took this present publicly and 
the rest secretly is evident. He on that occa- 
sion acted openly, because he was acting 
honestly. He was not on that occasion sitting 
judicially. He was called in to effect an ami- 
cable arrangement between two parties. Both 
were satisfied with his decision. Both joined 
in making him a present in return for his trou- 
ble. Whether it was quite delicate in a man 
of his rank to accept a present under such 
circumstances, may be questioned. But there 
is no ground in this case for accusing him 
of corruption. 

Unhappily, the very circumstances which 
prove him to have been innocent in this case, 
prove him to have been guilty on the other 
charges. Once, and once only, he alleges that 
he received a present publicly. The inference 
is, that in all the other cases mentioned in the 
articles against him he received presents se- 
cretly. When we examine the single case in 
which he alleges that he received a present 
publicly, we find that it is also the single case 
in which there was no gross impropriety in 
his receiving a present. Is it then possible to 
doubt that his reason for not receiving other 

18 



presents in as public a manner was, that he 
knew that it was wrong to receive them 1 

One argument still remains, plausible in ap- 
pearance, but admitting of easy and complete 
refutation. The two chief complainants, Au 
brey and Egerton, had both made presents ic 
the Chancellor. But he had decided against 
them both. Therefore he had not received 
those presents as bribes. " The complaints of 
his accusers were," says Mr. Montagu, " not 
that the gratuities had, but that they had not 
influenced Bacon's judgment, as he had decid- 
ed against them." 

The truth is, that it is precisely in this way 
that an extensive system of corruption is gene- 
rally detected. A person who, by a bribe, has 
procured a decree in his favour, is by no means 
likely to come forward of his own accord as 
an accuser. He is content. He has his quid 
pro quo. He is not impelled either by interested 
or by vindictive motives to bring the transac- 
tion before the public. On the contrary, he has 
almost as strong motives for holding his tongue 
as the judge himself can have. But when a 
judge practises corruption, as we fear that Ba- 
con practised it, on a large scale, and has many 
agents looking out in different quarters for 
prey, it will sometimes happen that he will be 
bribed on both sides. It will sometimes hap- 
pen that he will receive money from his suit- 
ors, who are so obviously in the wrong that he 
cannot in decency do any thing to serve them. 
Thus, he will now and then be forced to pro : 
nounce against a person from whom he has 
received a present; and he makes that person 
a deadly enemy. ■ The hundreds who have got 
what they paid for, remain quiet. It is the two 
or three who have paid, and have nothing to 
show for their money, who are noisy. 

The memorable case of the Goezmans is an 
example of this. Beaumarchais had an im- 
portant suit depending before the Parliament of 
Paris. M. Goezman was the judge on whom 
chiefly the decision depended. It was hinted 
to Beaumarchais that Madame Goezman might 
be propitiated by a present. He accordingly 
offered certain rouleaus of Louis-d'or to the lady, 
who received them graciously. There can be 
no doubt that, if the decision of the court had 
been favourable to him, these things would 
never have been known to the world. But he 
lost his cause. Almost the whole sum which 
he had expended in bribery, was immediately 
refunded; and those who had disappointed him 
probably thought that he would not, for the 
mere gratification of his malevolence, make 
public a transaction which was discreditable 
to himself as well as to them. They knew 
little of him. He soon taught them to curst 
the day in which they had dared to trifle with 
a man of so revengeful and turbulent a spirit, 
of such dauntless effrontery, and of such emi 
nent talents for controversy and satire. Ho 
compelled the Parliament to put a degrading 
stigma on M. Goezman. He drove Madame 
Goezman to a convent. Till it was too late to 
pause, his excited passions did not suffer him 
to remember that he could effect their rum 
only by disclosures ruinous to himself We 
could e;ive other instances. But it is needless 



270 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



No person well acquainted with human nature 
can fail to perceive that, if the doctrine for 
which Mr. Montagu contends were admitted, 
society would be deprived of almost the only- 
chance which it has of detecting the corrupt 
practices of judges. 

We return to our narrative. The sentence 
of Bacon had scarcely been pronounced when 
it was mitigated. He was indeed sent to the 
Tower. But this was merely a form. In two 
days he was set at liberty, and soon after he 
retired to Gorhambury. His fine was speedily 
released by the crown. He was next suffered 
to present himself at court ; and at length, in 
1624, the rest of his punishment was remitted. 
He was now at liberty to resume his seat in 
the House of Lords, and he was actually sum- 
moned to the next Parliament. But age, infirmi- 
ty, and perhaps shame, prevented him from at- 
tending. The government allowed him a pen- 
sion of one thousand two hundred pounds a year ; 
and his whole annual income is estimated by 
Mr. Montagu at two thousand five hundred 
pounds, a sum which was probably above the 
average income of a nobleman of that genera- 
tion, and which was certainly sufficient for 
comfort and even for splendour. Unhappily, 
Bacon was fond of display, and unused to pay 
minute attention to domestic affairs. He was 
not easily persuaded to give up any part of the 
magnificence to which he had been accustomed 
in the time of his power and prosperity. No 
pressure of distress could induce him to part 
with the woods of Gorhambury. " I will not," 
he said, "be stripped of my feathers." He 
travelled with so splendid an equipage, and so 
large a retinue, that Prince Charles, who once 
fell in with him on the road, exclaimed with 
surprise, " Well ; do what we can, this man 
scorns to go out in snuff." This careless- 
ness and ostentation reduced him to frequent 
distress. He was under the necessity of part- 
ing with York House, and of taking up his resi- 
dence, during his visits to London, at his old 
chambers in Gray's Inn. He had other vexa- 
tions, the exact nature of which is unknown. 
It is evident from his will, that some part of 
his wife's conduct had greatly disturbed and 
j rritated him. 

But whatever might be his pecuniary diffi- 
culties or his conjugal discomforts, the powers 
of his intellect still remained undiminished. 
Those noble studies for which he had found lei- 
sure in the midst of his professional drudgery 
and of courtly intrigues, gave to this last sad 
stage of his life a dignity beyond what power or 
titles could bestow. Impeached, convicted, sen- 
tenced, driven with ignominy from the pre- 
sence of his sovereign, shut out from the deli- 
berations of his fellow nobles, loaded with debt, 
branded with dishonour, sinking under the 
weight of years, sorrow, and disease, Bacon 
was Bacon still. 

" My conceit of his person," says Ben Jon- 
«or> very finely, " was never increased towards 
him Dy his place or honours ; but I have and 
io reverence him for the greatness that was 
only proper to himself; in that he seemed to 
me ever, by his work, one of the greatest men 
and most worthy of admiration that had been in 
many *ges. In his adversity I ever prayed that 



God would give him strength , for greatness h* 
could not want." 

The services which he rendered to letters 
during the last five years of his life, amidst 
ten thousand distractions and vexations, in- 
crease the regret with which we think on the 
many years which he had wasted, to use the 
words of Sir Thomas Bodley, " on such study 
as was not worthy such a student." He com- 
menced a digest of the Laws of England, a 
History of England under the Princes of the 
House of Tudor, a body of Natural History, a 
Philosophical Romance. He made extensive 
and valuable additions to his Essays. He pub- 
lished the inestimable Treatise De Augmentis 
Scientiarum. The very trifles with which he 
amused himself in hours of pain and languor 
bore the mafk of his mind. The best jest-book 
in the world is that which he dictated from 
memory, without referring to any book, on a 
day on which illness had rendered him incapa- 
ble of serious study. 

The great apostle of experimental philosophy 
was destined to be its martyr. It had occurred 
to him that snow might be used with advantage 
for the purpose of preventing animal substances 
from putrefying. On a very cold day, early in 
the spring of the year 1626, he alighted from 
his coach near Highgate, in order to try the 
experiment. He went into a cottage, bought a 
fowl, and with his own hands stuffed it with 
snow. While thus engaged he felt a sudden 
chill, and was soon so much indisposed that it 
was impossible for him to return to Gray's 
Inn. The Earl of Arundel, with whom he was 
well acquainted, had a house at Highgate. To 
that house Bacon was carried. The earl was 
absent ; but the servants who were in charge 
of the place showed great respect and attention 
to the illustrious guest. Here, after an illness 
of about a week, he expired early on the morn- 
ing cf Easter-day, 1626. His mind appears to 
have retained its strength and liveliness to the 
end. He did not forget the fowl which had 
caused his death. In the last letter that he 
ever wrote, with fingers which, as he said, 
could not steadily hold a pen, he did not omit 
to mention that the experiment of the snow had 
succeeded " excellently well." 

Our opinion of the moral character of this 
great man has already been sufficiently ex- 
plained. Had his life been passed in literary 
retirement, he would, in all probability, have 
deserved to be considered, not only as a great 
philosopher, but as a worthy and good-natured 
member of society. But neither his principles 
nor his spirit were such as could be trusted, 
when strong temptations were to be resisted 
and serious dangers to be braved. 

In his will, he expressed, with singular bre 
vity, energy, dignity, and pathos, a mournful 
consciousness that his actions had not been 
such as to entitle him to the esteem of those 
under whose observation his life had been 
passed ; and, at the same time, a proud confi- 
dence that his writings had secured for him a 
high and permanent place among the benefac- 
tors of mankind. So at least we understand 
those striking words which have been often 
quoted, but which we must quote c nee more 
" For my name and memory, I leave it to men's 



LORD BACON. 



271 



charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, 
and to the next age." 

His confidence was just. From the day of 
his death his fame has been constantly and 
steadily progressive ; and we have no doubt 
that his name will be named with reverence to 
the latest ages, and to the remotest ends of the 
civilized world. 



The chief peculiarity of Bacon's phiJosophy 
seems to us to have been this — that it aimed 
at things altogether different from those which 
his predecessors had proposed. to themselves. 
This was his own opinion. " Finis scientia- 
rum," says he, " a nemine adhuc bene positus 
est."* And again, "Omnium gravissimus 
error in deviatione ab ultimo doctrinarum fine 
consistit."f "Nee ipsa meta," says he else- 
where, "adhuc ulli, quod sciam, mortalium 
posita est et defixa."^ The more carefully his 
works are examined, the more clearly, we 
think, it will appear, that this is the real clue 
to his whole system ; and that he used means 
different ffbm those used by other philosophers, 
because he wished to arrive at an end altoge- 
ther different from theirs. 

What then was the end which Bacon pro- 
posed to himself 1 It was, to use his own em- 
phatic expression, " fruit." It was the multi- 
plying of human enjoyments and the mitigating 
of human sufferings. It was "the relief of 
man's estate."§ It -was " commodis humanis 
inservire."|| It was "efiicaciter operari ad 
sublevanda vitas humanse incommoda."^ It 
was " dotare vitam humanam novis inventis et 
copiis."** It was "genus humanam novis 
operibus et potestatibus continuo dotare."ff 
This was the object of all his speculations in 
every department of science — in natural phi- 
losophy, in legislation, in politics, in morals. 

Two words form the key of the Baconian 
doctrine — utility and progress. The ancient 
philosophy disdained to be useful, and was 
content to be stationary. It dealt Jargely in 
theories of moral perfection, which were so 
sublime that they never could be more than 
theories ; in attempts to solve insoluble enig- 
mas ; in exhortations to the attainment of un- 
attainable frames of mind. It could not con- 
descend to the humble office of ministering to 
the comfort of human beings. All the schools 
regarded that office as degrading; some cen- 
sured it as immoral. Once indeed Posidonius, 
a distinguished writer of the age of Cicero and 
Csesar, so far forgot himself as to enumerate 
among the humbler blessings which mankind 
owed to philosophy, the discovery of the prin- 
ciple of the arch, and the introduction of the 
use of metals. This eulogy was considered as 
an affront, and was taken up with proper spi- 
rit. Seneca vehemently disclaims these in- 



* Novum Organum, Lib. 1, Aph. 81. 

\ De Augmentis, Lib. 1. 

% Cogitata et visa. 

j Advancement of Learning, Boek 1. 

|| De Avgmentis, Lib. 7, Cap. 1. 
■ft De Augmentis, Lib. 2, Cap. 2. 
** Novum Organum, Lib. 1, Aph. 81. 
H Cogil.ata et visa. 



suiting compliments.* Philosophy, according 
to him, has nothing to do with teaching men 
to rear arched roofs over their heads. The 
true philosopher does not care whether he has 
an arched roof or any roof. Philosophy has 
nothing to do with teaching men the use of 
metals. She teaches us to be independent 
of all material substances, of all mecha= 
nical contrivances. The wise man lives 
according to nature. Instead of attempting to 
add to the physical comforts of his species, he 
regrets that his lot was not cast in that golden 
age, when the human race had no protection 
against the cold but the skins of wild beasts, 
no screen from the sun but a cavern. To im 
pute to such a man any share in the invention 
or improvement of a plough, a ship, or a mill, 
is an insult. "In my own time," says Seneca, 
" there have been inventions of this sort — 
transparent wind ows, tubes for diffusing warmth 
equally through all parts of a building, short- 
hand, which has been carried to such perfec- 
tion that a writer can keep pace with the most 
rapid speaker. But the inventing of such 
things is drudgery for the lowest slaves: phi- 
losophy lies deeper. It is not her office to teach 
men how to use their hands. The object of her 
lessons is to form the soul : Non est, inquam, 
instrumentorum ad usus necessarios opifex." If the 
non were left out, this last sentence would be 
no bad description of the Baconian philosophy; 
and would, indeed, very much resemble seve- 
ral expressions in the Novum Organum. " We 
shall next be told," exclaims Seneca, "ihat the 
first shoemaker was a philosopher." For our 
own part, if we are forced to make our choice 
between the first shoemaker and the author 
of the three books " On Anger," we pronounce 
for the shoemaker. It may be worse to be 
angry than to be wet. But shoes have kept 
millions from being wet : and we doubt whether 
Seneca ever kept anybody from being angry. 

It is very reluctantly that Seneca can be 
brought to confess that any philosopher had 
ever paid the smallest attention to any thing 
that could possibly promote what vulgar peo- 
ple would consider as the well-being of man- 
kind. He labours to clear Democritus from 
the disgraceful imputation of having made the 
first arch, and Anacharsis from the charge of 
having contrived the potter's wheel. He is 
forced to own that such a thing might happen; 
and it may also happen, he tells us, that a phi- 
losopher may be swift of foot. But it is not in 
his character of philosopher that he either 
wins a race or invents a machine. Nc, to be 
sure. The business of a philosopher was to 
declaim in praise of poverty with two millions 
sterling out at usury; to meditate epigrammatic 
conceits about the evils ol luxury, in gardens 
which moved the envy of sovereigns ; tc rant 
about liberty, while fawning on the insolent 
and pampered freedmen of a tyrant ; to cele- 
brate the divine beauty of virtue with the same 
pen which had just before written a defence 
of the murder of a mother by a son. 

From the cant of this philosophy —a philo- 
sophy meanly proud of its own unprofitable* 
ness — it is delightful to turn to the lessons or' 

* Seneca. Exist. 90. 



273 



MAC ALL AY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



the great English teacher. We can almost 
forgive all the faults of Bacon's life, when we 
read that singularly graceful and dignified pas- 
sage : " Ego certe, ut de me ipso, quod res est, 
.oquar, et in iis quse nunc edo, et in iis quce in 
posterum meditor, dignitatem ingenii et nomi- 
nis mei, si qua sit, ssepius sciens et volens 
projicio, dum commodis humanis inserviam; quique 
architectus fortasse in philosophia et scientiis 
esse debeam, etiam operarius et bajulus, et 
quidvis demum fio, cum haud pauca qua? 
omnino fieri necesse sit, alii autem ob innatam 
superbiam subterfugiant, ipse sustineam et 
exsequar."* This philantliropia, which, as he 
said, in one of the most remarkable of his early- 
letters, " was so fixed in his mind as it could 
not be removed," this majestic humility, this 
persuasion that nothing can be too insignificant 
for the attention of the wisest, which is not too 
insignificant to give pleasure or pain to the 
meanest, is the great characteristical distinc- 
tion, the essential spirit of the Baconian phi- 
losophy. We trace it in all that Bacon has 
written on Physics, on Laws, on Morals. And 
we conceive that from this peculiarity all the 
other peculiarities of his system directly and 
almost necessarily sprang. 

The spirit which appears in the passage of 
Seneca to which we have referred, tainted the 
whole body of the ancient philosophy from the 
time of Socrates downwards ; and took pos- 
session of intellects with which that of Seneca 
cannot, for a moment, be compared. It per- 
vades the dialogues of Plato. It may be dis- 
tinctly traced in many parts of the works of 
Aristotle. Bacon has dropped hints from 
which it may be inferred that in his opinion 
the prevalence of this feeling was in a great 
measure X) be attributed to the influence of 
Socrates. Our great countryman evidently 
did not consider the revolution which Socrates 
effected in philosophy as a happy event ; and 
he ^constantly maintained that the earlier 
Greek speculators, Democritus in particular, 
were, on the whole, superior to their more 
celebrated successors.! 

Assuredly, if the tree which Socrates plant- 
ed, and Plato watered, is to be judged of by 
its flowers and leaves, it is the noblest of trees. 
But if we take the homely test of Bacon, if we 
judge of the tree by its fruits, our opinion of it 
may perhaps be less favourable. When we 
sum up all the useful truths which we owe to 
that philosophy, to what do they amount ? We 
find, indeed, abundant proofs that some of 
those who cultivated it were men of the first 
order of intellect. We find among their writ- 
ings incomparable specimens both of dialecti- 
cal and rhetorical art. We have no doubt that 
(he ancient controversies were of use in so far 
as they served to 'exercise the faculties of the 
disputants, for there is no controversy so idle 
that it may not be of use in this way. But, 
when we look for something more — for some- 
thing which adds to the comforts or alleviates 
the calamities of the human race — we are 



* De jiugmentis, Lib. 7, Cap. 1. 

t JVouum Organum, Lib. 1, Aph. 71,79. De Augmentis, 
Lib 3, Cap. 4. De principiis atque originibus. Cogitate 
n ctM. Redargutio philosophiarum. 



forced to own ourselves disappointed. W« 
are forced to say with Bacon, that the cele- 
brated philosophy ended in nothing but dispu- 
tation ; that it was neither a vineyard nor an 
olive ground, but an intricate wood o/ briers 
and thistles, from which those who lost them, 
selves in it brought back many scratches an<J 
no food.* 

We readily acknowledge that some of the 
teachers of this unfruitful wisdom. were among 
the greatest men that the world had ever seen. 
If we admit the justice of Bacon's censure, we 
admit it with regret, similar to that which 
Dante felt when he learned the fate of those 
illustrious heathens who were doomed to the 
first circles of hell. 

" Gran duol mi prese al cuor quando lo'ntesi, 
Perocche gente di molto valore 
Conobbi clie'n quel limbo eran sospesi." 

But in truth the very admiration which we 
feel for the eminent philosophers of antiquity, 
forces us to adopt the opinion that their powers 
were systematically misdirected. For how 
else could it be that such powers should effect 
so little for mankind? A pedestrian may 
show as much muscular vigour on a treadmill 
as on the highway road. But on the road his 
vigour will assuredly carry him forward ; and 
on the treadmill he will not advance an inch. 
The ancient philosophy was a treadmill, not a 
path. It was made up of revolving questions 
— of controversies which were always begin- 
ning again. It was a contrivance for having 
much exertion and no progress. We must 
acknowledge that more than once, while con- 
templating the doctrines of the Academy and 
the Portico, even as they appear in the trans- 
parent splendour of Cicero's incomparable 
diction, we have been tempted to mutter with 
the surly centurion in Persius, " Cur quis non 
prandeat hoc est 1" What is the highest good, 
whether pain be an evil, whether all things be 
fated, whether we can be certain of any thing, 
whether we can be certain that we are certain 
of nothing, whether a wise man can be unhap- 
py, whether all departures from right be equal- 
ly reprehensible — these, and other questions 
of the same sort, occupied the brains, the 
tongues, and the pens of the ablest men in the 
civilized world during several centuries. This 
sort of philosophy, it is evident, could not be 
progressive. It might, indeed, sharpen and 
invigorate the minds of those who devoted 
themselves to it ; and so might the disputes of 
the orthodox Lilliputians, and the heretical 
Blefuscudians, about the big ends and the lit- 
tle ends of eggs. But such disputes could add 
nothing to the stock of knowledge. The hu- 
man mind accordingly, instead of marching, 
merely marked time. It took as much trouble 
as would have sufficed to carry it forward: 
and yet remained on the same spot. There 
was no accumulation of truth, no heritage of 
truth acquired by the labour of one generation 
and bequeathed to another, to be again trans- 
mitted with large additions to a third. Where 
this philosophy was in the time of Cicero, 
there it continued to be in the time of Seneca, 
and there it continued to be in the time of Fa» 



* Novum Organum. Lib. 1, Aph. 73. 



LORD BACON. 



373 



rorinus. The same sects were still battling, 
with the same unsatisfactory arguments, about 
the same interminable questions. There had 
been no want of ingenuity, of zeal, of industry. 
Every trace of intellectual cultivation was 
there except a harvest. There had been plen- 
ty of ploughing, harrowing, reaping, thrashing. 
But the garners contained only smut and stub- 
ble. 

The ancient philosophers did not neglect 
natural science ; but they did not cultivate it 
for the purpose of increasing the power and 
ameliorating the condition of man. The taint 
of barrenness had spread from ethical to phy- 
sical speculations. Seneca wrote largely on 
natural philosophy, and magnified the import- 
ance of that study. But why 1 Not because 
it tended to assuage suffering, to multiply the 
conveniences of life, to extend the empire of 
man over the material world ; but solely be- 
cause it tended to raise the mind above low 
cares, to separate it from the body, to exercise 
its subtlety in the solution of very obscure 
questions.* Thus natural philosophy was 
considered in the light merely of a mental 
exercise. "It was made subsidiary to the art 
of disputation; and it consequently proved 
altogether barren of useful discoveries. 

There was one sect, which, however absurd 
and pernicious some of its doctrines may have 
been, ought, it should seem, to have merited 
an exception from the general censures which 
Bacon has pronounced on the ancient schools 
of wisdom. The Epicurean, who referred all 
happiness to bodily pleasure, and all evil to 
bodily pain, might have been expected to exert 
himself for the purpose of bettering his own 
physical condition and that of his neighbours. 
But the thought seems never to have occurred 
to any member of that school. Indeed, their 
notion, as reported by their great poet, was that 
no more improvements were to be expected in 
the arts which conduce to the comfort of life, 

" Ad victum quae flagitat usus 
Omnia jam ferme mortalibus esse parata." 

This contented despondency — this disposi- 
tion to admire what has been done, and to ex- 
pect that nothing more will be done — is strong- 
ly characteristic of all the schools which 
preceded the school of Fruit and Progress. 
Widely as the Epicurean and the Stoic differed 
on most points, they seem to have quite agreed 
in their contempt for pursuits so vulgar as to 
be useful. The philosophy of both was a gar- 
rulous, declaiming, canting, wrangling philo- 
sophy. Century after century they continued 
to repeat their hostile war-cries — Virtue and 
Pleasure ; and in the end it appeared the Epi- 
curean had added as little to the quantity of 
pleasure as the Stoic to the quantity of virtue. 
It is on the pedestal of Bacon, not on that of 
Epicurus, that those noble lines ought to be 
inscribed: 

" O tenebris tantis tam clarum extollere lumen 
Qui primus potuisti, ixlustrans commoda vitje." 

In the fifth century, Christianity had con- 
quered Paganism, and Paganism had infected 



* Seneca, JVat. Quast. pref. Lib. 3. 



Christianity. The Church was now victoriov.3 
and corrupt. The rites of the Pantheon had 
passed into her worship; the subtleties of the 
Academy into her creed. In an evil day, says 
Bacon, though with great pomp and solemnity, 
was the ill-starred alliance stricken between 
the old philosophy and the new faith.* Ques- 
tions widely different from those which had 
employed the ingenuity of Pyrrho and Car- 
neades, but just as subtle, just as interminable, 
and just as unprofitable, exercised the minds 
of the lively and voluble Greeks. When learn- 
ing began to revive in the West, similar trifles 
occupied the sharp and vigorous intellects of 
the Schoolmen. There was another sowing 
of the wind, and another reaping of the whirl- 
wind. The great work of improving the con- 
dition of the human race was still considered 
as unworthy of a man of learning. Those 
who undertook that task, if what they effected 
could be readily comprehended, were despised 
as mechanics; if not, they were in danger of 
being burned as conjurors. 

There can be no stronger proof of the de- 
gree in which the human mind had been mis- 
directed, than the history of the two greatest 
events which took place during the middle 
ages. We speak of the invention of gunpow- 
der, and of the invention of printing. The 
dates of both are unknown. The authors 
of both are unknown. Nor was this be- 
cause men were too rude and ignorant to 
value intellectual superiority. The inventor 
of gunpowder appears to have been contem- 
porary with Petrarch and Boccaccio. The 
inventor of printing was contemporary with 
Nicholas the Fifth, with Cosmo de' Medici, 
and with a crowd of distinguished scholars. 
But the human mind still retained that fata, 
bent which it had received two thousand years 
earlier. George of Trebisond and Marsillio 
Ficino would not easily have been brought to 
believe that the inventor of the printing-press 
had done more for mankind than themselves ; 
or than those ancient writers of whom they 
were the enthusiastic votaries. 

At length the time arrived when the barren 
philosophy which had, during so many ages, 
employed the faculties of the ablest men, was 
destined to fall. It had worn many shapes. 
It had mingled itself with many creeds. It 
had survived revolutions, in which empires, 
religions, languages, races, had perished. 
Driven from its ancient haunts, it had taken 
sanctuary in that church which it had perse- 
cuted ; and had, like the daring fiends of the 
poet, placed its seat 

"next the seat of God, 
And with its darkness dared affront his light." 

Words and mere words, and nothing bat 
words, had been all the fruit of all the toil, of 
all the most renowned sages of sixty genera- 
tions. But the days of this sterile exuberance 
were numbered. 

Many causes predisposed the public mind 
to a change. The study of a great variety of 
ancient writers, though it did not give a righi 



* Cogitate et visa 



87 -1 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



direction to philosophical research, did much 
towards destroying that blind reverence for 
authority which had prevailed when Aristotle 
ruled atone. The rise of the Florentine sect 
of Platonists, a :*.*ot to which belonged some 
of the finest minds of the fifteenth century, 
was not an unimportant event. The mere 
substitution of the Academic For the Peripa- 
tetic philosophy would indeed have done little 
good. But any thing was better than the old 
habit of unreasoning servility. It was some- 
thing to have a choice of tyrants. "A spark 
o( freedom," as Gibbon has justlj remarked, 
••was produced by this collision ctf adverse 
servitude." 

Other causes might be mentioned. But it 
is chiefly to the great reformation of religion 
that we owe the great reformation of philo- 
sophy. The alliance between the schools and 
the Vatican had for ages been so close, that 
those who threw oft" the dominion of the Va- 
tican could not continue to recognise the au- 
thority o( the schools. Most of the great 
reformers treated the Peripatetic philosophy 
with contempt; and spoke of Aristotle as if 
Aristotle had been answerable for all the dog- 
mas of Thomas Aquinas. "Nulla apud Lu- 
theianos philosophiam esse in pretio,"* was a 
reproach which the defenders of the Church 
of Rome loudly repeated, and which many of 
the Protestant leaders considered as a compli- 
ment. Scarcely any text was more frequently 
cited by them than that in which St. Paul 
cautions the Colossians not to let any man 
spoil them by philosophy. Luther, almost at 
the outset of his career, went so far as to 
declare that no man could be at once a pro- 
ficient in the school of Aristotle and in that of 
Christ, Zwingle, Bucer, Peter Martyr, Calvin, 
had similar language. In some of the Scotch 
universities, the Aristotelian system was dis- 
carded for that of Ramus. Thus, before the 
birth of Bacon, the empire of the scholastic 
philosophy had been shaken to its foundations. 
There was in the intellectual world an anarchy 
resembling that which in the political world 
often follows the overthrow o{ an old and 
deeply rooted government. Antiquity, pre- 
scription, the sound of great names, had ceased 
to awe mankind. The dynasty which had 
reigned for ages was at an end; and the va- 
cant throne was left to be struggled for by 
pretenders. 

The first effect of this great revolution was, 
as Bacon most justly observed,! to give for a 
time an undue importance to the mere graces 
of style. The new breed of scholars, the 
Asehams and Buchanans, nourished with the 
finest compositions of the Augustan age, re- 
garded with loathing the dry, crabbed, and 
barbarous Miction of respondents and oppo- 
nents. They were far less studious about the 
matter of their works than about the manner. 
They succeeded in reforming Latinity; but 
they never even aspired to effect a reform in 
philosophy. 

At this time Bacon appeared. It is alto- 



* We quote, on the authority of Bayle, from Melchior 
*'*tio, a scholastic divine of gres'. reputation. 
f De Augvuntis, Lib. 1. 



aether incorrect to say. as has often been said 
that he was the first man who rose up against 
the Aristotelian philosophy when in the height 
of its power. The authority of that philoso- 
phy had, as we have shown, received a fatal 
blow long before he was born. Several spe- 
culators, among whom Ramus was the best 
known, had recently attempted to form new 
sects. Bacon's own expressions about the 
state of public opinion in the time of Luther, 
are clear and strong: "Aecedebat." say* he, 
"odium et contemptus, illis ipsis temporibus 
ortus erga seholastieos." And again, " Scho- 
lasticorum doctrina despectui prorsus haberi 
ccepit tanquam aspera et barbara."* The part 
which Bacon played in this great change was 
the part, not of Robespierre, but of Bonaparte. 
When he came forward the ancient order of 
things had been subverted. Some bigots still 
cherished with devoted loyalty the remem- 
brance ol' the fallen monarchy, and exerted 
themselves to effect a restoration. But the 
majority had no such feeling. Freed, yet not 
knowing how to use their freedom, they pur- 
sued no determinate course, and had found no 
leader capable of conducting them. 

That leader at length arose. The philoso- 
phy which he taught was essentially new. It 
differed from that of the celebrated ancient 
teachers, not merely in method but in object. 
Its object was the good of mankind, in 'he 
sense in which the mass of mankind always 
have understood, and always will understand, 
the word good, "Medilor," said Bacon, "in 
staurationem philosophic ejusmodi quse nihi\ 
inanis aut abstracti habeat, qua?que vitw hu- 
mance conditiones in melius provehat."f 

The difference between the philosophy of 
Bacon and that of his predecessors cannot, we 
think, be better illustrated than by comparing 
his views on some important subjects with 
those of Plato. We select Plato, because we 
conceive that he did more than any other per- 
son towards giving to the minds of speculative 
men that bent, which they retained till they 
received from Bacon a new impulse in a dia- 
metrically opposite direction. 

It is curious to observe how differently these 
great men estimated the value of every kind 
of knowledge. Take arithmetic for example. 
Plato, after speaking slightly of the conve- 
nience of being able to reckon and compute 
in the ordinary transactions of life, passes to 
what he considers as a far more important 
advantage. The study of the properties of 
numbers, he tells us, habituates the mind to 
the contemplation of pure truth, and raises it 
above the material universe. He wonld have 
his disciples apply themselves to this study — 
not that they may be able to buy or sell — not 
that they may qualify themselves to be shop- 
keepers or travelling merchants — but that they 
may learn to withdraw their minds from the 
ever-shifting spectacle of this visible and tan- 
gible world, and to fix them on the immutable 
essence of things.^ 

* Doth these passages are in the first book of the Pt 
Augmentis. 
+ Redargutio Philosophiarwn. 
j Plato's Republic, Book 7. 



LOKJj BACON. 



87- 



Bacon, on the other band, va»ued this branch 
•f knowledge only on account of il 
reference to thai risible and tai 
which Plato so much despised. He 
with scorn of the mystieal arithmetic of the 
, ;i ,,,, p and lament the propensity 

of mankind to employ, on mere matteri of 
, the whole exertion of which 
.-. required for purposes of solid advantage. 
l(«: ;i.'j vi ■-.'•:•; arithmetician* to leave their trifles, 
■ad to employ themselves in (taming con- 
renieni 

• _| researches.* 

The same reasons which led Plato to re- 
commend the study oi arithmetic led bin to re- 
commend also the study of mathematics. The 
vulgar crowd of geometricians, :■ 
not understand bim. They havepractice always 
m view* They 'Jo not know that the real use of 
the science is to lead men to the knowbdge 
of abstract, essential, eternal truth.f Indeed, 
if we an: to believe Plutarch, Plato carried this 
fooling so Tar, that he considered geon i 
dcgradcJ by being applied to any pur;,', e Oi 

• utility. Archytas, it seems, had framed 
machines of extraordinary power, on mathe- 
matical principles.^ Plato remonstrated srith 
bis friend ; and declared tbat mis was to de- 
grade a noble intellectual exercise into alow 
craft, /it only for carpet! wheelwrights. 

The office of geometry, be said, was to dis- 
cipline the mind, not to minister to the base 
of the body. His interferes 
■.f'ni; and from that time, according to 
Plutarch, the science of mechanics nras con- 
sidered as unworthy of the attention of a 
opher. 
Archimedes in a later age imife 

Archytas. But even Archimedes was 

not i'r<-<: from the prevailing notion, that ;"-o- 

metry was degraded by being employe') to pro- 
duce any thing useful. It nras irith difficulty 
tbat be nras induced to stoop from speculation 
to practice, ife was half ashamed of those 
invention', which v/ere tbe wonder of hostile 
nation'.; and always spoke o( mem slightingly 
as mere amusements — as trifles En irhich a 
mathematician might be suffered to relax hi-, 
mind after intense application to the higher 

of his science. 
The opinion of Bacon on this subject was 
diametrically opposed to mat of the ancient 

ophers. Ho valued geometry chiefly, if 
not solely, on account of tbose uses which to 
Plato appeared so base. And it is remarkable 
that the longer be lived the stronger this feel- 
ing became. When, in 1605, he wrote the 
two books on the "Advancement of Learning," 
he dwelt on the advantages which mankind 

d from mixed mathematics; but he at 
the same time admitted, that the beneficial ef- 
fect produced by mathematical study on the 
intellect, though a collateral advantage, was 
"no less worthy than that which was princi- 
pal and intended." But it is evident that his 

• "D$ AiigrMmtts. Lit,. 3, Cap. ft. 

t Plato's Bepublie, Book 7. 

5 Plutareh, Sympot -Ml., and Lift cf Mbrullw. The 
machines of Arcb-tai are alao mentioned by Auiu« Gel- 
IIijh ami Diogenea Laerttua. 



twenty •■ Dt jtua 

mentis, s/hichis 

made impo 
in the part irhich related to 1 cs. Be 

condemi 1 / the high 

oi the mathematicians, "■'- 
mathematicorum." 

of the human race to be the end oi fa 
be pronounced that mat I 

claim no bighei rank man that of an ai 

age, or an auxiliary to other 
Statical science.be says, is the hand//.: 
natural pbiloi e ought to deme. 

I and he declares that lie c 
■ ill chance it ha 
. to claim 1 -. over 

her ml (tress. He predicts — a prediction which 

would have made Plato sbudder — mat as more 

and more iii ecverh 1 are made in p 

■ ■•/ill be more and more branches of 
• •-. Of tbat collateral advan- 

tage, the ralue of which, twenty years before. 

'J :. . , 

omission cannot have been tbe effects. 

'•see. His own tres 
him. from that treatise be debt) 
punged whatever rable to me 

of pure rnatbernat.', ,i everal keen 

re/lections on the arde;. 
This fact, in our opinion, & '■sly one 

love of the ' 
which directly tend to improve the Co. 

of mankind, and his jealousy of all p 
merely euriotu , had gro* 
;t. may be, b'-come immoderate. He iras afraid 
of using any expression which might hi 

effect of inducing any /;. ■ '. s to employ 

in speculations, n* to me mind of the 

e hour which might be em- 
ployed in extending the empire of man over 
rnaUer.f If Baeoil erred here, we rr. 

edge that ire greatly • 1 rror to 

the opposite error of Plato. VVe have no pa- 
tience with a philosophy which, like 
Roman matre 

order to preserve their shapes, takes pains to 
rren for fear of being homely. 
Let us pass to astronomy. This ".s 
the scienceswhich Plato exhorted 
to learn, but for reasons i'^r removed from 
common habits of thinking. ".Shall 
down astronomy," say "among the 

subjects of study 1*4 "I think so," answers 

MJauco.. : "to know some- 
thing about, tl 1 about the months and 
the years, is of use for military purpose.; as 
well as for agriculture and navigation." "I» 
amu: es me," says Socrates," to see how afraid 
you. are lest the common herd of people 
.should accuse you of recommending 
I studies." He then proceeds in that pure and 
magnificent diction, which, as Cicero Si 
piter would use if Jupiter spoke Greek, to ex 
. ______ ______ _— ______ ______________ 

i * Usui t-.i commodii botntnum conmtlin 

t Compare the panace relating to oiatbematfcf in the 
Second Book of toe Advancement of Learning with t_« 

//« JlufrmentU, Lit). 3, Cap."'!. 
t i'lalo'a HepuUie, Book 7. 



X76 



MAOAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



plain, that the use of astronomy is not to add to 
the vulgar comforts of life, but to assist in 
raising the mind to the contemplation of things 
which are to be perceived by the pure intellect 
alone. The knowledge of the actual motions 
of the heavenly bodies he considers as of little 
value. The appearances which make the sky 
beautiful at night are, he tells u?, like the 
figures which a geometrician draws on the 
sand, mere examples, mere help? to feeble 
minds. We must get beyond them ; we must 
neglect them ; we must attain to an astronomy 
which is as independent of the actual stars as 
geometrical truth is independent of the lines of 
an ill-drawn diagram. This is, we imagine, 
very nearly, if not exactly, the astronomy 
which Bacon compared to the ox of Prome- 
theus* — a sleek, well-shaped hide, stuffed with 
rubbish, goodly to look at, but containing no- 
thing to eat. He complained that astronomy 
had, to its great injury, been separated from 
natural philosophy, of which it was one of the 
noblest provinces, and annexed to the domain 
of mathematics. The world stood in need, he 
said, of a very different astronomy — of a living 
astronomy. ,-j- of an astronomy which should sett 
forth the nature, the motion, and the influences 
of the heavenly bodies, as they really are. 

On the greatest and most useful of all in- 
ventions, the invention of alphabetical writing, 
Plato did not look with much complacency. 
He seems to have thought that the use of letters 
had operated on the human mind as the use of 
the go-cart in learning to walk, or of corks in 
learning to swim, is said to operate on the hu- 
man body. It was a support which soon be- 
came indispensable to those who used it, which 
made vigorous exertion first unnecessary, and 
then impossible. The powers of the intellect 
would, he conceived, have been more fully de- 
veloped without this delusive aid. Men would 
have been compelled to exercise the under- 
standing and the memory; and, by deep and 
assiduous meditation, to make truth thoroughly 
their own. Now, on the contrary, much know- 
ledge is traced on paper, but little is engraved 
on the soul. A man is certain that he can find 
information at a moment's notice when he 
wants it. He therefore suffers it to fade from 
his mind. Such a man cannot in strictness be 
said to know any thing. He has the show 
without the reality of wisdom. These opinions 
Plato has put into the mouth of an ancient king 
of Egypt.| But it is evident from the context 
that they were his own ; and so they were un- 
derstood to be by Quintilian.|| Indeed, they 
are in perfect accordance with the whole Pla- 
tonic system. 

Bacon's views, as may easily be supposed, 
were widely different.^ The powers of the 
memory, he observes, without the help of writ- 
ing, can do little towards the advancement of 
any useful science. He acknowledges that the 
memory may be disciplined to such a point as 



» lie Augmentis, Lib. 3, Cap. 4. \ Astronomia viva. 

t " Quae substantia™ et motuni et influxum ccelestium, 
jrout re vera sunt, proponal." Compare this language 
With Plato's " ra S'ev tu> ovpavo caasntv." 

J Plato's Phadrus. || Quintilian, XI. 

If De Augmentis, Lib. 5, Cap. 5. 



to be able to perform very extraordinary feats. 
But on such feats he sets little value. The 
habits of his mind, he tells us, are such that ha 
is not disposed to rate highly any accomplish* 
ment, however rare, which is of no practical 
use to mankind. As to these prodigious 
achievements of the memory, he ranks thern 
with the exhibitions of rope-dancers and turn 
biers. " The two performances," he says, " are 
of much the same sort. The one is an abuse 
of the powers of the body; the other is an 
abuse of the powers of the mind. Both may 
perhaps excite our wonder ; but neither is en 
titled to our respect." 

To Plato, the science of medicine appeared 
one of very disputable advantage.* He did 
not indeed object to quick cures for acute dis- 
orders, or for injuries produced by accidents. 
But the art which resists the slow sap of a 
chronic disease, which repairs frames ener- 
vated by lust, swollen by gluttony, or inflamed 
by wine, which encourages sensuality, by mi- 
tigating the natural punishment of the sensual- 
ist, and prolongs existence when the intellect 
has ceased to retain its entire energy, had no 
share of his esteem. A life protracted by 
medical skill he pronounced to be a long death. 
The exercise of the art of medicine ought, he 
said, to be tolerated so far as that art may 
serve to cure the occasional distempers of men 
whose constitutions are good. As to thosa 
who have bad constitutions, let them die ; and 
the sooner the better. Such men are unfit for 
war, for magistracy, for the management of 
their domestic affairs. That, however, is com- 
paratively of little consequence. But they are 
incapable of study and speculation. If they 
engage in any severe mental exercise, they are 
troubled with giddiness and fulness of the 
head ; all which they lay to the account of phi- 
losophy. The best thing that can happen to 
such wretches is to have done with life at 
once. He quotes mythical authority in sup- 
port of this doctrine ; and reminds his disci- 
ples that the practice of the sons of ^Esculapius, 
as described by Homer, extended only to the 
cure of external injuries. 

Far different was the philosophy of Bacon- 
Of all the sciences, that which he seems to 
have regarded with the greatest interest was 
the science which, in Plato's opinion, would 
not be tolerated in a well-regulated community. 
To make men perfect was no part of Bacon's 
plan. His humble aim was to make imperfect 
men comfortable. The beneficence of his phi- 
losophy resembled the beneficence of the com- 
mon Father, whose sun rises on the evil and 
the good, whose rain descends for the just and 
the unjust. In Plato's opinion man was made 
for philosophy ; in Bacon's opinion philosophy 
was made for man ; it was a means to an end ; 
and that end was to increase the pleasures, and 
to mitigate the pains of millions who are not 
and cannot be philosophers. That a valetudi- 
narian who took great pleasure in being wheel- 
ed along his terrace, who relished his boiled 
chicken and his weak wine and water, and who 
enjoyed a hearty laugh over the Queen of Nsu 



* Plato's Republic, Book 3. 



LORD BACON. 



an 



aire s tales, shculd be treated as caput lupinwm 
because he could not read the Timceus without 
a headache, was a notion which the humane 
spirit of the English school of wisdom alto- 
gether rejected. Bacon would not have 
thought it beneath the dignity of a philosopher 
to contrive an improved garden-chair for such 
a valetudinarian ; to devise some way of ren- 
dering his medicines more palatable ; to in- 
vent repasts which he might enjoy, and pillows 
on which he might sleep soundly ; and this, 
though there might not be the smallest hope 
that the mind of the poor invalid would ever 
rise to the contemplation of the ideal beautiful 
and the ideal good. As Plato had cited the re- 
ligious legends of Greece to justify his con- 
tempt for the more recondite parts of the art 
of healing, Bacon vindicated the dignity of that 
art by appealing to the example of Christ ; and 
reminded his readers that the great Physician 
of the soul did not disdain to be also the phy- 
sician of the body.* 

When we pass from the science of medicine 
to that of legislation, we find the same differ- 
ence between the systems of these two great 
men. Pktto, at the commencement of the fine 
Dialogue on Laws, lays it down as a funda- 
mental principle, that the end of legislation is 
to make men virtuous. It is unnecessary to 
pcint out the extravagant conclusions to which 
such a proposition leads. Bacon well knew to 
how great an extent the happiness of every 
society must depend on the virtue of its mem- 
bers ; and he also knew what legislators can, 
and what they cannot do for the purpose of 
promoting virtue. The view which he has 
given of the end of legislation, and of the prin- 
cipal means for the attainment of that end, has 
always seemed to us eminently happy ; even 
among the many happy passages of the same 
kind with which his works abound. " Finis et 
scopus quern leges intueri atque ad quern jus- 
siones et sanctiones suas dirigere debent, non 
alius est quam ut cives feliciter degant. Id 
fiet si pietate et religione recte instituti, mori- 
bus honesti, armis adversus hostes externos 
tuti, legum auxilio adversus seditiones et pri- 
vatas injuriasfmuniti, imperio et magistratibus 
obsequentes, copiis et opibus locupletes et flo- 
rentes fuerint."f The end is the well-being of 
the people. The means are the imparting of 
moral and religious education ; the providing 
of every thing necessary for defence against 
foreign enemies ; the maintaining of internal 
order; the establishing of a judicial, finan- 
cial, and commercial system, under which 
wealth may be rapidly accumulated and se- 
curely enjoyed. 

Even with respect to the form in which laws 
ought to be drawn, there is a remarkable differ- 
ence of opinion between the Greek and the Eng- 
lishman. Plato thought a preamble essential; 
Bacon thought it mischievous. Each was con- 
sistent with himself. Plato, considering the 
moral improvement of the people as the end 
of legislation, justly inferred that a law which 
commanded and threatened, but which neither 



* De Augmentis, Lib. 4, Cap. 2. 

\De Jlugmentis, Lib 8, Cap. 3, Aph. 5. 



convinced the reason nor touched the heart 
must be a most imperfect law. He was not 
content with deterring from theft a man who 
still continued to be a thief at heart, with re 
straining a son who hated his mother frora 
beating his mother. The only obedience on 
which he set much value, was the obedienco 
which an enlightened understanding yields to 
reason, and which a virtuous disposition )delds 
toTprecepts of virtue. He really seems to have 
believed that, by prefixing to every law an elo- 
quent and pathetic exhortation, he should, to a 
great extent, render penal enactments super- 
fluous. Bacon entertained no such romantic 
hopes ; and he well knew the practical incon- 
veniences of the course which Plato recom- 
mended. " Neque nobis," says he, " prologi 
legum qui inepti olim habiti sunt et leges intro- 
ducunt disputantes non jubentes utique place- 
rent si priscos mores ferre possemus 

Quantum fieri potest prologi evitentur et lex 
incipiat a jussione."* 

Had Plato lived to finish the " Critias," a 
comparison between that noble fiction and the 
" New Atlantis" would probably have furnish- 
ed us with still more striking instances. It is 
amusing to think with what horror he would 
have seen such an institution as " Solomon's 
House" rising in his republic ; with what ve- 
hemence he would have ordered the brew- 
houses, the perfume-houses, and the dispensa- 
tories to be pulled down ; and with what inex- 
orable rigour he would have driven beyond the 
frontier all the Fellows of the College, Mer- 
chants of light and Depredators, Lamps and 
Pioneers. 

To sum up the whole : we should say that 
the aim of the Platonic philosophy Avas to exalt 
man into a god. The aim of the Baconian 
philosophy was to provide man with what he 
requires while he continues to be man. The 
aim of the Platonic philosophy was to raise 
us far above vulgar wants. The aim of the 
Baconian philosophy was to supply our vulgar 
wants. The former aim was noble ; but the 
latter was attainable. Plato drew a good bow ; 
but, like Acestes in Virgil, he aimed at the 
stars ; and therefore, though there was no want 
of strength or skill, the shot was thrown away. 
His arrow was indeed followed by a track of 
dazzling radiance, but it struck nothing. 

" Volans liquidis in nubibus arsit arundo 
Signavitque viam flammis, tenuisque recessit 
Consumata in ventos." 

Bacon fixed his eye on a mark which was 
placed on the earth and within bow-shot, and 
hit it in the white. The philosophy of Plato 
began in words and ended in words — noble 
words indeed — words such as were to be ex- 
pected from the finest of human intellects ex- 
ercising boundless dominion over the finest of 
human languages. The philosophy of Bacon 
began in observations and ended in arts. 

The boast of the ancient philosophers was 
that their doctrine formed the minds of men to 
a high degree of wisdom and virtue. This was 
indeed the only practical good which the most 
celebrated of those teachers even pretended ta 

* De Jlugmentis, Lib. 8, Cap. 3, Aph. 60. 



278 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



effec'; and undoubtedly if they had effected 
this, they would have deserved the greatest 
praise. But the truth is, that in those very 
matters in which alone they professed to do 
any good to mankind, in those very matters for 
the sake of which they neglected all the vulgar 
interests of mankind, they did nothing, or worse 
than nothing. They promised what was im- 
practicable ; they despised what was practica- 
ble ; they filled the world with long words and 
long beards ; and they left it as wicked and as 
ignorant as they found it. 

An acre in Middlesex is better than a princi- 
pality in Utopia. The smallest actual good is 
better than the most magnificent promises of 
impossibilities. The wise man of the Stoics 
would, no doubt, be a grander object than a 
steam-engine. But there are steam-engines. 
And the wise man of the Stoics is yet to be 
born. A philosophy which should enable a 
man to feel perfectly happy while in agonies 
of pain, may be better than a philosophy which 
assuages pain. But we know that there are 
remedies which will assuage pain ; and we 
know that the ancient sages liked the tooth- 
ache just as little as their neighbours. A phi- 
losophy which should extinguish cupidity, 
would be better than a philostphy which 
should devise laws for the security of property. 
But it is possible to make laws which shall, to 
a very great extent, secure property. And we 
do not understand how any motives which the 
ancient philosophy furnished could extinguish 
cupidity. We know indeed that the philoso- 
phers were no better than other men. From 
the testimony of friends as well as of foes, from 
the confessions of Epictetus and Seneca, as 
■well as from the sneers of Lucian and the fierce 
invectives of Juvenal, it is plain that these 
teachers of virtue had all the vices of their 
neighbours, with the additional vice of hypocri- 
sy. Some people may think the object of the 
Baconian philosophy a low object, but they 
cannot deny that, high or low, it has been at- 
tained. They cannot deny that every year 
makes an addition to what Bacon called "fruit." 
They cannot deny that mankind have made, 
and are making, great and constant progress 
in the road which he pointed out to them. 
Was there any such progressive movement 
among the ancient philosophers. After they 
had been declaiming eight hundred years, had 
they made the world better than when they 
began 1 Our belief is, that among the philoso- 
phers themselves, instead of a progressive im- 
provement, there was a progressive degeneracy. 
An abject superstition, which Democritus or 
Anaxagoras would have rejected with scorn, 
added the last disgrace to the long dotage of 
the Stoic and Platonic schools. The unsuc- 
cessful attempts to articulate which are so de- 
lightful and interesting in a child, shock and 
disgust us in an aged paralytic; and in the 
same way, those wild mythological fictions 
which charm us when lisped by Greek poetry 
in its infancy, excite a mixed sensation of pity 
and loathing when mumbled by Greek philoso- 
phy in its old age. We know that guns, cut- 
kry, spy-glasses, clocks, are better in our time 
lhau they were in the time of our fathers ; and 



were better in the time of our fathers than the* 
were in the time of our grandfathers. We 
might, therefore, be inclined to think, thai 
when a philosophy which boasted that its or» 
ject was the elevation and purification of the 
mind, and which for this object neglected the 
sordid office of ministering to the comforts of 
the body, had flourished in the highest honour 
for many hundreds of years, avast moral ame- 
lioration must have taken place. Was it so 1 
Look at the schools of this wisdom four centu- 
ries before the Christian era, and four centu- 
ries after that era. Compare the men whom 
those schools formed at those two periods. 
Compare Plato and Libanius. Compare Peri- 
cles and Julian. This philosophy confessed, 
nay boasted,. that for every end but one it was 
useless. Had it attained that one end? 

Suppose that Justinian, when he closed the 
schools of Athens, had called on the last few 
sages who still haunted the Portico, and lin- 
gered round the ancient plane-trees, to show 
their title to public veneration; euppose that 
he had said, "A thousand years have elapsed 
since, in this famous city, Socrates posed Pro- 
tagoras and Hippias ; during those thousand 
years a large proportion of the ablest men of 
every generation has been employed in con- 
stant efforts to bring to perfection the philoso- 
phy which you teach ; that philosophy has 
been munificently patronised by the powerful ; 
its professors have been held in the highest 
esteem by the public ; it has drawn to itself 
almost all the sap and vigour of the human 
intellect, and what has it effected ? What 
profitable truth has it taught us, which we 
should not equally have known without it ] 
What has it enabled us to do which we should 
not have been equally able to do without it V 
Such questions, we suspect, would have puz- 
zled Simplicius and Isidore. Ask a follower 
of Bacon what the new philosophy, as it was 
called in the time of Charles the Second, has 
effected for mankind, and his answer is ready ; 
"It has lengthened life; it has mitigated pain; 
it has extinguished diseases ; it has increased 
the fertility of the soil ; it has given new secu- 
rities to the mariner ; it has furnished new 
arms to the warrior; it has spanned great 
rivers and estuaries with bridges of form un- 
known to our fathers ; it has guided the thun- 
derbolt innocuously from heaven to earth ; it 
has lighted up the night with the splendour of 
the day; it has extended the range of the hu- 
man vision; it has multiplied the power of the 
human muscle ; it has accelerated motion ; it 
has annihilated distance ; it has facilitated in- 
tercourse, correspondence, all friendly offices, 
all despatch of business; it has enabled man 
to descend to the depths of the sea, to soar into 
the air, to penetrate securely into the noxious 
recesses of the earth, to traverse the land on 
cars which whirl along without horses, and 
the ocean in ships which sail against the wind, 
These are but a part of its fruits, and of its 
first fruits. For it is a philosophy whicn ne- 
ver rests, which has never attained it, which 
is never perfect. Its law is progress. A poinl 
which yesterday was invisible is its goal to- 
day, and will be its starting-post to-morrow" 



LORD BACOIV. 



279 



Great and various as the powers of Bacon 
tyere, he owes his wide and durable fame 
chiefly to this, that all these powers ret °ived 
their direction from common sense. His love 
cf the vulgar useful, his strong sympathy with 
the popular notion of good and evil, and the 
openness with which he avowed that sympa- 
thy, are the secret of his influence. There 
was in his system no cant, no illusion. He 
had no anointing foi broken bones, no fine 
theories de finibus, no arguments to persuade 
men out of their senses. He knew that men, 
and philosophers as well as other men, do ac- 
tually love life, health, comfort, honour, secu- 
rity, the society of friends ; and do actually 
dislike death, sickness, pain, poverty, disgrace, 
danger, separation from those to whom they 
are attached. He knew that religion, though 
it often regulates and moderates these feelings, 
seldom eradicates them; nor did he think it 
desirable for mankind that they should be 
eradicated. The plan of eradicating them by 
conceits like those of Seneca, or syllogisms 
like those of Chrysippus, was too preposterous 
to be for a moment entertained by a mind like 
his. He- did not understand what wisdom 
there could be in changing names where it 
was impossible to change things ; in denying 
that blindness, hunger, the gout, the rack, were 
evils, and calling them ttsrt^onyfA&a. — in refus- 
ing to acknowledge that health, safety, plenty, 
were good things, and dubbing them by the 
name of aSiaqog-x. In his opinions on all these 
subjects, he was not a Stoic, nor an Epicurean, 
nos* an Academic, but what would have been 
calsd by Stoics, Epicureans, and Academics, 
a ntre iSnsm — a mere common man. And it 
was precisely because he was so, that his 
name makes so great an era in the history of 
the world. It was because he dug deep that 
he was able to pile high. It was because, in 
order to lay his foundations, he went down 
into those parts of human nature which lie 
low, but which are not liable to change, that 
the fabric which he reared has risen to so 
stately an elevation, and stands with such im- 
movable strength. 

We have sometimes thought that an amus- 
ing fiction might be written, in which a disci- 
ple of Epictetus and a disciple of Bacon should 
be introduced as fellow-travellers. They come 
to a village where the small-pox has just be- 
gun to rage; and find houses shut up, inter- 
course suspended, the sick abandoned, mothers 
weeping in terror over their children. The 
Stoic assures the dismayed population that 
there is nothing bad in the small-pox, and that 
to a wise man diseases, deformity, death, the 
loss of friends, are not evils. The Baconian 
takes out a lancet and begins to vaccinate. 
They find a body of miners in great dismay. 
4n explosion of noisome vapours has just 
killed many of those who were at work; and 
the survivors are afraid to venture into the 
cavern. The Stoic assures them that such an 
accident is nothing but a mere aa-wrgcw^aw. 
The Baconian, who has no such fine word at 
his command, contents himself with devising 
a safety-lamp. They find a shipwrecked mer- 
chant wringing his hands on the shore. His 



vessel with an inestimable cargo ha? just gone 
down, and he is reduced in a moment from 
opulence to beggary. The Stoic exhorts him 
not to seek happiness in things which lie with 
out himself, and repeats the whole chapter ol 
Epictetus Xlgpg Ttvs Tm a.7rcgniv JstWoTa?. The 
Baconian constructs a diving-bell, goes down 
in it, and returns with the most precious effects 
from the wreck. It would be easy to multiply 
illustrations of the difference between the phi 
losophy of thorns and the philosophy of frui'. 
— the philosophy of words and the philosophy 
of works. 

Bacon has been accused of overrating the 
importance of those sciences Avhich minister 
to the physical well-being of man, and of un- 
derrating the importance of moral philosophy; 
and it cannot be denied that persons who 
read the Novum Organum and the De JLugmentis, 
without adverting to the circumstances under 
which those works were written, will find 
much that may seem to countenance the accu- 
sation. It is certain, however, that, though in 
practice he often went very wrong, and though, 
as his historical work and his essays prove, 
he did not hold, even in theory, very strict 
opinions on points of political morality, he 
was far too wise a man not to know how 
much our well-being depends on the regula- 
tion of our minds. The world for which he 
wished was not, as some people seem to ima- 
gine, a world oi water-wheels, power-looms, 
steam-carriages, sensualists, and knaves. He 
would have been as ready as Zeno himself to 
maintain, that no bodily comforts which could 
be devised by the skill and labour of a hundred 
generations would give happiness to a man 
whose mind was under the tyrann}^ of licen- 
tious appetite, of envy, of hatred, or of fear 
If he sometimes appeared to ascribe import- 
ance too exclusively to the arts which increase 
the outward comforts of .our species, the rea- 
son is plain. Those arts had been most un- 
duly depreciated. They had been represented 
as unworthy of the attention of a man of libe- 
ral education. "Cogitavit," says Bacon of 
himself, "earn esse opinionem sive asstima- 
tionem humidam et damnosam, minui nempe 
majestatem mentis humance, si in experimentis 
et rebus particularibus, sensui subjectis, et in 
materia terminatis, diu ac multum versetur: 
prassertim cum hujusmodi res ad inquirendum 
laboriosse, ad meditandum ignobiles, ad discen- 
dum asperoe, ad practicam illiberales, numero 
infinites, et subtilitate pusillse videri soleant, et 
ob hujusmodi conditioues, glorias artium minus 
sint accommodate."* This opinion seemed 
to him " omnia in familia humana turbasse." 
It had undoubtedly caused many arts which 
were of the greatest utility, and which were 
susceptible of the greatest improvements, to 
be neglected by speculators, and abandoned 
to joiners, masons, smiths, weavers, apotheca 
ries. It was necessary to assert the dignity 
of those arts, to bring them prominently for 



* Cogilata et visa. The expression opinio humida may 
surprise a reader not accustomed to Bacon's style. The 
allusion is to the maxim of Heraclitus the obscure, Dry 
light is the best. By dry light, Bacon understood the 
light of the intellect, not obscured by the mists of ran 
sion, interest, or prejudice. 



280 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ward ; to proclaim that, as they have a most 
serious effect on human happiness, they are 
not unworthy of the attention of the highest 
human intellects. Again, it was by illustra- 
tions drawn from these arts that Bacon could 
most easily illustrate his principles. It was 
by improvements effected in these arts that 
the soundness of his principles could be most 
speedily and decisively brought to the test, and 
made manifest to common understandings. 
He acted like a wise commander who thins 
every other part of his line to strengthen a 
point where the enemy is attacking with pecu- 
liar fury, and on the fate of which the event 
of the battle seems likely to depend. In the 
Novum Organum, however, he distinctly and 
most truly declares that his philosophy is no 
less a Moral than a Natural Philosophy ; that, 
though his illustrations are drawn from physi- 
cal science, the principles which those illus- 
trations are intended to explain, are just as 
applicable to Ethical and Political inquiries, 
as to inquiries into the nature of Heat and 
Vegetation.* 

He frequently treated of moral subjects, and 
he almost always brought to those subjects 
that spirit which was the essence of his whole 
sj'stem. He has left us many admirable prac- 
tical observations on what he sometimes 
quaintly tailed the Georgics of the mind — on 
the mental culture which tends to produce 
good dispositions. Some persons, he said, 
might accuse him of spending labour on a 
matter so simple that his predecessors had 
passed it by with contempt. He desired such 
persons to remember that he had from the first 
announced the objects of his search to be, not 
the splendid and the surprising, but the useful 
and the true ; not the deluding dreams which 
go forth, through the shining portal of ivory, 
but the humbler realities of the gate of horn.f 

True to this principle, he indulged in no 
rants about the fitness of things, the all-suffi- 
ciency of virtue, and the dignity of human 
nature. He dealt not at all in resounding no- 
things, such as those with which Bolingbroke 
pretended to comfort himself in exile ; and in 
which Cicero sought consolation after the loss 
of Tullia. The casuistical subtleties which 
occupied the attention of the keenest spirits of 
his age had, it should seem, no attractions for 
him. The treatises of the doctors whom Es- 
cobar afterwards compared to the four beasts, 
and the fotir-and-twenty elders in the Apoca- 
lypse, Bacon dismissed with most contemptu- 
ous brevity. "Inanes plerumque evadunt et 
futiies."+ Nor did he ever meddle with those 
enigmas which have puzzled hundreds of ge- 
nerations, and will puzzle hundreds more. He 
said nothing about the grounds of moral obli- 
gation, or the freedom of the human will. He 
had no inclination to employ himself in la- 
bours resembling those of the damned ie. the 
Grecian Tartarus — to spin forever on the same 
wheel round the same pivot, to gape forever 
after tne same deluding clusters, to pour water 
forever into the same bottomless buckets, to 

* Novum Organum, Lib. 1, Aph. 137. 
t De Augmentis, Lib. 7, Cap. 3. 
X De Augnentis, Lib. 7, Cap. 2. 



pace forever to and fro on the same wearisom* 
path after the same recoiling stone. He ex 
horted his disciples to prosecute researchei 
of a very different description ; to consider 
moral science as a practical science — a science 
of which the object was to cure the diseases 
and perturbations of the mind, and which 
could be improved only by a method analogous 
to that which has improved medicine and sur- 
gery. Moral philosophers ought, he said, to 
set themselves vigorously to work for the pur- 
pose of discovering what are the actual effects 
produced on the human character by particular 
modes of education, by the indulgence of pai- 
ticular habits, by the study of particular books, 
by society, by emulation, by imitation. Then 
we might hop.e to find out what mode of train- 
ing was most likely to preserve and restore 
moral health.* 

What he was as a natural philosopher and 
a moral philosopher, that he was also as a the- 
ologian. He was, we are convinced, a sincere 
believer in the divine authority of the Chris- 
tian revelation. Nothing can be found in his 
writings, or in any other writings, more elo- 
quent and pathetic than some passages which 
were apparently written under the influence 
of strong devotional feeling. He loved to 
dwell on the power of the Christian religion 
to effect much that the ancient philosophers 
could only promise. He loved to consider that 
religion as the bond of charity ; the curb of 
evil passions ; the consolation of the wretched 
the support of the timid ; the hope of the dying. 
But controversies on speculative points of the- 
ology seemed to have engaged scarcely any 
portion of his attention. In what he wrote on 
Church Government he showed, as far as he 
dared, a tolerant and charitable spirit. He 
troubled himself not at all about Homoousian*: 
and Homoiousians, Monothelites and Nesto 
rians. He lived in an age in which dispute? 
on the most subtle points of divinity excite*? 
an intense interest throughout Europe; an<"J 
nowhere more than in England. He ww 
placed in the very thick of the conflict. Ha 
was in power at the time of the Synod of Dort, 
and must for months have been daily deafened 
with talk about election, reprobation, and final 
perseverance. Yet we do not remember a line 
in his works from which it can be inferred 
that he was either a Calvinist or an Arminian. 
While the world was resounding with the 
noise of a disputatious philosophy and a dis- 
putatious theology, the Baconian school, like 
Alworthy seated between Square and Thwack- 
um, preserved a calm neutrality, half-scornful, 
half-benevolent, and, content with adding to 
the sum of practical good, left the war of 
words to those who liked it. 

We have dwelt long on the end of the Baco- 
nian philosophy, because from this peculiarity 
all the other peculiarities of that philosoohv 
necessarily arose. Indeed, scarcely any person 
who proposed to himself the same end with 
Bacon could fail to hit upon the same means. 

The vulgar notion about Bacon we take to 
be this — that he invented a new method of 

* De Augmentis, LiD. 7, (Jap. 3. 



LORD BACON. 



2S1 



arriving at truth, which method is called In- 
duction ; and that he exposed the fallacy of the 
syllogistic reasoning which had been in vogue 
Before his time. This notion is about as well 
founded as that of the people who, in the mid- 
dle ages, imagined that Virgil was a great 
conjurer. Many who are far too well informed 
to talk such extravagant nonsense, entertain 
what wa think incorrect notions as to what 
Bacon really effected in this matter. 

The inductive method has been practised 
ever since the beginning of the world by every 
human being. It is constantly practised by 
the most ignorant clown, by the most thought- 
less schoolboy, by the very child at the breast. 
That method leads the clown to the conclusion, 
that if he sows barley he shall net reap wheat. 
By that method the schoolboy learns, that a 
cloudy day is the best for catching trout The 
very infant, we imagine, is led by induction to 
expect milk from his mother or nurse, and 
none from his father. 

Not only is it not true that Bacon invented 
the inductive method ; but it is not true that he 
was the first person who correctly analyzed 
that method and explained its uses. Aristotle 
had long before pointed out the absurdity of 
supposing that syKogistic reasoning could 
ever conduct men to the discovery of any new 
principle; had shown that such discoveries 
can be made by induction, and by induction 
alone ; and had given the history of the induc- 
tive process, concisely indeed, but with great 
perspicuity and precision.* 

Again, we are not inclined. to ascribe much 
practical value to the analysis of the inductive 
method which Bacon has given in the second 
book of the "Novum Organum." It is indeed 
an elaborate and correct analysis. But it is 
an analysis of that which we are all doing 
from morning to night, and which we continue 
to do even in our dreams. A plain man finds 
his stomach out of order. He never heard 
Lord Bacon's name. But he proceeds in the 
strictest conformity with the rules laid down 
in the second book of the "Novum Organum," 
and satisfies himself that minced pies have 
done the mischief. "I ate minced pies on 
Monday and Wednesday, and I was kept 
awake by indigestion all night." This is the 
comparentia ad intellectum instantiarum convenien- 
tium. " I did not eat any on Tuesday and Fri- 
day, and I was quite well." This is the com- 
parentia instantiarum in proximo qua natura data 
privantur. " I ate very sparingly of them on 
Sunday, and was very slightly indisposed in 
the evening. But on Christmas day I almost 
dined on them, and was so ill that I was in 
some danger." This is the comparentia instan- 
tiarum secundum magis et minus. "It cannot 
have been the brandy which I took with them. 
For I have drunk brandy daily for years with- 
out being the worse for it." This is the re- 
*ectio naturarum. Our invalid then proceeds 
to what is termed by Bacon the Vindemiatio, 
and pronounces that mince pies do not agree 
with him. 



* See the last chapter of the Posterior Analytics, and 
Ins first of the Metaphysics, 
Voi. II.— 36 



We might go on to what are called by Baccn 
prcerogativcB instantiarum. For example: "I\ 
must be something peculiar to mincea pies, 
for I can eat any other pastry without the 
least bad effect." This is the instantia solitaria. 
We might easily proceed, but we have already 
sufficiently explained our meaning. 

We repeat, that we dispute neither the inge- 
nuity nor the accuracy of the theory contained 
in the second book of the Novum Organum; but 
we think that Bacon greatly overrated its utility. 
We conceive that the inductive process, like 
many other processes, is not likely to be better 
performed merely because men know how they 
perform it. William Tell would not have been 
one whit more likely to cleave the apple if he 
had known that his arrowwould describe a para- 
bola under the influence of the attraction of the 
earth. Captain Barclay would not have been 
more likely to walk a thousand miles in a thou- 
sand hours if he had known the place and name 
of every muscle in his legs. Monsieur Jourdain 
probably did not pronounce D and F more 
correctly after he had been apprized that D is 
pronounced by touching the tSeth with the end 
of the tongue, and F by putting the upper teeth 
on the lower lip. We cannot perceive that the 
study of grammar makes the smallest differ- 
ence in the speech of people who have always 
lived in good society. Not one Londoner in ten 
thousand can lay down the rules for the proper 
use of mil and shall. Yet not one Londoner in 
a million ever misplaces his mil and shall. No 
man uses figures of speech with more pro- 
priety because he knows that one figure is 
called a metonomy and another a synecdoche. 
A drayman in a passion calls out, "You are a 
pretty fellow," without suspecting that he is 
uttering irony, and that irony is one of the four 
primary tropes. The old systems of rhetoric 
were never regarded by the most experienced 
and discerning judges as of any use in form, 
ing an orator. " Ego hanc vim intelligo," said 
Cicero, " esse in prasceptis omnibus, non ut ea 
secuti oratores eloquentia? laudem sint adepti, 
sed qua? sua sponte homines eloquentes face 
rent, ea quosdam observasse, atque id cgisss 
sic esse non eloquentiam ex artificio, sed arti- 
cium ex eloquentia natum."* We must own 
that we entertain the same opinion concerning 
the study of logic which Cicero entertained 
concerning the study of rhetoric. A man of 
sense syllogizes in celarent and cesare all day 
long without suspecting it ; and though he ma} 
not know what an ignoratio elenchi is, has no 
difficulty in exposing it whenever he falls ia 
with it, which is likely to be as often as h« 
falls in with a reverend Master of Arts, nou- 
rished on mode and figure in the cloisters ol 
Oxford. Considered merely as an intellectual 
feat, the Organum of Aristotle can scarcely be 
admired too highly. But the more we compare 
individual with individual, school with school, 
nation with nation, generation with generation, 
the more do we lean to the opinion that the 
knowledge of the theory of logic has no tend- 
ency whatever to make men gcod reasoners. 

What Aristotle did for the syllogistic prt* 

* De Oratore, Lib. I. 



282 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



cess Bacon has, in the second book of the No- 
vum Organum, done for the inductive process ; 
that is to say, he has analyzed it well. His 
rule.s are quite proper; but we do not need 
them, because they are drawn from our own 
constant practice. 

But though everybody is constantly perform- 
ing the process described in the second book 
of the Novum. Organum, some men perform it 
well and some perform it ill. Some are led 
by it to truth and some to error. It led Frank- 
lin to discover the nature of lightning. It led 
thousands who had less brains than Franklin 
to believe in animal magnetism. But this was 
not because Franklin went through the process 
described by Bacon and the dupes of Mesmer 
through a different process. The comparentia 
and rejectiones, ofwhiah we have given exam- 
ples, will be found in the most unsound deduc- 
tions. We have heard that an eminent judge 
of the last generation was in the habit of 
jocosely propounding after dinner a theory, 
that the cause of the prevalence of Jacobinism 
was the practice of bearing three names. He 
quoted on the one side Charles James Fox, 
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, John Home Tooke, 
John Philpot Curran, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 
Theobald Wolfe Tone. These were instantice 
convenientes. He then proceeded to cite instances 
absentia inproxime: — William Pitt, John Scott, 
William Wyndham, Samuel Horsley, Henry 
Dundas, Edmund Burke. He might have gone 
on to instances secundum magis et minus. The 
practice of giving children three names has been 
for some time a growing practice, and Jacobin- 
ism has also been growing. The practice of 
giving children three names is more common in 
America than in England. In England we still 
have a king and a House of Lords, but the 
Americans are republicans. The rejectiones are 
obvious. Burke and Theobald Wolfe Tone 
were both Irishmen; therefore the being an 
Irishman is not the cause of Jacobinism. 
Horsley and Home Tooke are both clergy- 
men ; therefore the being a clergyman is not 
the cause of Jacobinism. Fox and Wyndham 
were both educated at Oxford; and therefore 
the being educated at Oxford is not the cause 
of Jacobinism. Pitt and Home Tooke were 
both educated at Cambridge ; therefore the be- 
ing educated at Cambridge is not the cause 
of Jacobinism. In this way our inductive phi- 
losopher arrives at what Bacon calls the uwt- 
tage, and pronounces that the having three 
names is the cause of Jacobinism. 

Here is an induction corresponding with 
Bacon's analysis, and ending in a monstrous 
absurdity. In what, then, does this induction 
differ from the induction which leads us to the 
conclusion that the presence of the sun is the 
eause of our having more light by day than 
by night ? The difference evidently is not in 
the kind of instances, but in the number of in- 
stances ; that is to say, the difference is not in 
that part of the process for which Bacon has 
given precise rules, but in a circumstance for 
which no precise ru\e can possibly be given. 
If the learned author of the theory about Ja- 
cobinism had enlarged either of his tables a 
little, his system would have been destroyed. 
The names of Tom Paine and William Wynd- 



ham Grenville would have been sufficient u 
do the work. 

It appears to us, then, that the difference be- 
tween a sound and an unsound induction, or, 
to use the Baconian phraseology, between the 
interpretation of nature and the anticipation 
of nature, does not lie in this — that the inter- 
preter of nature goes through the process ana- 
lyzed in the second book of the Novum Organum 
and the anticipator through a different process 
They may both perform the same process. But 
the anticipator performs it foolishly or care- 
lessly; the interpreter performs it with patience, 
attention, sagacity, and judgment. Now, pre- 
cepts can do little towards making men patient 
and attentive, and still less towards making 
them sagacious and judicious. It is very well 
to tell men to be on their guard against preju- 
dices, not to believe facts on slight evidence, 
not to be content with a scanty collection of 
facts, to put out of their minds the idola which 
Bacon has so finely described. But these rules 
are too general to be of much practical use. 
The question is, what is a prejudice 1 ? How 
long does the incredulity with which I hear a 
new theory propounded continue to be a wise 
and salutary incredulity 1 When does it be- 
come an idolum specus, the unreasonable perti- 
nacity of a too skeptical mind? What is slight 
evidence? What collection of facts is scanty? 
Will ten instances do, or fifty, or a hundred ? 
In how many months would the first human 
beings who settled on the shores of the ocean 
have been justified in believing that the moon 
had an influence on their tides ? After how 
many experiments would Jenner have been 
justified in believing that he had discovered 
a safeguard against the small-pox? Thesa 
are questions to which it would be most desi- 
rable to have a precise answer; but unhappily 
they are questions to which no precise answer 
can be returned. 

We think, then, that it is possible to lay 
down accurate rules, as Bacon has done, for 
the performing of that part of the inductive 
process which all men perform alike; but that 
these rules, though accurate, are not wanted, 
because in truth they only tell us to do what 
we are all doing. We think that it is impossi- 
ble to lay down any precise rule for the per- 
forming of that part of the inductive process 
which a great experimental philosopher per- 
forms in one way and a superstitious old wo- 
man in another. 

On this subject, we think, Bacon was in an 
error. He certainly attributed to his rules a 
value which did not belong to them. He went 
so far as to say, that if his method of making 
discoveries were adopted, little would depend 
on the degree of force or acuteness of any in- 
tellect ; that all minds would be reduced to one 
level; that his philosophy resembled a com- 
pass or a rule which equalizes all hands, and 
enables the most unpractised person to draw 
a more correct circle or line than the bes! 
draughtsman can produce without such aid.* 
This really seems to us as extravagant as it 
would have been in Lindley Murray to an 
nounce that everybody who should learn his 



' Nvvum Organum, Prcef. and Lib. 1, Apb. 122 



LORD BACON. 



283 



grammar would -write as good English as 
Dryden; or in that very able writer, Dr. 
Whately, to promise that all the readers of his 
.ogic wouVd reason like Chillingworth, and 
that all the readers of his rhetoric would 
speak like Burke. That Bacon was altogether 
mistaken as to this point will now hardly be 
disputed. His philosophy has nourished dur- 
ing two hundred years, and has produced none 
of this levelling. The interval between a man 
of talents and a dunce is as wide as ever ; and 
is never more clearly discernible than when 
they engage in researches which require the 
constant use of induction. 

It will be seen that we do npt consider Ba- 
con's ingenious analysis of the inductive me- 
thod as a very useful performance. Bacon 
was not, as we have already said, the inventor 
of the inductive method. He was not even the 
person who first analyzed the inductive method 
correctly, though he undoubtedly analyzed it 
more minutely than any who preceded him. 
He was not the person who first showed that 
by the inductive method alone new truth could 
be discovered. But he was the person who 
first turned the minds of speculative men, 
long occupied in verbal disputes, to the dis- 
covery of new truth ; and, by doing so, he at 
once gave to the inductive method an import- 
ance and dignity which had never before be- 
longed to it. He was not the maker of that 
voad ; he was not the discoverer of that road ; 
he was not the person who first surveyed and 
mapped that road. But he was the person 
who first called the public attention to an in- 
exhaustible mine of wealth, which had been 
utterly neglected, and which was accessible by 
that road alone. By doing so, he caused that 
road which had previously been trodden only 
by peasants and higglers, to be frequented by a 
higher class of travellers. 

That which was eminently his own in his 
system was the end which he proposed to him- 
self. The end being given, the means, as it ap- 
pears to us, could not well be mistaken. If others 
had aimed at the same object with Bacon, we 
hold it to be certain that they would have em- 
ployed the same method with Bacon. It would 
have been hard to convince Seneca that the 
inventing of a safety-lamp was an employ- 
ment worthy of a philosopher. It would have 
been hard to persuade Thomas Aquinas to de- 
scend from the making of syllogisms to the 
making of gunpowder. But Seneca would 
never have doubted for a moment that it was 
only by a series of experiments that a safety- 
lamp could be invented. Thomas Aquinas 
would never have thought that his barbara and 
baralipton would enable him to ascertain the 
proportion which charcoal ought to bear to 
saltpetre in a pound of gunpowder. Neither 
common sense nor Aristotle would have suf- 
fered him to fall into such an absurdity. 

By stimulating men to the discovery of 
neiv truth, Bacon stimulated them to employ 
the inductive method, the only method, even 
the ancient philosophers and the schoolmen 
themselves being judges, by which new truth 
can be discovered. By stimulating men to the 
.-iisco very c f useful truth, he furnished them with 
a native to perform the inductive process well 



and carefully. His predecessors had been an- 
ticipators of nature. They had been conteni 
with first principles, at which they had arrived 
by the most scanty and slovenly induction. 
And why was this 1 It was, we conceive, be- 
cause their philosophy proposed to itself no 
practical end, because it was merely an exei 
cise of the mind. A man who wants to con- 
trive a new machine or a new medicine has a 
strong motive to observe accurately and pa- 
tiently, and to try experiment after experiment. 
But a man who merely wants a theme for dis- 
putation or declamation has no such motive. 
He is therefore content with premises ground- 
ed on assumption, or on the most scanty and 
hasty induction. Thus, we conceive, the 
schoolmen acted. On their foolish premises 
they often argued with great ability; and as 
their object was " assensum subjugare, non res"* 
— to be victorious in controversy, not to be 
victorious over nature — they were consistent. 
For just as much logical skill could be shown 
in reasoning on false as on true piemises. 
But the followers of the new philosophy, pro- 
posing to themselves the discovery of useful 
truth as their object, must have altogether fail- 
ed of attaining that object, if they had been 
content to build theories on superficial indu«> 
tion. 

Bacon has remarkedf that in all ages when 
philosophy was stationary, the mechanical arts 
went on improving. Why was this 1 Evident- 
ly because the mechanic was not content with 
so careless a mode of induction as served 
the purpose of the philosopher. And why was 
the philosopher more easily satisfied than the 
mechanic 1 Evidently because the object of 
the mechanic was to mould things, whilst the 
object of the philosopher was only to mould 
words. Careful induction is not at all neces- 
sary to the making of a good syllogism. But 
it is indispensable to the making of a good 
shoe. Mechanics, therefore, have always been, 
as far as the range of their humble but useful 
callings extended, not anticipators but inter- 
preters of nature. And when a philosophy 
arose, the object of which was to do on a large 
scale what the mechanic does on a small scale 
— to extend the power and to supply the wants 
of man — the truth of the premises, which logic- 
ally is a matter altogether unimportant, be- 
came a matter of the highest importance ; and 
the careless induction with which men of 
learning had previously been satisfied, gave 
place, of necessity, to an induction far more 
accurate and satisfactory. 

What Bacon did for the inducti ye philoso- 
phy may, we think, be fairly stated thus. The 
objects of preceding speculators were objects 
which could be obtained without careful in- 
duction. Those speculators, therefore, did 
not perform the inductive process carefully. 
Bacon stirred up men to pursue an object 
which could be attained only by induction, 
and by induction carefully performed ; and ccn 
sequently induction was more carefulJy per- 
formed. We do not think that the important*.* 
of what Bacon did for inductive philosophy 



* Novum Organum, Lib. 1, Aph. 
+ De Jlusmentis, Lib. 1. 



284 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



has ever been overrated. But we think that 
the nature of his services is often mistaken, 
and was not fully understood even by himself. 
It was not by furnishing philosophers with 
rules for performing the inductive process 
well, but by furnishing them with a motive for 
performing it well, that he conferred so vast a 
benefit on society. 

To give to the human mind a direction 
which it shall retain for ages is the rare pre- 
rogative of a few imperial spirits. It cannot, 
therefore, be uninteresting to inquire, what 
was the moral and intellectual constitution 
which enabled Bacon to exercise so vast an 
influence on the world. 

In the temper of Bacon — we speak of Bacon 
the philosopher, not of Bacon the lawyer and 
politician — there was a singular union of au- 
dacity and sobriety. The promises which he 
made to mankind might, to a superficial read- 
er, seem to resemble the rants which a great 
dramatist has put into the mouth of an Oriental 
conqueror, half-crazed by good fortune and by 
violent passions : 

" He shall have chariots easier than air, 
Which I will have invented ; and thyself 
That art the messenger shall ride before him 
On a horse cut out of an entire diamond, 
That shaH be made to go with golden wheels, 
I know not how yet." 

But Bacon performed what he promised. In 
truth, Fletcher would not have dared to make 
Arbaces promise, in his wildest fits of excite- 
ment, the tithe of what the Baconian philoso- 
phy has performed. 

The true philosophical temperament may, 
we think, be described in four words — much 
hope, little faith ; a disposition to believe that 
any thing, however extraordinary, may be 
done; an indisposition to believe that any 
thing extraordinary has been done. In these 
points the constitution of Bacon's mind seems 
to us to have been absolutely perfect. He was 
at once the Mammon and the Surly of his friend 
Ben. Sir Epicure did not indulge in visions 
more magnificent and gigantic. Surly did not 
sift evidence with keener and more sagacious 
incredulity. 

Closely connected with this peculiarity of 
Bacon's temper was a striking peculiarity of 
his understanding. With great minuteness of 
observation he had an amplitude of compre- 
hension such as has never yet been vouchsafed 
to any other human being. The small fine 
mind of Labruyere had not a more delicate 
tact than the large intellect of Bacon. The 
"Essays" contain abundant proofs that no 
nice feature of character, no peculiarity in the 
ordering of a house, a garden, or a court- 
masque, could escape the notice of one whose 
mind was capable of taking in the whole world 
of knowledge. Hisunderstandingresembledthe 
tent which the fairy Paribanou gave to Prince 
Ahmed. Fold it, and it seemed a toy for the 
hand of a lady. Spread it, and the armies of 
Dowerful sultans might repose beneath its 
shade. 

In keenness of observation he has been 
equalled, though perhaps never surpassed. 
but the largeness of his mind was all his own. 
The glance with which he surveyed the intel- 



lectual universe resembled that which the arcb 
angel, from the golden threshold of heaven, 
darted down into the new creation. 

"Round he surveyed — and well might, where he steod 
So high above the circling canopy 
Of night's extended shade — from eastern point 
Of Libra, to the fleecy star which bears 
Andromeda far off Atlantic seas. 
Beyond the horizon." 

His knowledge differed from that of other 
men as a Terrestrial Globe differs from an At- 
las which contains a different country on every 
leaf. The towns and roads of England, France, 
and Germany are better laid down in the atlas 
than in the globe. But while we are looking at 
England we see nothing of France ; and while 
we are looking at France we see nothing of 
Germany. We may go to the atlas to learn 
the bearings and distances of York and Bristol, 
or of Dresden and Prague. But it is useless 
if we want to know the bearings and distances 
of France and Martinique, or of England and 
Canada. On the globe we shall not find all 
the market-towns in our own neighbourhood ; 
but we shall learn from it the comparative ex- 
tent and the relative position of all the king- 
doms of the earth. " I have taken," said Ba- 
con, in a letter written when he was only thirty- 
one, to his uncle, Lord Burleigh, " I have 
taken all knowledge to be my province." In 
any other young man, indeed in any other man, 
this would have been a ridiculous flight of pre~ 
sumption. There have been thousands of 
better mathematicians, astronomers, chemists, 
physicians, botanists, mineralogists, than Ba- 
con. No man would go to Bacon's works to 
learn any particular science or art ; any more 
than he would go to a twelve-inch globe in 
order to find his way from Kennington Turn- 
pike to Clapham Common. The art which 
Bacon taught was the art of inventing arts. 
The knowledge in which Bacon excelled all 
men, was a knowledge of the mutual relations 
of all departments of knowledge. 

The mode in which he communicated his 
thoughts was exceedingly peculiar. He had 
no touch of that disputatious temper which he 
often censured in his predecessors. He effected 
a vast intellectual revolution in opposition to 
a vast mass of prejudices ; yet he never en- 
gaged in any controversy ; nay, we cannot at 
present recollect, in all his philosophical works, 
a single passage of a controversial character. 
All those works might with propriety have 
been put into the form which he adopted in the 
work entitled Cogitata etvisa; "Franciscus Ba- 
conus sic cogitavit." These are thoughts which 
have occurred to me : weigh them well, and 
take them or leave them. 

Borgia said of the famous expedition of 
Charles the Eighth, that the French had con- 
quered Italy, not with steel, but with chalk ; for 
that the only exploit which they had found ne- 
cessary for the purpose of taking military oc- 
cupation of any place, had been to mark the 
doors of the houses where they meant to quar- 
ter. Bacon often quoted this saying, and loved 
to apply it to the victorfes of his own intel- 
lect.* His philosophy, he said, came as a 



* Novum Orgavum, Lib. 1, Apt). 35, and elsewhers 



LORD BACON. 



280 



guest, not as an eneif.y. She found no difficulty 
in obtaining admittance, without a contest, into 
tvery understanding fitted, by its structure, and 
by its capacity, to receive her. In all this we 
think that he acted most judiciously; first, be- 
cause, as he has himself remarked, the differ- 
ence between his school and other schools was a 
difference so fundamental, that there was hardly 
any common ground on which a controversial 
battle could be fought ; and, secondly, because 
his mind, eminently observant, pre-eminently 
discursive and capacious, was, we conceive, 
neither formed by nature, nor disciplined by 
habit, for dialectical combat. 

Though Bacon did not arm his philosophy 
with the weapons of logic, he adorned her pro- 
fusely with all the richest decorations of rhe- 
toric. His eloquence, though not untainted 
with the vicious taste of his age, would alone 
have entitled him to a high rank in literature. 
He had a wonderful talent for packing thought 
close and rendering it portable. In wit, if by 
wit be meant the power of perceiving analo- 
gies between things which appear to have no- 
thing in common, he never had an equal — not 
even Cowley — not even the author of Hudibras. 
Indeed, he possessed this faculty, or rather this 
faculty possessed him, to a morbid degree. 
When he abandoned himself to it without re- 
serve, as he did in the Sapientia Vetcrum, and at 
the end of the second book of the Be Augmentis, 
the feats which he performed were not merely 
admirable, but portentous, and almost shock- 
ing. On those occasions we marvel at him as 
clowns on a fair-day marvel at a juggler, and 
can hardly help thinking that the devil must 
oe in him. 

These, however, were freaks in which his 
ingenuity now and then wantoned, with scarce- 
ly any other object than to astonish and amuse. 
But it occasionally happened that, when he 
was engaged in grave and profound investiga- 
tions, his wit obtained the mastery over all his 
other faculties, and led him into absurdities 
into which no dull man could possibly have 
fallen. We will give the most striking instance 
which at present occurs to us. In the third 
book of the De Augmentis he tells us that there 
are some principles which are not peculiar to 
one science, but are common to several. That 
part of philosophy which concerns itself with 
these principles is, in his nomenclature, de- 
signated as philosophia prima. He then pro- 
ceeds to mention some of the principles with 
which this philosophia prima is conversant. One 
of them is this: An infectious disease is more 
likely to be communicated while it is in pro- 
gress than when it has reached its height. 
This, says he, is true in medicine. It is also 
true in morals ; for we see that the example of 
very abandoned men injures public morality 
less than the example of men in whom vice 
has not yet extinguished all good qualities. 
Again, he tells us that in music a discord end- 
ing in a concord is agreeable, and that the 
same thing may be noted in the affections. 
Once more he tells us, that in physics the 
energy with which a principle acts is often 
increased by the antiperistasis of its opposite ; 
and that it is the same in the contests of 

19 



factions. If this be indeed the philosophia prima^ 
we are quite sure that the greatest philoso- 
phical work of the nineteenth century is Mr. 
Moore's "Lalla Rookh." The similitudes 
which we have cited are very happy simili- 
tudes. But that a man like Bacon should 
have taken them for more, that he should have 
thought the discovery of such resemblances as 
these an important part of philosophy, has al- 
ways appeared to us one of the most singular 
facts in the history of letters. 

The truth is, that his mind was wonderfully 
quick in perceiving analogies of all sorts. But 
like several eminent men whom we could 
name, both living and dead, he sometimes ap- 
peared strangely deficient in the power of dis- 
tinguishing rational from fanciful analogies — 
analogies which are arguments from analo- 
gies which are mere illustrations — analogies 
like that which Bishop Butler so ably pointed 
out between natural and revealed religion, 
from analogies like that which Addison dis- 
covered between the series of Grecian gods 
carved by Phidias, and the series of English 
kings painted by Kneller. This want of dis- 
crimination has led to many strange political 
speculations. Sir William Temple deduced a 
theory of government from the properties of 
the pyramid. Mr. Southey's whole system of 
finance is grounded on the phenomena of eva 
poration and rain. In theology this perverted 
ingenuity has made still wilder work. From 
the time of Irenseus and Origen, down to the 
present day, there has not been a single gene- 
ration in which great divines have not been 
led into the most absurd expositions of Scrip 
ture, by mere incapacities to distinguish ana- 
logies proper, to use the scholastic phrase, 
from analogies metaphorical.* It is curious 
that Bacon has himself mentioned this very 
kind of delusion among the idola specus ; and 
has mentioned it in language which, we are in- 
clined to think, indicates that he knew himself 
to be subject to it. It is the vice, he tells us, 
of subtle minds to attach too much importance 
to slight distinctions ; it is the vice, on the other 
hand, of high and discursive intellects to at- 
tach too much importance to slight resem- 
blances ; and he adds, that when this last pro- 
pensity is indulged to excess, it leads men to 
catch at shadows instead of substances.f 

Yet we cannot wish that Bacon's wit had 
been less luxuriant. For, to say nothing of 
the pleasure which it affords, it was in the 
vast majority of cases employed for the pur- 
pose of making obscure truth plain, of making 
repulsive truth attractive, of fixing in the 
mind forever truth which might otherwise 
have made but a transient impression. 

The poetical faculty was powerful in Bacon s 
mind ; but not, like his wit, so powerful as oc- 
casionally to usurp the place of his reason, 
and to tyrannize over the whole man. No 
imagination was ever at once so strong and so 
thoroughly subjugated. It never stirred but a! 
a signal from good sense. It stopped at tne 



* See some interesting remarks on this subject in 
Bishop Berkeley's "Minute Philosopher." Dialogue 
IV. 

t Novum Organum, Lib. 1, A.nh. 55. 



•ZSG 



MAC AUL AY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



first check from good sense. Yet, though dis- 
ciplined to such obedience, it gave noble proofs 
of its vigour. In truth, much of Bacon's life 
was passed in a visionary world — amidst things 
as strange as any that are described in the 
"Arabian Tales," or in those romances on 
which the curate and barber of Don Quixote's 
village performed so cruel an auto-da-fe — 
amidst buildings more sumptuous than the 
palace of Aladdin, fountains more wonderful 
than the golden water of Parizade, conveyances 
more rapid than the hippogryph of Ruggiero, 
arms more formidable than the lance of As- 
tolfo,remedies more efficacious than the balsam 
of Fierabras. Yet in his magnificent day- 
dreams there was nothing wild— nothing but 
what sober reason sanctioned. He knew that 
all the secrets feigned by poets to have been 
written in the books of enchanters, are worth- 
less when compared with the mighty secrets 
which are really written in the book of nature, 
and which, with time and patience, will be 
read there. He knew that all the wonders 
wrought by all the talismans in fable, were 
trifles, when compared to the wonders which 
might reasonably be expected from the phi- 
losophy of fruit; and, that if his words sank 
deep into the minds of men, they would pro- 
dtice effects such as superstition had never 
ascribed to the incantations of Merlin and Mi- 
chael Scot. It was here that he loved to let his 
imagination loose. He loved to picture to him- 
self the world as it would be when his philoso- 
phy should, in his own noble phrase, "have 
enlarged the bounds of human empire."* We 
might refer to many instances. But we will 
content ourselves with the strongest, the de- 
scription of the "House of Solomon" in the 
" New Atlantiis." By most of Bacon's contem- 
poraries, and by some people of our time, this 
remarkable passage would, we doubt not, be 
considered as an ingenious rodomontade — a 
counterpart to the adventures of Sinbad or Ba- 
ron Munchausen. The truth is, that there is 
not to be found in any human composition a 
passage more eminently distinguished by pro- 
found and serene wisdom. The boldness and 
originality of the fiction is far less wonderful 
than the nice discernment which carefully ex- 
cluded from that long list of prodigies every 
thing that can be pronounced impossible; 
every thing that can be proved to lie beyond 
the mighty magic of induction and of time. 
Already some parts, and not the least startling 
parts, of this glorious prophecy have been ac- 
complished, even according to the letter; and 
the whole, construed according to the spirit, is 
daily accomplishing all around us. 

One of the most remarkable circumstances 
in the history of Bacon's mind, is the order in 
which its powers expanded themselves. With 
him the fruit came first and remained till the 
last : the blossoms did not appear till late. In 
general the development of the fancy is to the 
development of the judgment, what the growth 
of a girl is to the growth of a boy. The fancy 
attains at an earlier period to the perfection of 
its beauty, its power, and its fruitfulness • and, 



* "New Atlantis." 



as it is first to ripen, it is also first to fade. It 
has generally lost something of its bloom and 
freshness before the sterner faculties have 
reached maturity : and is commonly withered 
and barren while those faculties still retain all 
their energy. It rarely happens that the fancy 
and the judgment grow together. It happens 
still more rarely that the judgment grows faster 
than the fancy. This seems, however, to have 
been the case with Bacon. His boyhood and 
youth appear to have been singularly sedate. 
His gigantic scheme of philosophical reform is 
said by some writers to have been planned 
before he was fifteen ; and was undoubtedly 
planned while he was still young. He observed 
as vigilantly, meditated as deeply, and judged 
as temperately, when he gave his first work to 
the world as at the close of his long career. 
But in eloquence, in sweetness, and variety of 
expression, and in richness of illustration, his 
later writings are far superior to those of his 
youth. In this respect the history of his mind 
bears some resemblance to the history of the 
mind of Burke. The treatise on the " Sublime 
and Beautiful," though written on a subject 
which the coldest metaphysician could hardly 
treat without being occasionally betrayed into 
florid writing, is the most unadorned of all 
Burke's works- It appeared when he waf 
twenty-five or twenty-six. When at forty, b 
wrote the " Thoughts on the Causes of the ex 
isting Discontents," his reason and his judg 
ment had reached their full maturity ; but his 
eloquence was still in its splendid dawn. At 
fifty, his rhetoric was quite as rich as good 
taste would permit; and when he died, at 
almost seventy, it had become ungracefully 
gorgeous. In his youth he wrote on the emo- 
tions produced by mountains and cascades ; by 
the masterpieces of painting and sculpture ; by 
the faces and necks of beautiful women, in the 
style of a parliamentary report. In his old age, 
he discussed treaties and tariffs in the most 
fervid and brilliant language of romance. It 
is strange that the essay on the " Sublime and 
Beautiful," and the " Letter to a Noble Lord," 
should be the productions of one man. But it 
is far more strange that the essay should have 
been a production of his youth, and the letter 
of his old age. 

We will give very short specimens of Ba 
con's two styles. In 1597, he wrote thus 
"Crafty men contemn studies; simple men 
admire them; and' wise men use them; for 
they teach not their own use : that is a wisdonr 
without them, and won by observation. Read 
not to contradict, nor to believe, but to weigh 
and consider. Some books are to be tasted 
others to be swallowed, and some few to be 
chewed and digested. Reading maketh a full 
man, conference a ready man, and writing an 
exact man. And therefore if a man write 
little, he had need have a great memory ; if he 
confer little, have a present wit ; and if he read 
little, have much cunning to seem to know that 
he doth not. Histories make men wise, poets 
witty, the mathematics subtle, natural philoso- 
phy deep, morals grave, logic and rhetoric able 
to contend." It will hardly be disputed that 
this is a passage to be " chewed and digested.*" 



LORD BACON. 



287 



We do not believe that Thucydides himself has 
anywhere compressed so much thought into 
so small a space. 

In the additions which Bacon afterwards 
made to the "Essays," there is nothing supe- 
rior in truth or weight to what we have quoted. 
But his style was constantly becoming richer 
and softer. The following passage, first pub- 
lished in 1625, will show the extent of the 
change : " Prosperity is the blessing of the Old 
Testament, adversity is the blessing of the 
New, which carrieth the greater benediction 
and the clearer evidences of God's favour. 
Yet, even in the Old Testament, if you listen 
to David's harp you shall hear as many hearse- 
like airs as carols ; and the pencil of the Holy 
Ghost hath laboured more in describing the 
afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. 
Prosperity is not without many fears and dis- 
tastes ; and adversity is not without comforts 
and hopes. We see in needleworks and em- 
broideries it is more pleasing to have a lively 
work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to 
have a dark and melancholy work upon a 
lightsome ground. Judge therefore of the 
pleasure «f the heart by the pleasure of the 
eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odours, 
most fragrant when they are incensed or 
crushed; for prosperity doth best discover 
vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue." 
r . It is by the "Essays" that Bacon is best 
' known to the multitude. The Novum Organum 
and the Be. Augmentis are much talked of, but 
little read. They have produced indeed a vast 
effect on the opinions of mankind; but they 
have produced it through the operations of in- 
termediate agents. They have moved the 
intellects which have moved the world. It is 
in the "Essays" alone that the mind of Bacon 
is brought into immediate contact with the 
minds of ordinary readers. There, he opens 
an exoteric school, and he talks to plain men 
in language which everybody understands, 
about things in which everybody is interested. 
He has thus enabled those who must otherwise 
have taken his merits on trust to judge for 
themselves ; and the great body of readers 
have, during several generations, acknow- 
ledged that the man who has treated with such 
consummate ability questions with which they 
are familiar, may well be supposed to deserye 
all the praise bestowed on him by those who 
have sat in his inner school. 

Without any disparagement to the admirable 
treatise Be JLugmentis, we must say that, in our 
judgment, Bacon's greatest performance is the 
first book of the Novum Organum. All the pe- 
culiarities of his extraordinary mind are found 
there in the highest perfection. Many of the 
aphorisms, but particularly those in which he 
gives examples of the influence of the idola, 
show a nicety of observation that has never 
been surpassed. Every part of the book blazes 
with wit, but with wit which is employed only 
to illustrate and decorate truth. No book ever 
made so -great a revolution in the mode of 
thinking, overthrew so many prejudices, in- 
troduced so many new opinions. Yet, no book 
was ever written in a less contentious spirit. 
T t trwly conquers with chalk and not with steel. 



Proposition after proposition enters into the 
mind, is received not as an invader, but as a 
welcome friend, and though previously un- 
known, becomes at once domesticated. But 
what we most admire is the vast capacity cf 
that intellect which, without effort, takes in at 
once all the domains of science — all the past, 
the present, and the future, all the errors of 
two thousand years, all the encouraging signs 
of the passing times, all the bright hopes of the 
coming age. Cowley, who was among the 
most ardent, and not among the least discern- 
ing followers of the new philosophy, has, in one 
of his finest poems, compared Bacon to Moses 
standing on Mount Pisgah. It is to Bacon, we 
think, as he appears in the first book of the 
Novum Organum, that the comparison applies 
With peculiar felicity. There we see the great 
Lawgiver looking round from his lonely eleva- 
tion on an infinite expanse ; behind him a 
wilderness of dreary sands and bitter waters 
in which successive generations have so- 
journed, always moving, yet never advancing, 
reaping no harvest and building no abiding 
city ; before him a goodly land, a land of pro- 
mise, a land flowing with milk and honey. 
While the multitude below saw only the flat 
sterile desert in which they had so long wan- 
dered, bounded on every side by a near horizon, 
or diversified only by some deceitful mirage, he 
was gazing from a far higher stand, on a far 
lovelier country — following with his eye the 
long course of fertilizing rivers, through ample 
pastures, and under the bridges of great capi- 
tals — measuring the cfistances of marts and 
havens, and portioning out all those wealthy 
regions from Dan to Beersheba. 

It is painful to turn back from contemplating 
Bacop'? philosophy to contemplate his life. 
Yet without so turning back it is impossible 
fairly'to estimate his poweis. He left the Uni- 
versity at an earlier age than that at which 
most people repair thither. While yet a boy 
he was plunged into the midst of diplomatic 
business. Thence he passed to the study of 
a vast technical system of law, and worked 
his way up through a succession of laborious 
offices to the highest post in his profession. 
In the mean time he took an active part in 
every Parliament; he was an adviser of the 
crown ; he paid court with the greatest assi- 
duity and address to all whose favour was 
likely to be of use to him ; he lived much in 
society ; he noted the slightest peculiarities of 
character and the slightest changes of fashion. 
Scarcely any man has led a more stirring life 
than that which Bacon led from sixteen to 
sixty. Scarcely any man has been better en- 
titled to be called a thorough man of the world. 
The founding of a new philosophy, the impart- 
ing of a new direction to the minds of specu- 
lators — this was the amusement of his leisure, 
the work of hours occasionally stolen from the 
Woolsack and the Council Board. This con- 
sideration, while it increases the admiration 
with which we regard his intellect, increases 
also our regret that such an intellect should so 
often have been unworthily employed. He 
well knew Hie better course, and had, at one 



288 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



time, resolved to pursue it. " I confess," said 
he in a letter written when he was still young, 
'•' that I have as vast contemplative ends as I 
have moderate civil ends." Had his civil ends 
continued to be moderate, he would have been, 
not only the Moses, but the Joshua of philo- 
sophy. He would have fulfilled a large part 
of his own magnificent predictions. He would 
nave led his followers, not only to the verge, 
but into the heart of the promised land. He 
would not merely have pointed out, but would 
have divided the spoil. Above all, he would 
have left not only a great, but a spotless name. 
Mankind would then have been able to esteem 
their illustrious benefactor. We should not 
then be compelled to regard his character with 
mingled contempt and admiration, with min- 
gled aversion and gratitude. We should not 
then regret that there should be so many proofs 
of the narrowness and selfishness of a heart, 
the benevolence of which was yet large enough 
to take ia all races and all ages. We should 



not then have to blush for the disingenuous- 
ness of the most devoted worshipper of specu 
lative truth, for the servility of the boldest 
champion of intellectual freedom. We should 
not then have seen the same man at one time 
far in the van, and at another time far in the 
rear of his generation. We should not then be 
forced to own, that he who first treated legis- 
lation as a science was among the last Eng- 
lishmen who used the rack ; that he who first 
summoned philosophers to the great work of 
interpreting nature was among the last Eng- 
lishmen who sold justice. And we should 
conclude our survey of a life placidly, honour- 
ably, beneficently passed, " in industrious ob- 
servations, grounded conclusions, and profita- 
ble inventions and discoveries,"* with feelings 
very different from those with which we now 
turn away from the checkered spectacle of s<i 
much glory and so much shame. 

* From a Letter cf Bacon to Lord Burleigh. 



MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY 



289 



MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OE THE REVOLUTION IN 
ENGLAND, IN 1688.* 



[Edinburgh Review, 1835.] 



It is with unfeigned diffidence that we ven- 
ture to give our opinion of the last work of Sir 
James Mackintosh. We have in vain tried to 
perform what ought to be to a critic an easy 
and habitual act. We have in vain tried to 
separate the book from the writer, and to judge 
of it as if it bore some unknown name. But 
it is to no purpose. All the lines of that vene- 
rable countenance are before us. All the little 
peculiar cadences of that voice, from which 
scholars and statesmen loved to receive the 
lessons of a serene and benevolent wisdom, 
are in our ears. We will attempt to preserve 
strict impartiality. But we are not ashamed 
to own, that we approach this relic of a virtu- 
ous and most accomplished man with feelings 
of resp»ct and gratitude which may possibly 
pei vert jur judgment. 

It is hardly possible to avoid instituting a 
comparison between this work and another 
celebrated Fragment. Our readers will easily 
guess that we allude to Mr. Fox's History of 
Jame? II. The two books are written on the 
same subject. Both were posthumously pub- 
lished. Neither had received the last correc- 
tions. The authors belonged to the same poli- 
tical party, and held the same opinions con- 
cerning the merits and defects of the English 
constitution, and concerning most of the pro- 
minent characters and events in English his- 
tory. They had thought much on the princi- 
ples of government ; but they were not mere 
speculators. They had ransacked the archives 
of rival kingdoms, and pored on folios which 
had mouldered for ages in deserted libraries ; 
but they were not mere antiquaries. They 
had one eminent qualification for writing his- 
tory : — they had spoken history, acted history, 
lived history. The turns of political fortune, 
the ebb and flow of popular feeling, the hidden 
mechanism by which parties are moved, all 
these things were the subjects of their con- 
stant thought and of their most familiar con- 
versation. Gibbon has remarked, that his 
history is much the better for his having been 
an officer in the militia and a member of the 
House of Commons. The remark is most just. 
We have not the smallest doubt that his cam- 
paign, though he never saw an enemy, and his 
Jiarliamentary attendance, though he never 
made a speech, were of far more use to him 
than years of retirement and study would have 
been. If the time that he spent on parade and 

* History of the Revolution in England, in 16S8. Com- 
prising a view of the Reign of James the Second, from, 
his Accession, to the Enterprise of the Prince of Orange, 
by the late Right Honourable Sir James Mackintosh ; 
and completed to the Settlement of the Crown, by ttre 
Editor. To which is prefixed a Notice of the Life, Writ- 
ings and Speeches of Sir James Mackintosh. ,4to. Lon- 
don, 1534 



at mess in Hampshire, or on the Treasury* 
bench and atBrookes's during the storms which 
overthrew Lord North and Lord Sherburne had 
been passed in the Bodleian Library, he might 
have avoided some inaccuracies; he might 
have enriched his notes with a greater number 
of references ; but he never would have pro- 
duced so lively a picture of the court," the 
camp, and the senate-house. In this respect 
Mr. Fox and Sir James Mackintosh had great 
advantages over almost every English his- 
torian who has written since the time of Bur- 
net. Lord Lyttleton had indeed the same ad- 
vantages ; but he was incapable of using them. 
Pedantry was so deeply fixed in his nature, 
that the hustings, the treasury, the exchequer, 
the House of Commons, the House of Lords, 
left him the same dreaming schoolboy that 
they found him. 

When we compare the two interesting works 
of which we have been speaking, we have lit- 
tle difficulty in awarding the superiority to that 
of Sir James Mackintosh. Indeed, the supe- 
riority of Mr. Fox to Sir James as an orator is 
hardly more clear than the superiority of Sir 
James to Mr. Fox as an historian. Mr. Fox 
with a pen in his hand, and Sir James on his 
legs in the House of Commons, were, we think, 
each out of his proper element. They were 
men, it is true, of far too much judgment and 
ability to fail scandalously in any undertaking 
to which they brought the whole power of their 
minds. The History of James II. will always 
keep its place in our libraries as a valuable 
book ; and Sir James Mackintosh succeeded in 
winning and maintaining a high place among 
the parliamentary speakers of his time. Yet 
we could never read a page of Mr. Fox's writ- 
ing, we could never listen for a quarter of an 
hour to the speaking of Sir James, without 
feeling that there was a constant effort, a tug 
up hill. Nature, or habit which had become 
nature, asserted its rights. Mr. Fox wrote de- 
bates. Sir James Mackintosh spoke essays. 

As far as mere diction was concerned, in- 
deed, Mr. Fox did his best to avoid those faults 
which the habit of public speaking is likely to 
generate. He was so nervously apprehensive 
of sliding into some colloquial incorrectness, 
of debasing his style by a mixture of parlia- 
mentary slang, that he ran into the opposite 
error, and purified his vocabulary with a scru- 
pulosity unknown to any purist. " Ciceronem 
Allobroga dixit." He would not allow Addison, 
Bolingbroke, or Middleton, to be a sufficien' 
authority for an expression. He declared thai 
he would use no word which was not to be fount! 
in Dryden. In any other person we should 
have called this solicitude mere loppery ; and, 
in spite of all our admiration for Mr. Fox. we 



290 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



cannot but think that his extreme attention to 
the petty niceties of language was hardly 
worthy of so manly and so capacious an un- 
derstanding. There were purists of this kind 
at Rome; and their fastidiousness was cen- 
sured by Horace with that perfect good sense 
and good taste which characterize all his writ- 
ings. There were purists of this kind at the 
time of the revival of letters : and the two 
greatest scholars of that time raised their 
voices, the one from within, the other from 
without the Alps, against a scrupulosity so un- 
reasonable. " Carent," said Politian, " quae 
scribunt isti viribus et vita, carent actu, carent 

affectu, carent indole Nisi liber ille 

prossto sit ex quo quid excerpant, colligere 
tria verba non possunt Horum sem- 
per igitur oratio tremula, vacillans, infirma. 

Quseso ne ista superstitione te alliges. 

Ut bene currere non potest qui pe- 
dum ponere studet in alienis tantum vestigiis, 
ita nee bene scribere qui tanquam de prse- 
scripto non audet egredi." — " Posthac," ex- 
claims Erasmus, "non licebit episcopos appel- 
lare patres reverendos, nee in calce liferarum 
scribere annum a Christo nato, quod id nus- 
quam faciat Cicero. Quid autem ineptius 
quam, toto seculo novato, religione, imperiis, 
magistratibus, locorum vocabulis, asdificiis, 
cultu, moribus, non aliter audere loqui quam 
locutus est Cicero 1 Si revivisceret, ipse Ci- 
cero, rideret hoc Ciceronianorum genus." 

While Mr. Fox winnowed and sifted his 
phraseology with a care, which seems hardly 
consistent with the simplicity and elevation of 
his mind, and of which the effect really was to 
debase and enfeeble his style, he was little on 
his guard against those more serious improprie- 
ties of manner into which a great orator, who 
undertakes to write history, is in danger of 
falling. There is about the whole book a ve- 
hement, contentious, replying manner. Almost 
every argument is put in the form of an inter- 
rogation, an ejaculation, or a sarcasm. The 
writer seems to be addressing himself to some 
imaginary audience ; to be tearing in pieces a 
defence of the Stuarts which has just been 
pronounced by an imaginary Tory. Take, for 
example, his answer to Hume's remarks on 
the execution of Sydney ; and substitute " the 
honourable gentleman," or " the noble lord," for 
the name of Hume. The whole passage sounds 
like a powerful reply, thundering at three in 
the morning from the Opposition Bench. 
While we read it, we can almost fancy that we 
see and hear the great English debater, such 
as he has been described to us by the few who 
can still remember the Westminster Scrutiny, 
and the Oczakow Negotiations, in the full 
paroxysm of inspiration, foaming, screaming, 
choked by the rushing multitude of his words. 

It is true that the passage to which we have 
referred, and several other passages which we 
could point out, are admirable, when considered 
merely as exhibitions of mental power. We 
at once recognise that consummate master of 
the whole art of intellectual gladiatorship, 
whose Speeches, imperfectly as they have been 
transmitted to us, should be studied day and 
sight by every man who wishes to learn the 
science of logical defence. We find in several 



parts of the History of James II. fine sp a cy 
mens of that which we conceive to have bee* 
the great characteristic of Demosthenes among 
the Greeks, and of Fox among the orators of 
England, — reason penetrated, and if we may 
venture on the expression, made red-hot by 
passion. But this is not the kind of excellence 
proper to history ; and it is hardly too much 
to say, that whatever is strikingly good in Mr. 
Fox's Fragment is out of place. 

With Sir James Mackintosh the case was 
reversed. His proper place was his library, a 
circle of men of letters, or a chair of moral 
and political philosophy. He distinguished 
himself highly in Parliament. But neverthe- 
less Parliament was not exactly the sphere 
for him. The effect of his most successful 
speeches was small, when compared with the 
quantity of ability and learning which was 
expended on them. We could easily name 
men who, not possessing a tenth part of his 
intellectual powers, hardly ever address the 
House of Commons without producing a 
greater impression than was produced by his 
most splendid and elaborate orations. His lu- 
minous and philosophical disquisition on the 
Reform Bill was spoken to empty benches. 
Those, indeed, who had the wit to keep their 
seats, picked up hints which, skilfully used, 
made the fortune of more than one speech. 
But "it was caviare to the general." And even 
those who listened to Sir James with pleasure 
and admiration, could not but acknowledge that 
he rather lectured than debated. An artisf 
who should waste on a panorama, on a scene 
or on a transparency, the exquisite finishing 
which we admire in some of the small Dutch 
interiors, would not squander his powers more 
than this eminent man too often did. His au 
dience resembled the boy in the " Heart of Mid- 
Lothian," who pushes away the lady's guineas 
with contempt, and insists on having the whitr 
money. They preferred the silver with which, 
they were familiar, and which they were con- 
stantly passing about from hand to hand, to 
the gold which they had never before seen, and 
with the value of which they were unacquainted. 
It is much to be regretted, we think, that Sir 
James Mackintosh did not wholly devote his 
later years to philosophy and literature. His 
talents were not those which enable a speaker 
to produce with rapidity a series of striking 
but transitory impressions, to excite the minds 
of five hundred gentlemen at midnight, without 
saying any thing that any one of them will be 
able to remember in the morning. His argu> 
ments were of a very different texture from 
those which are produced in Parliament at a 
moment's notice, — which puzzle a plain man 
who, if he had them before him in writing, 
would soon detect their fallacy, and which the 
great debater who employed them forgets with- 
in half an hour, and never thinks of again. 
Whatever was valuable in the compositions 
of Sir James Mackintosh, was the ripe fruit 
of study and of meditation. It was the same 
with his conversation. In his most familiar 
talk there was no wildness, no inconsistency, 
no amusing nonsense, no exaggeration for the 
sake of momentary effect. His mind was a 
vast magazine, admirably arranged ; every 



MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY. 



S91 



thing was there, and every thing was in its 
place. His judgments on men, on sects, on 
books, had been often and carefully tested and 
weighed, and had then been committed, each 
to its proper receptacle, in the most capacious 
and accurately constructed memory that any 
human being ever possessed. It would have 
been strange indeed, if you had asked for any 
thing that was not to be found in that immense 
storehouse. The article which you required 
was not only there. It was ready. It was in 
its own proper compartment. In a moment it 
was brought down, unpacked, and displayed. 
If those who enjoyed the privilege — for privi- 
lege indeed it was — of listening to Sir James 
Mackintosh, had been disposed to find some 
fault in his conversation, they might perhaps 
have observed that he yielded too little to the 
impulse of the moment. He seemed to be 
recollecting, not creating. He never appeared 
to catch a sudden glimpse of a subject in a 
new light. You never saw his opinions in the 
making, — still rude, still inconsistent, and re- 
quiring to be fashioned by thought and discus- 
sion. They came forth, like the pillars of that 
temple in which no sound of axes or hammers 
was heard, finished, rounded, and exactly suit- 
ed to their places. What Mr. Charles Lamb 
has said with much humour and some truth, 
of the conversation of Scotchmen in general, 
was certainly true of this eminent Scotchman. 
He did not find, but bring. You could not cry 
halves to any thing that turned up while you 
were in his company. 

The intellectual and moral qualities which 
are most important in an historian, he possessed 
in a veiy high degree. He was singularly 
mild, calm, and impartial, in his judgments of 
men and of parties. Almost all the distin- 
guished writers who have treated of, English 
history are advocates. Mr. Hallam and Sir 
.fames Mackintosh are alone entitled to be 
call< d judges. But the extreme austerity of 
Mr. Hallam takes away something from the 
pleasure of reading his learned, eloquent, and 
judicious writings. He is a judge, but a hang- 
ing judge, the Page or Buller of the high court 
of literary justice. His black cap is in con- 
stant requisition. In the long calendar of 
these whom he has tried, there is hardly one 
who has not, ic spite of evidence to charac- 
ter and recommendations to mercy, been sen- 
tenced and left for execution. Sir James, 
perhaps, erred a little on the other side. He 
liked a maiden assize, and came away with 
white gloves, after sitting in judgment on 
batches of the most notorious offenders. He 
had a quick eye for the redeeming parts of a 
character, and a large toleration for the infir- 
mities of men exposed to strong temptations. 
But this lenity did not arise from ignorance or 
neglect of moral distinctions. Though he al- 
lowed, perhaps, too much weight to every ex- 
tenuating circumstance that could be urged in 
favour of the transgressor, he never disputed 
the authority of the law, or showed his inge- 
nuity by refining away its enactments. On 
every occasion he showed himself firm wnere 
principles were in question, but full of charity 
towards individuals. 



We have no hesitation in pronouncing tin 
Fragment decidedly the best history now ex 
tant of the reign of James the Second. It con 
tains much new and curious, information, ot 
which excellent use has been made. The ac* 
curacy of the narrative is deserving of high 
admiration. We have noticed only one mis- 
take of the smallest .importance, and that, we 
believe, is to be laid to the charge of the editor, 
who has far more serious blunders to answer 
for. The pension of 60,000 livres, which Lord 
Sunderland received from France, is said to 
have been equivalent to 2,500Z. sterling. Sir 
James had perhaps for a moment forgotten, — 
his editor had certainly never heard, — that a 
great depreciation of the French coin took 
place after 1688. When Sunderland was in 
power, the livre was worth about eighteen 
pence, and his pension consequently amounted 
to about 4,500/. This is really the only inac- 
curacy of the slightest moment that we have 
been able to discover in several attentive pe- 
rusals. 

We are not sure that the book is not in some 
degree open to the charge which the idle citi- 
zen in the Spectator brought against his pud- 
ding. " Mem. too many plums, and no suet." 
There is perhaps too much disquisition and 
too little narrative ; and, indeed, this is the 
fault into which, judging from the habits of 
Sir James's mind, we should have thought him 
most likely to fall. What we assuredly did 
not anticipate was, that the narrative would be 
better executed than the disquisitions. We 
expected to find, and we have found, many just 
delineations of character, and many digres- 
sions full of interest, such as the account 
of the order of Jesuits, and of the state of 
prison discipline in England a hundred and 
fifty years ago. We expected to find, and we 
have ftrand, many reflections breathing the 
spirit of a calm and benignant philosophy. 
But we did not, we own, expect to find that 
Sir James could tell a story as well as Voltaire 
or Hume. Yet such is the fact; and if any 
person doubts it, we would advise him to read 
the account of the events which followed the 
issuing of King James's famous declaration, — 
the meeting of the clergy, the violent scene at 
the Privy Council, the commitment, trial, and 
acquittal of the bishops. The most superficial 
reader must be charmed, we think, by the live- 
liness of the narrative. But no person who is 
not acquainted with that vast mass of intracta- 
ble materials, of which the valuable and inte- 
resting part has been extracted and condensed, 
can fully appreciate the skill of the writer. 
Here, and indeed throughout the book, we find 
many harsh and careless expressions, which 
the author would probably have removed if he 
had lived to complete his work. But, in spite 
of these blemishes, we must say that we should 
find it difficult to point out, in any modern his- 
torian, any passage of equal length, and at the 
same time of equal merit. We find in it the 
diligence, the accuracy, and the judgment of 
Hallam, united to the vivacity and the colour- 
ing of Southev. A historv of England, written 
througnout in tnis manner, woUxd be the mosj 
fascinating book in the language. It would b« 



293 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOLS WRITINGS. 



more in request at the circulating libraries than 
the last novel. 

Syr James was not, we think, gifted with 
poetical imagination. But the lower kind of 
imagination which is necessary to the histo- 
rian, he had in large measure. It is not the 
business of the historian to create new worlds 
and to people them with new races of beings. 
He is to Homer and Shakspeare, to Dante and 
Milton, what Nollekens was to Canova, or 
Lawrence to Michel Angelo. The object of 
the historian's imagination is not within him ; 
it is furnished from without. It is not a vision 
of beauty and grandeur discernible only by the 
eye of his own mind ; but a real model which 
he did not make, and which he cannot alter. 
STet his is not a mere mechanical imitation. 
The triumph of his skill is to select such parts 
as may produce the effect of the whole, to bring 
out strongly &.11 the characteristic features, and 
to throw the light and shade in such a manner 
as may heighten the effect. This skill, as far 
as we can judge from the unfinished work now 
before us, Sir James Mackintosh possessed in 
an eminent degree. 

The style of this Fragment is weighty, man- 
ly, and unaffected. There are, as we have 
said, some expressions which seem to us 
harsh, and some which we think inaccurate. 
These would probably have been corrected, if 
Sir James had lived to superintend the publi- 
cation. We ought to add that the printer has 
by no means done his duty. One misprint in 
particular is so serious as to require notice. 
Sir James Mackintosh has paid a high and 
just tribute to the genius, the integrity, and 
the courage of a good and great man, a dis- 
tinguished ornament of English literature, a 
fearless champion of English liberty, Thomas 
Burnet, Master of the Charter-House, and au- 
thor of that most eloquent and imaginative 
work, the Telluris Theoria Sacra. Wherever 
the name of this celebrated man occurs, it is 
printed " Bennet," both in the text and in the 
index. This cannot be mere negligence : it is 
plain that Thomas Burnet and his writings 
were never heard of by the gentleman who has 
been employed to edite this volume ; and who, 
not content with deforming Sir James Mackin- 
tosh's text by such blunders, has prefixed to it 
a calumnious Memoir, has appended to it a 
most unworthy Continuation, and has thus 
succeeded in expanding the volume into one 
of the thickest, and debasing it into one of the 
worst that we ever saw. Never did we see so 
admirable an illustration of the old Greek pro- 
verb, which tells us that half is sometimes 
more than the whole. Never did we see a 
case in which the increase of the bulk was so 
evidently a diminution of the value. 

Why such an artist was selected to deface so 
fine a Torso, we cannot pretend to conjecture. 
We read that, when the Consul Mummius, after 
die taking of Corinth, was preparing to send 
to Rome some works of the greatest Grecian 
bculptors, he told the packers that if they broke 
his Venus or his Apollo, he would force them 
to restore the limbs which should be wanting. 
A head by a hewer of milestones, joined to a 
l>ofiom by Praxiteles, would not surprise or 



shock us more than this Supplement. The 
Memoir contains much that is worth read* 
ing; for it contains many extracts fro;ia the 
compositions of Sir James Mackintosh. But 
when we pass from what the biographer has 
done with his scissors, to what he has done 
with his pen, we find nothing worthy of appro- 
bation. Instead of confining himself *o the 
only work which he is competent to perfcrm— 
that of relating facts in plain words — he fa 
vours us with his opinions about Lord Bacon, 
and about the French literature of the age of 
Louis XIV. ; and with opinions, more absurd 
still, about the poetry of Homer, whom it is» 
evident, from his criticisms, that he cannot 
read in the original. He affects, and for aught 
we know, feels something like contempt foi 
the celebrated man whose life he has under 
taken to write, anc! whom he was incompetent 
to serve in the capacity even of a corrector of 
the press. Our readers may form a notion of 
the spirit in which the whole narrative is com- 
posed, from expressions which occur at the 
beginning. This biographer tells us that Mack- 
intosh, on occasion of taking his medical de- 
gree at Edinburgh, " not only put off the writing 
of his Thesis to the last moment, but was an 
hour behind his time on the day of examina- 
tion, and kept the Academic Senate waiting 
for him in full conclave." This irregularity, 
which no sensible professor would have thought 
deserving of more than a slight reprimand, is 
described by the biographer, after a lapse of 
nearly half a century, as an incredible instance 
" not so much of indolence as of gross negli- 
gence and bad taste." But this is not all. Our 
biographer has contrived to procure a copy of 
the Thesis, and has sate down with hh As in 
prcesenti and his Propria qua maribus at his side, 
to pick out blunders in a composition written 
by a youth of twenty-one, on the occasion al- 
luded to. He finds one mistake — such a mis- 
take as the greatest scholar might commit when 
in haste, and as the veriest schoolboy would 
detect when at leisure. He glories over this 
precious discovery with all the exultation of a 
pedagogue. " Deceived by the passive termi- 
nation of the deponent verb defungor, Mackin- 
tosh misuses it in a passive sense." He is 
not equally fortunate in his other discovery. 
"Laude conspurcare," whatever he may think, is 
not an improper phrase. Mackintosh meant 
to say that there are men whose praise is a 
disgrace. No person, we are sure, who has 
read this Memoir, will doubt that there are 
men whose abuse is an honour. 

But we must proceed to more important 
matters. This writer evidently wishes to im- 
press his readers with a belief that Sir James 
Mackintosh, from interested motives, aban- 
doned the doctrines of the "Vindicite Gallicse." 
Had his statements appeared in their natural 
place, we should leave them 10 their natu- 
ral fate. We would not stoop to defend Sir 
James Mackintosh from the attacks of fourth- 
rate magazines and pothouse newspapers. But 
here his own fame is turned against him. A 
book, of which not one copy would ever have 
been bought but for his name in the title-page, 
is made the vehicle of the slander. Under 



MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY. 



293 



euch circumstances we cannot help exclaim- 
ing, in the words of one of the most amiable 
of Homer's heroes, — 

u ~Svvrt; svnuriS UarpoK^noi Ssi\oio 
Mvriaaada), naaiv yap cmcTaro p.e.i\ix°S ££1/a ' 
Zoio; can', vvv S'av dauaros km ftoipa Kix avi <-" 

We have no difficulty in admitting that, dur- 
ing the ten or twelve years which followed the 
appearance of the "Vindicias Gallics," the 
opinions of Sir James Mackintosh underwent 
some change. But did this change pass on 
him alonet Was it not common] Was it 
uot almost universal ] Was there one honest 
friend of liberty in Europe or in America whose 
ardour had not been damped, whose faith in the 
high destinies of mankind had not been shaken] 
Was there one observer to whom the French 
Revolution, or revolutions in general, appeared 
exactly in the same light on the day when the 
Bastille fell and on the day when the Girond- 
ists were dragged to the scaffold — the day when 
the Directory shipped off their principal oppo- 
nent for Guiana, or the day when the Legisla- 
tive Body was driven from its hall at the point 
of the bsfyonet] We do not speak of enthu- 
siastic and light-minded people — of wits like 
Sheridan, or poets like Alfieri, but of the most 
virtuous and intelligent practical statesmen, 
and of the deepest, the calmest, the most im- 
partial political speculators of that time. What 
was the language and conduct of Lord Spen- 
ser, of Lord Fitzwilliam, of Mr. Grattan] What 
is the tone of Dumont's Memoirs, written just 
at the close of the eighteenth century] What 
Tory could have spoken with greater disgust 
and contempt of the French Revolution and its 
authors ] Nay, this writer, a republican, and 
the most upright and zealous of republicans, 
has gone so far as to say that Mr. Burke's 
work on the Revolution had saved Europe. 
The name of M. Dumont naturally suggests 
that of Mr. Bentham. He, we presume, was not 
ratting for a place ; and what language did he 
hold at that time] Look at his little treatise 
entitled "Sophismcs Jlnarchiques." In that trea- 
tise he says, that the atrocities of the Revolu- 
tion were the natural consequences of the ab- 
surd principles on which it was commenced; — 
that while the chiefs of the constituent assem- 
bly gloried in the thought that they were pull- 
ing down an aristocracy, they never saw that 
their doctrines tended to produce an evil a 
hundred times more formidable — anarchy; — 
that the theory laid down in the " Declaration 
sf the Rights of Man" had, in a great measure, 
produced the crimes of the Reign of Terror; — 
.hat none but an eye-witness could imagine 
the horrors of a state of society in which com- 
ments on that Declaration were put forth by 
men with no food in their bellies, with rags on 
their backs, and with arms in their hands. He 
praises the English Parliament for the dislike 
which it has always shown to abstract reason- 
ings, and to the affirming of general principles. 
In M. Dumont's preface to the "Treatise on the 
Principles of Legislation" — a preface written 
under the eye of Mr. Bentham and published 
with his sanction — are the following still more 
remarkable expressions : — " M. Bentham est 
bipn loin d'attacher une preference exclusive 



a aucune forme de gouvernement. II pensa 
que la meilleure constitution pour tn peupla 

est celle a Aquelle il est accoutume 

Le vice fondamental des theories sur les con* 
stitutions politiques, c'est de commencer par 
attaquer celles qui existent, et d'exciter Ural au 
moins des inquietudes et des jalousies de pou- 
voir. Une telle disposition n'est poir. t favor- 
able au perfectionnement des lois. La seule 
epoque ou l'on puisse entreprendre avec sue- 
ces de grandes reformes de legislation, est 
celle ou les passions publiques sont calmes, et 
ou le gouvernement jouit de la stabilite la plus 
grande. L'objet de M. Bentham, en cherchant 
dans le vice des lois la cause de la plupart des 
maux, a ete constamment d'eloigner le plus 
grand de tous, le bouleversement de l'autorite, 
les revolutions de propriete et de pouvoir." 

To so conservative a frame of mind had the 
excesses of the French Revolution brought the 
most uncompromising reformers of that time. 
And why is one person to be singled out from 
among millions and arraigned before posterity 
as a traitor to his opinions, only because events 
produced on him the effect which they pro- 
duced on a whole generation] This biographer 
may, for aught we know, have revelations from 
Heaven like Mr. Percival, or pure anticipated 
cognitions like the disciples of Kant. But such 
poor creatures as Mackintosh, Dumont, and 
Bentham had nothing but observation and rea- 
son to guide them, and they obeyed the guidance 
of observation and reason. How is it in phy- 
sics ] A traveller falls in with a fruit which 
he had never before seen. He tastes it, and 
finds it sweet and refreshing. He praises it. 
and resolves to introduce it into his own coun- 
try. But in a few minutes he is taken violently 
sick; he is convulsed; he is at the point of 
death ; no medicine gives him relief. He of 
course pronounces this delicious food a poison, 
blames his own folly in tasting it, and cautions 
his friends against it. After a long and violent 
struggle he recovers, and finds himself much 
exhausted by his sufferings, but free from some 
chronic complaints which had been the torment 
of his life. He then changes his opinion again, 
and pronounces this fruit a very powerful re- 
medy, which ought to be employed only in ex- 
treme cases, and with great caution, but which 
ought not to be absolutely excluded from the 
"Pharmacopoeia." And would it not be the 
height of absurdity to call such a man fickle 
and inconsistent because he had repeatedly 
altered his judgment] If he had not altered 
his judgment, would he have been a rational 
being] It was exactly the same with the 
French Revolution. That event was a new 
phenomenon in politics. Nothing that had 
gone before enabled any person to judge with 
certainty of the course which affairs might 
take. At first the effect was the reform of great 
abuses, and honest men rejoiced. Then came 
commotion, proscription, confiscation, the bank 
ruptcy, the assignats, the maximum, civil war 
foreign war, revolutionary tribunals, guillotin 
ades, noya,des, fusillades. Yet a little while, 
and a military despotism rose out of the con« 
fusion, and threatened the independence of 
every state in Europe. And yet again a litt.a 
while, and the old dynasty returned, followed 



294 



MAUAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



oy a train of emigrants eager to restore the old 
abuses. We have now, we think, the whole 
before us. We should therefore be justly- 
accused of levity or insincerity if our lan- 
guage concerning those events were constant- 
ly changing. It is our deliberate opinion that 
the French Revolution, in spite of all its crimes 
and follies, was a great blessing to mankind. 
But it was not only natural, but inevitable, that 
those who had only seen the first act should be 
ignorant of the catastrophe, and should be al- 
ternately elated and depressed as the plot went 
on disclosing itself to them. A man who had 
held exactly the same opinion about the Revo- 
lution in 1789, in 1794, in 1804, in 1814, and 
in 1834, would have been either a divinely in- 
spired prophet or an obstinate fool. Mackin- 
tosh was neither. He was simply a wise and 
good man ; and the change which passed on 
his mind was a change which passed on the 
mind of almost every wise and good man in 
Europe. In fact, few of his contemporaries 
changed so little. The rare moderation and 
calmness of his temper preserved him alike 
from extravagant elation and from extrava- 
gant despondency. He was never a Jacobin. 
He was never an Antijacobin. His mind os- 
cillated undoubtedly; but the extreme points 
of the oscillation were not very remote. Here- 
in he differed greatly from some persons of dis- 
tinguished talents who entered into life at near- 
ly the same time with him. Such persons we 
have seen rushing from one wild extreme to 
another — out-Paining Paine — out-Casflereagh- 
ing Castlereagh — Pantisocratists — ultra-Tories 
— Heretics — Persecutors — breaking the old 
laws against sedition — calling for new and 
sharper laws against sedition — writing demo- 
cratic dramas — writing laureate odes — pane- 
gyrizing Marten — panegyrizing Laud — consist- 
ent in nothing but in an intolerance which in 
any person would be offensive, but which is 
altogether unpardonable in men who, by their 
own confession, have had such ample experi- 
ence of their own fallibility. We readily con- 
cede to some of these persons the praise of elo- 
quence and of poetical invention, nor are we 
by any means disposed, even where they have 
been gainers by their conversion, to question 
their sincerity. It would be most uncandid to 
attribute to sordid motives actions which ad- 
mit of a less discreditable explanation. We 
think that the conduct of these persons has 
been precisely what was to be expected from 
men who were gifted with strong imagination 
and quick sensibility, but who were neither 
accurate observers nor logical reasoners. It 
was natural that such men should see in the 
victory of the third estate in France the dawn 
of a new Saturnian age. It was natural that 
the disappointment should be proportioned to 
the extravagance of their hopes. Though the 
direction of their passions was altered, the vio- 
lence of those passions was the same. The 
force of the rebound was proportioned to the 
force of the original impulse. The pendulum 
j.wung furiously to the left because it had been 
drawn too far to the right. 

We own that nothing gives us so high an 
idea of the judgment and temper of Sir James 
Mackintosh as the manner in which he shaped 



his course through those times. Exposed suc- 
cessively to two opposite infections, he took 
both in their very mildest form. The consti- 
tution of his mind was such that neither of the 
diseases which committed such havoc all 
around him could, in any serious degree, or for 
any great length of time, derange his intel- 
lectual health. He, like every honest and 
enlightened man in Europe, saw with delight 
the great awakening of the French nation. 
Yet he never, in the season of his warmest 
enthusiasm, proclaimed doctrines inconsistent 
with the safety of property and the just authori- 
ty of governments. He, like almost every 
honest and enlightened man, was discouraged 
and perplexed by the terrible events which fol- 
lowed. Yet he never, in the most gloomy 
times, abandoned the cause of peace, of liber- 
ty, and of toleration. In that great convulsion 
which overset almost every other understand- 
ing, he was indeed so much shaken that he lean- 
ed sometimes in one direction and sometimes in 
the other; but he never lost his balance. The 
opinions in which he at last reposed, and to 
which, in spite of strong temptations, he ad- 
hered with a firm, a disinterested, an ill-re- 
quited fidelity, were a just mean between those 
which he had defended with a youthful ardour 
and with more than manly prowess against 
Mr. Burke ; and those to which he had inclined 
during the darkest and saddest years in the 
history of modern Europe. We are much 
mistaken if this be the picture either of a weak 
or of a dishonest mind. 

What his political opinions were in his lat 
ter years is written in the annals of his country 
Those annals will sufficiently refute the calum 
ny which his biographer has ventured to pub- 
lish in the very advertisement to his work 
" Sir James Mackintosh," says he, " was avow 
edly and emphatically a Whig of the Revo- 
lution : and since the agitation of religious 
liberty and parliamentary reform became a na- 
tional movement, the great transaction of 1688 
has been more dispassionately, more correctly, 
and less highly estimated." — While we tran- 
scribe the words, our anger cools down into 
scorn. If they mean any thing, they must 
mean that the opinions of Sir James Mackin- 
tosh concerning religious liberty and parlia- 
mentary reform went no further than those of 
the authors of the Revolution, — in other words 
that Sir James Mackintosh opposed Catholic 
Emancipation, and quite approved of the old 
constitution of the House of Commons. The 
allegation is confuted by twenty volumes of 
parliamentary debates, nay, by innumerable 
passages in the very fragment which this wri- 
ter has done his little utmost to deface. We 
tell him that Sir James Mackintosh has oftea 
done more for religious liberty and for parlia- 
mentary reform in a quarter of an hour than 
the feeble abilities of his biographer will ever 
effect in the whole course of a long life. 

The Continuation which follows Sir James 
Mackintosh's Fragment is as offensive as the 
Memoir which precedes it. We do not pre- 
tend to have read the whole, or even one half 
of it. Three hundred quarto pages of such 
matter are too much for human patience. Il 
would be unjust to the writer n "* to prosem 



MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY. 



290 



our readers, few of whom, we suspect, will be 
riis readers, with a sample of his eloquence. 
tVe will treat them with a short sentence, and 
will engage that they shall think it long enough. 
" Idolatry ! fatal word, which has edged more 
swords, lighted more fires, and inhumanized 
mare hearts, than the whole vocabulary of the 
passions besides." A choice style for history, 
we must own! This gentleman is fond of the 
word "vtcabulary." He speaks very scorn- 
fully of Churchill's " vocabulary," and blames 
Burnet for the "hardihood of his vocabulary." 
What this last expression may mean, we do 
not very clearly understand. But we are quite 
Kure that Burnet's vocabulary, with all its hardi- 
hood, would never have dared to admit such a 
word as "inhumanized." 

Of the accuracy of the Continuation as to 
matters of fact we will give a single specimen. 
With a little time we could find twenty such. 
" Bishop Lloyd did not live to reap, at least 
to enjoy, the fruit of his public labours and 
secret intrigues. He died soon after the Re- 
volution, upon his translation from St. Asaph 
to Worcester." Nobody tolerably well ac- 
quainted with political, ecclesiastical, or lite- 
rary history, can need to be told that Lloyd was 
not made Bishop of Worcester till the year 
1699, after the death of Stillingfleet; that he 
outlived the Revolution nearly thirty years ; 
and died in the reign of George I. This blun- 
der is the more inexcusable, as one of the most 
curious and best known transactions in the 
time of Anne, was the address of the House of 
Commons to the queen, begging her to dismiss 
Lloyd from his place of almoner. 

As we turn over the leaves, another sentence 
catches our eye. We extract it as an instance 
both of historical accuracy and philosophical 
profundity. "Religion in 1688 was not* a ra- 
tional conviction, or a sentiment of benevo- 
lence and charity; but one of the malignant 
passions, and a cause of quarrel. Even in the 
next age, Congreve makes a lying sharper, in 
one of his plays, talk seriously of fighting for 
his religion." What is meant by "even in the 
next age V Congreve's first work, the novel 
of "Cleophil," was written in the very year 
1688; and the " Old Bachelor," from which the 
quotation is taken, was brought on the stage 
only five years after the Revolution. But this 
great logician ought to go further. Sharper 
talks of fighting, not only for his religion, but 
for his friends. We presume, therefore, that 
in the year 1688, friendship was "one of the 
malignant passions, and a cause of quarrel." 
But enough and too much of such folly. 

Never was there such a contrast as that 
which Sir James's Fragment presents to this 
Continuation. In the former, we have scarcely 
been able, during several close examinations, 
to detect one mistake as to matter of fact. We 
never open the latter without lighting on a ri- 
diculous blunder which it does not require the 
assistance of any book of reference to detect. 
The author has not the smallest notion of the 
state of England in 1688; of the feelings and 
opinions of the people ; of the relative position 
•f parties ; of the character of one single pub- 
lic man on either side. No single passage can 
rive any idea of this equally liffused ignorance, 



this omninescience, — if we may carry th« 
"hardihood of our vocabulary" so far as to 
coin a new word for what is to us quite a new 
thing. We take the first page on which w« 
open as a fair sample, and no more than a fair 
sample, of the whole. 

" Lord Halifax played his part with deeper 
perfidy. This opinion is expressed without re- 
ference to the strange statement of Bishop Bur- 
net, which seems, indeed, too inconsistent to be 
true. It should be cited, however, for the judg- 
ment of the reader. ' The Marquis of Halifax,' 
says, he, (on the arrival of the commissioners 
at Hungerford,) 'sent for me; but the prince 
said, though he would suspect nothing from 
our meeting, others might; so I did not speak 
with him in private, but in the hearing of others. 
Yet he took occasion to ask me, so us nobody 
observed it, if we had a mind to have the king in 
our hands. I said by no means, for we would 
not hurt his person. He asked next, what if he 
had a mind to go away 1 I said nothing was 
so much to be wished for. This I told the 
prince, and he approved of both my answers.' 

" Is it credible that Lord Halifax started an 
overture of the blackest guilt and infamy in a 
room with others, in a mere conversation with 
an inferior personage, who had little credit and 
no discretion, and whilst he had, it has been 
shown, more suitable vehicles of communica- 
tion with the Prince of Orange ! Such a step 
outrages all probability when imputed to a 
statesman noted for his finesse. But why 
should Burnet invent and dramatize such a 
scene 1 It may be accounted for by his dis 
tinctive character. He appears throughout 
his history a subaltern partisan, conscious of 
his inferiority, and struggling to convince 
others and himself, that he was a personage of 
the first pretension. Such a man, whose vani 
ty, moreover, was notoriously unscrupulous 
having heard of the intrigue of Lord Halifax, 
would seize and mould it to his purpose as a 
proof of his importance, and as an episode in 
his history." 

And this is the man who has been chosen to 
complete a work which Sir James Mackintosh 
left unfinished ! Every line of the passage 
proves the writer to be ignorant of the most no- 
torious facts, and unable to read characters of 
which the peculiarities lie most open to super- 
ficial observation. Burnet was partial, vain, 
credulous, and careless. But Burnet was quite 
incapable of framing a deliberate and circum- 
stantial falsehood. And what reason does this 
writer assign for giving the lie direct to the 
good bishop 1 Absolutely none, except that 
Lord Halifax would not have talked on a deli- 
cate subject to so " inferior a personage." 
Was Burnet then considered as an insignifi- 
cant man 1 Was it to an insignificant mah 
that Parliament voted thanks for services ren- 
dered to the Protestant religion? Was it 
against an insignificant man that Dryden put 
forth all his powers of invective in the most 
elaborate, though not the most vigorous of his 
works 1 Was he an insignificant man whom 
the great Bossuet constantly described, as the 
most formidable of all the champions of the 
Reformation 1 Was it to an insignificant ir.as 



208 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



that King William gave the very first bishopric 
that became vacant after the Revolution 1 Til- 
lotson, Tennyson, Stillingfleet, Hough, Patrick, 
all distinguished by their exertions in defence 
9f the reformed faith, all supporters of the new 
government, were they all passed by in favour 
of a man of no weight — of a man so unimport- 
ant that no person of rank would talk with him 
about momentous affairs 1 And, even granting 
that Burnet was a very " inferior personage,' 
did Halifax think him so 1 Everybody knows 
the contrary — that is, everybody except this 
writer. In 1680 it was reported that Halifax 
was a concealed Papist. It was accordingly 
moved in the House of Commons by Halifax's 
stepfather, Chichley, that Dr. Burnet should be 
examined as to his lordship's religious opi- 
nions. This proves that they were on terms 
of the closest intimacy. But this is not all. 
There is still extant among the writings of 
Halifax a character of Burnet, drawn with the 
greatest skill and delicacy. It is no unmixed 
panegyric. The failings of Burnet are pointed 
out ; but he is described as a man whose very 
failings arose from the constant activity of his 
intellect. "His friends," says the Marquis, 
" love him too well to see small faults, or if they 
do, think that his greater talents give him a 
privilege of straying from the strict rules of 
caution." Men like Halifax do not write ela- 
borate characters, either favourable or unfa- 
vourable, of those whom they consider as 
" inferior personages." Yet Burnet, it seems, 
was so inferior a personage, that Halifax would 
not trust him with a secret ! And what, after 
all, was the mighty secret 1 This writer calls 
it " an overture of guilt and infamy." It was 
no overture of guilt and infamy. It was no 
overture at all. It was, on the face of it, a very 
simple question, which the most devoted adhe- 
rent of King James might naturally and pro- 
perly have asked. 

This, we repeat, is only a fair sample. We 
have not observed one paragraph in the vast 
mass, which, if examined in the same manner, 
would not yield an equally abundant harvest 
of error aad impotence. 

What most disgusts us is the contempt with 
which the writer thinks fit to speak of all 
things that were done before the coming in of 
the very last fashions in politics. What he 
thinks about this, or about any other matter, is 
of little consequence, and would be of no con- 
sequence at all, if he had not deformed an ex- 
cellent work, by fastening to it his own specu- 
lations. But we think that we have sometimes 
observed a leaning towards the same fault in 
persons of a very different order of intellect 
from this writer. We will therefore take this 
opportunity of making a few remarks on an 
error which is, we fear, becoming common; 
and which appears to us not only absurd, but 
as pernicious as any error concerning the 
transactions of a past age can possibly be. 

We shall not, we hope, be suspected of a 
bigoted attachment to the doctrines and prac- 
tices of past generations. Our creed is, that 
'he science of government is an experimental 
science, and that, like all other experimental 
sciences, it is generally in a state of progres- 
sion No man is so obstinate an admirer of 



the old times, as to deny that medicine, surge 
ry, botany, chemistry, engineering, navigation 
are better understood now than in any formei 
age. We conceive that it is the same with 
political science. Like those other sciences 
which we have mentioned, it has always been 
working itself clearer and clearer, and deposit* 
ing impurity after impurity. There was a 
time when the most powerful of human intel- 
lects were deluded by the gibberish of the 
astrologer and the alchymist; and just so there 
was a time when the most enlightened and 
virtuous statesmen thought it the first duty of a 
government to persecute heretics, to found 
monasteries, tc make war on Saracens. But 
time advances, facts accumulate, doubts arise. 
Faint glimpses of truth begin to appear, and 
shine more and more unto the perfect day. 
The highest intellects, like the tops of moun- 
tains, are the first to catch and to reflect the 
dawn. They are bright, while the level below 
is still in darkness. But soon the light, which 
at first illuminated only the loftiest eminences, 
descends on the plain, and penetrates to the 
deepest valley. First come hints, then frag- 
ments of systems, then defective systems, then 
complete and harmonious systems. The sound 
opinion, held for a time by one bold specu- 
lator, becomes the opinion of a small minority, 
of a strong minority, of a majority — of man- 
kind. Thus, the great progress goes on, till 
schoolboys laugh at the jargon which imposed 
on Bacon, — till country rectors condemn the 
illiberality and intolerance of Sir Thomas 
More. 

Seeing these things — seeing that, by the con- 
fession of the most obstinate enemies of inno- 
vation, our race has hitherto been almost 
constantly advancing in knowledge, and not 
seeing any reason to believe that, precisely at 
the point of time at which we came into the 
world, a change took place in the faculties of 
the human mind, or in the mode of discovering 
truth, we are reformers : we are on the side of 
progress. From the great advances which 
European society has made, during the last 
four centuries, in every species of knowledge, 
we infer, not that there is no more room for 
improvement, but that in every science which 
deserves the name, immense improvements 
may be confidently expected. 

But the very considerations which lead us 
to look forward with sanguine hope to the fu- 
ture, prevent us from looking back with con- 
tempt on the past. We do not flatter ourselves 
with the notion, that we have attained per- 
fection, and that no more truth remains to be 
found. We believe that we are wiser than 
our ancestors. We believe, also, that our pos- 
terity will be wiser than we. It would be gross 
injustice in our grandchildren to talk of us with 
contempt, merely because they may have sur- 
passed us — to call Watt a fool, because me- 
chanical powers may be discovered which 
may supersede the use of steam — to deride the 
efforts which have been made in our time tc 
improve the discipline of prisons, and to en- 
lighten the minds of the poor, because future 
philanthropists may devise better places of 
confinement than Mr. Bentham's Panopticon, 
and better places of education than Mr. Lan 



MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY. 



397 



caster's Schools. As we -would have our de- 
scendants judge us, so ought we to judge our 
fathers. In order to form a correct estimate 
of their merits, we ought to place ourselves in 
their situation — to put out of our minds, for a 
time, all that knowledge which they, however 
eager in the pursuit of truth, could not have, 
and which we, however negligent we may 
have heen, could not help having. It was not 
merely difficult, but absolutely impossible, for 
the best and greatest of men, two hundred 
years ago, to be what a very commonplace 
person in our days may easily be, and, indeed, 
must necessarily be. But it is too much that 
the benefactors of mankind, after having been 
reviled by the dunces of their own generation 
for going too far, are to be reviled by the 
dunces of the next generation for not going far 
enough. 

The truth lies between two absurd extremes. 
On one side is the bigot who pleads the wisdom 
of our ancestors as a reason for not doing what 
they, in our place, would be the first to do, — 
who opposes the Reform Bill because Lord 
Somers did not see the necessity of parlia- 
mentary feform, — who would have opposed 
the Revolution because Ridley and Cranmer 
professed boundless submission to the royal 
prerogative, — and who would have opposed 
the Reformation because the Fitzwalters and 
Marischals, whose seals are set to the Great 
Charter, were devoted adherents to the Church 
of Rome. On the other side is the conceited 
sciolist who speaks with scorn of the Great 
Charter, because it did not reform the church ; 
of the Reformation, because it did not limit the 
prerogative; and of the Revolution, because it 
did not purify the House of Commons. The 
former of these errors we have often combated, 
and shall always be ready to combat ; the lat- 
ter, though rapidly spreading, has not, we 
think, yet come under our notice. The former 
error bears directly on practical questions, and 
obstructs useful reforms. It may, therefore, 
seem to be, and probably is, the more mis- 
chievous of the two. But the latter is 
equally absurd; it is at least equally symp- 
tomatic of a shallow understanding and an 
unamiable temper ; and, if it should ever 
become general, it will, we are satisfied, pro- 
duce very prejudicial effects. Its tendency is 
to deprive the benefactors of mankind of their 
honest fame, and to put the best and the worst 
men of past times on the same level. The au- 
thor of a great reformation is almost always 
unpopular in his own age. He generally 
passes his life in disquiet and danger. It is 
therefore for the interest of the human race 
that the memory of such men should be had in 
reverence, and that they should be supported 
against the scorn and hatred of their contem- 
poraries, by the hope of leaving a great and 
imperishable name. To go on the forlorn 
hope of truth is a service of peril : who will 
undertake it, if it be not also a service of ho- 
nour 1 It is easy enough, after the ramparts 
are carried, to find men to plant the flag on the 
highest tower. The difficulty is to find men 
who are ready to go first into the breach , and 
it would be bad policy indeed to insult their 



remains because they fell in the breach, and 
did not live to penetrate to the citadel. 

Now here we have a book written by a man 
who is a very bad specimen of the English of 
the nineteenth century, — a man who knows 
nothing but what it is a scandal not to know. 
And if we were to judge by the self-compla« 
cent pity with which he speaks of the great 
statesmen and philosophers of a former age, 
we should guess that he was the author of the 
most original and important inventions in po- 
litical science. Yet not so : — for men who are 
able to make discoveries are generally dis- 
posed to make allowances. Men who are 
eagerly pressing forward in pursuit of truth 
are grateful to every one who has cleared an 
inch of the way for them. It is, for the most 
part, the man below mediocrity, the man who 
has just capacity enough to pick up and repeat 
the commonplaces which are fashionable in 
his own time, — it is he, we say, who looks 
with disdain on the very intellects to which it 
is owing that those commonplaces are not still 
considered as startling paradoxes or damnable 
heresies. The writer is just the man who, if 
he had lived in the seventeenth century, would 
have devoutly believed that the Papists burned 
London, — who would have swallowed the 
whole of Oates's story about the forty thou- 
sand soldiers disguised as pilgrims, who were 
to meet in Gallicia, and sail thence to invads 
England, — who would have carried a Pro- 
testant flail under his coat, — and who would 
have been furious if the story of the warming- 
pan had been questioned. It is quite natural 
that such a man should speak with contemp' 
of the great reformers of that time, because 
they did not know some things which he never 
would have known, but for the salutary effects 
of their exertions. The men to whom we owa 
it that we have the House of Commons are 
sneered at because they did not suffer the de- 
bates of the House to be published. The 
authors of the Toleration Act are treated as 
bigots, because they did not go the whole 
length of Catholic emancipation. Just so we 
have heard a baby, mounted on the shoulders 
of its father, cry out, " How much taller I am 
than papa !" 

This gentleman can never want matter for 
pride, if he finds it so easily. He may boast 
of an indisputable superiority to all the great- 
est men of all past ages. He can read and 
write. Homer did not know a letter. He has 
been taught that the earth goes round the sun. 
Archimedes held that the sun went round the 
earth. He is aware that there is a place called 
New Holland. Columbus and Gama went to 
their graves in ignorance of the fact. He has 
heard of the Georgium Sidus. Newton was 
ignorant of the existence of such a planet. He 
is acquainted with the use of gunpowder. 
Hannibal and Cassar won their victories with 
sword and spear. We submit, however, that 
is not the way in which men are to be esti- 
mated. We submit that a wooden spoon of 
our day would not be justified in calling Gaii 
leo and Napier blockheads, because they nevei 
heard of the differential calculus. We submit 
that Caxton's press in Westminster Abbevi 



298 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



rude as it is, ought to be looked at with quite 
as much respect as the best constructed ma- 
chinery that ever, in our time, impressed the 
clearest type on the finest paper. Sydenham 
first discovered that the cool regimen succeed- 
ed best in cases of small-pox. By this dis- 
covery he saved the lives of hundreds of thou- 
sands ; and we venerate his memory for it, 
though he never heard of inoculation. Lady 
Mary Montague brought inoculation into use ; 
and we respect her for it, though she never 
heard of vaccination. Jenner introduced vac- 
cination ; we admire him for it, and we shall 
continue to admire him for it, although some 
still safer and more agreeable preservative 
should be discovered. It is thus that we ought 
to judge of the events and the men of other 
times. They were behind us. It could not 
he otherwise. But the question with respect 
to them is not where they were, but which way 
they were going. Were their faces set in the 
right or wrong direction 1 Were they in the 
front or in the rear of their generation 1 Did 
they exert themselves to help onward the great 
movement of the human race, or to stop it 1 
This is not charity, but simple justice and 
common sense. It is the fundamental law of 
the world in which we live that truth shall 
grow, — first the blade, then the ear, after that 
the full corn in the ear. A person who com- 
plains of the men of 1688 for not having been 
men of 1835, might just as well complain of 
projectiles for describing a parabola, or of 
quicksilver for being heavier than water. 

Undoubtedly we ought to look at ancient 
transactions by the light of modern knowledge. 
Undoubtedly it is among the first duties of an 
historian to point out the faults of the eminent 
men of former generations. There are no 
errors which are so likely to be drawn into 
precedent, and therefore none which it is so 
necessary to expose, as the errors of persons 
who have a just title to the gratitude and ad- 
miration of posterity. In politics as in reli- 
gion, there are devotees who show their reve- 
rence for a departed saint by converting his 
tomb into a sanctuary for crime. Receptacles 
of wickedness are suffered to remain undis- 
turbed in the neighbourhood of the church, 
which glories in the relics of some martyred 
apostle. Because he was merciful, his bones 
give security to assassins. Because he was 
chaste, the precinct of his temple is filled with 
licensed stews. Privileges of an equally ab- 
surd kind nave oeen set up against the juris- 
diction of political philosophy. Vile abuses 
cluster thick round every glorious event, — 
round every venerable name; and this evil 
assuredly calls for vigorous measures of lite- 
rary police. But the proper course is to abate 
the nuisance without defacing the shrine, — to 
drive out the gangs of thieves and prostitutes 
without doing foul and cowardly wrongs to the 
ashes of the illustrious dead. 

In this respect, two historians of our time 
may be proposed as models, Sir James Mack- 
intosh and Mr. Mill. Differing in most things, 
in this they closely resemble each other. Sir 
James is lenient — Mr. Mill is severe. But 
neither of them ever omits, in the apportioning 
of praise and censure, to make ample allow- 



ances for the state of political science and 
political morality in former ages. In the work 
before us, Sir James Mackintosh speaks with 
just respect of the Whigs of the Revolution, 
while ne never fails to condemn the conduct 
of that party towards the members of the 
Church of Rome. His doctrines are the libe. 
ral and benevolent doctrines of the nineteenth 
century. But he never forgets that the men 
whom he is describing were men of the seven- 
teenth century. 

From Mr. Mill this indulgence, or to speak 
more properly, this justice, was less to be ex- 
pected. That gentleman, in some of his works, 
appears to consider politics, not as an experi 
mental, and therefore a progressive science, 
but as a science of which all the difficulties 
may be resolved by short synthetical argu- 
ments drawn from truths of the most vulgar 
notoriety. Were this opinion well founded, the 
people of one generation would have little or 
no advantage over those of another generation. 
But though Mr. Mill, in some of his essays, has 
been thus misled, as we conceive, by a fond- 
ness for neat and precise forms of demonstra- 
tion, it would be gross injustice not to admit 
that, in his History, he has employed the in- 
ductive method of investigation with eminent 
ability and success. We know of no writer 
who takes so much pleasure in the truly use- 
ful, noble, and philosophical employment of 
tracing the progress of sound opinions from 
their embryo state to their full maturity. He 
eagerly culls from old despatches and minutes 
every expression in which he can discern the 
imperfect germ of any great truth which has 
since been fully developed. He never fails to 
bestow praise on those who, though far from 
coming up to his standard of perfection, yet 
rose in a small degree above the common level 
of their contemporaries. It is thus that the 
annals of past times ought to be written. It is 
thus, especially, that the annals of our ow» 
country ought to be written. 

The history of England is emphatically the 
history of progress. It is the history of a con- 
stant movement of the public mind which pro- 
duced a constant change in the institutions of a 
great society. We see that society, at the be- 
ginning of the twelfth century, in a state more 
miserable than the state in which the most de- 
graded nations of the east now are. We see it 
subjected to the tyranny of a handful of armed 
foreigners. We see a strong distinction of caste 
separating the victorious Norman from the 
vanquished Saxon. We see the great body of 
the population in a state of personal slavery. 
We see the most debasing and cruel supersti- 
tion exercising boundless dominion over the 
most elevated and benevolent minds. We see 
the multitude sunk in brutal ignorance, and 
the studious few engaged in acquiring what 
did not deserve the name of knowledge. In the 
course of seven centuries this wretched and 
degraded race have become the greatest and 
most highly civilized people that ever the world 
saw, — have spread their dominion over every 
quarter of the globe, — have scattered the seeds 
of mighty empires and republics over vast 
continents of which no dim intimation had 
ever reached Ptolemy or Strabo, — have created 



MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY. 



299 



a. maritime power which would annihilate in a 
quarter of an hour the natives of Tyre, Athens, 
Carthage, Venice, and Genoa together,— have 
carried the science of healing, the means of 
locomotion and correspondence, every mecha- 
nical art, every manufacture, every thing that 
promotes the convenience of life, to a perfec- 
tion which our ancestors would have hiught 
magical, — have produced a literature abound- 
ing with works not inferior to the noblest which 
Greece has bequeathed to us, — have discovered 
the laws which regulate the motions of the 
heavenly bodies, have speculated with ex- 
quisite subtlety on the operations of the human 
mind, — have been the acknowledged leaders 
of the human race in the career of political 
improvement. The history of England is the 
history of this great change in the moral, intel- 
lectual, and physical state of the inhabitants 
of our own island. There is much amusing 
and instructive episodical matter ; but this is 
the main action. To us, we will own, nothing 
is so interesting and delightful as to contem- 
plate the steps by which the England of the 
Domesday Book, — the England of the Curfew 
and the Ferest Laws, — the England of crusa- 
ders, monks, schoolmen, astrologers, serfs, out- 
laws, — became the England which we know 
and love, — the classic ground of liberty and 
philosophy, the school of all knowledge, the 
mart of all trade. The Charter of Henry 
Beauclerk, — the Great Charter, — the first as- 
sembling of the House of Commons, — the ex- 
fiction of personal slavery, — the separation 
from the See of Rome, — the Petition of Right, 
— the Habeas Corpus Act, — the Revolution, — 
the establishment of the liberty of unlicensed 
printing, — the abolition of religious disabilities, 
— the reform of the representative system, — all 
these seem to us to be the successive stages 
of one great revolution ; nor can we compre- 
hend any one of these memorable events un- 
less we look at it in connection with those 
which preceded and with those which followed 
it. Each of those great and ever-memorable 
struggles, — Saxon against Norman, — Villein 
against Lord, — Protestant against Papist, — 
Roundhead against Cavalier, — Dissenter 
against Churchman, — Manchester against 
Old Sarum, was, in its own order and sea- 
son, a struggle on the result of which were 
staked the dearest interests of the human race ; 
and every man who in the contests which, in 
his time, divided our country, distinguished 
hiraseLf on the right side, is entitled to our gra- 
titude and respect. 

Whatever the conceited editor of this book 
may think, those persons who estimate most 
correctly the value of the improvements which 
have recently been made in our institutions, 
are precisely the persons who are least dis- 
posed to speak slightingly of what was done in 
1688. Such men consider the Revolution as a 
reform, imperfect indeed, but still most benefi- 
cial to the English people and to the human 
race, — as a reform which has been the fruitful 
parent of reforms, — as a reform, the happy 
effects of which are at this moment felt, not 
only throughout our own country, but in the 
cities of France and in the depths of the forests 
of Ohio. We shall be pardoned, we hope, if 



we call the attention of our readers to the 
causes and to the consequences of that great 
event. 

We said that the history of England is the 
history of progress, and, when we take a com- 
prehensive view of it, it is so. But when ex- 
amined in small separate portions, it may with 
more propriety be called a history of actions 
and reactions. We have often thought that the 
motion of the public mind in our country re- 
sembles that of the sea when the tide is rising 
Each successive wave rushes forward, breaks, 
and rolls back ; but the great flood is steadily 
coming in. A person who looked on the waters 
only for a moment might fancy that they were 
retiring, or that they obeyed no fixed law, but 
were rushing capriciously to and fro. But 
when he keeps his eye on them for a quarter 
of an hour, and sees one sea-mark disappear 
after another, it is impossible for him to doubt 
of the general direction in which the ocean is 
moved. Just such has been the course of 
events in England. In the history of the na- 
tional mind, which is, in truth, the history of 
the nation, we must carefully distinguish that 
recoil which regularly follows every advance 
from a great general ebb. If we take short in- 
tervals—if we compare 1640 and 1660, 1680 
and 1685, 1708 and 1712, 1782 and 1794,— we 
find a retrogression. But if we take centuries, 
— if, for example, we compare 1794 with 1660, 
or with 1685, — we cannot doubt in which di- 
rection society is proceeding. 

The interval which elapsed between the Re- 
storation and the Revolution, naturally divides 
itself into three periods. The first extends 
from 1660 to 1679, the second from 1679 to 
1681, the third from 1681 to 1688. 

In 1660 the whole nation was mad with loyal 
excitement. If we had to choose a lot from 
among all the multitude of those which men 
have drawn since the beginning of the world, 
we would select that of Charles the Second on 
the day of his return. He was in a situation 
in which the dictates of ambition coincided 
with those of benevolence, in which it was 
easier to be virtuous than to be wicked, to be 
loved than to be hated, to earn pure and im- 
perishable glory than to become infamous. 
For once the road of goodness was a smooth 
descent. He had done nothing to merit the 
affection of his people. But they had paid him 
in advance without measure. Elizabeth, after 
the rout of the Armada, or after the abolition 
of monopolies, had not excited a thousandth 
part of the enthusiasm with which the young 
exile was welcomed home. He was not, like 
Louis the Eighteenth, imposed on his subjects 
by foreign conquerors ; nor did he, like Louis 
the Eighteenth, come back to a country which 
had undergone a complete change. The house 
of Bourbon was placed in Paris as a trophy 
of the victory of the European confederation. 
Their return was inseparably associated in the 
public mind with the cession of extensive pro 
vinces, with the payment of an immense tri- 
bute, with the devastation of flourishing depart- 
ments, with the occupation of the kingdom by 
hostile armies, with the emptiness of thos* 
niches in which the gods of Athens and Rome 
had been the objects of a new idolatry, with 



900 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Jhe nakedness of those walls on which the 
Transfiguration had shone with light as glorious 
ss that which overhung Mount Tabor. They 
came back to a land in which they could re- 
cognise nothing. The seven sleepers of the 
legend, who closed their eyes when the Pagans 
were persecuting ;he Christians, and woke 
when the Christians were persecuting each 
other, did not find themselves in a world more 
completely new to them. Twenty years had 
done the work of twenty generations. Events 
had come thick. Men had lived fast. The old 
institutions and the old feelings had been torn 
up by the roots. There was a new church 
founded and endowed by the usurper; anew 
nobility, whose titles were taken from fields of 
battle, disastrous to the ancient line; a new 
chivalry, whose crosses had been won by ex- 
ploits which had seemed likely to make the 
banishment of the emigrants perpetual. A 
new code was administered by a new magis- 
tracy. A new body of proprietors held the soil 
by a new tenure. The most ancient local dis- 
tinctions had been effaced. The most familiar 
names had become obsolete. There was no 
longer a Normandy, or a Burgundy, a Brittany, 
■or a Guienne. The France of Louis the Six- 
teenth had passed away as completely as one 
of the Preadamite worlds. Its fossil remains 
might now and then excite curiosity. But it 
was as impossible to put life into the old insti- 
tutions as to animate the skeletons which are 
imbedded in the depths of primeval strata. It 
was as absurd to think that France could be 
again placed under the ancient system, as that 
our globe could be overrun by mammoths. 
The revolution in the laws, and in the form of 
government, was but an outward sign of that 
mightier revolution which had taken place in 
the heart and brain of the people, and which 
affected every transaction of life, — trading, 
farming, studying, marrying, and giving in 
marriage. The French whom the emigrant 
prince had to govern were no more like the 
French of his youth, than the French of his 
youth were like the French of the Jaqueri. He 
came back to a people who knew not him nor 
his house, — to a people to whom the Bourbon 
was no more than a Carlovingian or a Mero- 
vingian. He might substitute the white flag 
for the tri-colour; he might put lilies in the 
place of bees ; he might order the initials of 
the emperor to be carefully effaced. But he 
couid turn his eyes nowhere without meeting 
some object which reminded him that he was 
a stranger in the place of his fathers. He 
returned to a country in which even the pass- 
ing traveller is every moment reminded that 
there has lately been a great dissolution and 
reconstruction of the social system. To win 
the hearts of a people under such circum- 
stances would have been no easy task even for 
Henry the Fourth. 

In the English Revolution the case was alto- 
gether different. Charles was not imposed on 
his countrymen, but sought by them. His resto- 
ration was not attended by any circumstance 
which could inflict a wound on their national 
pride Insulated by our geographical position, 
Insulated by our character, we had fought out our 
nuarre].? and effected our reconciliation among 



ourselves. Our great internal questions haA 
never been mixed up with the still greater 
question of national independence. The poli« 
ticai doctrines of the Roundheads were not, 
like those of the French philosophers, doctrines 
of universal application. Our ancestors, for 
the most part, took their stand not on a general 
theory, but on the particular constitution of the 
realm. They asserted the rights, not of men. 
but of Englishmen. Their doctrines, there 
fore, were not contagious, and, had it been 
otherwise, no neighbouring country was then 
susceptible of the contagion. The language 
in which our discussions were generally con- 
ducted was scarcely known even to a single 
man of letters out of the islands. Our local 
situation rendered it almost impossible that 
we should make great conquests on the Conti- 
nent. The kings of Europe had, therefore, nc 
reason to fear that their subjects would. follow 
the example of the English Puritans. Thej 
looked with indifference, perhaps with compla- 
cency, on the death of the monarch and the 
abolition of the monarchy. Clarendon conv 
plains bitterly of their apathy. But we believe 
that this apathy was of the greatest servic to 
the royal cause. If a French or Spanish army 
had invaded England, and if that army had 
been cut to pieces, as we have no doubt it 
would have been, on the first day on which it 
came face to face with the soldiers of Preston 
and Dunbar, — with Colonel Fight-the-good- 
Fight, and Captain Smite-them-hip-and-thigh, 
— the house of Cromwell would probably now 
have been reigning in England. The nation 
would have forgotten all the misdeeds of the 
man who had cleared the soil of foreign in- 
vaders. 

Happily for Charles, no European state, 
even when at war with the Commonwealth, 
chose to bind up its cause with that of the 
wanderers who were playing in the garrets of 
Paris and Cologne at being princes and chan- 
cellors. Under the administration of Crom- 
well, England was more respected and dreaded 
than any power in Christendom ; and, even 
under the ephemeral government which fol- 
lowed his death, no foreign state ventured to 
treat her with contempt. Thus Charles came 
back, not as a mediator between a people and 
a victorious enemy, but as a mediator between 
internal factions. He was heir to the con- 
quests and to the influence of the able usurper 
who had excluded him. 

The old government of England, as it had 
been far milder than the old government of 
France, had been far less violently and com- 
pletely subverted. The old institutions had 
been spared, or imperfectly eradicated. The 
laws had undergone little alteration. The te- 
nures of the soil were still to be learned from 
Littleton and Coke. The Great Charter was 
mentioned with as much reverence in the 
Parliaments of the Commonwealth as in those 
of any earlier or of any later age. A new Con- 
fession of Faith and a new ritual had been in« 
traduced into the church. But the bulk of the 
ecclesiastical property still remained. The col- 
leges still held their estates. The parson still 
received his tithes. The Lords had. at a crisis 
of great excitement, been excluded bv military 



MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY. 



301 



violence from their House ; but they retained 
their titles and an ample share of public vene- 
ration. When a nobleman made his appear- 
ance in the House of Commons, he was re- 
ceived with ceremonious respect. Those few 
Peers who consented to assist at the inaugura- 
tion of the Protector were placed next to him- 
self, and the most honourable offices of the day 
Are re assigned to them. We learn from the 
debates of Richard's Parliament hoAV strong a 
hold the old aristocracy had on the affections 
cf the people. One member of the House of 
Commons went so far as to say, that unless 
their lordships were peaceably restored, the 
country might soon be convulsed by a Avar 
of the barons. There Avas indeed at that time 
no great party hostile to the Upper House. 

There was nothing exclusive in the consti- 
tution of that body. It was regularly recruited 
from among the most distinguished of the 
country gentlemen, the laAvyers, and the clergy. 
The most powerful nobles of thecentury which 
preceded the civil war, the Duke of Somerset, 
the Duke of Northumberland, Lord Sudley, the 
Earl of Leicester, Lord Burleigh, the Earl of 
Salisbury ,*he Duke of Buckingham, the Earl 
of Strafford, had all been commoners, and had 
all raised themselves, by courtly arts or by 
parliamentary talents, not merely to seats in 
he.House of Lords, but to the first influence 
n that assembly. Nor had the general con- 
duct of the Peers been such as to make them 
unpopular. They had not, indeed, in opposing 
arbitrary measures, shown so much eagerness 
and pertinacity as the Commons. But still 
they had opposed those measures. They had, 
at the beginning of the discontents, a common 
interest with the people. If Charles had suc- 
ceeded in his scheme of governing without 
Parliaments, the consequence of the Peers 
would have been grievously diminished. If 
he had been able to raise taxes by his own au- 
thority, the estates of the Peers would have 
been as much at his mercy as those of the mer- 
chants or the farmers. If he had obtained 
the power of imprisoning his subjects at his 
pleasure, a peer ran far greater risk of in- 
curring the royal displeasure, and of being ac- 
commodated with apartments in the Tower, than 
any city trader or country squire. Accordingly, 
Charles found that the Great Council of Peers 
which he convoked at York would do nothing 
for him. In the most useful reforms which 
were made during the first session of the Long 
Parliament, the Peers concurred heartily Avith 
the Lower House ; and a large and poAverful 
minority of the English nobles stood by the 
popular side through the first years of the Avar. 
At Edgehill, Newbury, Marston, and Naseby, 
the army of the Houses was commanded by 
members of the aristocracy. It Avas not for- 
gotten that a peer had imitated the example of 
Hampden in refusing the payment of the ship- 
money, or that a peer had been among the six 
members of the legislature whom Charles ille- 
gally impeached. 

Thus the old constitution of England was 
without difficulty re-established ; and of all the 
parts of the old constitution the monarchical 
part was, at the time, dearest to the body of the 
people. It had been injudiciously depressed 
20 



and it was in consequence undulj exalted. 
From the day when Charles the First became 
a prisoner, had commenced a reaction in fa- 
vour of his person and of his office. From the 
day when the axe fell on his neck before the 
windows of his palace, that reaction became 
rapid and violent. At the Restoration it had 
attained such a point that it could go no fur. 
ther. The people were ready to place at the 
mercy of their sovereign all their most an 
cient and precious rights. The most servile 
doctrines Avere eagerly avowed. The most 
moderate and constitutional opposition Avas 
condemned. Resistance was epoken of with 
more horror than any crime which a human 
being can commit. The Commons were more 
eager than the king himself to avenge the 
Avrongs of the royal house ; more desirous than 
the bishops themselves to restore the church; 
more ready to give money than the ministers 
to ask for it. They abrogated some of the best 
laAvs passed in the first session of the Long 
Parliament — laAvs which Falkland had sup- 
ported, and Avhich Hyde had not opposed. 
They might probably have been induced to go 
further, and to restore the High Commission 
and the Star-Chamber. All the contemporary 
accounts represent the nation as in a state of 
hysterical excitemeat, of drunken joy. In the 
immense multitude which croAvded the beach 
at Dover, and bordered the road along Avhich 
the king travelled to London, there Aras not 
one who was not weeping. Bonfires blazed. 
Bells jingled. The streets were thronged at 
night by boon companions, who forced all the 
passers by to swallow on their knees brim- 
ming glasses to the health of his Most Sacred 
Majesty, and the damnation of Red-nosed Noll 
That tenderness to the fallen Avhich has, through 
many generations, been a marked feature of 
the national character, was for a time hardly 
discernible. All London crowded to shout and 
laugh round the gibbet where hung the rotting 
remains of a Prince who had made England 
the dread of the Avorld, — who had been the 
chief founder of her maritime greatness and 
of her colonial empire, — who had conquered 
Scotland and Ireland, — who had humbled Hol- 
land and Spain, — the terror of whose name 
had been as a guard round every English tra- 
veller in remote countries, and round every 
Protestant congregation in the heart of Catho- 
lic empires. When some of those brave and 
honest, though misguided men, who had sate 
in judgment on their king, were dragged on 
hurdles to a d^ath of prolonged torture, their 
last prayers were interrupted by the hisses and 
execrations of thousands. 

Such was England in 1660. In 1679 th*s 
Avhole face of things had changed. At the 
former, of those epochs twenty years of com- 
motion had made the majority of the people 
ready to buy repose at any price. At the latter 
epoch, tArenty years of misgovernment had 
made the same majority desirous to obtain 
security for their liberties at any risk. The 
fury of their returning loyalty had spent itself 
in its first outbreak. In a very feAV months 
they had hanged and half-hanged, quartered 
and embowelled enough to satisfy them. The 
Roundhead parry seemed to be not merrl* 



i03 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



overcome, but too much broken and scattered 
ever to rally again. Then commenced the re- 
dux of public opinion. The nation began to 
find out to what a man it had intrusted, without 
conditions, all its dearest interests, — on what 
a man it had lavished all its fondest affection. 
On the ignoble nature of the restored exile, 
adversity "had exhausted all her discipline in 
vain. He had one immense advantage over 
most other princes. Though born in the pur- 
ple, he was far better acquainted with the 
vicissitudes of life and the diversities of cha- 
racter than most of his subjects. He had 
known restraint, danger, penury, and depend- 
ence. He had often suffered from ingratitude, 
insolence, and treachery. He had received 
many signal proofs of faithful and heroic at- 
tachment. He had seen, if ever man saw, 
both sides of human nature. But only one 
side remained in his memory. He had learn- 
ed only to despise and to distrust his species, 
— to consider integrity in men, and modesty in 
women, as mere acting : — nor did he think it 
worth while to keep his opinion to himself. 
He was incapable of friendship; yet he was 
perpetually led by favourites without being in 
the smallest degree duped by them. He knew 
that their regard to his interests Avas all simu- 
lated ; but from a certain easiness which had 
no connection with humanity, he submitted, 
half-laughing at himself, to be made the tool 
of any woman whose person attracted him, or 
of any man whose tattle diverted him. He 
thought little and cared less about religion. 
He seems to have passed his life in dawdling 
suspense between Hobbism and Popery. He 
was crowned in his youth with the Covenant 
in his hand; he died at last with the Host 
sticking in his threat ; and, during most of the 
intermediate years, was occupied in persecut- 
ing both Covenanters and Catholics. He was 
not a tyrant from the ordinary motives. He 
valued power for its own sake little, and fame 
still less. He does not appear to have been 
vindictive, or to have found any pleasing ex- 
citement in cruelty. What he wanted was to 
be amused, — to get through the twenty-four 
hours pleasantly without sitting down to dry 
business. Sauntering was, as Sheffield ex- 
presses it, the true Sultana Queen of his ma- 
jesty's affections. A sitting in council would 
have been insupportable to him if the Duke 
of Buckingham had not been there to make 
mouths at the Chancellor. It has been said, 
and is highly probable, that, in his exile, he 
was quite disposed to sell his rights t? Crom- 
well for a good round sum. To the last, his 
only quarrel with his Parliament was, that 
'hey often gave him trouble and would not al- 
ays give him money. If there was a person 
for whom he ftlt a real regard, that person 
was his brother. If there was a point about 
which he really entertained a scruple of con- 
science or of honour, it was the descent of the 
crown. Yet he was willing to consent to the 
Exclusion Bill for 600,000?.; and the negotia- 
tion was broken off only because he insisted 
i>n being paid beforehand. To do him justice, 
his temper Avas good ; his manners agreeable ; 
his natural talents above mediocrity. But he 
was sensual, frivolous, false, and cold-hearted, 



beyond almost any prince of whom histon 
makes mention. 

Under the government of such a man, the 
English people could not be long in recovering 
from the intoxication of loyalty. They were 
then, as they are still, a brave, proud, and high- 
spirited race, unaccustomed to defeat, to shame, 
or to servitude. The splendid administration 
of Oliver had taught them to consider their 
country as a match for the greatest empires 
of the earth, as the first of maritime powers, 
as the head of the Protestant interest. Though, 
in the day of their affectionate enthusiasm, 
they might sometimes extol the royal preroga- 
tive in terms Avhich would have better become 
the courtiers of Aurungzebe, they were not men 
Avhom it Avas quite safe to take at their Avord. 
They Avere much more perfect in the theory 
than in the practice of passive obedience. 
Though they might deride the austere manners 
and scriptural phrases of the Puritans, they 
were still at heart a religious people. The 
majority saAv no great sin in field-sports, stage- 
plays, promiscuous dances, cards, fairs, starch, 
or false hair. But gross profaneness and li- 
centiousness Avere regarded with general hor- 
ror; and the Catholic religion Avas held in 
utter detestation by nine-tenths of the middle 
class. 

Such Avas the nation Avhich, awaking from 
its rapturous trance, found itself sold to a 
foreign, a despotic, a Popish court, defeated 
on its OAvn seas and rivers by a state of far in- 
ferior resources, — and placed under the rule 
of panders and buffoons. Our ancestors saw 
the best and ablest divines of the age turned 
out of their benefices by hundreds. They saAV 
the prisons filled Avith men guilty of no other 
crime than that of Avorshipping God according 
to the fashion generally prevailing throughout 
Protestant Europe. They saw a Popish queen 
on the throne, and a Popish heir on the steps 
of the throne. They saAv unjust aggression 
folloAved by feeble Avar, and feeble Avar ending 
in disgraceful peace. They saAv a Dutch fleet 
riding triumphant in the Thames; they saw 
the Triple Alliance broken, the Exchequer 
shut up, the public credit shaken, the arms of 
England employed, in shameful subordination 
to France, against a country Avhich seemed 
to be the last asylum of civil and religious 
liberty. They saw Ireland discontented, and 
Scotland in rebellion. They saAv, meantime, 
Whitehall swarming Avith sharpers and cour- 
tesans. They saw harlot after harlot, and 
bastard after bastard, not only raised to the 
highest honours of the peerage, but supplied 
out of the spoils of the honest, industrious, and 
ruined public creditor, with ample means of 
supporting the new dignity. The government 
became more odious every day. Eren in the 
bosom of that very House of Commons, which 
had been elected by the nation in the ecstasy 
of its penitence, of its joy, and of its hope, an 
opposition sprang up and became pcwerful. 
Loyalty Avhich had been proof against all the 
disasters of the civil Avar, which had survived 
the routs of Nasebv and Worcester, Avhich had 
never flinched from sequestration and exile, 
which the Protector could never intimidate or 
seduce, began to fail in this last and hardest 



MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY. 



aoa 



mal. The ^orm had long been gathering. At 
lengtn it burst with a fury which threatened 
the whole frame of society with dissolution. 

When the general election of 1679 took place, 
the nation had retraced the path which it had 
been describing *from 1G40 to 1660. It was 
again in the same mood in which it had been 
when, after twelve years of misgovernment, 
the Long Parliament assembled. In every part 
of the country, the name of courtier had be- 
come a byword of reproach. The old warriors 
of the Covenant again ventured out of those 
retreats in which they had, at the time of the 
Restoration, hid themselves from the insults 
of the triumphant malignants, and in which, 
during twenty years, they had preserved in full 
vigour 

" The unconquerable will 
And study of revenge, immortal hate, 
With courage never to submit or yield, 
And what is else not to be overcome." 

Then were again seen in the streets faces 
which called up strange and terrible recollec- 
tions of the days, when the saints, with the 
high praises of God in their mouths and a two- 
edged swcrd in their hands, had bound kings 
with chains and nobles with links of iron. 
Then were again heard voices which had 
shouted, " Privilege" by the coach of Charles 
I. in the time of his tyranny, and had called 
for "Justice" in Westminster Hall on the day 
of his trial. It has been the fashion to repre- 
sezit the excitement of this period as the effect 
of the Popish Plot. To us it seems perfectly 
clear, that the Popish Plot was rather the effect 
than the cause of the general agitation. It was 
not the disease, but a symptom, though, like 
many other symptoms, it aggravated the seve- 
rity of the disease. In 1660 or 1661, it would 
have been utterly out of the power of such men 
as Oates or Bedloe to give any serious dis- 
turbance to the government. They would 
have been laughed at, pilloried, well pelted, 
soundly whipped, and speedily forgotten. In 
1678 or 1679, there would have been an out- 
break, if those men had never been born. For 
years things had been steadily tending to such 
a consummation. Society was one mass of 
combustible matter. No mass so vast and so 
combustible ever waited long for a spark. 

Rational men, we suppose, are now fully 
agreed, that by far the greater part, if not the 
whole of Oates's story, was a pure fabrication. 
It is indeed highly probable, that, during his 
intercourse with the Jesuits, he may have 
heard much wild talk about the best means of 
re-establishing the Catholic religion in Eng- 
land ; and that from some of the absurd day- 
dreams of the zealots with whom he then asso- 
ciated, he may have taken hints for his narra- 
tive. But we do not believe that he was privy 
to any thing which deserved the name of con- 
spiracy. And it is quite certain, that if there 
be any small portion of truth in his evidence, 
that portion is so deeply buried in falsehood, 
.hat no human skill can now effect a separa- 
tion. We must not, however, forget, that we 
see his story by the light of much information 
which his contemporaries did not at first pos- 
sess. We have nothing to say for the witness- 
es ; but something in mitigation to offer o» be- 



half of the public. We o\m that the credulity 
which the nation showed on that occasion seems 
to us, though censurable indeed, yet not wholly 
inexcusable. 

Our ancestors knew, from the experience of 
several generations at home and abroad, how 
restless and encroaching was the dispositioc 
of the Church of Rome. The heir-apparent to 
the crown was a bigoted member of thai 
church. The reigning king seemed far more 
inclined to show favour to that church than tc 
the Presbyterians. He was the intimate ally, 
or rather the hired servant, of a powerful king> 
who had already given proofs of his determi- 
nation to tolerate within his dominions no 
other religion than that of Rome. The Catho- 
lics had begun to talk a bolder language than 
formerly, and to anticipate the restoration of 
their worship in all its ancient dignity and 
splendour. At this juncture, it is rumoured 
that a Popish plot has been discovered. A 
distinguished Catholic is arrested on suspicion 
It appears that he has destroyed almost all his 
papers. A few letters, however, have escaped 
the flames : and these letters are found to con- 
tain much alarming matter, strange expres- 
sions about subsidies from France, allusions 
to a vast scheme which would " give the great- 
est blow to the Protestant religion that it ever 
received;" and which "would utterly subdue 
a pestilent heresy." It was natural that those 
who saw these expressions, in letters which 
had been overlooked, should suspect that there 
was some horrible villany in those which had 
been carefully destroyed. Such was the feel- 
ing of the House of Commons : " Question, 
question ! Coleman's letters !" was the cry 
which drowned the voices of the minority. 

Just after the discovery of these papers, a 
magistrate, who had been distinguished by hi3 
independent spirit, and who had taken the de- 
position of the informer, is found murdered 
under circumstances which render it almost 
incredible that he should have fallen either by 
robbers or by his own hands. Many of our 
readers can remember the state of London just 
after the murders of Mar and Williamson, — 
the terror which was on every face, — the care- 
ful barring of doors, — the providing of blunder- 
busses and watchmen's rattles. We know of 
a shopkeeper who on that occasion sold three 
hundred rattles in about ten hours. Those who 
remember that panic may be able to form some 
notion of the state of England after the death 
of Godfrey. Indeed, we must say, that, after 
having read and weighed all the evidences 
now extant on that mysterious subject, we in- 
clined to the opinion that he was assassinated, 
and assassinated by Catholics, — not assuredly 
by Catholics of the least weight or note, but by 
some of those crazy and vindictive fanatics, 
who may be found in every large sect, and 
who are peculiarly likely to abound in a perse 
cuted sect. Some of the violent Cameronians 
had recently, under similar exasperation, com- 
mitted similar crimes. 

It was natural there should be a panic; and 
it was natural that the people should, in a 
panic, be unreasonable and credulous. It must 
be remembered also that they had not at iirst, 
as we have, the means of comparing; th<_ ev'. 



304 



MAOATJLAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



dence which was given on different trials. 
They were not aware of one-tenth part of the 
contradictions and absurdities which Oates 
had committed. The blunders, for example, 
into which he fell before the counsel ; his mis- 
take about the person of Don John of Austria; 
and about the situation of the Jesuits' College 
at Paris, were not publicly known. He was a 
bad man ; but the spies and deserters by whom 
governments are informed of conspiracies are 
generally bad men. His story was strange 
and frightful ; but it was not more strange or 
frightful than a well-authenticated Popish plot, 
which some few people then living might re- 
member — the Gunpowder treason. Oates's 
account of the burning of London was in it- 
self by no means so improbable as the project 
of blowing up King, Lords, and Commons, — 
a project which had not only been entertained 
by very distinguished Catholics, but which 
had very narrowly missed of success. As to 
the design on the king's person, all the world 
knew, that, within a century, two kings of 
France and a prince of Orange had been mur- 
dered by Catholics, purely from religious en- 
thusiasm, — that Elizabeth had been in constant 
danger of a similar fate, — and that such at- 
tempts, to say the least, had not been discou- 
raged by the highest authority of the Church of 
Rome. The characters of some of the accused 
persons stood high ; but so did that of Anthony 
Babington, and of Everard Digby. Those who 
suffered denied their guilt to the last ; but no 
person versed in criminal proceedings would 
attach any importance to this circumstance. 
It was well known also that the most distin- 
guished Catholic casuists had written largely 
in defence of regicide, of mental reservation, 
and of equivocation. It was not quite impos- 
sible, that men whose minds had been nou- 
rished with the writings of such casuists might 
think themselves justified in denying a charge 
which, if acknowledged, would bring great 
scandal on the church. The trials of the ac- 
cused Catholics were exactly like all the state- 
trials of those days ; that is to say, as infamous 
as they could be. They were neither fairer 
nor less fair than those of Algernon Sydney, 
of Roswell, of Cornish, — of all the unhappy 
men, in short, whom a predominant party 
brought to what was then facetiously called 
justice. Till the Revolution purifiedjour in- 
stitutions and our manners, a state trial was 
a murder preceded by the uttering of certain 
gibberish and the performance of certain 
mummeries. 

When the Houses met in the autumn of 
1678, the Opposition had the great body of the 
nation with them. Thrice the king dissolved 
the Parliament; and thrice the constituent 
body sent him back representatives fully de- 
termined to keep strict watch on all his mea- 
sures, and to exclude his brother from the 
throne. Had the character of Charles resem- 
bled that of his father, this intestine discord 
would infallibly have ended in a civil war. 
Obstinacy and passion would have been his 
ruin. His levity and apathy were his security. 
He resembled one of those light Indian boats, 
which are safe because they are pliant, which 
yield to the impact of every wave, and which 



therefore bound without danger through a surf 
in which a vessel ribbed with heart of oalj 
would inevitably perish. The only thing abou 
which his mind was unalterably made up was, 
that, to use his own phrase, he would not go 
on his travels again for anybody, or for any 
thing. His easy, indolent behaviour produced 
all the effects of the most artful policy. He 
suffered things to take their course; and if 
Achitophel had been at one of his ears, and 
Machiavel at the other, they could have given 
him no better advice than to let things take 
their course. He gave way to the violence of 
the movement, and waited for the correspond- 
ing violence of the rebound. He exhibited 
himself to his subjects in the interesting cha- 
racter of an oppressed king, who was ready to 
do any thing to please them, and who asked 
of them, in return, only some consideration for 
his conscientious scruples, and for his feel- 
ings of natural affection, — who was ready to 
accept any ministers, to grant any guarantees 
to public liberty, but who could not find it in 
his heart to take away his brother's birthright. 
Nothing more was necessary. He had to deal 
with a people whose noble weakness it has 
always been, not to press too hardly on the van- 
quished, — with a people, the lowest and most 
brutal of whom cry " Shame !" if they see a 
man struck when he is on the ground. The 
resentment which the nation had felt towards 
the court began to abate as soon as the court 
was manifestly unable to offer any resistance. 
The panic which Godfrey's death had excited 
gradually subsided. Every day brought to light 
some new falsehood or contradiction in the 
stories of Oates and Bedloe. The people were 
glutted with the blood of Papists, as they had, 
twenty years before, been glutted with the blood 
of regicides. When the first sufferers in the 
plot were brought to the bar, the witnesses for 
the defence were in danger of being torn in 
pieces by the mob. Judges, jurors, and specta- 
tors seemed equally indifferent to justice, and 
equally eager for revenge. Lord Strafford, the 
last sufferer, was pronounced not guilty by a 
large minority of his peers ; and when he pro- 
tested his innocence on the scaffold, the people 
cried out, " God bless you, my lord : we believe 
you, my lord." The extreme folly of the Oppo- 
sition in setting up the feeble and pusillani- 
mous Monmouth as a claimant of the throne did 
them great harm. The story about the box and 
the marriage-contract was an absurd romance ; 
and the attempt to make a son of Lucy Walters, 
King of England, was alike offensive to the pride 
of the nobles and to the moral feeling of the mid- 
dle class. The old Cavalier party, the great ma 
jority of the landed gentry, the clergy, and the 
universities, almost to a man, began to draw 
together, and to form in close array round the 
throne. v 

A similar reaction had begun to take place 
in favour of Charles I. during the second ses- 
sion of the Long Parliament ; and if that prince 
had been honest or sagacious enough to keep 
himself strictly within the limits of the law, we 
have not the smallest doubt that he would in a 
few months have found himself at least as 
powerful as his best friends, Lord Falkland. 
Culpeper, or Hyde, would have wished to see 



MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY. 



805 



him. By illegally impeaching the leaders of 
the Opposition, and by making in person a 
wicked attempt on the House of Commons, he 
stopped and turned back that tide of loyal feel- 
ing which was just beginning to run strongly. 
The son, quite as little restrained by law or by 
honour as the father, was, luckily for himself, 
a man of a lounging, careless temper; and, 
from temper, we believe, rather than from 
policy, escaped that great error which had 
cost the father so dear. Instead of trying to 
pluck the fruit before it was ripe, he lay still 
till it fell mellow into his very mouth. If he 
had arrested Lord Shaftesbury and Lord Russel 
in a manner not warranted by law, it is hot 
improbable that he would have ended his life 
in exile. He took the sure course. He em- 
ployed only his legal prerogatives, and he found 
them amply sufficient for his purpose. 

During the first eighteen or nineteen years 
of his reign, he had been playing the game of 
his enemies. From 1678 to 1681, his enemies 
had played his game. They owed their power 
to hi ; misgovernment. He owed the recovery 
of hi:', pow^r to their violence. The great body 
of the people came back to him after their es- 
trangement with impetuous affection. He had 
scarcely been more popular when he landed on 
the coast of Kent than when, after several 
years of restraint and humiliation, he dissolved 
his last Parliament 

Nevertheless, while this flux and reflux of 
opinion went on, the cause of public liberty 
was steadily gaining. There had been a great 
reactir n in favour of the throne at the Restora- 
tion. But the Star-Chamber, the High Com- 
mission, and ship-money, had forever disap- 
peared. There was now another similar re- 
action. But the Habeas Corpus Act had been 
passed during the short predominance of the 
Opposition, and it was not repealed. 

The king, however, supported as he was by 
the nation, was quite strong enough to inflict a 
terrible revenge on the party which had lately 
held him in bondage. In 1681 commenced the 
third of those periods into which we have 
divided the history of England from the Resto- 
ration to the Revolution. During this period, 
a third great reaction look place. The ex- 
cesses of tyranny restored to the cause of 
liberty the hearts which had been alienated 
from that cause by the excesses of faction. In 
1681, the king had almost all his enemies at his 
feet. In 1688, the king was an exile in a strange 
land. 

The whole of that machinery which had 
lately been in motion against the Papists was 
now put in motion against the Whigs — brow- 
beating judges, packed jurors, lying witnesses, 
clamorous spectators. The ablest chief of the 
party fled to a foreign country and died there. 
The most virtuous man of the party was be- 
headed. Another of its most distinguished 
members preferred a voluntary death to* the 
shame of a public execution. The boroughs 
on which the government could not depend 
were, by means of legal quibbles, deprived of 
their charters ; and their constitution was re- 
modelled in such a manner as almost to insure 
the return of representatives devoted to the 
court. All parts of the kingdom emulously 



sent up the most extravagant assurances of 
the love which they bore to their sovereign, 
and of the abhorrence with which they re- 
garded those who questioned the divine origin 
or the boundless extent of his power. It is 
scarcely necessary to say, that in this hot com- 
petition of bigots and slaves, the University of 
Oxford had the unquestioned pre-eminence. 
The glory of being farther behind the age than 
any other class of the British people, is one 
which that learned body acquired early, and 
has never lost ! 

Charles died, and his brother came to the 
throne ; but though the person of the sovereign 
was changed, the love and awe with which the 
office was regarded were undiminished. In- 
deed, it seems that, of the two princes, James 
was, in spite of his religion, rather the favourite 
of the High Church party. He had been espe- 
cially singled out as the mark of the Whigs, 
and this circumstance sufficed to make him 
the idol of the Tories. He called a Parliament. 
The loyal gentry of the counties, and the packed 
voters of the remodelled boroughs, gave him a 
Parliament such as England had not seen for a 
century — a Parliament beyond all comparison 
the most obsequious that ever sate under a 
prince of the house of Stuart. One insurrec 
tionary movement, indeed, took place in Eng- 
land, and another in Scotland. Both were put 
down with ease, and punished with tremendous 
severity. Even after that bloody circuit, which 
will never be forgotten while the English race 
exists in any part of the globe, no member of 
the House of Commons ventured to whisper 
even the mildest censure of Jeffries. Edmund 
Waller, emboldened by his great age and his 
high reputation, attacked the cruelty of the 
military chiefs ; and this is the brightest part 
of his long and checkered public life. But 
even Waller did not venture to arraign the still 
more odious cruelty of the Chief Justice. It is 
hardly too much to say that James, at that time, 
had little reason to envy the extent of authority 
possessed by Louis XIV. 

By what means this vast power was in three 
years broken down — by what perverse and 
frantic misgovernment the tyrant revived the 
spirit of the vanquished Whigs, turned to fixed 
hostility the neutrality of the trimmers, and 
drove from him the landed gentry, the church, 
the army, his own creatures, his own children 
— is well known to our readers. But we wish 
to say something about one part of the ques- 
tion, which in our own time has a little puzzled 
some very worthy men, and upon which the 
"Continuation" before us pours forth, as might 
be expected, much nonsense. ^ 

James, it is said, declared himself a "sup- 
porter of toleration. If he violated the consti- 
tution, he at least violated it for one of the 
noblest ends that any statesman e^er had in 
view. His object was to free millions of his 
countrymen from penal laws and disabilities 
which hardly any person now considers as 
just. He ought, therefore, to be regarded as* 
blameless, or, at worst, as guilty only of em- 
ploying irregular means to effect a most prais»*. 
worthy purpose. A very ingenious man, whom 
we believe to be a Catholic, Mr. Banim, has 
written an historical novel, of the literary men* 



300 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WAITINGS 



of which we cannot speak very highly, for the 
purpose of inculcating this opinion. The edi- 
tor of Sir James Mackintosh's Fragment as- 
sures us that the standard of James bore the 
nobler inscription, and so forth ; the meaning 
of which is, that William and the other authors 
of the Revolution were vile Whigs, who drove 
out James for being a Radical — that the crime 
of the king was his going farther in liberality 
than his subjects — that he was the real cham- 
pion of freedom, and that Somers, Locke, 
Newton, and other narrow-minded people of 
the same sort, were the real bigots and op- 
pressors. 

Now, we admit that if the premises can be 
made out, the conclusion follows. If it can be 
shown that James did sincerely wish to esta- 
blish perfect freedom of conscience, we shall 
think his conduct deserving, not only of indul- 
gence, but of praise. We shall applaud even 
his illegal acts. We conceive that so noble 
and salutary an object would have justified 
resistance on the part of subjects. We can 
therefore scarcely deny that it would justify 
encroachment on the part of a king. But it 
can be proved, we think, on the strongest evi- 
dence, that James hat 1 no such object in view; 
and that, under the pretence of establishing 
perfect religious liberty, he was establishing 
the ascendency and the exclusive dominion of 
the Church of Rome. 

It is true that he professes himself a sup- 
porter of toleration. Every sect clamours for 
toleration when it is down. We have not the 
smallest doubt that, when Bonner was in the 
Marshalsea, he thought it a very hard thing 
that a man should be locked tip in a jail for 
not being able to understand the words " This 
is my body" in the same way with the lords 
of the Council. It would be thought strange 
logic to conclude that a beggar is full of Chris- 
tian charity because he assures you that God 
will reward you if you give him a penny; or 
that a soldier is humane because he cries out 
lustily for quarter when a bayonet is at his 
I throat. The doctrine which, from the very first 
origin of religious dissensions, has been held 
by all bigots of all sects, when condensed into 
a few words and stripped of all rhetorical dis- 
guise, is simply this — I am in the right, and 
you are in the wrong. When you are the 
stronger, you ought to tolerate me ; for it is 
your duty to tolerate the truth. But when I 
am the stronger, I shall persecute you ; for it 
is my duty to persecute error. 

The Catholics lay under severe restraints in 
England. James wished to remove those re- 
straints, and therefore he held a language 
favourable to liberty of conscience. But the 
whole history of his life proves that this was 
a mere pretence. In 1679 he held similar lan- 
guage in a conversation with the magistrates 
of Amsterdam, and the author of the " Con- 
tinuation" refers to this circumstance as a 
proof that the king had long entertained a 
strong feeling on the subject. Unhappily it 
proves only the utter insincerity of all the 
king's later professions. If he had pretended 
to be converted to the doctrines of toleration 
after his accession to the throne, some credit 
might have been due to his professions. But 



we know most certainly that in 1679, and .ong 
after that year, James was a most bloody and 
remorseless persecutor. After 1679 he was 
placed at the head of the government of Scot- 
land. And what had been his conduct in that 
country ? He had hunted down the scattered 
remnant of the Covenanters with a barbarity 
of which no prince of modern times, Philip the 
Second excepted, had ever shown himself ca« 
pable. He had indulged himself in the amuse- 
ment of seeing the torture of the "Boot" in- 
flicted on the wretched enthusiasts whom per- 
secution had driven to resistance. After his 
accession, almost his first act was to obtain 
from the servile Parliament of Scotland a law 
for inflicting death on preachers at conventi- 
cles held within houses, and on both preachers 
and hearers at conventicles held in the open air. 
And all this he had done for a religion which 
was not his own. All this he had done, not in 
defence of truth against error, but in defence 
of one damnable error against another — in de- 
fence of the Episcopalian against the Presby- 
terian apostasy. Louis XIV. is justly censured 
for trying to dragoon his subjects to Heaven. 
But it was reserved for James to torture and 
murder for the difference between the two roads 
to hell. And this man, so deeply imbued with 
the poison of intolerance, that rather than not 
persecute at all he would persecute men out 
of one heresy into another — this man is held 
up as the champion of religious liberty ! — This 
man, who persecuted in the cause of the un- 
clean panther, would not, we are told, have 
persecuted for the sake of the milk-white and 
immortal hind ! 

And what was the conduct of James at the 
very time when he was professing zeal for 
the rights of conscience ? Was he not even 
then persecuting to the very best of his power? 
Was he not employing all his legal preroga- 
tives, and many prerogatives which were not 
legal, for the purpose of forcing his subjects 
to conform to his creed! While he pretended to 
abhor the laws which excluded dissenters from 
office, was he not himself dismissing from office 
his ablest, his most experienced, his most faith- 
ful servants, on account of their religious opi- 
nions'? For what offence was Lord Rochester 
driven from the treasury? He was closely con- 
nected with the royal house. He was at the 
head of the Tory party. He had stood firmly 
by James in the most trying emergencies. But 
he would not change his religion, and he was 
dismissed. That we may not be suspected of 
overstating the case, Dr. Lingard, a very com- 
petent, and assuredly not a very willing wit- 
ness, shall speak for us. "The king," says 
that able but partial writer, "was disappointed; 
he complained to Barillon of the obstinacy and 
insincerity of the treasurer ; , and the latter re- 
ceived from the French envoy a very intelli- 
gible hint that the loss of office would result 
from his adhesion to his religious creed. He 
was, however, inflexible, and James, after a 
long delay, communicated to him, but with 
considerable embarrassment and many tears, 
his final determination. He had hoped, he 
said, that Rochester, by conforming to the 
Church of Rome, would have spared him the 
unpleasant task; but kings must sacrifice their 



MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY. 



807 



feelings to their duty." And this was the king 
Who wished to have all men of all sects ren- 
dered alike capable of holding office. These 
proceedings were alone sufficient to take away 
all credit from his liberal professions; and 
such, as we learn from the despatches of the 
Papal Nuncio, was really the effect. " Pare," 
says D'Adda, writing a few days after the re- 
tirement of Rochester, "pare che gli animi 
soni inaspriti della voce che corre tra il po- 
polo, d'esser cacciato il detto ministro per non 
essere Cattolico, percio tirarsi al estermino de 
Protestanti." Was it ever denied that the fa- 
vours of the crown were constantly bestowed 
and withheld purely on account of the reli- 
gious opinions of the claimants'! And if these 
things were done in the green tree, what would 
have been done in the dry] If James acted 
thus when he had the strongest motives to 
court his Protestant subjects, what course was 
he likely to follow when he had obtained from 
them all that he asked 1 

Who again was his closest ally ] And what 
was the policy of that ally 1 The subjects of 
James, it is true, did not know half the infamy of 
their sovereign. They did not know, as we know, 
that while he was lecturing them on the bless- 
ings of equal toleration, he was constantly con- 
gratulating his good brother Louis on the suc- 
cess of that intolerant policy which had turned 
the fairest tracts of France into- deserts, and 
driven into exile myriads of the most peace- 
able, industrious, and skilful artisans in the 
world. But the English did know that the two 
princes Avere bound together in the closest 
union. They saw their sovereign, with tolera- 
tion on his lips, separating himself from those 
etates which had first set the example of tolera- 
tion, and connecting himself by the strongest 
ties with the most faithless and merciless per- 
secutor who could then be found on any con- 
tinental throne. 

By what advice again was James guided 1 
Who were the persons in whom he placed the 
greatest confidence, and who took the warmest 
interest in his schemes ] The ambassador of 
France, — the nuncio of Rome, — and Father 
Petre the Jesuit. These were the people who 
showed the greatest anxiety that the king's plan 
might succeed. And is not this enough to prove 
that the establishment of equal toleration was 
not that plan ] Was Louis for toleration ] Was 
the Vatican for toleration 1 Was the order of 
Jesuits for toleration ] We know that the li- 
beral professions of James were highly ap- 
proved by those very governments, by those 
very societies, whose theory and practice it no- 
toriously was to keep no faith with heretics, 
and to give no quarter to heretics. And are 
we, in order to save James's reputation for sin- 
cerity, to believe that all at once those govern- 
ments and those societies had changed their 
nature, — had discovered the criminality of all 
their former conduct, — had adopted principles 
far more liberal than those of Locke, of Leigh- 
ton, or of Tillotson 1 Which is the more pro- 
bable supposition, — that the king who had re- 
voked the edict of Nantes, the pope under 
whose sanction the Inquisition was then im- 
prisoning and burning, the religious order 
which, in every controversy in which it had 



ever been engaged, had called in the aid eithel 
of the magistrate or of the assassin, should hav« 
become as thorough-going friends to religious 
liberty as Dr. Franklin or Mr. Jefferson after- 
wards were, — or, that a Jesuit-ridden bigot 
should be induced to dissemble for the good 
of the church 1 

The game which the Jesuits were playing 
was no new game. A hundred years before, 
they had preached up political freedom, just 
as they were now preaching up religious free- 
dom. They had tried to raise the republicans 
against Henry the Fourth and Elizabeth, just 
as they were now trying to raise the Protestant 
Dissenters against the Church Establishment. 
In the sixteenth century, the tools of Philip the 
Second were constantly teaching doctrines that 
bordered on Jacobinism, — constantly insisting 
on the right of the people to cashier kings, and 
of every private citizen to plunge his dagger 
in the heart of a wicked ruler. In the seven- 
teenth century, the persecutors of the Hugue- 
nots were crying out against the tyranny of the 
Established Church of England, and vindicat- 
ing with the utmost fervour the right of all 
men to adore God after their own fashion. In 
both cases they were alike insincere. In both 
cases the fool who had trusted them would have 
found himself miserably duped. A good and 
wise man would doubtless disapprove of the 
arbitrary measures of Elizabeth. But would 
he have really served the interests of political 
liberty, if he had put faith in the professions 
of the Romish casuists, joined their party, and 
taken a share in Northumberland's revolt,. or in 
Babington's conspiracy] Would he not have 
been assisting to establish a far worse and 
more loathsome tyranny than that which he 
was trying to put down ] In the same manner, 
a good and wise man would doubtless see very- 
much to condemn in the conduct of the Church 
of England under the Stuarts. But was he 
therefore to join the king and the Catholics 
against that Church ] And was it not plain, 
that, by so doing, he would assist in setting up 
a spiritual despotism, compared with which the 
despotism of the establishment was as a little 
finger to the loins, — as chastisement with whips 
to chastisement with scorpions ] 

Louis had a far stronger mind than James. 
He had at least an equally high sense of honour 
He was in a much less degree the slave of his 
priests. He had promised to respect the edict 
of Nantes as solemnly as ever James had pro- 
mised to respect the religious liberty of the 
English people. Had Louis kept his word] 
And was not one such instance of treachery 
enough for one generation ] 

The plan of James seems to us perfectly in 
telligible. The toleration, which, with the con- 
currence and applause of all the most cruel 
persecutors in Europe, he was offering to his 
people, was meant simply to divide them. This 
is the most obvious and vulgar of political arti- 
fices. We have seen it employed a hundred 
times within our own memory. At this mo- 
ment Ave see the Carlists in France hallooing 
on the " extreme left" against the " centre left." 
Four years ago the same trick was practised 
in England. We have heard old buyers an<3 
sellers of boroughs, — men Avho had been seated 



308 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



in the House of Commons by the unsparing 
use of ejectments, and who had, through their 
whole lives, opposed every measure which 
tended to increase the power of the democracy, 
—abusing the Reform Bill as not democratic 
enough, appealing to the labouring classes, 
execrating the tyranny of the ten-pound house- 
holders, and exchanging compliments and ca- 
resses with the most noted incendiaries of our 
times. The cry of universal toleration was em- 
ployed by James just as the cry of universal 
suffrage was lately employed by some veteran 
Tories. The object of the mock democrats of 
our time was to produce a conflict between the 
middle classes and the multitude, and thus to 
prevent all reform. The object of James was to 
produce a conflict between the Church and the 
Protestant Dissenters, and thus to facilitate the 
victory of the Catholics over both. 

We do not believe that he could have suc- 
ceeded. But we do not think his plan so ut- 
terly frantic and hopeless as it has generally 
been thought ; and we are sure that, if he had 
been allowed to gain his first point, the people 
would have had no remedy left but an appeal 
to physical force, — an appeal, too, which would 
have been made under the most unfavourable 
circumstances. He conceived that the Tories, 
hampered by their professions of passive obe- 
dience, would have submitted to his pleasure ; 
and that the Dissenters, seduced by his delusive 
promises of relief, would have given him stre- 
nuous support. In this way he hoped to obtain 
a law, nominally for the removal of* all religious 
disabilities, but really for the excluding of all 
Protestants from all offices. It is never to be 
forgotten, that a prince who has all the pa- 
tronage, of the state in his hands can, without 
violating the letter of the law, establish what- 
ever test he chooses. And, from the whole 
conduct of James, we have not the smallest 
doubt that he would have availed himself of his 
power to the utmost. The statute-book might 
declare all Englishmen equally capable of hold- 
ing office ; but to what end, if all offices were 
in the gift of a sovereign resolved not to em- 
ploy a single heretic 1 We firmly believe that 
not one post in the government, in the army, 
in the navy, on the bench, or at the bar — not 
one peerage, nay, not one ecclesiastical bene- 
fice in the royal gift, would have been bestowed 
on any Protestant of any persuasion. Even 
while the king had still strong motives to dis- 
semble, he had made a Catholic Dean of Christ 
Church, and a Catholic President of Magdalen 
College. There seems to be no doubt that the 
See of York was kept vacant for another Ca- 
tholic. If James had been suffered to follow 
this course for twenty years, every military 
man, from a general to a drummer, every offi- 
cer of a ship, every judge, every king's coun- 
cil, every lord-lieutenant of a county, every 
justice of the peace, every ambassador, every 
minister of state, every person employed in the 
royal household, in the custom-house, in the 
post-office, in the excise, would have been a 
Catholic. The Catholics would have had a 
majority in the House of Lords, even if that 
majority had been made, to use Sunderland's 
phrase, by calling up a whole troop of the 
Uuards to that House. They would have had. 



we believe, the chief weight even in the Convo 
cation. Every bishop, every dean, every holdei 
of a crown living, every head of every collega 
which was subject to the royal power, would 
have belonged to the Church of Rome. Almost 
all the places of liberal education would have 
been under the direction of Catholics. The 
whole power of licensing books would have 
been in the hands of Catholics. All this im- 
mense mass of power would have been stea- 
dily supported by the arms and by the gold of 
France, and would have descended to an heir, 
whose whole education would have been con- 
ducted with a view to one single end, — the com- 
plete re-establishment of the Catholic religion. 
The House of Commons Avould have been the 
only legal obstacle. But the rights of a great 
portion of the electors were at the mercy of the 
courts of law, and the courts of law were abso- 
lutely dependent on the crown. We cannot 
think it altogether impossible that a house 
might have been packed which would have re- 
stored the days of Mary. 

We certainly do not believe that this would 
have been tamely borne. But we do believe 
that, if the nation had been deluded by the 
king's professions of toleration, all this would 
have been attempted, and could have been 
averted only by a most bloody and destruc 
tive contest, in which the whole Protestam 
population would have been opposed to the 
Catholics. On the one side would have been 
a vast numerical superiority. But on the 
other side would have been the whole organi- 
zation of government, and two great disciplined 
armies, that of James and that of Louis. We 
do not doubt that the nation would have 
achieved its deliverance. But we believe that 
the struggle would have shaken the whole fa- 
bric of society, and that the vengeance of the 
conquerors would have been terrible and un 
sparing. 

But James was stopped at the outset. He 
thought himself secure of the Tories, because 
they professed to consider all resistance as sin- 
ful — and of the Protestant Dissenters, because 
he offered them relief. He was in the wrong 
as to both. The error into which he fell about 
the Dissenters was very natural. But the con 
fidence which he placed in the loyal assurances 
of the High Church party was the most exqui- 
sitely ludicrous proof of folly that a politician 
ever gave. 

Only imagine a man actjng for one single 
day on the supposition that all his neighbours 
believe all that they profess, and act up 10 what 
they believe. Imagine a man acting on the 
supposition, that he may safely offer the dead- 
liest injuries and insults to everybody who 
says that revenge is sinful ; or that he may 
safely intrust all his property without security 
to any person, who says that it is wrong tc 
steal. Such a character would be too absurd 
for the wildest farce. Yet the folly of James 
did not stop short of this incredible extent. 
Because the clergy had declared that resistance 
to oppression was in no case lawful, he con- 
ceived that he might oppress them exactly as 
much as he chose, without the smallest danger 
of resistance. He quite forgot that when they 
magnified the royal prerogative, that prero^a- 



MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY. 



300 



live was exerted on ;heir side — that when they 
oreached endurance, they had nothing to en- 
dure — that when they declared it unlawful to 
resist evil, none but Whigs and Dissenters 
suffered any evil. It had never occurred to him 
that a man feels the calamities of his enemies 
with one sort of sensibility, and his own with 
quite a different sort. It had never occurred to 
him as possible that a reverend divine might 
think it the duty of Baxter and Bunyan to bear 
insults, and to lie in dungeons without murmur- 
ing ; and yet, when he saw, the smallest chance 
that his own prebend might be transferred to 
some sly Father from Italy or Flanders, might 
begin to discover much matter for useful medi- 
tation in the texts touching Ehud's, knife and 
Jael's hammer. His majesty was not aware, 
it should seem, that people do sometimes re- 
consider their opinions, and that nothing more 
disposes a man to reconsider his opinions 
than a suspicion that, if he adheres to them, he 
is very likely to be a beggar or a martyr. Yet 
it seems strange that these truths should have 
escaped the royal mind. Those Churchmen 
who had signed the Oxford declaration in fa- 
Tonr of passive obedience had also signed the 
thirty-nine articles. And yet the very man 
who confidently expected that, by a little coax- 
ing and bullying, he should induce them to re- 
nounce the articles, was thunderstruck when 
he found that they were disposed to soften 
down the doctrines of the declaration. Nor 
did it necessarily follow that even if the theory 
of the Tories had undergone no modification, 
their practice would coincide with their theory. 
It might, one should think, have crossed the 
mind of a man of fifty, who had seen a great 
deal of the world, that people sometimes do 
what they think wrong. Though a prelate 
might hold that Paul directs us to obey even 
a Nero, it might not, on that account, be perfect- 
ly safe to treat the Right Reverend Father in 
God after the fashion of Nero, in the hope that 
he would continue to obey on the principles 
of Paul. The king indeed had only to look at 
home. He was at least as much attached to 
the Catholic Church as any Tory gentleman or 
clergyman could be to the Church of England. 
Adultery was at least as strongly condemned 
by his Church as resistance by the Church of 
England. Yet his priests could not keep him 
from Arabella Sedley. While he was risking 
his crown for the sake of his soul, he was risk- 
ing his soul for the .sake of an ugly, dirty mis- 
tress. There is something delightfully gro- 
tesque in the spectacle of a man who, while 
living in the habitual violation of his own 
known duties, is unable to believe that any 
temptation can draw any other person aside 
from the path of virtue. 

James was disappointed in all his calcula- 
tions. His hope was, that the Tories would 
follow their principles, and that the Noncon- 
formists would follow their interests. Exactly 
the reverse took place. The Tories sacrificed 
the principle of non-resistance to their inte- 
rests : the Nonconformists rejected the delu- 
sive offers of the king, and stood firmly by 
their principles. The two parties whose strife 
bad conrulsed the empire during half a centu- 
ry, were united for a moment; and all that 



vast royal power which three years before had 
seemed immovably fixed, vanished at once 
like chaff in a hurricane. 

The very great length to which this article 
has already been extended, renders it impossi 
ble for us to discuss, as we had meant to do, 
the characters and conduct of the leading Eng« 
lish statesmen at this crisis. But we must 
offer a few remarks on the spirit and tendency 
of the Revolution of 1688. 

The editor of this volume quotes the Decla- 
ration of Right, and tells us, that by looking at 
it, we may "judge at a glance whether the au- 
thors of the Revolution achieved all they might 
and ought, in their position, to have achieved 
— whether the Commons of England did their 
duty to their constituents, their country, poste- 
rity, and universal freedom." We are at a loss 
to imagine how even this writer can have read 
and transcribed the Declaration of Right, and 
yet have so utterly misconceived its nature. 
That famous document is, as its very name 
imports, declaratory, and not remedial. It was 
never meant to be a measure of reform. It 
neither contained, nor was designed to con- 
tain, any allusion to those innovations which the 
authors of the Revolution considered as desira- 
ble, and which they speedily proceeded to make. 
The Declaration was merely a recital of certain 
old and wholesome laws which had been violat- 
ed by the Stuarts ; and a solemn protest against 
the validity of any precedent which might be 
set up in opposition to those laws. The words, 
as quoted by the writer himself, ran thus : 
"They do claim, demand, and insist upon all 
and singular the premises as their undoubted 
rights and liberties." Before a man begins to 
make improvements on his estate, he must 
know its boundaries. Before a legislature sits 
down to reform a constitution, it is fit to ascer- 
tain what that constitution really is. This was 
all that the declaration intended to do; and to 
quarrel with it because it did not directly in- 
troduce any beneficial changes, is to quarrel 
with meat for not being clothing. 

The principle on which the authors of the 
Revolution acted cannot be mistaken. They 
were perfectly aware that the English institu- 
tions stood in need of reform. But they also 
knew that an important point was gained if 
they could settle, once for all, by a solemn 
compact, the matters which had, during severa. 
generations, been in controversy between the 
Parliament and the crown. They therefore 
most judiciously abstained from mixing up th« 
irritating and perplexing question of what 
ought to be the law, with the plain question of 
what was the law. As to the claims set forth 
in the Declaration of Right, there was little room 
for debate. Whigs and Tories were generally 
agreed as to the legality of the dispensing 
power, and of taxation imposed by the royal 
prerogative. The articles were therefore ad 
justed in a very few days. But if the Parlia 
ment had determined to revise the whole con 
stitution, and to provide new securities against 
misgovernment, before proclaiming the new 
sovereigns, months would have been lost in 
disputes. The coalition which had delivered 
the country would have been instantly dis« 
solved. The Whrgs Avould have cuarreded 



910 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



with the Tories, the Lords with the Commons, 
the Church with the Dissenters ; and all this 
storm of conflicting interests and conflicting 
theories would have been raging round a va- 
cant throne. In the mean time, the greatest 
power on the continent was attacking our al- 
lies, and meditating a descent on our own ter- 
ritories. Dundee was raising the Highlands. 
The authority of James was still owned by the 
Irish. If the authors of the Revolution had 
been fools enough to take this course, we have 
little doubt that Luxembourg would have been 
upon them in the middle of their constitution- 
making. They might probably have been in- 
terrupted in a debate on Filmer's and Sydney's 
theories of government, by the entrance of the 
musketeers of Louis's household ; and have 
been marched off, two and two, to frame ima- 
ginary monarchies and commonwealths in the 
Tower. We have had in our time abundant 
experience of the effects of such folly. We 
have seen nation after nation enslaved, be- 
cause the friends of liberty wasted on discus- 
sions upon abstract points the time which ought 
to have been employed in preparing for vigo- 
rous national defence. The editor, apparently, 
would have had the English Revolution of 1688 
end as the Revolutions of Spain and Naples 
ended in our days. Thank God, our deliverers 
were men of a very different order from the 
Spanish and Neapolitan legislators ! They 
might, on many subjects, hold opinions which, 
in the nineteenth century, would not be con- 
sidered as liberal ; but they were not dreaming 
pedants. They were statesmen accustomed 
to the management of great affairs. Their 
plans of reform were not so extensive as those 
of the lawgivers of Cadiz; but what they 
planned, they effected ! and what they effected, 
that they maintained against the fiercest hos- 
tility at home and abroad. 

Their first object was to seat William on the 
throne ; and they were right. We say this 
without any reference to the eminent personal 
qualities of William, or to the follies and 
crimes of James. If the two princes had in- 
terchanged characters, our opinion would have 
still been the same. It was even more neces- 
sary to England at the time that her king 
should be a usurper than that he should be a 
hero. There could be no security for good 
government without a change of dynasty. The 
reverence for hereditary right and the doctrine 
of passive obedience had taken such a hold on 
the minds of the Tories that, if James had been 
restored to power on any conditions, their at- 
tachment to him would in all probability have 
revived, as the indignation which recent op- 
pression had produced faded from their minds. 
It had become indispensable to have a sove- 
reign whose title to his throne was strictly 
bound up with the title of the nation to its 
liberties. In the compact between the Prince 
of Orange and the Convention, there was one 
most important article which, though not ex- 
pressed, was perfectly understood by both par- 
ties, and for the performance of which the 
coutttry.had securities far better than all the 
vows that Charles I. or Ferdinand VII. ever 
took in the day of their weakness, and broke 
id the day of their power. The article was 



this — that William would in all things conform 
himself to what should appear to be the fixed 
and deliberate sense of his Parliament. The 
security for the performance was this — that he 
had no claim to the throne except the choice 
of Parliament, and no means of maintainin$ 
himself on the throne but the support of Par- 
liament. All the great and inestimable re- 
forms which speedily followed the Revolution 
were implied in those simple words, — "The 
Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, 
assembled at Westminster, do resolve that 
William and Mary, Prince and Princess of 
Orange, be, and be declared King and Queen 
of England." 

And what were the reforms of which we 
speak 1 We will shortly recount some which 
we think the most important; and we will 
then leave our readers to judge whether those 
who consider the Revolution as a mere change 
of dynasty, beneficial to a few aristocrats, but 
useless to the body of the people, or those who 
consider it as a glorious and happy era in the 
history of the British nation and of the human 
species, have judged more correctly of its na- 
ture. 

First in the list of the benefits which our 
country owes to the Revolution we place the 
Toleration Act. It is true that this measure 
fell short of the wishes of the leading Whigs. 
It is true also that, where Catholics were con- 
cerned, even the most enlightened of the lead- 
ing Whigs held opinions by no means so libe- 
ral as those which are happily common at the 
present day. Those distinguished statesmen 
did, however, make a noble, and, in some re- 
spects, a successful struggle for the rights of 
conscience. Their wish was to bring the great 
body of the Protestant Dissenters within the 
pale of the Church, by judicious alterations in 
the liturgy and the articles ; and to grant to 
those who still remained without that pale the 
most ample toleration. They framed a plan 
of comprehension which would have satisfied 
a great majority of the seceders ; and they 
proposed the complete abolition of that absurd 
and odious test which, after having been for a 
century and a half a scandal to the pious, and 
a laughing-stock to the profane, was at length 
removed in our own time. The immense 
power of the clergy and of the Tory gentry 
frustrated these excellent designs. The Whigs, 
however, did much. They succeeded in ob- 
taining a law, in the provisions of which a 
philosopher will doubtless find much to con- 
demn, but which had the practical effect of 
enabling almost every Protestant noncon- 
formist to follow the dictates of his own con- 
science without molestation. Scarcely a law 
in the statute-book is theoretically more objec- 
tionable than the Toleration Act. But we 
question whether in the whole of that mass of 
legislation, from the Great Charter downwards, 
there be a single law which has so much di- 
minished the sum of human suffering, — which 
has done so much to allay bad passions, — ■ 
which has put an end to so much petty tyran 
ny and vexation, — which has brought glad- 
ness, peace, and a sense of security to so many 
private dwellings. 

The second of those great reforms which the 



MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY. 



311 



Revolution produced was the final establish- 
ment of the Presbyterian Kirk in Scotland 
We shall not now inquire whether the Episco- 
pal or the Calvinistic. form of church govern- 
ment be more agreeable to primitive practice. 
Far be it from us to disturb with our doubts 
the repose of an Oxonian Bachelor of Divinity, 
who conceives that the English prelates, with 
their baronies and palaces, their purple and 
their fine linen, their mitred carriages and 
their sumptuous tables, are the true successors 
and exact resemblances of those ancient bish- 
ops who lived by catching fish and mending 
tents. We only say that the Scotch, doubtless 
from their own inveterate stupidity and malice, 
were not Episcopalians ; that they could not 
be made Episcopalians ; that the whole power 
of government had been in vain employed for 
the purpose of converting them ; that the full- 
est instruction on the mysterious questions of 
the Apostolical succession, and the imposition 
of hands, had been imparted to them by the 
very logical process of putting the legs of the 
students into wooden boots, and driving two or 
more wejjges between their knees ; that a 
course of divinity lectures, of the most edify- 
ing kind, had been given in the Grass-market 
of Edinburgh; yet that, in spite of all the exer- 
tions of those great theological professors, Lau- 
derdale and Dundee, the Covenanters were as 
obstinate as ever. The contest between the 
Scotch nation and the Anglican Church had 
produced near thirty years of the most fright- 
ful misgovernment ever seen in any part of 
Great Britain. If the Revolution had pro- 
duced no other effect than that of freeing the 
Scotch from the yoke of an establishment 
which they detested, and giving them one to 
which they were attached, it would have been 
one of the happiest events in our history. 

The third great benefit which the country 
derived from the Revolution was the alteration 
in the mode of granting the supplies. It had 
been the practice to settle on every prince, at 
the commencement of his reign, the produce 
of certain taxes, which, it was supposed, would 
yield a sum sufficient to defray the ordinary 
expenses of government. The distribution of 
the revenue was left wholly to the sovereign. 
He might be forced by war, or by his own pro- 
fusion, to ask for an extraordinary grant. But, 
if his policy were economical and pacific, he 
might reign many years without once being 
under the necessity of summoning his Parlia- 
ment, or of taking their advice when he had 
summoned them. This was not all. The na- 
tural tendency of every society, in which pro- 
perty enjoys tolerable security, is to increase 
in wealth. With the national wealth, the pro- 
duce of the customs, the excise, and the post- 
office, would of course increase ; and thus it 
might well happen, that taxes which, at the 
beginning of a long reign, were barely suffi- 
cient to support a frugal government in time 
of peace, might, before the end of that reign, 
enable the sovereign to imitate the extrava- 
gance of Nero or Heliogabalus, — to raise great 
armies — to carry on expensive wars. Some- 
thing of this sort had actually happened under 
Charles the Second, though his reign lasted 
only twenty-five years. His first Parliament 



settled on him taxes estimated to produce 
£1,200,000 a year. This they thought suffi. 
cient, as they allowed nothing for a standing 
army in time of peace. At the time of Charles's 
death, the annual produce of these taxes cer- 
tainly exceeded a million and a half; and the 
king who, during the years which immediately 
followed his accession, was perpetually in dis- 
tress, and perpetually asking his Parliaments 
for money, was at last able to keep a consider 
able body of regular troops without any as^ 
sistance from the House of Commons. If his 
reign had been as long as that of George the 
Third, he would probably before the close of 
it have been in the annual receipt of severa. 
millions over and above what the ordinary ex 
penses of the state required ; and of those mil- 
lions he would have been as absolutely master 
as the king now is of the sum allowed for his 
privy-purse. He might have spent them in 
luxury, in corruption, in paying troops to over- 
awe his people, or in carrying into effect wild 
schemes of foreign conquest. The authors of 
the Revolution applied a remedy to this great 
abuse. They settled on the king, not the fluc- 
tuating produce of certain fixed taxes, but a 
fixed sum sufficient for the support of his own. 
royal state. They established it as a rule, that 
all the expenses of the army, the navy, and the 
ordnance, should be brought annually under 
the review of the House of Commons, and that 
every sum voted should be applied tc the sec- 
vice specified in the vote. The direct effect of 
this change was important. The indirect ef- 
fect has been more important still. From thai 
time the House of Commons has been real.y 
the paramount power in the state. It has, in 
truth, appointed and removed ministers, de- 
clared war, and concluded peace. No combi- 
nation of the king and the Lords has ever been 
able to effect any thing against the Lower 
House, backed by its constituents. Three or 
four times, indeed, the sovereign has been able 
to break the force of an opposition, by dissolv- 
ing the Parliament. But if that experiment 
should fail, if the people should be of the same 
mind with their representatives — he would 
clearly have no course left but to yield, to ab- 
dicate, or to fight. 

The next great blessing which we owe to 
the Revolution, is the purification of the ad- 
ministration of justice in political cases. Of 
the importance of this change, no person can 
judge who is not well acquainted with the ear- 
lier volumes of the State Trials. Those vo- 
lumes are, we do not hesitate to say, the most 
frightful record of baseness and depravity that 
is extant in the world. Our hatred is alto- 
gether turned away from the crimes and the 
criminals, and directed against the law and its 
ministers. We see villanies as black as ever 
were imputed to any prisoner at any bar, dai'y 
committed on the bench and in the jury-box. 
The worst of the bad acts which brought dis- 
credit on the old Parliaments of France, — the 
condemnation of Lally, for example, or even 
that of Calas, — may seem praiseworthy when 
compared with those which follow each other 
in endless succession, as we turn over ihat 
huge chronicle of the shame of England. The 
magistrates of Paris and Toulouse were blind 



312 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ed by prejudice, passion, or bigotry. But the 
abandoned judges of our own country com- 
mitted murder with their eyes open. The 
cause of this is plain. In France there was 
no constitutional opposition. If a man held 
language offensive to the government, he was 
at once sent to the Bastile or to Vincennes. 
But in England, at least after the days of the 
Long Parliament, the king could not, by a mere 
act of his prerogative, rid himself of a trouble- 
some politician. He was forced to remove 
those who thwarted him by means of perjured 
witnesses, packed juries, and corrupt, hard- 
hearted, brow-beating judges. The Opposition 
naturally retaliated whenever they had the 
upper hand. Every time that the power passed 
from one party to the other, took place a pro- 
scription and a massacre, thinly disguised 
nnder the forms of judicial procedure. The 
tribunals ought to be sacred places of refuge, 
where, in all the vicissitudes of public affairs, 
the innocent of all parties may find shelter. 
They were, before the Revolution, an unclean 
public shambles, to which each party in its 
turn dragged its opponents, and where each 
found the same venal and ferocious butchers 
waiting for its custom. Papist or Protestant, 
Tory or Whig, Priest or Alderman, all was 
one to those greedy and savage natures, pro- 
vided only there was money to earn and blood 
to ?hed. 

Of course, these worthless judges soon 
created around them, as was natural, a breed 
of informers more wicked, if possible, than 
themselves. The trial by jury afforded little 
or no protection to the innocent. The juries 
were nominated by the sheriffs. The sheriffs 
were in most parts of England nominated by 
the crown. In London, the great scene of 
political contention, those officers were chosen 
by the people. The fiercest parliamentary 
election of our time will give but a faint notion 
of the storm which raged in the city on the day 
when two infuriated parties, each bearing its 
badge, met to select the men in whose hands 
were to be the issues of life and death for the 
coming year. On that day nobles of the high- 
est descent did not think it beneath them to 
canvass and marshal the livery, to head the 
procession, and to watch the poll. On that 
day, the great chiefs of parties waited in an 
agony of suspense for the messenger who was 
to bring from Guildhall the news whether their 
lives and estates were, for the next twelve 
months, to be at the mercy of a friend or of a 
foe. In 1681, Whig sheriffs were chosen, and 
Shaftesbury defied the whole power of the go- 
vernment. In 1682, the sheriffs were Tories, 
Shaftesbury fled to Holland. The other chiefs 
of the party broke up their councils, and re- 
tired in haste to their country-seats. Sydney 
on the scaffold told those sheriffs that his blood 
was on their heads Neither of them could 
deny the charge, and one of them wept with 
shame and remorse. 

Thus every man who then meddled with 
public affairs" toot' his life in his hand. The 
consequence was, that men of gentle natures 
stood aloof from contests in which they could 
not engage without hazarding their own necks 
and the fortunes of their children. This was 



the course adopted by Sir William Temple, bx 
Evelyn, and by many other men, who were, 
in every respect, admirably qualified to serva 
the rtate. On the other hand, those resoluts 
and enterprising spirits who put their head-t 
and lands to hazard in the game of politics 
naturally acquired, from the habit of playing 
for so deep a stake, a reckless and desperate 
turn of mind. It was, we seriously believe, aa 
safe to be a highwayman as to be a distin- 
guished leader of Opposition. This may serve 
to explain, and in some degree to excuse, the 
violence with which the factions of that age 
are justly reproached. They were fighting, 
not for office, but for life. If they reposed for 
a moment from the work of agitation, if they 
suffered the public excitement to flag, they 
were lost men. Hume, in describing this state 
of things, has employed an image which seems 
hardly to suit the general simplicity of his 
style, but which is by no means too strong for 
the occasion. " Thus," says he, " the two par- 
ties, actuated by mutual rage, but cooped up 
within the narrow limits of the law, levelled 
with poisoned daggers the most deadly blows 
against each other's breast, and buried in 
their factious divisions all regard to truth, ho- 
nour, and humanity." 

From this terrible evil the Revolution set us 
free. The law which secured to the judges 
their seats during life or good behaviour did 
something. The law subsequently passed for 
regulating trials in cases of treason did much 
more. The provisions of that law show, in- 
deed, very little legislative skill. It is not 
framed on the principle of securing the inno- 
cent, but on the principle of giving a great 
chance of escape to the accused, whether in- 
nocent or guilty. This, however, is decidedly 
a fault on the right side. The evil produced 
by the occasional escape of a bad citizen is 
not to be compared with the evils of that Reign 
of Terror, for such it was, which preceded the 
Revolution. Since the passing of this law, 
scarcely one single person has suffered death 
in England as a traitor, who had not been con- 
victed on overwhelming evidence, to the satis- 
faction of all parties, of a really great crime 
against the state. Attempts have been made 
in times of great excitement, to bring in per- 
sons guilty of high treason for acts which, 
though sometimes highly blamable, did not 
necessarily imply a design of altering the go- 
vernment by physical force. All those attempts 
have failed. For a hundred and forty years 
no statesman, while engaged in constitutional 
opposition to a government, has had the axe 
before his eyes. The smallest minorities strug- 
gling against the most powerful majorities in 
the most agitated times, have felt themselves 
perfectly secure. Pulteney and Fox were the 
two most distinguished leaders of Opposition 
since the Revolution. Both were personally 
obnoxious to the court. But the utmost harm 
that the utmost anger of the court could do to 
them, was to strike off the " Right Honourable' 
from before their names. 

But of all the reforms produced by the Re- 
volution, the most important was the full esta 
blishment of the liberty of unlicensed printing. 
The censorship, which, under some form or 



MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY. 



ais 



etfter had existed, with rare and short intermis- 
sions, under every government, monarchical 
or republican, from the time of Henry VIII. 
downwards, expired, and has never since been 
renewed. 

We are aware that the great improvements 
which we have recapitulated were, in many 
respects, imperfectly and unskilfully executed. 
The authors of those improvements sometimes, 
while they removed or mitigated a great prac- 
tical evil, continued to recognise the erroneous 
principle from which that evil had sprung. 
Sometimes, when they had adopted a sound 
principle, they shrank from following it to all 
the conclusions to which it would have led 
them. Sometimes they failed to perceive that 
the remedies which they applied to one disease 
of the state were certain to generate another 
disease, and to render another remedy neces- 
sary. Their knowledge was inferior to ours ; 
nor were they always able to act up to their 
knowledge. The pressure of circumstances, 
the necessity of compromising differences of 
opinion, the power and violence of the party 
which was altogether hostile to the new settle- 
ment, musf^be taken into the account. When 
these things are fairly weighed, there will, we 
think, be little difference of opinion among 
liberal and right-minded men as to the real 
value of what the great events of 1688 did for 
this country. 

We have recounted what appear to us the 
most important of those changes which the 
Revolution produced in our laws. The changes 
which it produced in our laws, however, were 
not more important than the change which it 
indirectly produced in the public mind. The 
Whig party had, during seventy years, an 
almost uninterrupted possession of power. It 
had always been the fundamental doctrine of 
that party, that power is a trust for the people ; 
that it is given to magistrates, not for their 
own, but for the public advantage ; that, where 
it is abused by magistrates, even by the highest 
of all, it may lawfully be withdrawn. It is 
perfectly true, that the Whigs were not more 
exempt than other men from the vices and in- 
firmities of our nature, and that, when they had 
power, they sometimes abused, it. But still 
they stood firm to their theory. The theory 
was the badge of their party. It was some- 
thing more. It was the foundation on which 
rested the power of the houses of Nassau and 
Brunswick. Thus, there was a government 
interested in propagating a class of opinions 
which most governments are interested in dis- 
couraging, — a government which looked with 
complacency on all speculations tending to 
democracy, and with extreme aversion on all 
speculations favourable to arbitrary power. 
There was a king who decidedly preferred a 
republican to a believer in the divine right of 
kings ; who considered every attempt to exalt 
his prerogative as an attack on his title ; and 
who reserved all his favours for those who 
declaimed on the natural equality of men and 
the popular origin of government. This was 
the state of things from the Revolution till the 
death of George II. The effect was what might 
have been expected. Even in that profession 



which has generally been most disposed to 
magnify the prerogative, a great change took 
place. Bishopric after bishopric, and deanery 
after deanery, were bestowed on Whigs and 
Latitudinarians. The consequence was, that 
Whigism and Latitudinarianism were pro- 
fessed by the ablest and most aspiring church- 
men. 

Hume has complained bitterly of this at the 
close of his history. "The Whig party," says 
he, " for a course of near seventy years, has 
almost without interruption enjoyed the whole 
authority of government, and no honours or 
offices could be obtained but by their counte- 
nance and protection. But this event, which in 
some particulars has been advantageous to the 
state, has proved destructive to the truth of 
history, and has established many gross false- 
hoods, which it is unaccountable how any 
civilized nation could have embraced with re 
gard to its domestic occurrences. Composi- 
tions the most despicable, both for style anu 
matter" (in a note he instances Locke, Sydney, 
Koadley, and Rapin) "have been extolled and 
propagated and read as if they had equalled the 
most celebrated remains of antiquity. And 
forgetting that a regard to liberty, though a 
laudable passion, ought commonly to be sub- 
servient to a reverence for established govern- 
ment, the prevailing faction has celebrated 
only the partisans of the former." We will 
not here enter into an argument about the 
merit of Rapin's history, or Locke's political 
speculations. We call Hume merely as evi- 
dence to a fact well known to all reading men, 
that the literature patronised by the English 
court and the English ministry, during the 
first half of the eighteenth century, was of that 
kind which courtiers and min sters generally 
do all Jn their power to discountenance, and 
tended to inspire zeal for the liberties o'f the 
people rather than respect for the authority of 
the government. 

There was still a very strong Tory party in 
England. But that party was in opposition. 
Many of its members still held the doctrine of 
passive obedience. But they did not admit 
that the existing dynasty had any claim to such 
obedience. They condemned resistance. But 
by resistance they meant the keeping out of 
James III., and not the turning out of George II. 
No Radical of our times could grumbLe more 
at the expenses of the royal household, could 
exert himself more strenuously to reduce the 
military establishment, could oppose with more 
earnestness every proposition for arming the 
executive with extraordinary powers, or could 
pour more unmitigated abuse on placemen and 
courtiers. If a writer were now, in a massive 
Dictionary, to define a Pensioner as a traitor 
and a slave, the Excise as a hateful tax, the 
Commissioners of the excise as wretches, — if 
he were to write a satire full of reflections on 
men who receive "the price of boroughs an<? 
of souls," who " explain their country's dear 
bought rights away," or 

"whom pensions can incite 
To vote a patriot black, a courtier white," 

we should set him down for something 1101 



314 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



democratic than a Whig. Yet this was the 
language which Johnson, the most bigoted of 
Tories and High Churchmen, held under the 
administration of Walpole and Pelham. 

Thus doctrines favourable to public liberty 
were inculcated alike by those who were in 

fiower, and by those who were in opposition, 
t was by means of these doctrines alone 
that the former could prove that they had a 
king dejure. The servile theories of the latter 
did not prevent them from offering every mo- 
lestation to one whom they considered as 
merely a king de facto. The attachment of the 
one party to the house of Hanover, of the other 
to that of Stuart, induced both to talk a lan- 
guage much more favourable to popular rights 
than to monarchical power. What took place 
at the first representation of " Cato" is no bad 
illustration of the way in which the two great 
sections of the community almost invariably 
acted. A play, the whole merit of which con- 
sists in its stately rhetoric, — a rhetoric some- 
times not unworthy of Lucan, — about hating 
tyrants and dying for freedom, is brought on 
the stage in a time of great political excite- 
ment. Both parties crowd to the theatre. 
Each affects to consider every line as a com- 
pliment to itself, and an attack on its oppo- 
nents. The curtain falls amidst an unanimous 
roar of applause. The Whigs of the " Kit Cat" 
embrace the author, and assure him that he 
has rendered an inestimable service to liberty. 
The Tory Secretary of State presents a purse 
to the chief actor for defending the cause of 
liberty so well. The history of that night was, 
in miniature, the history of two generations. 

We well know how much sophistry there 
was in the reasonings, and how much exagge- 
ration in the declamations of both parties. But 
When we compare the state in which political 
science was at the close of the reign of George 
ths Second, with the state in which it had been 
wlier. James the Second came to the throne, it 
is impossible not to admit that a prodigious 



improvement had taken place. We are no 
admirers of the political doctrines laid down 
in Blackstone's Commentaries. But if we con- 
sider that those Commentaries were read with 
great applause in the very schools where, 
within the memory of some persons then living, 
books had been publicly burned by order of the 
University of Oxford, for containing the " damn- 
able doctrine," that the English monarchy ia 
limited and mixed, we cannot deny that a salu- 
tary change had taken place. " The Jesuits," 
says Pascal, in the last of his incomparable 
letters, " have obtained a Papal decree con- 
demning Galileo's doctrine about the motion 
of the earth. It is all in vain. If the world is 
really turning round, all mankind together will 
not be able to keep it from turning, or to keep 
themselves from turning with it." The decrees 
of Oxford were as ineffectual to stay the great 
moral and political revolution, as those of the 
Vatican to stay the motion of our globe. That 
learned University found itself not only unable 
to keep the mass from moving, but unable to 
keep itself from moving along with the mass. 
Nor was the effect of the discussions and spe- 
culations of that period confined to our own 
country. While the Jacobite party was in the 
last dotage and weakness of its paralytic old 
age, the political philosophy of England began 
to produce a mighty effect on France, and, 
through France, on Europe. 

Here another vast field opens itself before us. 
But we must resolutely turn away from it. We 
will conclude by earnestly advising all our read- 
ers to study Sir James Mackintosh's invaluable 
Fragment ; and by expressing the satisfaction 
we have received from learning, since this 
article was written, that the intelligent publish- 
ers of the volume before us have resolved to 
reprint the Fragment in a separate form, with* 
out those accompaniments which have hitherto 
impeded its circulation. The resolution is as 
creditable to them as the publication is sure ts 
be acceptable to the lovers of English history » 



MALCOLM'S LIFE OF OLIVE. 



315 



SIR JOHN MALCOLM'S LIFE OF LORD OLIVE.' 



[Edinburgh Review for January, 1840.] 



We have always thought it strange that, 
while the history of the Spanish empire in 
America is so familiarly known to all the na- 
tions of Europe, the great actions of our own 
countrymen in the East should, even among 
ourselves, excite little interest. Every school- 
boy knows who imprisoned Montezuma, and 
who strangled Atabalipa. But we doubt whe- 
ther one in ten, even among English gentlemen 
of highly cultivated minds, can tell who won 
the battle of Buxar, who perpetrated the mas- 
sacre of Patna, whether Surajah Dowlah ruled 
in Oude or in Travancore, or whether Holkar 
was a Hindoo or a Mussulman. Yet the vic- 
tories of Cortes were gained over savages who 
had no letters, who were ignorant of the use 
of metals, who had not broken in a single ani- 
mal to labour, who wielded no better weapons 
than those which could be made out of sticks, 
flints, and fish-bones, who regarded a horse- 
soldier as a monster, half man and half beast, 
who took a harquebusier for a sorcerer able to 
scatter the thunder and lightning of the skies. 
The people of India when we subdued them 
were ten times as numerous as the vanquished 
Americans, and were at the same time quite as 
highly civilized as the victorious Spaniards. 
They had reared cities larger and fairer than 
Saragossa or Toledo, and buildings more beau- 
tiful and costly than the cathedral of Seville. 
They could show bankers richer than the rich- 
est firms of Barcelona or Cadiz; viceroys 
whose splendour far surpassed that of Ferdi- 
nand the Catholic ; myriads of cavalry and 
long trains of artillery which would have asto- 
nished the Great Captain. It might have been 
expected that every Englishman who takes 
any interest in any part of history would be 
curious to know how a handful of his country- 
men, separated from their home by an immense 
ocean, subjugated, in the course of a few 
years, one of the greatest empires in the world. 
Yet, unless we greatly err, this subject is to 
most readers not only insipid, but positively 
distasteful. 

Perhaps the fault lies partly with the histo- 
rians. Mr. Mill's book, though it has undoubt- 
edly great and rare merit, is not sufficiently 
animated and picturesque to attract those who 
read for amusement. Orme, inferior to no 
English historian in style and power of paint- 
ing, is minute even to tediousness. In one 
volume he allots, on an average, a closely 
printed quarto page to the events of every 
forty-eight hours. The consequence is that his 
narrative, though one of the most authentic 
and one of the most finely written in our lan- 



* The Life of Robert Lord Clive ; collected from the 
Family Papers, communicated by the Earl of Powis. By 
Major-General Sir John Malcolm, K.C.B. 3 vols. 8vo. 
London. 1S36. 



guage, has never been very popular, and is 
now scarcely ever read. 

We fear that Sir John Malcolm's volumes 
will, not much attract thosre readers whom 
Orme and Mill have repelfec; The materials 
placed at his disposal by the late Lord Powis 
were indeed of great value. But we cannot 
say that they have been very skilfully worked 
up. It would, however, be unjust to criticise 
with severity a work which, if the author had 
lived to complete and revise it, would proba- 
bly have been improved by condensation and 
by a better arrangement. We are more dis- 
posed to perform the pleasing duty of express- 
ing our gratitude to the noble family to which 
the public owes so much useful and curious 
information. 

The effect of the book, even when we make 
the largest allowance for the partiality of those 
who have furnished and of those who have di- 
gested the materials, is, on the whole, greatly 
to raise the character of Lord Clive. We are 
far indeed from sympathizing with Sir John 
Malcolm, whose love passes the love of bio- 
graphers, and who can see nothing but wisdom 
and justice in the actions of his idol. But we 
are at least equally far from concurring in the 
severe judgment of Mr. Mill, who seems to us 
to show less discrimination in his account of 
Clive than in any other part of his valuable 
work. Clive, like most men who are born with 
strong passions, and tried by strong tempta- 
tions, committed great faults. But every per- 
son who takes a fair and enlightened view of 
his whole career must admit that our island, 
so fertile in heroes and statesmen, has scarcely 
ever produced a man more truly great either in 
arms or in council. 

The Clives had been settled ever since the 
twelfth century on an estate of no great value 
near Market-Drayton, in Shropshire. In the 
reign of George the First this moderate but 
ancient inheritance was possessed by Mr. 
Richard Clive, who seems to have been a 
plain man of no great tact or capacity. He 
had been bred to the law, and divided his time 
between professional business and the avoca- 
tions of a small proprietor. He married a lady 
from Manchester of the name of Gaskill and 
became the father of a very numerous famiiy. 
His eldest son, Robert, the founder of the Bri- 
tish empire in India, was born at the old seat 
of his ancestors on the 29th of September, 
1725. 

Some lineaments of the character of the man 
were early discerned in the child. There re 
main letters written by his relations wnen he 
was in his seventh year ; and from these it ap- 
pears that, even at that early age, his strong 
will and his fiery passions, sustained by a con- 
stitutional intrepidity which sometimes seerm^ 



310 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



hardly compatible with soundness of mind, had 
begun to cause great uneasiness to his family. 
" Fighting," says one of his uncles, " to which 
he is out of measure addicted, gives his tem- 
per such a fierceness and imperiousness that 
he flies out on every trifling occasion." The 
old people of the neighbourhood still remem- 
ber to have heard from their parents how Bob 
Clive climbed to the top of the lofty steeple of 
Market-Drayton, and with what terror the inha- 
bitants saw him seated on a stone spout near 
the summit. They also relate how he formed 
all the good-for-nothing lads of the town into a 
kind of predatory army, and compelled the 
shopkeepers to submit to a tribute of apples 
and halfpence, in consideration of which he 
guarantied the security of their windows. He 
was sent from school to school, making very 
little progress in his learning, and gaining for 
himself everywhere the character of an ex- 
ceedingly naughty boy. One of his masters, 
it is said, was sagacious enough to prophesy 
that the idle lad would make a great figure in 
the world. But the general opinion seems to 
have been that poor Robert was a dunce, if not 
a reprobate. His family expected nothing good 
from such slender parts and such a headstrong 
temper. It is not strange, therefore, that they 
gladly accepted for him, when he was in his 
eighteenth year, a writership in the service 
of the East India Company, and shipped him 
off to make a fortune or to die of a fever at 
Madras. 

Far different were the prospects of Clive 
from those of the youths whom the East India 
College now annually sends to the Presiden- 
cies of our Asiatic empire. The Company 
was then purely a trading corporation. Its 
territory consisted of a few square miles, for 
which rent was paid to the native governments. 
Its troops were scarcely numerous enough to 
man the batteries of three or four ill-construCt- 
ed forts, which had been erected for the pro- 
tection of the warehouses. The natives, who 
composed a considerable part of these little 
garrisons had not yet been trained in the dis- 
cipline of Europe, and were armed, some with 
swords and shields, some with bows and ar- 
rows. The business of the servants of the 
Company was not, as now, to conduct the ju- 
dicial, financial, and diplomatic business of a 
great country, but to take stock, to make ad- 
vances to weavers, to ship cargoes, and to 
keep a sharp look-out for private traders who 
dared to infringe the monopoly. The younger 
clerks were so miserably paid that they could 
scarcely subsist without incurring debt; the 
elder enriched themselves by trading on their 
own account ; and those who lived to rise to 
the top of the service, often accumulated con- 
siderable fortunes. 

Madras, to which Clive had been appointed, 
was, at this time, perhaps, the first in import- 
ance of the Company's settlements. In the 
preceding century, Fort St. George had arisen 
on a barren spot, beaten by a raging surf; and 
in the neighbourhood of a town, inhabited by 
many thousands of natives, had sprung up, as 
towns spring up in the East, with the rapidity 
of the prophet's gourd. There were already in 
Uh* suourbs roanv white villas, each surround- 



ed by its garden, whither the wealthy agents 
of the Company retired, after the labours of 
the desk and the warehouse, to enjoy the cool 
breeze which springs up at sunset from the 
Bay of Bengal. The habits of these mercan- 
tile grandees appear to have been more pro- 
fuse, luxurious, and ostentatious, than those 
of the high judicial and political functionaries 
who have succeeded them. But comfort was 
far less understood. Many devices which now 
mitigate the heat of the climate, preserve 
health, and prolong life, were unknown. 
There was far less intercourse with Europe 
than at present. The voyage by the Cape, 
which in our time has often been performed 
within three months, was then very seldom 
accomplished in six, and was sometimes pro- 
tracted to more than a year. Consequently the 
Anglo-Indian was then much more estranged 
from his country, much more an oriental in 
his tastes and habits, and much less fitted to 
mix in society after his return to Europe, than 
the Anglo-Indian of the present day. 

Within the fort and its precincts, the English 
governors exercised, by permission of the na- 
tive rulers, an extensive authority. But they 
had never dreamed of claiming independent 
power. The surrounding country was go- 
verned by the Nabob of the Carnatic, a deputy 
of the Viceroy of the Deccan, commonly called 
the Nizam, who was himself only a deputy cf 
the mighty prince designated by our ancestors 
as the Great Mogul. Those names, once so 
august and formidable, still remain. There is 
still a Nabob of the Carnatic, who lives on a 
pension allowed to him by the Company, out 
of the revenues of the province which his an- 
cestors ruled. There is still a Nizam, whose 
capital is overawed by a British cantonment, 
and to whom a British resident gives, under 
the name of advice, commands which are not 
to be disputed. There is still a Mogul, who is 
permitted to play at holding courts and receiv- 
ing petitions, but who has less power to help 
or hurt than the youngest civil servant of the 
Company. 

Clive's voyage was unusually tedious even 
for that age. The ship remained some months 
at the Brazils, where the young adventurei 
picked up some knowledge of Portuguese, and 
spent all his pocket-money. He did not arrive 
in India till more than a year after he had left 
England. His situation at Madras was most 
painful. His funds were exhausted. His pay 
was small. He had contracted debts. He was 
wretchedly lodged — no small calamity in a cli- 
mate which can be rendered tolerable to a 
European only by spacious, and well-placed 
apartments. He had been furnished with let- 
ters of recommendation to a gentleman who 
might have assisted him ; but when he landed 
at Fort St. George he found that this gentleman 
had sailed for England. His shy and haughty 
disposition withheld him from introducing him- 
self. He was several months in India before 
he became acquainted with a single family. 
The climate affected his health and spirits. 
His duties were of a kind ill suited to his ar- 
dent and daring character. He pined for his 
home, and in his letters to his relations ex 
pressed his feelings in language softer and 



MALCOLM'S LIFE OF CLIVE. 



317 



more pensive than we should have expected, 
from the waywardness of his boyhood, or from 
the inflexible sternness of his later years. "I 
have not enjoyed," says he, " one happy day 
since I left rny native country." And again, 
"I must confess, at intervals, when I think of 
my dear native England, it affects me in a very 

particular manner If I should be so far 

blest as to revisit again my own country, but 
more especially Manchester, the centre of all 
my wishes, all that I could hope or desire for 
would be presented before me in one view." 

One solace he found of the most' respectable 
kind. The Governor possessed a good library, 
and permitted Clive to have access to it. The 
young man devoted much of his leisure to 
reading, and acquired at this time almost all 
the knowledge of books that he ever possessed. 
Asa boy he had been too idle, as a man he 
soon became too busy, for literary pursuits. 

But neither climate, nor poverty, nor study, 
nor the sorrows of a homesick exile, could 
fame the desperate audacity of his spirit. He 
behaved to his official superiors as he had be- 
haved to his schoolmasters, and was several 
times in danger of losing his situation. Twice, 
while residing in the Writers' Buildings, he at- 
tempted to destroy himself; and twice the pis- 
tol which he snapped at his own head failed to 
go off. This circumstance, it is said, affected 
him as a similar escape affected Wallenstein. 
After satisfying himself- that the pistol was 
really well loaded, he burst forth into an excla- 
mation, that surely he was reserved for some- 
thing great. 

About this time an event, which at first 
seemed likely to destroy all his hopes in life, 
suddenly opened before him a new path to 
eminence. Europe had been, during some 
years, distracted by the war of the Austrian 
succession. George II. was the steady ally of 
Maria Theresa. The house of Bourbon took 
the opposite side. Though England was even 
then the first of maritime powers, she was not, 
as she has since become, more than a match 
on the sea for all the nations of the world to- 
gether; and she found it difficult to maintain a 
contest against the united navies -of France 
and Spain, in the eastern seas France ob- 
tained the ascendency. Labourdonnais, Go- 
vernor of Mauritius, a man of eminent talents 
and virtues, conducted an expedition to the 
continent of India, in spite of the opposition 
of the British fleet — landed ; assembled an ar- 
my, appeared before Madras, and compelled 
the town and fort to capitulate. The keys 
were delivered up ; the French colours were 
displayed on Fort St. George ; and the contents 
of the Company's warehouses were seized as 
prize of war by the conquerors. It was stipu- 
lated by the capitulation that the English in- 
habitants should be prisoners of war on parole, 
and that the town should remain in the hands 
of the French till it should be ransomed. La- 
bourdonnais pledged his honour that only a 
moderate ransom should be required. 

But the success of Labourdonnais had 
awakened the jealousy of his countryman, 
Dupleix, Governor of Pondicherry. Dupleix, 
moreover, had already begun to revolve gigan- 
ic schem es, with which the restoration of 
21 



Madras to the English was by no means com- 
patible. He declared that Labourdonnais had 
gone beyond his powers; that conquests made 
by the French arms on the continent of India 
were at the disposal of the Governor of Pondi 
cherry alone ; and that Madras should be rased 
to the ground. Labourdonnais was forced to 
yield. The anger which the breach of the ca- 
pitulation excited among the English was in- 
creased by the ungenerous manner in which 
Dupleix treated the principal servants of the 
company. The Governor and several of the 
first gentlemen of Fort St. George were carried 
under a guard to Pondicherry, and conducted 
through the town in a triumphal procession, 
under the eyes of fifty thousand spectators. It 
was with reason thought that this gross viola- 
tion of public faith absolved the inhabitants of 
Madras from the engagements into which they 
had entered with Labourdonnais. Clive fled 
from the town by night, in the disguise of a 
Mussulman, and took refuge at Fort St. David, 
one of the small English settlements subordi- 
nate to Madras. 

The circumstances in which he was now 
placed naturally led him to adopt a profession 
better suited to his restless and intrepid spirit 
than the business of examining packages and 
casting accounts. He solicited and obtained 
an ensign's commission in the service of the 
Company, and at twenty-one entered on his 
military career. His personal courage, of 
which he had, while still a writer, given signal 
proof by a desperate duel with a military bully 
who was the terror of Fort St. David, speedily < 
made him conspicuous even among hundreds 
of brave men. He soon began to show in his 
new calling other qualities which had not be 
fore been discerned in him — judgment, sagacity, 
deference to legitimate authority. He distin 
guished himself highly in several operations 
against the French, and was particularly no- 
ticed by Major Lawrence, who was then con 
sidered as the ablest British officer in India. 

He had been only a few njcnths in the armj 
when intelligence arrived that peace had been 
concluded between Great Britain and France 
Dupleix was in consequence compelled to re 
store Madras to the English Company ; and th< 
young ensign was at liberty to resume his for 
mer business. He did indeed return for a shor* 
time to his desk. He again quitted it in ordei 
to assist Major Lawrence in some petty hosti 
lities with the native.-., and then again returned 
to it. While he was thus wavering between a 
military and a commercial life, events took 
place which decided his choice. The politics 
of India assumed a new aspect. There was 
peace between the English and French crowns ; 
but there arose between the English and Frf.nch 
companies trading to the East, a war most 
eventful and important — a war in whuh the 
prize was nothing less than the magnificent 
inheritance of the house of Tamerlane. 

The empire which Baber and his Moguls 
reared in the sixteenth century was long one 
of the most extensive and splendid in the world. 
In no European kingdom was so large a popu- 
lation subject to a single prince; or so large 
revenue poured into the treasury. The beaut 
and magnificence of the buildings erected 



318 



MAUAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



the sovereigns of Hindostan, amazed even tra- 
vellers who had seen St. Peter's. The innu- 
merable retinues and gorgeous decorations 
which surrounded the throne of Delhi, dazzled 
even eyes which were accustomed to the pomp 
of Versailles. Some of the great viceroys, 
who held their posts by virtue of commissions 
from the Mogul, ruled as many subjects and 
enjoyed as large an income as the King of 
France or the Emperor of Germany. Even the 
deputies of thea: deputies might well rank, as 
to extent of territory and amount of revenue, 
with the Grand-duke of Tuscany and the 
Elector of Saxony. 

There can be little doubt that this great em- 
pire, powerful and prosperous as it appears on 
a superficial view, was yet, even in its best 
days, far worse governed than the worst go- 
verned parts of Europe now are. • The admi- 
nistration was tainted with all the vices of 
Oriental despotism, and with all the vices in- 
separable from the domination of race over 
race. The conflicting pretensions of the 
princes of the royal house produced a long 
series of crimes and public disasters. Ambi- 
tious lieutenants of the sovereign sometimes 
aspired to independence. Fierce tribes of Hin- 
doos, impatient of a foreign yoke, frequently 
withheld tribute, repelled the armies of the go- 
vernment from their mountain fastnesses, and 
poured down in arms on the cultivated plains. 
In spite, however, of much constant misadmi- 
nistration, in spile of occasional convulsions 
which shook the whole frame of society, this 
great monarchy, on the whole, retained, during 
some generations, an outward appearance of 
unity, majesty, and energy. But, throughout 
the long reign of Aurungzebe, the state, not- 
withstanding all that the vigour and policy of 
the prince could effect, was hastening to disso- 
lution. After his death, which took place in 
the year 1707, the ruin was fearfully rapid. 
Violent shocks from without co-operated with 
an incurable decay which was fast proceeding 
within ; and in a few years the empire had un- 
gone utter decomposition. 

The history of the successors of Theodosius 
bears no small analogy to that of the succes- 
sors of Aurungzebe. But perhaps the fall of 
the Carlovingians furnishes the nearest paral- 
lel to the fall of the Moguls. Charlemagne was 
scarcely interred when the imbecility and the 
disputes of his descendants began to bring 
contempt on themselves and destruction on 
their subjects. The wide dominion of the 
Franks was severed into a thousand pieces. 
Nothing more than a nominal dignity was left 
to the abject heirs of an illustrious name, 
Charles the Bald, and Charles the Fat, and 
Charles the Simple. Fierce invaders, differing 
from each other in race, language, and reli- 
gion, flocked as if by concert from the furthest 
corners of the earth, to plunder provinces 
which the government could no longer defend. 
The pirates of the Baltic extended their ra- 
vages from the Elbe to the Pyrenees, and at 
length fixed their seat in the rich valley of the 
Seine. The Hungarian, in whom the trem- 
bling monks fancied that they recognised the 
Gog and Magog of prophecy, carried back s the 
plunder of the cities of Lombardy to the depth . 



of the Pannonian forests. The Saracen ruled 
in Sicily, desolated the fertile plains of Cam« 
pania, and spread terror even to the walls of 
Rome. In the midst of these sufferings, a great 
internal change passed upon the empire. The 
corruption of death began to ferment into ne-n 
forms of life. While the great body, as a whole, 
was torpid and passive, every separate member 
began to feel with a sense, and to move with 
an energy all its own. Just here, in the most 
barren and dreary tract of European nistory, 
all feudal privileges, all modern nobility, take 
their source To this point we trace the power 
of those princes who, nominally vassals, but 
really independent, long governed, with the 
titles of dukes, marquesses, and counts, almost 
every part of the dominions which had obeyed 
Charlemagne. 

Such or nearly such was the change which 
passed on the Mogul empire during the forty 
years which followed the death of Aurungzebe. 
A series of nominal sovereigns, sunk in indo- 
lence and debauchery, sauntered away life in 
secluded palaces, chewing bang, fondling con- 
cubines, and listening to buffoons. A series 
of ferocious invaders had descended through 
the western passes, to prey on the defenceless 
wealth of Hindostan. A Persian conqueror 
crossed the Indus, marched through the gates 
of Delhi, and bore away in triumph those trea- 
sures of which the magnificence had astounded 
Roe and Bernier; — the Peacock Throne on 
which the richest jewels of Golconda had been 
disposed by the most skilful hands of Europe, 
and the inestimable Mountain of Light, which, 
after many strange vicissitudes, lately shone in 
the bracelet of Runjeet Sing, and is now des- 
tined to adorn the hideous idol of Orissa. The 
Afghan soon followed to complete the work of 
devastation which the Persian had begun. The 
warlike tribes of Rajpoots threw off the Mus- 
sulman yoke. A band of mercenary soldiers 
occupied Rohilcund. The Seiks ruled on the 
Indus. The Jauts spread terror along the Jum- 
nah. The high lands which border on the 
western seacoast of India poured forth a yet 
more formidable race; — a race whi&h was 
long the terror of every native power, and 
which yielded only, after many desperate and 
doubtful struggles, to the fortune and genius of 
England. It was under the reign of Aurung- 
zebe that this wild clan of plunderers first 
descended from the mountains ; and soon after 
his death, every corner of his wide empire 
learned to tremble at the mighty name of the 
Mahrattas. Many fertile viceroyalties were 
entirely subdued by them. Their dominions 
stretched across the Peninsula from sea to 
sea. Their captains reigned at Poonah, at 
Gaulior, in Guzerat, in Berar, and in Tanjore. 
Nor did they, though they had become grea f 
sovereigns, therefore cease to be freebooters. 
They still retained the predatory habits of their 
forefathers. Every region which was not sub- 
ject to their rule was wasted by their incur- 
sions. Wherever their kettledrums were heard, 
the peasant threw his bag of rice on his shoulder,, 
hid his small savings in his girdle, and fled with 
his wife and children to the mountains or the 
jungles — to the milder neighbourhood of the 
hyaena and the tiger. Many provinces redeemm . 



MALCOLM'S LIFE OF CLIVE. 



319 



their harvests by the payment of an annual 
ransom. Even the wretched phantom who still 
bore the imperial title, stooped to pay this igno- 
minious " black mail," The camp-fires of one 
rapacious leader were seen frorn the walls of 
the palace of Delhi. Another, at the head of 
his innumerable cavalry, descended year after 
year on the rice-fields of Bengal. Even the 
European factors trembled for their magazines. 
Less than a hundred years ago, it was thought 
Lecessary to fortify Calcutta against the horse- 
men of Berar ; and the name of the Mahratta 
ditch still preserves the memory of the danger. 

Wherever the viceroys of the Mogul retained 
authority they became sovereigns. They might 
still acknowledge in words the superiority of 
the house of Tamerlane ; as a Count of Flan- 
ders or a Duke of Burgundy would have ac- 
knowledged the superiority of the most hope- 
less driveller among the later Carlovingians. 
They might occasionally send their titular so- 
vereign a complimentary present, or solicit 
from him a title of honour. But they were in 
truth no longer lieutenants removable at plea- 
sure, but independent hereditary princes. In 
this way "Originated those great Mussulman 
houses which formerly ruled Bengal and the 
Camatic, and those which still, though in a 
state of vassalage, exercise some of the powers 
oJ royalty at Luc know and Hyderabad. 

In what was this confusion to end 1 Was 
tne strife to continue during centuries 1 Was 
it to terminate in the rise of another great mo- 
narchy 1 Was the Mussulman or the Mahratta 
to be the Lord of India 1 Was another Baber 
to descend from the mountains, and lead the 
hardy tribes of Cabul and Chorasan against a 
wealthier and less warlike race 1 None of 
these events seemed improbable. But scarcely 
any man, however sagacious, would have 
thought it possible, that a trading company, 
separated from India by fifteen thousand miles 
of sea, and possessing in India only a few 
acres for purposes of commerce, would, in less 
than a hundred years, spread its empire from 
Cape Comorin to the eternal snow of the Hi- 
malayas — would compel Mahratta and Moham- 
medan to forget their mutual feuds in common 
subjection — would tame down even those wild 
races which had resisted the most powerful of 
the Moguls ; — and, having established a go- 
vernment far stronger than any ever known in 
those countries, would cany its victorious 
arms far to the east of the Burrampooter, and 
far to the west of the Hydaspes — dictate terms 
of peace at the gates of Ava, and seat its vas- 
sals on the throne of Candahar. 

The man who first saw that it was possible 
to found a European empire on the ruins of 
the Mogul monarchy was Dupleix. His restless, 
capacious, and inventive mind had formed this 
scheme, at a time when the ablest servants of 
the English Company were busied only about 
invoices and bills of lading. Nor had he only 
proposed to himself the end. He had also a 
just and distinct view of the means by which 
it was to be attained. He clearly saw that the 
greatest force which the princes of India could 
bring into the field would be no match for a 
small body of men trained in the discipline, 
and guided by the tactics, of the West. He 



saw also that the natives of India might, undel 
European commanders, be formed into armies, 
such as Saxe or Frederick would be proud to 
command. He was perfectly aware that th6 
most easy and convenient way in which a 
European adventurer could exercise sovereign- 
ty in India, was to govern the motions, and to 
speak through the mouth, of some glittering 
puppet dignified with the title of Nabob or Ni- 
zam. The arts both of war and policy, which 
a few years later were successfully employed 
by the English, were first understood and prac- 
tised by this ingenious and aspiring French- 
man. 

The state of India was such that scarcely 
any aggression could be without a decent pre- 
text, either in old laws or in recent practice. 
All rights were in a state of utter uncertainty ; 
and the Europeans who took part in the dis- 
putes of the natives confounded the confusion, 
by applying to Asiatic politics the public law 
of the West, and analogies drawn from the 
feudal system. If it was convenient to treat a 
Nabob as an independent prince, there was an 
excellent plea for doing so. He was independ- 
ent in fact. If it was convenient to treat him 
as a mere deputy of the court of Delhi, there 
was no difficulty ; for he was so in theory. If 
it was convenient to consider this office as an 
hereditary dignity, or as a dignity held during 
life only, or a dignity held only during the good 
pleasure of the Mogul, arguments and prece- 
dents might be found for every one of those 
views. The party who had the heir of Baber 
in their hands, represented him as the un- 
doubted, the legitimate, the absolute sovereign, 
whom all the subordinate authorities were 
bound to obey. The party against whom his 
name was used did not want plausible pre- 
texts for maintaining that the empire was dt 
facto dissolved ; and that, though it might be 
proper to treat the Mogul with respect, as a 
venerable relic of an order of things which had 
passed away, it was absurd to regard him as 
the real master of Hindostan. 

In the year 1748, died one of the most power- 
ful of the new masters of India — the great 
Nizam al Mulk, Viceroy of the: Deccan. His 
authority descended to his son Nazir Jung. Of 
the provinces subject to this high functionary, 
the Camatic was the v/ealthiest and the most 
extensive. It was governed by an ancient Na- 
bob, whose name the English corrupted into 
Anaverdy Khan. 

But there were pretenders to the governmen; 
both of the viceroyalty and of the subordinate 
province. Mirzapha Jung, a grandson of Ni 
zam alMulk, appeared as the competitor of Na 
zir Jung. Chunda Sahib, son-in-law of a for- 
mer Nabob of the Camatic, disputed the title 
of Anaverdy Khan. In the unsettled state of 
Indian law, it was easy for both Mirzapha Jung 
and Clrunda Sahib to make out something like 
a claim of right. In a society altogether disor- 
ganized, they had no difficulty in finding greedy 
adventurers to follow their standards. They 
united their interests, invaded the Camatic, 
and applied for assistance to the French, whose 
fame had been raised by their success agains 
the English in the recent war on the coast ot 
Coromandel. 



320 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Nothing could have happened more pleasing 
to the subtle and ambitious Dupleix. To make 
a Nabob of the Carnatic — to make a Viceroy 
of the Deccan, to rule under their names the 
whole of southern India ; — this was indeed an 
attractive prospect. He allied himself with 
the pretenders, and sent four hundred French 
soldiers, and two thousand sepoys, disciplined 
after the European fashion, to the assistance 
of his confederates. A battle was fought. The 
French distinguished themselves greatly. Ana- 
verdy Khan was defeated and slain. His son 
Mohammed Ali, who was afterwards well 
known in England as the Nabob of Arcot, and 
who owes to the eloquence of Burke a most 
unenviable immortality, fled with a scanty rem- 
nant of his army to Trichinopoly ; and the con- 
querors became at once masters of almost 
every part of the Carnatic. 

This was but the beginning of the greatness 
of Dupleix. After some months of fighting, 
negotiation, and intrigue, his ability and good 
fortune seemed to have prevailed everywhere. 
Nazir Jung perished by the hands of his own 
followers ; Mirzapha Jung was master of the 
Deccan ; and the triumph of French arms and 
French policy was complete. At Pondicherry 
all was exultation and festivity. Salutes were 
fired from batteries, and Te Deum sung in all 
the churches. The new Nizam came thither 
to visit his allies ; and the ceremony of his in- 
stallation was performed there with great pomp. 
Dupleix, dressed in the garb worn by Moham- 
medans of the highest rank, entered the town 
in the same palanquin with the Nizam, and in 
the pageant which followed, took precedence 
of all the court. He was declared Governor of 
India, from the river Kristna to Cape Comorin, 
with authority superior even to that of Chunda 
Sahib. He was intrusted with the command 
cf seven thousand cavalry. It was announced 
that no mint would be suffered to exist in the 
Carnatic except that at Pondicherry. A large 
portion of the treasures which former Viceroys 
of the Deccan had accumulated, found its way 
into the coffers of the French governor. It was 
rumoured that he had received two hundred 
ihousand pounds sterling in money, besides 
many valuable jewels. In fact, there could 
scarcely be any limit to his gains. He now 
ruled thirty millions of people with almost ab- 
solute power. No honour or emolument could 
be obtained from the government but by his in- 
tervention. No petition, unless signed by him, 
was even perused by the Nizam. 

Mirzapha Jung survived his elevation only 
a few months. But another prince of the same 
house was raised to the throne by French in- 
fluence, and ratified all the promises of his pre- 
decessor. Dupleix was now the greatest po- 
tentate in India. His countrymen boasted that 
his name was mentioned with awe even in the 
chambers of the palace of Delhi. The native 
population looked with amazement on the pro- 
gress which, in the short space of four years, 
a European adventurer had made towards 
dominion in Asia. Nor was the vainglorious 
Frenchman content with reality of power. He 
loved to display it with arrogant ostentation 
before the eyes of his subjects and his rivals. 
Near the spo/ where his policy had obtained 



its greatest triumph, by the fall of Nazir Jung 
and the elevation of Mirzapha, he determined 
to erect a column, on the four sides of which 
four pompous inscriptions, in four languages, 
should proclaim his victory to all the nations 
of the East. Medals stamped with emblems 
of his success were buried beneath the founda- 
tions of this stately pillar, and round it arose a 
town bearing the haughty name of Dupleix 
Fatihabad ; which is, being interpreted, the City 
of the Victory of Dupleix. The English had 
made some feeble and irresolute attempts to 
stop the rapid and brilliant career of the rival 
Company, and continued to recognise Moham- 
med Ali as Nabob of the Carnatic. But the 
dominions of Mohammed Ali consisted of Tri- 
chinopoly alone ; and Trichinopoly was now 
invested by Chunda Sahib and the French 
auxiliaries. To raise the siege seemed im- 
possible. The small force which was then at 
Madras had no commander. Major Lawrence 
had returned to England ; and not a single offi- 
cer of established character remained in the 
settlement. The natives had learned to look 
with contempt on the mighty nation which was 
soon to conquer and to rule them. They had 
seen the French colours flying at Fort St 
George ; they had seen the chiefs of the Eng- 
lish factory led in triumph through the streets 
of Pondicherry ; they had seen the arms and 
counsels of Dupleix everywhere successful, 
while the opposition which the authorities of 
Madras had made to his progress, had served 
only to expose their own weakness, and to 
heighten his glory. At this moment, the valour 
and genius of an obscure English youth sud- 
denly turned the tide of fortune. 

Clive was now twenty-five years old. After 
hesitating for some time between a military 
and a commercial life, he had at length been 
placed in a post which partook of both cha- 
racters — that of commissary to the troops, with 
the rank of captain. The present emergency 
called forth all his powers. He represented 
to his superiors, that unless some vigorous 
effort were made, Trichinopoly would fall, the 
house of Anaverdy Khan would perish, and 
the French would become the real masters of 
the whole peninsula of India. It Ttar abso- 
lutely necessary to strike some daring blow. 
If an attack were made on Arcot, the capital 
of the Carnatic, and the favourite residence of 
the Nabobs, it was not impossible that the 
siege of Trichinopoly would be raised. The 
heads of the English settlement, now thoroughly 
alarmed by the success of Dupleix, and appre- 
hensive that, in the .event of a new war be- 
tween France and Great Britain, Madras 
would be instantly taken and destroyed, ap- 
proved of Clive's plan, and intrusted the exe- 
cution of it to himself. The young captain 
was put at the head of two hundred English 
soldiers, and three hundred sepoys armed and 
disciplined after the European fashion. Of 
the eight officers who commanded this little 
force under him, not a single one bad ever 
been in action, and four of the eight were fac- 
tors of the Company, whom Clive's example 
had induced to offer their services. The wea- 
ther was stormy ; but Clive pushed on, through 
thunder, lighting, and rain, to the gates of Ax* 



MALCOLM'S LIFE OF CLIVL 



321 



eot. The garrison, in a panic, evacuated the 
fort, and the English entered it without- a 
blow. 

But Clive well knew that he would not be 
suffered to retain undisturbed possession of 
his conquest. He instantly began to collect 
provisions, to throw up works, and to make 
preparations for sustaining a siege. The gar- 
rison, which had fled at his approach, had now 
recovered from its dismay, and, having been 
swollen by large reinforcements from the 
neighbourhood to a force of three thousand 
men, encamped close to the town. At dead of 
night, Clive marched out of the fort, attacked 
the camp by surprise, slew great numbers, dis- 
persed the rest, and returned to his quarters 
without having lost a single man. 

The intelligence of these events was soon 
carried to Chunda Sahib, who, with, his French 
allies, was besieging Trichinopoly. He im- 
mediately detached four thousand men from 
his camp, and sent them to Arcot. They were 
speedily joined by the remains of the force 
which Clive had lately scattered. They were 
further strengthened by two thousand men 
from Vellore ; and by a still more important 
reinforcement of a hundred and fifty French 
soldiers, whom Dupleix despatched from Pon- 
dicherry. The whole of this army, amounting 
to about ten thousand men, was under the 
command of Rajah Sahib, son of Chunda Sa- 
hib. 

Rajah Sahib proceeded to invest the fort of 
Arcot, which seemed quite incapable of sus- 
taining a siege. The walls were ruinous, the 
ditches dry, the ramparts too narrow to admit 
the guns, the battlements too low to protect the 
soldie-?. The little garrison had been greatly 
reduced by casualties. It now consisted of a 
hundred and twenty Europeans and two hun- 
dred sepoys. Only four officers were left; the 
stock of provisions was scanty ; and the com- 
mander, who had to conduct the defence under 
circumstances so discouraging, was a young 
man of five-and-$wenty, who had been bred a 
book-keeper. 

During fifty days the siege went on. During 
fifty days the young captain maintained the 
defence, with a firmness, vigilance, and ability 
which would have done honour to the oldest 
marshal in Europe. The breach, however, in- 
creased day by day. The garrison began to 
feel the pressure of hunger. Under such cir- 
cumstances, any troops so scantily provided 
with officers might have been expected to 
show signs of insubordination ; and the danger 
was peculiarly great in a force composed of 
men differing widely from each other in ex- 
traction, colour, language, manners, and reli- 
gion. But the devotion of the little band to its 
chief surpassed any thing that is related .of the 
tenth legion of Coesar, of of the Old Guard of 
Napoleon. The sepoys came to Clive — not to 
complain of their scanty fare, but to propose 
that all the grain should be given to the Euro- 
peans, who required more nourishment than 
the natives of Asia. The thin gruel, they said, 
which was strained away from the rice, would 
suffice for themselves. Histoiy contains no 
more touching instance of military fidelity, or 
of the influence of a commanding: mind. 



An attempt made by the government of Ma 
dras to relieve the place had failed. But there 
was hope from another quarter. A body of 
six thousand Mahrattas, half soldiers, half rob- 
bers, under the command of a chief named 
Morari Row, had been hired to assist Moham- 
med Ali ; but thinking the French power irre- 
sistible, and the triumph of Chunda Sahib 
certain, they had hitherto remained inactive 
on the frontiers of the Carnatic. The fame of 
the defence of Arcot roused them from their 
torpor. Morari Row declared that he had 
never before believed that Englishmen could 
fight, but that he would willingly help them 
since he saw that they had spirit to help them- 
selves. Rajah Sahib learned that the Mahrattas 
were in motion. It was necessary for- him to 
be expeditious. He first tried negotiation. 
He offered large bribes to Clive, which were 
rejected with scorn. He vowed that, if his 
proposals were not accepted, he would instantly 
storm the fort, and put every man in it to the 
sword. Clive told him, in reply, with charac- 
teristic haughtiness, that his father was a 
usurer, that his army was a rabble, and that he 
would do well to think twice before he sent 
such poltroons into a breach defended by Eng- 
lish soldiers. 

Rajah Sahib determined to storm the fort. 
The day was well suited to a bold militan 
enterprise. It was the great Mohammeda. 
festival which is sacred to the memory 
Hosein the son of Ali. The history of Islam 
contains nothing more touching than that 
mournful legend : — how the chief of the Fati- 
mites, when all his brave followers had perish- 
ed round him, drank his latest draught of 
water and uttered his latest prayer — how the 
assassins carried his head in triumph — 'how 
the tyrant smote the lifeless lips with his staff 
— and how a few old men recollected with 
tears that they had seen those lips pressed to 
the lips of the prophet of God. After the lapse 
of nearly twelve centuries, the recurrence of 
this solemn season excites the fiercest and 
saddest emotions in the bosoms of the devout 
Moslems of India. They work themselves 
up to such agonies of rage and lamentation, 
that some, it is said, have given up the ghost 
from the mere effect of mental excitement. 
They believe that whoever during this festival 
falls in arms against the infidels, atones by 
his death for all the sins of his life, and passes 
at once to the gardens of the Houris. It was 
at this time that Rajah Sahib determined to 
assault Arcot. Stimulating drugs were em- 
ployed to aid the effect of religious zeal, and 
the besiegers, drunk with enthusiasm, drunk 
with bang, rushed furiously to the attack. 

Clive had received secret intelligence of tht. 
design, had made his arrangements, and, ex- 
hausted by fatigue, had thrown himself on nia 
bed. He was awakened by the alarm, and was 
instantly at his post. The enemy advanced, 
driving before them elephants whose foreheads 
were armed with iron plates. It was expect- 
ed that the gates would yield to the shock of 
these living battering-rams. But the huge beasts 
no sooner felt the English musket-balls thau 
they turned round, and rushed furiously away 
trampling on the multitude that had urged them 



322 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



forward. A raft was launched on the water 
which filled one part of the ditch. Clive, perceiv- 
ing that his gunners at that post did not under- 
stand their business, took the management of 
a piece of artillery himself, and cleared the raft 
in a few minutes. Where the moat was dry, 
the assailants mounted with great boldness ; 
but they were received with a fire so heavy, 
and so well directed, that it soon quelled the 
courage even of fanaticism and of intoxication. 
The rear ranks of the English kept the front 
ranks supplied with a constant succession of 
loaded muskets, and every shot told on the liv- 
ing mass below. After three desperate onsets, 
the besiegers retired behind the ditch. 

The struggle lasted about an hour. Four 
nundred of the assailants fell. The garrison 
lost only five or six men. The besieged passed 
an anxious night, looking for a renewal of the 
attack. But when day broke the enemy were 
no more to be seen. They had retired, leaving 
to the English several guns and a large quan- 
tity of ammunition. 

The news was received at Fort St. George 
with transports of joy and pride. Clive was 
justly regarded as a man equal to any com- 
mand. Two hundred English soldiers and 
seven hundred sepoys were sent to him, and 
with this force he instantly commenced offen- 
sive operations. He took the fort of Timery, 
effected a junction with a division of Morari 
Row's army, and hastened by forced marches 
to attack Rajah Sahib, who was at the head of 
about five thousand men, of whom three hun- 
dred were French. The action was sharp ; 
but Clive gained a complete victory. The 
military chest of Rajah Sahib fell into the 
hands of the conquerors. Six hundred sepoys 
who had served in the enemy's army, came 
over to Clive's quarters, and were taken into 
the British service. Conjeveram surrendered 
without a blow. The Governor of Arnee de- 
serted Chunda Sahib, and recognised the title 
of Mohammed AH. 

Had the entire direction of the war been in- 
trusted to Clive, it would probably have been 
brought to a speedy close. But the timidity 
and incapacity which appeared in all the 
movements of the English, except where he 
was personally present, protracted the strug- 
gle. The Mahrattas muttered that his soldiers 
were of a different race from the British whom 
they found elsewhere. The effect of this lan- 
guor was that in no long time Rajah Sahib, at 
the head of a considerable army, in which were 
four hundred French troops, appeared almost 
under the guns of Fort St. George, and laid 
waste the villas and gardens of the gentlemen 
of the English settlement. But he was again 
encountered and defeated by Clive. More than 
a hundred of the French were killed or taken 
— a loss more serious than that of thousands 
of natives. The victorious army marched 
from the field of battle to Fort St. David. On 
the road lay the City of the Victory of Dupleix, 
and the stately monument which was designed 
lo commemorate the triumphs of France in the 
Bast. Clive ordered both the city and the 
monument to be rased to the ground. He was 
induced, we believe, to take this step, not by 
aersonal or national ma ,'■ volence, but by a just 



and profound policy. The town ard its pom 
pous name, the pillar and its vaunting inscrip 
tions, were among the devices by which Du- 
pleix had laid the public mind of India undei 
a spell. This spell it was Clive's business to 
break. The natives had been taught that 
France was confessedly the first power in Eu- 
rope, and that the English did not presume to 
dispute her supremacy. No measure could 
be more effectual for the removing of this de- 
lusion than the public and solemn demolition 
of the French trophies. 

The government of Madras, encouraged by 
these events, determined to send a strong de- 
tachment, under Clive, to reinforce the garri- 
son of Trichinopoly. But just at this conjunc- 
ture, Major Lawrence arrived from England, 
and assumed the chief command. From the 
waywardness and impatience of control which 
had characterized Clive, both at school and in 
the counting-house, it might have been expected 
that he would not, after such achievements, act 
with zeal and good humour in a subordinate 
capacity. But Lawrence had early treated 
him with kindness ; and it is bare justice to 
Clive to say, that proud and overbearing as he 
was, kindness was never thrown away upon 
him. He cheerfully placed himself under the 
orders of his old friend, and exerted himself as 
strenuously in the second post as he could 
have done in the first. Lawrence well knew 
the value of such assistance. Though him« 
self gifted with no intellectual faculty higher 
than plain good sense, he fully appreciated the 
powers of his brilliant coadjutor. Though he 
had made a methodical study of military tac- 
tics, and, like all men regularly bred to a pro- 
fession, was disposed to look with disdain 
upon interlopers, he had yet liberality enough 
to acknowledge that Clive was an exception 
to common rules. "Some people," he wrote, 
" are pleased to term Captain Clive fortunate 
and lucky ; but, in my opinion, from the know- 
ledge I have of the gentleman, he deserved and 
might expect from his conduct every thing as 
it fell out ; — a man of an undaunted resolution, 
of a cool temper, and a presence of mind which 
never left him in the greatest danger — born a 
soldier ; for, without a military education of 
any sort, or much conversing with any of the 
profession, from his judgment and good sense, 
he led on an army like an experienced office? 
and a brave soldier, with a prudence that cer 
tainly warranted success." 

The French had no commander to oppose to 
the two friends. Dupleix, not inferior in talents 
for negotiation and intrigue to any European 
who has borne a part in the revolutions of 
India, was not qualified to direct in person 
military operations. He had not been bred a 
soldier, and had no inclination to become one. 
His enemies accused him of personal coward- 
ice ; and he defended himself in a strain wor 
thy of Captain Bobadil. He kept away from 
shot, he said, because silence and tranquillity 
were propitious to his genius, and he found it 
difficult to pursue his meditations amidst the 
noise of fire-arms. He was then under the ne- 
cessity of intrusting to others the execution of 
his great warlike designs,: and he bitterly com 
plained that he was ill-served. He had indee.. 



MALCOLM'S LIFE OF CLIVE. 



32d 



been assisted by one officer of eminent merit, 
the celebrated Bussy. But Bussy had marched 
" northward with the Nizam, and was fully em- 
ployed in looking after his own interests, and 
those of France, at the court of that prince. 
Among the officers who remained with Du- 
pleix, there was not a single man of talent ; and 
many of them were boys, at whose ignorance 
and folly the common soldiers laughed. 

The English triumphed everywhere. The 
besiegers of Trichinopoly were themselves be- 
sieged and compelled to capitulate. Chunda 
Sahib fell into the hands of the Mahrattas, and 
was put to death, at the instigation probably of 
his competitor, Mohammed Ali. The spirit of 
Dupleix, however, was unconquerable, and his 
resources inexhaustible. From his employers 
in Europe he no longer received help or coun- 
tenance. They condemned his policy. They 
allowed him no pecuniary assistance. They 
sent him for troops only the sweepings of the 
galleys. Yet still he persisted, intrigued, 
bribed, promised; — lavished his private for- 
tune, strained his credit, procured new diplo- 
mas from ©elhi, raised up new enemies to the 
government of Madras on every side, and even 
among the allies of the English Company. But 
all was in vain. Slowly, but steadily, the power 
of Britain continued to increase, and that of 
France to decline. 

The health of Clive had never been good 
during his residence in India, and his consti- 
tution was now so much impaired that he de- 
termined to return to England. Before his de- 
parture he undertook a service of considerable 
difficulty, and performed it with his usual vi- 
gour and dexterity. The Forts of Covelong 
and Chingleput were occupied by French gar- 
risons. It was determined to send a force 
against them. But the only force available 
for this purpose was of such a description, that 
no officer but Clive would risk his reputation 
by commanding it. It consisted of five hun- 
dred newly-levied sepoys and two hundred re- 
cruits who had just landed from England, and 
who were the worst and lowest wretches that 
the Company's crimps could pick up in the 
flash-houses in London. Clive, ill and ex- 
hausted as he was, undertook to make an army 
of this undisciplined rabble, and marched with 
them to Covelong. A shot from the fort killed 
one of these extraordinary soldiers ; on which 
all the rest faced about and ran away, and it 
was with the greatest difficulty that Clive ral- 
lied them. On another occasion the noise of 
a gun terrified the sentinels so much that one 
of them was found, some hours later, at the 
bottom of a well. Clive gradually accustomed 
them to danger, and by exposing himself con- 
stantly in the most perilous situations, shamed 
them into courage. He at length succeeded in 
forming a respectable force out of his un- 
promising materials. Covelong fell. Clive 
learned that a strong detachment was march- 
ing to relieve it from Chingleput. He took 
measures to prevent the enemy from learning 
that they were too late, laid an ambuscade for 
!hem on the road, killed a hundred of them 
with on 3 fire, took three hundred prisoners, 
Dursued the fugitives to the gates of Chingle- 
put, laid siege instantly to that fastness, reputed 



one of the strongest in India, made a breach, 
and was on the point of storming, when the 
French commandant capitulated and retired 
with his men. 

Clive returned to Madras victorious, but in a 
state of health which rendered it impossible 
for him to remain there long. He married at 
this time a young lady of the name of Mas- 
kelyne, sister of the eminent mathematician 
who long held the post of Astronomer-Koyal. 
She is described as handsome and accom- 
plished, and her husband's letters, it is said, 
contain proofs that he was devotedly attached 
to her. \ 

Almost immediately after the marriage, 
Clive embarked with his bride for England. 
He returned a very different person from the 
poor, slighted boy who had been sent out ten 
years before to seek his fortune. He was only 
twenty-seven ; yet his country already respect- 
ed him as one of her first soldiers. There was 
then general peace in Europe. The Carnatic 
was the only part of the world where the Eng- 
lish and French were in arms against each 
other. . The vast schemes of Dupleix had ex- 
cited no small uneasiness in the city of Lon- 
don ; and the rapid turn of fortune which was 
chiefly owing to the courage and talents tff 
Clive, had been hailed with great delight. 
The young captain was known at the India 
House by the honourable nick-name of Gene- 
ral Clive, and was toasted by that appellation 
at the feasts of the Directors. On his arrival 
in England he found himself an object of gene- 
ral interest and admiration. The East India 
Company thanked him for his services in the 
warmest terms, and presented him with a 
sword set with diamonds. With rare deli- 
cacy, he declined to receive this token of gra- 
titude, unless a similar compliment was paid 
to his friend and commander, Lawrence. 

It may easily be supposed that Clive was 
most cordially welcomed home by his family, 
who were delighted by his success, though 
they seem to have been hardly able to compre- 
hend how their naughty, idle Bobby had be- 
come so great a man. His father had been 
singularly hard of belief. Not until the news 
of the defence of Arcot arrived in England 
was the old gentleman heard to growl out, 
that after all the booby had something in him. 
His expressions of approbation became strong- 
er and stronger as news arrived of one bril- 
liant exploit after another ; and he was at 
length immoderately fond and proud of his 
son. 

Clive's relations had very substantial rca 
sons for rejoicing at his return. Considerable 
sums of prize-money had fallen to his share, 
and he had brought home several thousands, 
some of which he expended in extricating his 
father from pecuniary difficulties, and in re 
deeming the family estate. The remainder he 
appears to have dissipated in the course or 
about two years. He lived splendidly, dressed 
gayly even for those times, kept a carriage and 
saddled horses, and, not content with these 
ways of getting rid of his money, resorted to 
the most speedy and effectual of all modes of 
evacuation, a contested election followed by g 
petition. 



324 



MAC.UJLAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



At the time of the general election of 1754, 
ihe government was in a very singular state. 
There was scarcely any formal opposition. 
The Jacobites had been cowed by the issue of 
the last rebellion. The Tory party had fallen 
into utter contempt. It had been deserted by 
all the men of talents who had belonged to it, 
and had scarcely given a symptom of life 
during some years. The small faction which 
had been held together by the influence and 
promises of Prince Frederick had been dis- 
persed by his death. Almost every public 
man of distinguished talents in the kingdom, 
whatever his early connections had been, was 
in office, and called himself a Whig. But this 
extraordinary appearance of concord was quite 
delusive. The administration itself was dis- 
tracted by bitter enmities and conflicting pre- 
tensions. The chief object of its members 
was to depress and supplant each other. The 
prime minister, Newcastle, weak, timid, jeal- 
ous, and perfidious, was at once detested and 
despised by the most important members of 
his government, and by none more than by 
Henry Fox, the Secretary at War. This able, 
daring, and ambitious man seized every oppor- 
tunity of crossing the First Lord of the Trea- 
sury, from whom he well knew that he had 
little to dread and little to hope ; for Newcastle 
was through life equally afraid of breaking 
with men of parts and of promoting them. 

Newcastle had set his heart on returning 
two members for St. Michael, one of those 
wretched Cornish boroughs which were swept 
away by the Reform Act in 1832. He was op- 
posed by Lord Sandwich, whose influence had 
long been paramount there ; and Fox exerted 
himself strenuously in Sandwich's behalf. 
Clive, who had been introduced to Fox, and 
very kindly received by him, was brought for- 
ward on the Sandwich interest, and was re- 
turned. But a petition was presented against 
the return, and was backed by the whole inte- 
rest of the Duke of Newcastle. 

The case was heard, according to the usage 
of that time, before a committee of the whole 
House. Questions respecting elections were 
then considered merely as party questions. 
Judicial impartiality was not even affected. 
Sir Robert Walpole was in the habit of saying 
openly, that in election battles there ought to 
be no quarter. On the present occasion the 
excitement was great. The matter really at 
issue was, not whether Clive had been proper- 
ly or improperly returned ; but whether New- 
castle or Fox was to be master of the new House 
of Commons, and consequently first minister. 
The contest was long and obstinate, and suc- 
cess seemed to lean sometimes to one side and 
sometimes to the other. Fox put forth all his 
rare powers of debate, beat half the lawyers in 
the House at their own weapons, and carried 
division after division against the whole in- 
fluence of the Treasury. The committee de- 
cided in Clive's favour. But when the reso- 
lution was reported to the House, things took 
'A different course. The remnant of the Tory 
Opposition, contemptible as it was, had yet 
sufficient weignt to turn the scale between the 
mcely balanced parties of Newcastle and Fox. 
wcastle the Tories could only despise. Fox 



they hated, as the boldest and most subtle poli« 
tician, and the ablest debater among the 
Whigs; as the steady friend of Walpole, a9 
the devoted adherent of the Duke of Cumber- 
land. After wavering until the last moment, 
they determined to vote in a body with the 
prime minister's friends. The consequence 
was, that the House, by a small minority, r» 
scinded the decision of the committee, and 
Clive was unseated. 

Ejected from Parliament, and straitened ia 
his means, he naturally began to look again 
towards India. The Company and the go- 
vernment were eager to avail themselves of 
his services. A treaty favourable to England 
had indeed been concluded in the Carnatic. 
Dupleix had'been superseded, and had return- 
ed with the wreck of his immense fortune to 
Europe, where calumny and chicanery soon 
hunted him to his grave. But many signs in- 
dicated that a war between France and Great 
Britain was at hand, and it was therefore 
thought desirable to send an able commander 
to the Company's settlements in India. The 
Directors appointed Clive Governor of Fort 
St. David. The king gave him the commis- 
sion of a lieutenant-colonel in the British 
army, and in 1755 he again sailed for Asia. 

The first service in which he was employed 
after his return to the East, was the reduction 
of the stronghold of Gheriah. This fortress, 
built on a craggy promontory, and almost sur- 
rounded by the ocean, was the den of a pirate 
named Angria, whose barks had long been the 
terror of the Arabian Gulf. Admiral Watson, 
who commanded the English squadron in the 
Eastern- seas, burned Angria's fleet, while 
Clive attacked the fastness by land. The 
place soon fell, and a booty of a hundred and 
fifty thousand pounds sterling was divided 
among the conquerors. 

After this exploit Clive proceeded to his 
government of Fort St. David. Before he had 
been there two months, he received intelligence 
which called forth all the energy of his bold 
and active mind. 

Of the provinces which had been subject to 
the house of Tamerlane, the wealthiest was 
Bengal. No part of India possessed such na- 
tural advantages, both for agriculture and com- 
merce. The Ganges, rushing through a hun- 
dred channels to the sea, has formed a vast 
plain of rich mould, which, even under the 
tropical sky, rivals the verdure of an English 
April. The rice fields yield an increase such 
as is elsewhere unknown. Spices, sugar, vege- 
table oils, are produced with similar exube- 
rance. The rivers afford an inexhaustible sup- 
ply of fish. The desolate islands along the 
sea-coast, overgrown by noxious vegetation, 
and swarming with deer and tigers, supply the 
cultivated districts with abundance of salt 
The great stream which fertilizes the soil is at 
the same time the chief highway of Eastern 
commerce. On its banks, and on those of its 
tributary waters, are the wealthiest marts, the 
most splendid capitals, and the most sacred 
shrines of India. The tyranny of man had for 
ages struggled in vain against the overflowing 
bounty of nature. In spite of the Mussulman 
despot and of the Mahratta freebooter, Bengal 



MALCOLM'S LIFE OF CLIVE. 



385 



was known through the East as the garden 
of Eden, as the rich kingdom. Its population 
multiplied exceedingly. Other provinces were 
nourished from the overflowing of its grana- 
ries ; and the ladies of London and Paris were 
clothed in the delicate produce of its looms. 
The race by whom this rich tract was peopled, 
enervated by a soft climate and accustomed to 
peaceful avocations, bore the same relation to 
other Asiatics which the Asiatics generally 
bear to the bold and energetic children of Eu- 
rope. The Castilians have a proverb, that in 
Valencia the earth is water and the men wo- 
men; and the description is at least equally ap- 
plicable to the vast plain of the Lower Ganges. 
Whatever the Bengalee does he does languidly. 
His favourite pursuits are sedentary. He shrinks 
from bodily exercise ; and, though voluble in 
dispute, and singularly pertinacious in the war 
of chicane, he seldom engages in a personal 
conflict, and scarcely ever enlists as a soldier. 
We doubt whether there be a hundred genuine 
Bengalees in the whole army of the East India 
Company. There never, perhaps, existed a 
people so ^thoroughly fitted by nature and by 
habit for a foreign yoke. 

The great commercial companies of Europe 
had long possessed factories in Bengal. The 
French were settled, as they still are, at Chan- 
dernagore, on the Hcogley. Lower down the 
stream the English had built Fort William. A 
church and ample warehouses rose in the vici- 
nity. A row of spacious houses, belonging to 
the chief factors of the East India Company, 
lined the banks of the river ; and in the neigh- 
bourhood had sprung up a large and busy na- 
tive town, where some Hindoo merchants of 
great opulence had fixed their abode. But the 
tract now covered by the palaces of Chow- 
ringhee contained only a few miserable huts 
thatched with straw. A jungle, abandoned to 
water-fowls and alligators, covered the site of 
the present Citadel, and the Course, which is 
now daily crowded at sunset with the gayest 
equipages of Calcutta. For the ground on 
which the settlement stood, the English, like 
other great landholders, paid rent to the govern- 
ment; and they were, like other great land- 
holders, permitted to exercise a certain juris- 
diction within their domain. 

The great province of Bengal, together with 
Orissa and Bahar, had long been governed by 
a viceroy whom the English called Aliverdy 
Khan, and who, like the other viceroys of the 
Mogul, had become virtually independent. He 
died in 1756, and the sovereignty descended to 
his grandson, a youth under twenty, who bore 
the name of Surajah Dowlah. Oriental des- 
pots are perhaps the worst class of human be- 
ings ; and this unhappy boy was one of the 
worst specimens of his class. His under- 
standing was naturally feeble, and his temper 
naturally unamiable. His education had been 
such as would have enervated even a vigorous 
intellect, and perverted even a generous dis- 
position. He was unreasonable, because no- 
body ever dared to reason with him ; and self- 
'sh, because he had never been made, to feel 
himself dependent on the good-will of others. 
Early debauchery had unnerved his body and 
nis mind. He indulged immoderately in the 



use of ardent spirits, which i iflamed fus weaK 
brain almost to madness. His chosen compa« 
nions were flatterers, sprung from the dregs 
of the people, and recommended by nothing 
but buffoonery and servility. It is said that 
he had arrived at that last stage of human de- 
pravity when cruelty becomes pleasing for its 
own sake — when the sight of pain as pain, 
where no advantage is to be gained, no offence 
punished, no danger averted, is ah agreeable 
excitement. It had early been his amusement 
to torture beasts and birds; and when he grew 
up, he enjoyed with still keener relish the misery 
of his fellow-creatures. 

From a child Surajah Dowlah had hated the 
English. It was his whim to do so : and his 
whims were never opposed. He had also 
formed a very exaggerated notion of the wealth 
which might be obtained by plundering them ; 
and his feeble and uncultivated mind was in- 
capable of perceiving that the riches of Cal- 
cutta, had they been even greater than he ima- 
gined, would not compensate him for what he 
must lose if the European trade, of which Ben- 
gal was a chief seat, should be driven by his 
violence to some other quarter. Pretexts for 
a quarrel were readily found. The English, 
in expectation of a war with France, had be- 
gun to fortify their settlement without a special 
permission from the Nabob. A rich native 
Avhom he longed to plunder had taken refuge 
at Calcutta, and had not been delivered up. 
On such grounds as these Surajah Dowlah 
marched with a great army against Fort Wil- 
liam. 

The servants of the Company at Madras had 
been forced by Dupleix to become statesmen 
and soldiers. Those in Bengal were still mere 
traders, and were terrified and bewildered by the 
approaching danger. The governor, who had 
heard much of Surajah Dowlah's cruelty, was 
frightened out of his wits, jumped into a boat, 
and took refuge in the nearest ship. The mili- 
tary commandant thought that he could not do 
better than follow so good an example. The 
fort was taken after a feeble resistance, and 
great numbers of the English fell into the 
hands of the conquerors. The Nabob seated 
himself with regal pomp in the principal hall 
of the factory, and ordered Mr. Holwell, the 
first in rank among the prisoners, to be brought 
before him. He abused the insolence of the 
English, and grumbled at the smallness of the 
treasure he had found, but promised to spare 
their lives, and retired to rest. 

Then was committed that great crime, me- 
morable for its singular atrocity, memorable 
for the tremendous retribution by which it was 
followed. The English captives were left at 
the mercy of the guards, and the guards deter- 
mined to secure them for the night in the 
prison of the garrison, a chamber known by 
the fearful name of the Black Hole. Even for 
a single European malefactor that dungeon 
would, in such a climate, have been too close 
and narrow. The space was only twenty feet 
square. The air-holes were small and oo« 
structed. It was the summer solstice — the sea- 
son when the fierce heat of Bengal can scarce- 
ly be rendered tolerable to natives of Englani 
by lofty halls and the constant waving of fans. 



326 



MAC AULA Y'S MISCELLANEOUS WRI1INGS. 



The number of the prisoners was one hundred 
and forty-six. When they were ordered to enter 
the cell, they imagined that the soldiers were 
joking; and, being in high spirits on account 
of the promise of the Nabob to spare their 
lives, they laughed and jested at the absurdity 
of the notion. They soon discovered their mis- 
take. They expostulated ; they entreated; but 
in vain. The guards threatened to cut down 
all who hesitated. The captives were driven 
into the cell at the point of the sword, and 
the door was instantly shut and locked upon 
them. 

Nothing in history or fiction — not even the 
story which Ugolino told in the sea of ever- 
lasting ice, after he had wiped his bloody lips 
on the" scalp of his murderer — approaches the 
horrors which were recounted by the few sur- 
vivors of that night. They cried for mercy. 
They strove to burst the door. Holwell, who, 
even in that extremity, retained some presence 
of mind, offered large bribes to the jailers. 
But the answer was that nothing could be done 
without the Nabob's orders, that the Nabob 
was asleep, and that he would be angry if any- 
body awoke him. Then the prisoners went 
mad with despair. They trampled each other 
down, fought for the places at the windows, 
fought for the pittance of water with which 
the cruel mercy of the murderers mocked 
their agonies — raved, prayed, blasphemed — 
implored the guards to fire among them. The 
jailers in the mean time held lights to the 
bars, and shouted with laughter at the frantic 
struggles of their victims. At length the tu- 
mult died away in low gasps and moanings. 
The day broke. The Nabob had slept off his 
debauch, and permitted the door to be opened. 
But it was some time before the soldiers could 
make a lane for the survivors, by piling up on 
each side the heaps of corpses, on which the 
burning climate had already begun to do its 
loathsome work. When at length a passage 
was made, twenty-three ghastly figures, such 
as their own mothers would not have known, 
staggered one by one out of the charnel-house* 
A pit was instantly dug. The dead bodies, a 
hundred and twenty-three in number, were 
flung into it promiscuously, and covered up. 

But these things, which, after the lapse of 
more than eighty years, cannot be told or read 
without horror, awakened neither remorse nor 
pity iii the bosom of the savage Nabob. He 
inflicted no punishment on the murderers. He 
showed no tenderness to the survivors. Some 
of them, indeed, from whom nothing was to be 
got, were suffered to depart; but those from 
whom it was thought that any thing could be 
extorted, were treated with execrable cruelty. 
Holwell, unable to walk, was carried before 
the tyrant, who reproached him; threatened 
hiffij and sent him up the country in irons ; to- 
gether with some other gentlemen who were 
inspected of knowing more than they chose to 
tell about the treasures of the Company. These 
persons, still bowed down by the sufferings of 
that great agony, were lodged in miserable 
sheds, and fed only with grain and water, till 
at length the intercessions of the female re- 
.ations of the Nabob procured their release. 
One Englishwoman had survived that night. 



She was placed in the harem of the prince, at 
Moorshedabad. 

Surajah Dowlah, in the mean time, sen 
letters to his nominal sovereign at Delhi, de. 
scribing the late conquest in the most pompous 
language. He placed a garrison in Fort Wil. 
liam, forbade any Englishman to dwell in the 
neighbourhood, and directed that, in memory 
of his great actions, Calcutta should thence- 
forward be called Alinagore, that is to say, the 
Port of God. 

In August the news of the fall of Calcutta 
reached Madras, and excited the fiercest and 
bitterest resentment. The cry of the whole 
settlement was for vengeance. Within forty- 
eight hours after the arrival of the intelligence, 
it was determined that an expedition should be 
sent to the Hoogley, and that Clive should be at 
the head of the land forces. The naval arma- 
ment was under the command of Admiral 
Watson. Nine hundred English infantry — 
fine troops and full of spirit — and fifteen hun- 
dred sepoys, composed the army which sailed 
to punish a prince who had more subjects and 
larger revenues than the King of Prussia or 
the Empress Maria Theresa. In October the 
expedition sailed ; but it had to make its way 
against adverse winds, and did not reach Ben 
gal till December. 

The Nabob was revelling in fancied securi 
ty at Moorshedabad. He was so profoundly 
ignorant of the state of foreign countries, that 
he often used to say that there were not ten 
thousand men in all Europe ; and it had never 
occurred to him as possible, that the English 
would dare to invade his dominions. But, 
though undisturbed by any fear of their mili- 
tary power, he began to miss them greatly. 
His revenues fell off; and his ministers suc- 
ceeded in making him understand that a ruler 
may sometimes find it more profitable to pro- 
tect traders in the open enjoyment of their 
gains than to put them to the torture for the 
purpose of discovering hidden chests of gold 
and jewels. He vas already disposed to per- 
mit the Company to resume its mercantile 
operations in his country, when he received 
the news that an English armament was in the 
Hoogley. He instantly ordered all his troops 
to assemble at Moorshedabad, and marched 
towards Calcutta. 

Clive had commenced operations with his 
usual vigour. He took Budgebudge, routed 
the garrison of Fort William, recovered Cal- 
cutta, stormed and sacked Hoogley. The 
Nabob, already disposed to make some con- 
cessions to the English, was confirmed in hi3 
pacific disposition by these proofs of their 
power and spirit. He accordingly made over- 
tures to the chiefs of the invading armament, 
and offered to restore the factory, and to give 
compensation to those whom he had despoiled. 
Clive's profession was war ; and he felt that 
there was* something discreditable in an ac- 
commodation with Surajah Dowlah. But his 
power was limited. A committee, chiefly com- 
posed of servants of the Company who had 
fled from Calcutta, had the principal direction 
of affairs ; and these persons were eager to be 
restored to their posts, and compensated for 
their losses. The government of Madras, aj> 



MALCOLM'S LIFE OF CLIVE. 



327 



prized that war had commenced in Europe, 
and apprehensive of an attack from the French, 
became impatient for the return of the arma- 
ment. The promises of the Nabob were large, 
the chances of a contest doubtful ; and Clive 
consented to treat— though he expressed his 
regret that things should not be concluded in 
so glorious a manner as he could have wished. 
With this negotiation commences a new 
chapter in the life of Clive. Hitherto he had 
been merely a soldier, carrying into effect, with 
eminent ability and valour, the plans of others. 
Henceforth he is to be chiefly regarded as a 
•.tatesman; and his military movements are to 
be considered as subordinate to his political 
designs. That in his new capacity he dis- 
played great talents, and obtained great suc- 
cess, is undeniable. But it is also undeniable, 
that the transactions in which he now began 
to take a part, have left a stain on his moral 
character. 

We can by no means agree with Sir John 
Malcolm, who is obstinately resolved to see 
EOthing but honour and integrity in the con- 
duct of hi* hero. But we can as little agree 
with Mr. Mill, who has gone so far as to say 
that Clive was a man "to whom deception, 
when it suited his purpose, never cost a pang." 
Clive seems to us to have been constitutionally 
the very opposite of a knave — bold even to 
temerity — sincere even to indiscretion — hearty 
in friendship — open in enmity. Neither in his 
private life, nor in those parts of his public 
life in which he had to do with his country- 
men, do we find any signs of a propensity to 
cunning. On the contrary, in all the disputes 
in which he was engaged as an Englishman 
against Englishmen — from his boxing-matches 
at school to the stormy altercations at the India 
House and in Parliament, amidst which his 
latter years were passed — his very faults were 
those of a high and magnanimous spirit. The 
truth seems to have been, that he considered 
Oriental politics as a game in which nothing 
was unfair. He knew that the standard of 
morality among the natives of India differed 
widely from that established in England. He 
knew that he had to deal with men destitute of 
what in Europe is called honour — with men 
who would give any promise without hesita- 
tion, and break any promise without shame — 
with men who would unscrupulously employ 
corruption, perjury, forgery, to compass their 
ends. His letters show that the great differ- 
ence between Asiatic and European morality 
was constantly in his thoughts. He seems 
to have imagined — most erroneously in our 
opinion — that he could effect nothing against 
such adversaries, if he was content to be bound 
by ties from which they were free — if he went 
on telling truth, and hearing none — if he ful- 
filled, to his own hurt, all his engagements 
with confederates who never kept an engage- 
men i that was not to their advantage. Accord- 
ingly this man, in all the other parts of his life an 
honourable English gentleman and soldier, was 
no sooner matched against an Indian intriguer 
than he became himself an Indian intriguer; 
and descended, without scruple, to falsehood, 
to hypocritical caresses, to the substitution of 
mcuments, and to the counterfeiting cf hands. 



The negotiations "Defweeu the English an<2 
the Nabob were carried on chiefly by two 
agents — Mr. Watts, a servant of the Company, 
and a Bengalee of the name of Omichund, 
This Omichund had been one of the wealthiest 
native merchants resident at Calcutta, and had 
sustained great losses in consequence of the 
Nabob's expedition against that place. In the 
course of his commercial transactions, he had 
seen much of the English, and was peculiarly 
qualified to serve as a medium of ccmmunica 
tion between them and a native court. H« 
possessed great influence with his own race, 
and had in large measure the Hindoo talents 
— quick observation, tact, dexterity, perseve- 
rance — and the Hindoo vices — servility, greedi- 
ness, and treachery. 

The Nabob behaved with all the faithless- 
ness of an Indian statesman, and all the levity 
of, a boy whose mind has been enfeebled by 
power and self-indulgence. He promised, 
retracted, hesitated, evaded. At one time he 
advanced with his army in a threatening man- 
ner towards Calcutta ; but when he saw the 
resolute front which the English presented, he 
fell back in alarm, and consented to make 
peace with them on their own terms. The 
treaty was no sooner concluded, than he form- 
ed new designs against them. He intrigued 
with the French authorities at Chandernagore. 
He invited Bussy to march from the Deccan to 
the Hoogley, and to drive the English out of 
Bengal. All this was well known to Clive and 
Watson. They determined accordingly to 
strike a decisive blow, and to attack Chander- 
nagore, before the force there could be strength- 
ened by new arrivals, either from the south of 
India or from Europe. Watson directed the 
expedition by water, Clive by land. The suc- 
cess of the combined movements was rapid 
and complete. The fort, the garrison, the artil- 
lery, the military stores, all fell into the hands 
of the English. Nearly five hundred European 
troops were among the prisoners. 

The Nabob had feared and hated the Eng- 
lish, even while he was still able to oppose to 
them their French rivals. The French were 
now vanquished ; and he began to regard the 
English with still greater fear and still greater 
hatred. His weak and unprincipled mind 
oscillated between servility and insolence. One 
day he sent a large sum to Calcutta, as part of 
the compensation due for the wrongs which he 
had committed. The next day he sent a present 
of jewels to Bussy, exhorting that distinguished 
officer to hasten to protect Bengal "against 
Clive, the daring in war, on whom," says his 
highness, "may all bad fortune attend." He 
ordered his army to march against the Eng« 
lish. He countermanded his orders. He 
tore Clive's letters. He then sent answers in 
the most florid language of compliment. He 
ordered Watts out of his presence, and threat* 
ened to impale him. He again sent Tor him, 
and begged pardon for his intemperance. In 
the mean time, his wretched maladministra- 
tion, his folly, his dissolute manners, and his 
love of the lowest company, had disgusted al, 
classes of his subjects — soldiers, traders, civK 
functionaries, the proud and ostentatious Mo« 
hammedans, the timid, supple, and parsianoai* 



828 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ous Hindoos. A formidable confederacy was 
formed against him ; in which were included 
Roydullub, the minister of finance, Meer Jaffier, 
the principal commander of the troops, and 
Jugget Seit, the richest banker in India. The 
plot was confided to the English agents, and a 
communication was opened between the mal- 
contents at Moorshedabad and the committee 
at Calcutta. 

In the committee there was much hesitation; 
but Clive's voice was given in favour of the 
conspirators, and his vigour and firmness bore 
down all opposition. It was determined that 
the English should lend their powerful assist- 
ance to depose Surajah Dowlah, and to place 
Meer Jaffier on the throne cf Bengal. In return, 
Meer Jaffier promised ample compensation to 
the company and its servants, and a liberal 
donative to the army, the navy, and the com- 
mittee. The odious vices of Surajah Dowlah, 
the wrongs which the English had suffered at 
his hands, the dangers to which our trade must 
have been exposed had he continued to reign, 
appear to us fully to justify the resolution of 
deposing him. But nothing can justify the dis- 
simulation which Clive stooped, to practise. 
He wrote to Surajah Dowlah in terms so affec- 
tionate that they for a time lulled that weak 
prince to perfect security. The same courier 
who carried this "soothing letter," as Clive 
calls it, to the Nabob, carried to Mr. Watts a 
letter in the following terms : — " Tell Meer 
Jaffier to fear nothing. I will join him with 
five thousand men who never turned their 
backs. Assure him I will march night and day 
to his assistance, and stand by him as long as 
I have a man left." 

I; was impossible that a plot which nad so 
many ramifications should long remain entirely 
concealed. Enough reached the ears of the 
Nabob to arouse his suspicions. But he was 
soon quieted by the fictions and artifices which 
the inventive genius of Omichund produced 
▼/ith miraculous readiness. All was going 
well ; the plot was nearly ripe ; when Clive 
learned that Omichund was likely to play 
false. The artful Bengalee had been promised 
a liberal compensation for all that he had lost 
at Calcutta. But this would not satisfy him. 
His services had been great. He held the 
thread of the whole intrigue. By one word 
breathed in the ear of Surajah Dowlah, he 
could undo all that he had done. The lives of 
Watts, of Meer Jaffier, of all the conspirators, 
were at his mercy ; and he determined to take 
advantage of his situation, and to make his 
own terms. He demanded three hundred 
thousand pounds sterling, as the price of his 
secrecy and of his assistance. The committee, 
incensed by the treachery, and appalled by the 
danger, knew not what course to take. But 
Clive was more than Omichund's match in 
Omichund's own arts. The man, he said, was 
a villain. Any artifice which would defeat such 
knavery was justifiable. The best course 
would be to promise what was asked. Omi- 
chund would soon be at their mercy, and then 
they might punish him by withholding from 
him, not only the bribe which he now demand- 
ed, but also the compensation which all the 
*ther sufferers of Calcutta were to receive. 



His advice was taken; but how was tin 
wary and sagacious Hindoo to be deceived 1 
He had demanded that an article touching his 
claims should be inserted in the treaty between 
Meer Jaffier and the English, and he would 
not be satisfied unless he saw it with his own 
eyes. Clive b had an expedient ready. Two 
treaties were drawn up, one on white paper, 
the other on red — the former real, the latte? 
fictitious. In the former Omichund's name 
was not mentioned ; the latter, which was to 
be shown to him, contained a stipulation in his 
favour. 

But another difficulty arose. Admiral Wat- 
son had scruples about signing the red treaty. 
Omichund's • vigilance and acuteness were 
such, that the absence of so important a name 
would probably awaken his suspicions. But 
Clive was not a man to do any thing by halves. 
We almost blush to write it. He forged Ad- 
miral Watson's name. 

All was now ready for action. Mr. Watts 
fled secretly from Moorshedabad. Clive put 
his troops in motion, and wrote to the Nabob 
in a tone very different from that of his pre- 
vious letters. He set forth all the wrongs 
which the British had suffered, offered to sub- 
mit the points in dispute to the arbitration of 
Meer Jaffier; and concluded by announcing 
that, as the rains were about to set in, he and 
his men would do themselves the honour of 
waiting on his highness for an answer. 

Surajah Dowlah instantly assembled his 
whole force, and marched to encounter the 
English. It had been agreed that Meer Jaffier 
should separate himself from the Nabob, and 
carry over his division to Clive. But as the 
decisive moment approached, the fears of the 
conspirator overpowered his ambition. Clive 
had advanced to Cossimbuzar ; the Nabob lay 
with a mighty power a few miles off at Plas 
sey ; and still Meer Jaffier delayed to fulfil his 
engagements, and returned evasive answers 
to the earnest remonstrances of the English 
general. 

Clive was in a painfully anxious situation 
He could place no confidence in the sincerity 
or in the courage of his confederate ; and, 
whatever confidence he might place in his own 
military talents, and in the valour and disci- 
pline of his troops, it was no light thing to 
engage an army twenty times as numerous as 
his own. Before him lay a river over which 
it was easy to advance, but over which, if 
things went ill, not one of his little band would 
ever return. On this occasion, for the first and 
for the last time, his dauntless spirit, during a 
few hours, shrank from the fearful responsibi- 
lity of making a decision. He called a council 
of war. The majority pronounced against 
fighting ; and Clive declared his concurrence 
with the majority. Long afterwards, he said 
that he had never called but one council of war, 
and that, if he had taken the advice of that 
council, the British would never have been 
masters of Bengal. But scarcely had the 
meeting broken up when he was himself again 
He retired alone under the shade of soms 
trees, and passed near an hour there in thought. 
He came back determined to put every thing to 
the hazard, and gave orders that all should be 



MALCOLM'S LIFE OF CLIVE. 



820 



In readihess for passing the river on the mor- 
row. 

The river was passed, and at the close of a 
toilsome day's march, the army, long after sun- 
set, took up its quarters in a grove of mango- 
trees near Plassey, within a mile of the enemy. 
Clive was unable to sleep : he heard, through 
the whole night, the sounds of drums and 
cymbals from the vast camp of the Nabob. It 
is not strange that even his stout, heart should 
new and then have sunk when he reflected 
against what odds and for what a prize he was 
!n a few hours to contend. 

Nor was the rest of Surajah Dowlah more 
peaceful. His mind, at once weak and stormy, 
was distracted by wild and horrible apprehen- 
sions. Appalled by the greatness and near- 
ness of the crisis, distrusting his captains, 
dreading every one who approached him, 
dreading to be left alone, he sate gloomily in 
his tent, haunted, a Greek poet would have 
said, by the furies of those who had cursed him 
with their last breath in the Black Hole. 

The day broke — the day which was to decide 
the fate of India. At sunrise, the army of the 
Nabob, pottring through many openings from 
the camp, began to move towards the grove 
where the English lay. Forty thousand in- 
fantry, armed with firelocks, pikes, swords, 
bows and arrows, covered the plain. They 
were accompanied by fifty pieces of ordnance 
of the largest size, each tugged by a long team 
of white oxen, and each pushed on from be- 
hind by an elephant. Some smaller guns, un- 
der the direction of a few French auxiliaries, 
were perhaps more formidable. The cavalry 
were fifteen thousand, drawn, not from the ef- 
feminate population of Bengal, but from the 
bolder race which inhabits the northern pro- 
vinces ; and the practised eye of Clive could 
perceive that both the men and the horses were 
more powerful than those of the Carnatic. The 
force which he had to oppose to this great multi- 
tude consisted of only three thousand men. 
But of these nearly a thousand were English, 
and all were led by English officers, and 
trained in the English discipline. Conspicu- 
ous in the ranks of the little army were the 
men of the Thirty-Ninth Regiment, which 
still bears on its colours, amidst many honour- 
able additions won under Wellington in Spain 
and Gascony, the name of Plassey, and the 
proud motto, Primus in Indis. 

The battle commenced with a cannonade, in 
which the artillery of the Nabob did scarcely 
any execution, while the few field pieces of the 
English produced great effect. Several of the 
most distinguished officers in Surajah Dowlah' s 
service fell. Disorder began to spread through 
his ranks. His own terror increased every 
moment. One of the conspirators urged on 
him the expediency of retreating. The insidi- 
ous advice, agreeing as it did with what his 
own terrors suggested, was readily received. 
He ordered the army to fall back, and this or- 
der decided his fate. Clive snatched the mo- 
ment, and ordered his troops to advance. The 
confused and dispirited multitude gave way 
before the onset of disciplined valour. No 
mob attacked by regular soldiers was ever more 
•ompletelv routed. The little band of French- 



men, who alone ventured to confront the Ens 
lish, were swept down the stream of fu- 
gitives. In an hour the forces of Surajab 
Dowlah were dispersed, never to reassemble 
Only five hundred of the vanquished wer« 
slain. But their camp, their guns, their bag 
gage, innumerable wagons, innumerable cat 
tie, remained in the power of the conquerors 
With the loss 01 twenty-two soldiers killed, and 
fifty wounded, Clive had scattered an army of 
nearly sixty thousand men, and subdued an 
empire larger and more populous than Great 
Britain. 

Meer Jaffier had given no assistance to the 
English during the action. But, as soon as he 
saw that the fate of the day was decided, he 
drew off his division of the army, and when 
the battle was over, sent his congratulations to 
his ally. The next day he repaired to thfe Eng 
lish quarters, not a little uneasy as to the re- 
ception which awaited him there. He gave 
evident signs of alarm when a guard was 
drawn out to receive him with the honours due 
to his rank. But his apprehensions were 
speedily removed. Clive came forward to meet 
him, embraced him, saluted him as Nabob of 
the three great provinces of Bengal, Bahar, 
and ,Orissa, listened graciously to his apolo- 
gies, and advised him to march without delay 
to Moorshedabad. 

Surajah Dowlah had fled from the field of 
battle with all the speed with which a fleet 
camel could carry him, and arrived at Moor- 
shedabad in a little more than twenty-four 
hours. There he called his councillors round 
him. The wisest advised him to put himself 
into the hands of the English, from whom he 
had nothing worse to fear than deposition and 
confinement. But he attributed this suggestion 
to treachery. Others urged him to try the 
chance of war again. He approved the ad- 
vice, and issued orders accordingly. But he 
wanted spirit to adhere even during one day to 
a manly resolution. He learned that Meer 
Jaffier had arrived ; and his terrors became in- 
supportable. Disguised in a mean dress, with 
a casket of jewels in his hand, he let himself 
down at night from a window of his palace, 
and, accompanied by only two attendants, em- 
barked on the river for Patna. 

In a few days Clive arrived at Moorshedabad, 
escorted by two hundred English soldiers and 
three hundred sepoys. For his residence he 
had been assigned a palace, which was sur- 
rounded by a garden so spacious, that all the 
troops who accompanied him could conve- 
niently encamp within it. The ceremony of the 
installation of Meer Jaffier was instantly per- 
formed. Clive led the new Nabob to the seal 
of honour, placed him on it, presented to him, 
after the immemorial fashion of the East, an 
offering of gold, and then, turning to the na- 
tives who filled the hall, congratulated them on 
the good fortune which had freed them from a 
tyrant. He was compelled on this occasion to 
use the services of an interpreter ; for it is re 
markable that, long as he resided in India, inti- 
mately acquainted as he was with the Indian 
politics and the Indian character, and adored 
as he was by his Indian soldiery, he nevei 
learned to txpress himself with facility iz. an? 



330 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Indian language; and is said to have been 
sometimes under the necessity of employing 
the smattering of Portuguese which he had ac- 
quired, when a lad, in Brazil. 

The new sovereign was now called upon to 
fulfil the engagements into which he had entered 
with his allies. A conference was held at the 
house of Jugget Seit, the great banker, for the 
purpose of making the necessary arrange- 
ments. Omichund came thither, fully believ- 
ing himself to stand high in the favour of 
Clive, who, with dissimulation surpassing 
even the dissimulation of Benga., had up to 
that day treated him with undiminished kind- 
ness. The white treaty was produced and 
read. Clive then turned to Mr. Scrafton, one 
of the servants of the Company, and said in 
English, "It is now time to undeceive Omi- 
chund." " Omichund," said Mr. Scrafton in 
Hindostanee, " the red treaty is a take-in. You 
are to have nothing." Omichund fell back in- 
sensible into the arms of his attendants. He 
revived ; but his mind was irreparably ruined. 
Clive, who, though unscrupulous in his deal- 
ings with Indian politicians, was not inhuman, 
seems to have been touched. He saw Omi- 
chund a few days later, spoke to him kindly, 
advised him to make a pilgrimage to one of the 
great temples of India, in the hope that change 
of scene might restore his health, and was 
even disposed, notwithstanding all that had 
passed, again to employ his talents in the pub- 
lic service. But from the moment of that sud- 
den shock, the unhappy man sank gradually 
into idiocy. He who had formerly been dis- 
tinguished by the strength of his understand- 
ing, and the simplicity of his habits, now 
squandered the remains of his fortune on child- 
ish trinkets, and loved to exhibit himself dressed 
in rich garments, and hung with precious 
stones. In this abject state he languished a 
few months, and then died. 

We should not think it necessary to offer 
any remarks for the purpose of directing the 
judgment of our readers with respect to this 
transaction, had not Sir John Malcolm under- 
taken to defend it in all its parts. He regrets, 
indeed, that it was necessary to employ means 
so liable to abuse as forgery; but he will not 
admit that any blame attaches to those who 
deceived the deceiver. He thinks that the 
English were not bound to keep faith with one 
who kept no faith with them ; and that, if they 
had fulfilled their engagen. ents with the wily 
Bengalee, so signal an example of successful 
treason would have produced a crowd of imi- 
tators. Now, we will not discuss this point on 
any rigid principles of morality. Indeed, it is 
quite unnecessary to do so ; for, looking at the 
question as a question of expediency in the 
lowest sense of the word, and using no argu- 
ments but such as Machiavelli might have 
employed in his conference with Borgia, we 
are convinced that Clive was altogether in the 
wrong, and that he committed, not merely a 
crime, but a blunder. That honesty is the 
best policy, is a maxim which we firmly be- 
lieve to be generally correct, even with respect 
•o the temporal interest of individuals; but 
with respect to societies, the rule is subject to 



still fewer objections, and that for this reason, 
that the life of societies is longer than the life 
of individuals. It is possible to mention men 
who have owed great worldly prosperity to 
breaches of private faith. But we doubt whe. 
ther it be pcssible to mention a state which has 
on the whole been a gainer by a breach of pub* 
lie faith. The entire history of British India 
is an illustration of this great truth, that it is 
not prudent to oppose perfidy to perfidy — that 
the most efficient weapon with which men can 
encounter falsehood is truth. During a long 
course of years, the English rulers of India, 
surrounded by allies and enemies whom no 
engagements could bind, have generally acted 
with sincerity and uprightness ; and the event 
has proved that sincerity and uprightness are 
wisdom. English valour and English intelli- 
gence have done less to extend and to preserve 
our Oriental empire than English veracity. 
All that we could have gained by imitating the 
doublings, the evasions, the fictions, the per- 
juries which have been employed against us, 
is as nothing, when compared with what we 
have gained by being the one power in India 
on whose word reliance can be placed. No 
oath which superstition can devise, no hostage 
however precious, inspires a hundredth part 
of the confidence which is produced by the 
"yea, yea," and "nay, nay," of a British envoy. 
No fastness, however strong by art or nature, 
gives to its inmates a security like that en- 
joyed by the chief who, passing through the 
territories of powerful and deadly enemies, is 
armed with the British guarantee. The might- 
iest princes of the East can scarcely, by the 
offer of enormous usury, draw forth any por- 
tion of the wealth which is concealed under 
the hearths of their subjects. The British go- 
vernment offers little more than four per cent., 
and avarice hastens to bring forth tens of mil- 
lions of rupees from its most secret repositories. 
A hostile monarch may promise mountains of 
gold to our sepoys, on condition that they will 
desert the standard of the Company. The 
Company promises only a moderate pension 
after a long service. But every sepoy knows 
that the promise of the Company will be kept; 
he knows that if he lives a hundred years his 
rice and salt are as secure as the salary of the 
Governor-General ; and he knows that there is 
not another state in India which would not, in 
spite of the most solemn vows, leave him to 
die of hunger in a ditch as soon as he had 
ceased to be useful. The greatest advantage 
which a government can possess, is to be the 
one trustworthy government in the midst of 
governments which nobody can trust. This 
advantage we enjoy in Asia. Had we acted 
during the last two generations on the princi- 
ples which Sir John Malcolm appears to have 
considered as sound — had we, as often as we 
had to deal with people like Omichund, reta- 
liated by lying and forging, and breaking faith, 
after their fashion — it is our firm belief that no 
courage or capacity could have upheld our 
empire. 

Sir John Malcom admits that Clive's breach 
of faith could be justified only by the strongest 
necessity. As we think that breach of faith 



MALCOLM'S LIFE OF CLIVE. 



3b i 



not only unnecessary, but most inexpedient, 
we need hardly say that we condemn it most 
severely. 

Omichund was not the only victim of the 
revolution. Surajah Dowlah was taken a few 
days after his flight, and was brought before 
Meer Jafiier. There he flung himself on the 
ground in convulsions of fear, and with tears 
and loud cries implored the mercy which he 
had never shown. Meer Jafiier hesitated,; but 
Ins son Meeran, a youth of seventeen, who in 
feebleness of brain and savageness of nature 
greatly resembled the wretched captive, was 
implacable. Surajah Dowlah was led into a 
secret chamber, to which in a short time the 
ministers of death were sent. In this act the 
English bore no part ; and Meer Jafiier under- 
derstood so much of their feelings, that he 
thought it necessary to apologize to them for 
having avenged them on their most malignant 
enemy. 

The shower of wealth now fell copiously on 
the Company and its servants. A sum of 
eight hundred thousand pounds sterling, in 
coined silver, was sent down the river from 
Moorshedai>ad to Fort William. The fleet 
which conveyed this treasure consisted of 
more than a hundred boats, and performed its 
triumphal voyage with flags flying and music 
playing. Calcutta, which but a few months 
ago had been so desolate, was now more pros- 
perous than ever. Trade revived ; and the 
signs of affluence appeared in every English 
house. As to Clive, there was no limit to his 
acquisitions but his own moderation. .The 
treasury of Bengal was thrown open to him. 
There were piled up, after the usage of Indian 
princes, immense masses of coin, among which 
might not seldom be detected the florins and 
byzants with which, before any European ship 
had turned the Cape of Good Hope, the Vene- 
tians purchased the stuffs and spices of the 
East. Clive walked between heaps of gold 
and silver, crowned with rubies and diamonds, 
and was at liberty to help himself. He ac- 
cepted between two and three hundred thou- 
sand pounds. 

The pecuniary transactions between Meer 
Jafiier and Clive were sixteen years later con- 
demned by the public voice and severely criti- 
cised in Parliament. They are vehemently 
defended by Sir John Malcolm. The accusers 
of the victorious general represented his gains 
as the wages of corruption, or as plunder ex- 
torted at the point of the sword from a helpless 
ally. The biographer, on the other hand, con- 
siders these great acquisitions as free gifts, 
honourable alike to the donor and the receiver, 
and compares them to the rewards bestowed 
by foreign powers on Marlborough, on Nelson, 
and on Wellington. It had always, he says, 
been customary in the East to give and receive 
presents ; and there was, as yet, no act of Par- 
liament positively prohibiting English func- 
tionaries in India from profiting by this Asiatic 
usage. This reasoning, we own, does not quite 
satisfy us. We fully acquit Clive of selling 
the interest of his employers or his country ; 
but we cannot acquit him of having done what, 
if not in itself evil, was yet of evil example. 
Nothing is more clear than that a general 



ought to be the servant of his own government, 
and of no other. It follows, that whatever re- 
wards he receives for his services ought to be 
given either by his own government, cr with 
the full knowledge and approbation of his cwn 
government. This rub ought to be strictly 
maintained even with respect to the meresl 
bauble — with respect to a cross,, a medal, or a 
yard of coloured riband. But how can any 
government be well served, if those who com- 
mand its forces are at liberty, without its per- 
mission, without its privity, to accept princely 
fortunes from its allies ] It is idle to say 
that there was then no act of Parliament pro- 
hibiting the practice of taking presents from 
Asiatic sovereigns. It is not on the act which 
was passed at a later period for the purpose of 
preventing an}'- such taking of presents, but en 
grounds which were valid before that act was 
passed — on grounds of common law and com- 
mon sense — that we arraign the conduct of 
Clive. There is no act that we know of, pro- 
hibiting the Secretary of State for Foreign Af- 
fairs being in the pay of continental powers. 
But it is not the less true that a secretary who 
should receive a secret pension from France, 
would grossly violate his duty, and would de- 
serve severe punishment. Sir John Malcolm 
compares the conduct of Clive with that of the 
Duke of Wellington. Suppose — and we beg 
pardon for putting such a supposition even for 
the sake of argument — that the Duke of Wel- 
lington had, after the campaign of 1815, and 
while he commanded the army of occupation 
in France, privately accepted two hundred 
thousand pounds from Louis the Eighteenth as 
a mark of gratitude for the great services 
which his grace had rendered to the house of 
Bourbon — what would be thought of such a 
transaction ! Yet the statute-book no more 
forbids the taking of presents in Europe now, 
than it forbade the taking of presents in Asia 
then. 

At the same time it must be admitted, that 
in Clive's case there were many extenuating 
circumstances. He considered himself as the 
general, not of the crown, but of the Company. 
The Company had, by implication at least, 
authorized its agents to enrich themselves by 
means of the liberality of the native princes, 
and by other means still more objectionable. 
It was hardly to be expected that the servant 
should entertain stricter notions of his duty 
than were entertained by his masters. Though 
Clive did not distinctly acquaint his employers 
with what had taken place, and request their 
sanction, he did not, on the other hand, by stu- 
died concealment, show that he was conscious 
of having done wrong. On the contrary, he 
avowed with the greatest openness that the 
Nabob's bounty had raised him to affluence. 
Lastly, though we think that he ought not in 
such a way to have taken any thing, %ve must 
admit that he deserves praise for having taken, 
so little. He accepted twenty lacs of rupees. 
It would have cost him only a word to make 
the twenty forty. It was a very easy exercise 
of virtue to declaim in England against Clive's 
rapacity; but not one in a hundied of his ac 
cusers would have shown so much self-cam 
mand in the treasury of Moorshedabad 



332 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Meer Jaffier could be upheld on the throne 
Only by the hand which had placed him on it. 
lie was not, indeed, a mere boy ; nor had he 
been so unfortunate as to be born in the pur- 
ple. He was not therefore quite so imbecile or 
quite as depraved as his predecessor had been. 
But he had none of the talent or virtues which 
his post required ; and his son and heir, 
Meeran, was another Surajah Dowlah. The 
recent revolution had unsettled the minds of 
men. Many chiefs were in open insurrection 
against the new Nabob. The viceroy of the 
rich and powerful province of Oude, who, like 
other viceroys of the Mogul, was now in truth 
an independent sovereign, menaced Bengal 
with invasion. Nothing but the talents and 
authority of Clive could support the tottering 
government. While things were in this state 
a ship arrived with despatches, which had been 
written at the India-House before the news of 
the battle of Plassey had reached London. The 
Directors had determined to place the English 
settlements in Bengal under a government 
constituted in the most cumbrous and absurd 
manner ; and, to make the matter worse, no 
place in the arrangement was assigned to 
Clive. The persons who were selected to form 
this new government, greatly to their honour, 
took on themselves the responsibility of dis- 
obeying these preposterous orders, and invited 
Clive to exercise the supreme authority. He 
consented ; and it soon appeared that the ser- 
vants of the Company had only anticipated the 
wish of their employers. The Directors, on 
receiving news of Clive's brilliant success, 
instantly appointed him governor of their pos- 
sessions in Bengal, with the highest marks of 
gratitude and esteem. His power was now 
boundless, and far surpassed even that which 
Dupleix had attained in the south of India. 
Meer Jaffier regarded him with slavish awe. 
On one occasion, the Nabob spoke with severity 
to a native chief of high rank, whose followers 
had been engaged in r brawl with some of the 
Company's sepoys. " Are you yet to learn," 
he said, "who that Colonel Clive is, and in 
what station God has placed him V The chief, 
who, as a famous jester and an old friend of 
Meer Jaffier, could venture to take liberties, 
answered, " [ affront the Colonel — I, who never 
get up in the morning without making three 
low bows to his jackass !" This was hardly 
an exaggeration. Europeans and natives were 
alike at Clive's feet. The English regarded 
him as the only man who could force Meer 
Jaffier to keep his engagements with them. 
Meer Jaffier regarded him as the only man 
who could protect the new dynasty against tur- 
bulent subjects and encroaching neighbours. 

It is but justice to say that Clive used his 
cower ably and vigorously for the advantage of 
nis country. He sent forth an expedition against 
the tract lying to the north of the Carnatic. 
In this tract the French still had the ascendency ; 
and it was important to dislodge them. The 
conduct of the enterprise was intrusted to an 
officer of the name of Forde, who was then 
little known, but in whom the keen eye of the 
governor had detected military talents of a high 
order. The success of the expedition was 
rapid and splendid. 



While a, considerable part of t*.. triny of 
Bengal was thus engaged at a distance, a new 
and formidable danger menaced the western 
frontier. The Great Mogul was a prisoner at 
Delhi, in the hands of a subject. His eldest 
son, named Shah Alum, destined to be the 
sport, during many years, of adverse fortune, 
and to be a tool in the hands, first of the Mah- 
rattas, and then of the English, had fled from 
the palace of his father. His birth was still 
revered in India. Some powerful princes, the 
Nabob of Oude in particular, were inclined to 
favour him. He found it easy to draw to hia 
standard great numbers, of the military adven- 
turers with whom every part of the country 
swarmed. An army of forty thousand men;, 
of various races and religions, Mahrattas, Ro- 
hillas, Jauts, and Afghans, was speedily assem- 
bled round him ; and he formed the design of 
overthrowing the upstart whom the English 
had elevated to a throne, and of establishing his 
own authority throughout Bengal, Orissa, and 
Bahar. 

Jaffier's terror was extreme ; and the only 
expedient which occurred to him was to pur- 
chase, by the payment of a large sum of 
money, an accommodation with Shah Alum. 
This expedient had been repeatedly employed 
by those who, before him, had ruled the rich 
and umvarlike provinces near the mouth of the 
Ganges. But Clive treated the suggestion with 
a scorn worthy of his strong sense and daunt- 
less courage. " If you do this," he wrote, " you 
will have the Nabob of Oude, the Mahrattas, 
and many more, come from all parts of the con- 
fines of your country, who will bully you out 
of money till you have none left in your trea- 
sury. I beg your excellency will rely on the 
fidelity of the English, and of those troops 
which are attached to you." He wrote in a 
similar strain to the Governor of Patna, a brave 
native soldier, whom he highly esteemed. 
" Come to no terms ; defend your city to the 
last. Rest assured that the English are stanch 
and firm friends, and that they never desert a 
cause in which they have once taken a part." 

He kept his word. Shah Alum had invested 
Patna, and was on the point of proceeding to 
storm, when he learned that the Colonel was 
advancing, by forced marches. The whole 
army which was approaching consisted of only 
four hundred and fifty Europeans and two 
thousand five hundred sepoys. But Clive and 
his Englishmen were now objects of dread over 
all the East. As soon'as his advanced guard 
appeared, the besiegers fled before him. A few 
French adventurers who were about the person 
of the prince, advised him to try the chance of 
battle ; but in vain. In a few days this great 
army, which had been regarded with so much 
uneasiness by the court of Moorshedabad, 
melted away before the mere terror of the 
British name. 

The conqueror returned in triumph to Fort 
William. The joy of Meer Jaffier was as un- 
bounded as his fears had been, and led him to 
bestow on his preserver a princely token of 
gratitude. The quit-rent which the East India 
Company was bound to pay to the Nabob for 
the extensive lands held by them to the south 
of Calcutta, amounted to near thirtv thousand 



MALCOLM'S LIFE OF CLIVE. 



333 



pounds sterling a year. The whole of this 
splendid estate, sufficient to support with dig- 
nity the highest rank of the British peerage, 
was now conferred on Clive for life. 

This present we think Clive justified in ac- 
cepting. It was a present which, from its very 
nature, could be no secret. In fact, the Com- 
pany itself was his tenant, and, by its acqui- 
escence, signified its approbation of Meer Jaf- 
ficr's grant. 

But the gratitude of Meer Jaffier did not last 
long. He had for some time felt that the power- 
ful ally who had set him up might pull him 
down, and had been looking round for support 
against the formidable strength by which he 
had himself been hitherto supported. He knew 
that it would be impossible to find among the 
natives of India any force which would look 
the Colonel's little army in the face. The 
French power in Bengal was extinct. But the 
fame of the Dutch had anciently been great in 
the Eastern seas ; and it was not yet distinctly 
known in Asia how much the power of Hol- 
land had declined in Europe. Secret commu- 
nications passed between the court of Moorshe- 
dabad and the Dutch factory at Chinsura ; and 
urgent letters were sent from Chinsura, exhort- 
ing the government of Batavia to fit out an ex- 
pedition which might balance the power of the 
English in Bengal. The authorities of Batavia, 
eager to extend the influence of their country — 
still more eager to obtain for themselves a 
share of the wealth which had recently raised 
so many English adventurers to opulence — 
equipped a powerful armament. Seven large 
ships from Java arrived unexpectedly in the 
Hoogley. The military force on board amount- 
ed to fifteen hundred men, of whom about one- 
half were Europeans. The enterprise was 
well-timed. 

Clive had sent such large detachments to 
oppose the French in the Carnatic, that his 
army was now inferior in number to that of 
the Dutch. He knew that Meer Jaffier secretly 
favoured the invaders. He knew that he took 
on himself a serious responsibility, if he attack- 
ed 'k« forces of a friendly power ; that the Eng- 
lish ministers could not wish to see a war with 
Holland added to that in which they were 
already engaged with France ; that they might 
disavow his acts ; that they might punish him. 
He had recently remitted a great part of his for- 
tune to Europe, through the Dutch East India 
Company ; and he had therefore a strong inte- 
rest in avoiding any quarrel. But he was 
satisfied, that if he suffered the Batavian 
armament to pass up the river and join thti gar- 
rison at Chinsura, Meer Jaffier would throw 
nimself into the arms of these new allies, and 
that the English ascendent in Bengal would 
be exposed to most serious danger. He took 
his resolution with characteristic boldness, and 
was most ably seconded by his officers, parti- 
cularly by Colonel Forde, to whom the most 
important part of the operations was intrusted. 
The Dutch attempted to force a passage. The 
English encountered them both by land and 
water. On both elements the enemy had a great 
superiority of force. On both they were sig- 
nally defeated. Their ships were taken. Their 
troops were put to a total rout. Almost all 



I the European soldiers, who constituted the 
main strength of the invading army, were 
killed or taken. The conquerors sat down 
before Chinsura ; and the chiefs of that settle- 
ment, now thoroughly humbled, consented to 
the terms which Clive dictated. They engaged 
to build no fortifications, and to raise no troops 
beyond a small force necessary for the police 
of their factories ; and it was distinctly pro 
vided that any violation of these covenant* 
should be punished with instant expulsion from 
Bengal. 

Three months after this great victory, Clive 
sailed for England. At home, honours and 
rewards awaited him— not indeed equal to his 
claims or to his ambition; but still such as, 
when his age, his rank in the army, and his 
original place in society are considered, musi 
be pronounced rare and splendid. He was 
raised to the Irish peerage, and encouraged to 
expect an English title. George the Third, 
who had just ascended the throne, received 
him with great distinction. The ministers paid 
him marked attention ; and Pitt, whose in- 
fluence in the House of Commons and in the 
country was unbounded, was eager to mark 
his regard for one whose exploits had contri- 
buted so much to the lustre of that memorable 
period. The great orator had already in Par- 
liament described Clive as a heaven-born guj 
neral, — a man who, bred to the labour of the 
desk, had displayed a military genius which 
might excite the admiration of the King of 
Prussia. There were then no reporters in the 
gallery; but these words, emphatically spoken 
by the first statesman of the age, had passed 
from mouth to mouth, had been transmitted to 
Clive in Bengal, and had greatly delighted and 
flattered him. Indeed, since the death of Wolfe, 
Clive was the only English general of whom 
his countrymen had much reason to be proud. 
The Duke of Cumberland had been generally 
unfortunate ; and his single victory having 
been gained over his countrymen, and used 
with merciless severity, had been more fatal to 
his popularity than his many defeats. Con- 
way, versed in the learning of his profession, 
and personally courageous, wanted vigour and 
capacity. Granby, honest, generous, and brave 
as a lion, had neither science nor genius. Sack- 
ville, inferior in knowledge and abilities to none 
of his contemporaries, had incurred, unjustly 
as we believe, the imputation most fatal to the 
character of a soldier. It was under the com- 
mand of a foreign general that the British had 
triumphed at Minden and Warburg. The 
people, therefore, as was natural, greeted with 
pride and delight a captain of their own, whose 
native courage and self-taught skill had placed 
him on a level with the great tacticians of 
Germany. 

The wealth of Clive was such as enabled 
him to vie with the first grandees of England. 
There remains proof that he had remitted more 
than a hundred and eighty thousand pounds 
through the Dutch East India Company, and 
more than forty thousand pounds through the 
English Company. The amount which he sent 
home, through private houses, was also con 
siderable. He invested great sums in jewels 
then a very common mode of remittance froir 



334 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



fndia. His purchases of diamonds, at Madras 
alone, .amounted to twenty-five thousand 
pounds. Besides a great mass of ready money, 
he had his Indian estate, valued by himself at 
twenty-seven thousand a year. His whole an- 
nual income, in the opinion of Sir John Mal- 
colm, who is desirous to state it as low as pos- 
sible, exceeded forty thousand pounds ; and in- 
comes of forty thousand pounds at the time of the 
accession of George the Third, were at least as 
rare as incomes of a hundred thousand pounds 
now. We may safely affirm that no Englishman 
who started with nothing, has ever, in any line 
of life, created such a fortune, at the early age 
of thirty-four. It would be unjust not to add, 
that he made a creditable use of his riches. As 
soon as the battle of Plassey had laid the foun- 
dation of his fortune, he sent ten thousand 
pounds to his sisters, bestowed as much more 
on other poor friends and relations, ordered his 
agent to pay eight hundred a year to his pa- 
rents, and to insist that they should keep a car- 
riage, and settled five hundred a year on his 
old commander Lawrence, whose means were 
very slender. The whole sum which he ex- 
pended in this manner, may be calculated at 
fifty thousand pounds. 

He now set himself to cultivate parliamentary 
interest. His purchases of land seemed to have 
been made in a great measure with that view ; 
Stid after the general election of 1761, he found 
himself in the House of Commons, at the head 
of a body of dependants whose support must 
have been important to any administration. 
In English politics, however, he did not take a 
prominent part. His first attachments, as we 
have seen, were to Mr. Fox ; at a later period 
he was attracted by the genius and success of 
Mr. Pitt ; but finally he connected himself in 
the closest manner with George Grenville. 
Early in the session of 1764, when the illegal 
and impolitic persecution of that worthless de- 
magogue Wilkes had strongly excited the pub- 
lic mind, the town was amused by an anecdote, 
which we have seen in some unpublished me- 
moirs of Horace Walpole. Old Mr. Richard 
Clive, who, since his son's elevation, had been 
introduced into society for which his former 
habits had not well fitted him, presented him- 
self at the levee. The king asked him where 
Lord Clive was. " He will be in town very 
soon," said the old gentleman, loud enough to 
be heard by the whole circle, " and then your 
majesty will have another vote." 

But in truth all Clive's views were directed 
towards the country in which he had so emi- 
nently distinguished himself as a soldier and a 
statesman ; and it was by considerations relat- 
ing to India that his conduct as a public man in 
England was regulated. The power of the Com- 
pany though an anomaly, is, in our time, we are 
firmly persuaded, a beneficial anomaly. In the 
time of Clive, it was noc merely an anomaly, 
but a niisance, There was no Board of Con- 
trol. The Directors were for the most part 
mere traders, ignorant of general politics, igno- 
rant of the peculiarities of the empire which 
had so strangely become subject to them. The 
Court of Proprietors, wherever it chose to in- 
terfere, was able to have its way. That court 
wjis more numerous as well as powerful than 



at present; for, then, every share of five hun- 
dred pounds conferred a vote. The meetings 
were large, stormy, even riotous, — the debates 
indecently virulent. All the turbulence of a 
Westminster election, all the trickery and cor 
ruption of a Grampound election, disgraced 
the proceeding of this assembly on questions 
of the most solemn importance. Fictitious 
votes were manufactured on a gigantic scale. 
Clive himself laid out a hundred thousand 
pounds in the purchase of stock, which he then 
divided among nominal proprietors on whom 
he could depend, and whom he brought . down 
in his train to every discussion and every 
ballot. Others did the same, though not to quite 
so enormous an extent. 

The interest taken by the public of England 
in Indian questions was then far greater than at 
present, and the reason is obvious. At present 
the writer enters the service young ; he climbs 
slowly; he is rather fortunate, if, at forty-five, 
he can return to his country, with an annuity 
of a thousand a year, and with savings amount- 
ing to thirty thousand pounds. A great quan- 
tity of wealth is made by English functionaries 
in India ; but no single functionary makes a 
very large fortune, and what is made is slowly, 
hardly, and honestly earned. Only four or five 
high political offices are reserved for public 
men from England. The residencies, the se- 
cretaryships, the seats in the boards of revenue 
and in the Sudder courts, are all filled by men 
who have given the best years of life to the 
service of the Company; nor can any talents 
however splendid, nor any connections how- 
ever powerful, obtain those lucrative posts for 
any person who has not entered by the regular 
door, and mounted by the regular gradations. 
Seventy years ago, much less money was 
brought home from the East than in our own 
time. But it was divided among a very much 
smaller number of persons, and immense sums 
were often accumulated in a few months. Any 
Englishman, whatever his age might be, might 
hope to be one of the lucky emigrants. If he 
made a good speech in Leadenftall Street, or 
published a clever pamphlet in defence of the 
chairman, he might be sent out in the Com- 
pany's service, and might return in three or 
four years as rich as Pigot or as Clive. Thus 
the India House was a lottery-office, which in- 
vited everybody to take a chance, and held out 
ducal fortunes as the prizes destined for the 
lucky few. As soon as it was known that thcit 
was a part of the world Avhere a lieutenant- 
colonel had one morning received, as a present, 
an estate as large as that of the Earl of Bath 
or the Marquis of Rockingham, and where it 
seemed that such a trifle as ten or twenty thou- 
sand pounds wasg|;o be had by any British 
functionary for the asking, society began to 
exhibit all the symptoms of the South Sea 
year — a feverish excitement, an ungovernable 
impatience to be rich, a contempt for slow, 
sure, and moderate gains. 

At the head of the preponderating party m 
the India House, had long stood a powerful, 
able, and ambitious director of the name of 
Sullivan. He had conceived a strong jealousy 
of Clive, and remembered with bitterness the 
audacity with which the late Governor of Ben- 



MALCOLM'S LIFE OF CLIVE. 



335 



gal had repeatedly set at naught the authority 
of the distant Directors of the Company. An 
appaient reconciliation took place after Clive's 
arrival ; but enmity remained, deeply rooted in 
the hearts of both. The whole body of Direct- 
ors was then chosen annually. At the elec- 
aon of 1763, Clive attempted to break down 
the power of the dominant faction. The con- 
test was carried on with a violence which he 
describes as tremendous. Sullivan was victo- 
rious, and hastened to take his revenge. The 
grant of rent which Clive had received from 
Meer Jaffier was, in the opinion of the best 
English lawyers, valid. It had been made by 
exactly the same authority from which the 
Company had received their chief possessions 
in Bengal, and the Company had long acqui- 
esced in it. The Directors, however, most un- 
justly determined to confiscate it, and Clive 
was compelled to file a bill in Chancery against 
them. 

But a great and sudden turn in affaits was 
at hand. Every ship from Bengal had for 
some time brought alarming tidings. The in- 
ternal misgovernment of the province had 
reached such a point that it could go no further. 
What, indeed, was to be expected from a body 
of public servants exposed to temptation such 
that, as Clive once said, flesh and blood could 
not bear it; — armed with irresistible power, 
and responsible only to the corrupt, turbulent, 
distracted, ill-informed Company, situated at 
such a distance, that the average interval be- 
tween the sending of a despatch and the receipt 
of an answer was above a year and a half! 
Accordingly, during the five years Avhich fol- 
lowed the departure of Clive from Bengal, the 
misgovernment of the English Avas carried to 
a point, such as seems hardly compatible with 
the very existence of society. The Roman pro- 
consul, who, in a year or two, squeezed out of 
a province the means of rearing marble palaces 
and baths on the shores of Campania, of drink- 
ing from amber, of feasting on singing-birds, 
o ' exhibiting armies of gladiators and flocks of 
camelopards — the Spanish viceroy, who, leav- 
ing behind him the curses of Mexico or Lima, 
entered Madrid with a long train of gilded 
coaches and of sumpter-horses, trapped and 
shod with silver — were now outdone. Cruelty, 
indeed, properly so called, was not among the 
vices of the servants of the Company. But 
cruelty itself could hardly have produced great- 
er evils than were the effect of their unprinci- 
pled eagerness to be rich. They pulled down 
their creature, Meer Jafiier. They set up in 
his place another Nabob, Meer Cossim. But 
Meer Cossim had talents and a will; and, 
though sufficiently inclined to oppress his sub- 
jects himself, he could not bear to see them 
ground to the dust by oppressions which yield- 
ed him no profit — nay, which destroyed his 
• revenue in its very source. The English ac- 
cordingly pulled down Meer Cossim, and set 
up Meer Jaffier again; and Meer Cossim, after 
revenging himself, by a massacre surpassing 
in atrocity that of the Black Hole, fled to the 
dominions of the Nabob of Oude. At every 
one of these revolutions, the new prince di- 
vided among his foreign masters whatever 
eould be scraped together from the treasury of 



his fallen predecessor. The immense pcpuia 
tion of his dominions was given up as a prey 
to those who had made him a sovereign, and 
who could unmake, him. The servants cf the 
Company obtained — not for their emf .'foyers, 
but for themselves — a monopoly of almost the 
whole internal trade. They forced the natives 
to buy dear and sell cheap. They insulted 
with perfect impunity the tribunals, the police : 
and the fiscal authorities of ihe country. They 
covered with their protection a set of native 
dependants who ranged through the provinces 
spreading desolation and terror wherever they 
appeared. Every servant of a British factor 
was armed with all the poAver of his master, 
and his master was armed with all the power 
of the Company. Enormous fortunes were 
thus rapidly accumulated at Calcutta, while 
thirty millions of human beings were reduced 
to the last extremity of wretchedness. They 
had been accustomed to live under tyranry 
but, never under tyranny like this. They 
found the little finger of the Company thicker 
than the loins of Surajah Dowlah. Under their 
old masters they had at least one resource : 
when the evil became insupportable, they rose 
and pulled down the government. But the 
English government was not to be so shaken 
off. That government, oppressive as the most 
oppressive form of barbarian despotism, was 
strong with all the strength of civilization. It 
resembled the government of evil genii, ra- 
ther than the government of human tyrants. 
Even despair could not inspire the soft Ben- 
galee with courage to confront men of English 
breed — the hereditary nobility of mankind, 
whose skill and valour had so often triumphed 
in spite of tenfold odds. The unhappy race 
never attempted resistance. Sometimes they 
submitted in patient misery. Sometimes they 
fled frcm the white man, as their fathers had 
been used to fly from the Mahratta; and the 
palanquin of the English traveller was often 
carried through silent villages and towns, which 
the report of his approach had made desolate. 
The foreign lords of Bengal were naturally ob- 
jects of hatred to all the neighbouring powers ; 
and to all, the haughty race presented a dauntless 
front. Their armies, everywhere outnumbered, 
were everywhere victorious. A succession of 
commanders formed in the school of Clive, still 
maintained the fame of their country. " It must 
be acknowledged," says the Mussulman histo- 
rian of those times, " that this nation's presence 
of mind, firmness of temper, and undaunted 
bravery, are past all question. They join the 
most resolute courage to the most cautiou? 
prudence : nor have they their equal in the art 
of ranging themselves in battle array and 
fighting in order. If to so many military quali- 
fications they knew how to join the arts of go- 
vernment — if they exerted as much ingenuity 
and solicitude in relieving the people of God, 
as they do in whatever concerns their military 
affairs, no nation in the world would be prefer- 
able to them, or worthier cf cc tnmand ; but the 
people under their dominion groan every- 
where, and are reduced to poverty and distress. 
Oh God ! come to the assistance of thine 
afflicted servants, and deliver them from th« 
oppressions they suffer." 



336 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



it was impossible, however, that even the 
siilitary establishment should long continue 
exempt from the vices which pervaded every 
other part of the government. Rapacity, 
luxury, and the spirit of insuDordination spread 
from the civil service to the officers of the 
army, and from the officers to the soldiers. 
The evil continued to grow till every mess- 
room became the seat of conspiracy and cabal, 
and till the sepoys could be kept in order only 
by wholesale executions. 

At length the state of things in Bengal be- 
gan to excite uneasiness at home. A succes- 
sion of re volutions, a disorganized administra- 
tion ; the natives pillaged, yet the Company not 
enriched; every fleet bringing back individu- 
als able to purchase manors and to build 
stately dwellings, yet bringing back also alarm- 
ing accounts of the financial prospects of the 
government; war on the frontier, disaffection 
in the army, the national character disgraced 
by excesses resembling those of Verres and 
Tizarro ; — such was the spectacle which dis- 
mayed those who were conversant with Indian 
affairs. The general cry was, that Clive, and 
Clive alone, could save the empire which he 
had founded. 

This feeling manifested itself in the strong- 
est manner at a very full General Court of Pro- 
prietors. Men of all parties, forgetting their 
feuds, and trembling for their dividends, ex- 
claimed that Clive was the man whom the cri- 
sis required ; — that the oppressive proceedings 
which had been adopted respecting his estate 
ought to be dropped, and that he ought to be 
entreated to return to India. 

Clive rose. As to his estate, he said, he 
would make such propositions to the Directors 
as would, he trusted, lead to an amicable set- 
tlement. But there was a still greater difficul- 
ty. It was proper to tell them that he never 
would undertake the government of Bengal 
while his enemy Sullivan was chairman of the 
Company. The tumult was violent. Sullivan 
could scarcely obtain a hearing. An over- 
whelming majority of the assembly was on 
Clive's side. Sullivan wished to try the result 
of a ballot. But, by the by-laws of the Com- 
pany, there can be no ballot except on a requi- 
sition signed by nine proprietors ; and though 
hundreds were present, nine persons could not. 
be found to set their hands to such a requisi- 
tion. 

Clive was in consequence nominated Go- 
vernor and Commander-in-Chief of the British 
possessions in Bengal. But he adhered to his 
declaration, and refused to enter on his office 
till the event of the next election of Directors 
should be known. The contest was obstinate, 
but Clive triumphed. Sullivan, lately absolute 
master of the India House, was within one vote 
of losing his own seat; and both the chairman 
and deputy-chairman were friends of the new 
governor. 

Such were the circumstances under which 
Lord Clive sailed for the third and last time to 
India. In May, 1765, he reached Calcutta, and 
lie found the whole machine of government 
more fearfuLy disorganized than he had anti- 
cipated. Meer Jaffier, who had some time be- 
fore lost his eldest son Meeran, had died while 



Clive was on his voyage out. The Englisa 
functionaries at Calcutta had already received 
from home strict orders not to accept presents 
from the native princes. But, eager for gain, 
and unaccustomed to respect the commands 
of their distant, ignorant, and negligent mas- 
ters, they again set up the throne of Bengal 
for sale. About one hundred and forty thou- 
sand pounds sterling were distributed among 
nine of the most powerful servants of the 
Company ; and, in consideration of this bribe, 
an infant son of the deceased Nabob was 
placed on the seat of his father. The news of 
the ignominious bargain met Clive on his ar- 
rival. In a private letter, Avritten immediately 
after to an intimate friend, he poured out his 
feelings in language which, proceeding from 
a man so daring, so resolute, and so little 
given to theatrical display of sentiment, seems 
to us singularly touching. "Alas!" he says, 
" how is the English name sunk ! I could not 
avoid paying the tribute of a few tears to the 
departed and lost fame of the British nation — 
irrecoverably so, I fear. However, I do de- 
clare, by that great Being who is the searcher 
of all hearts, and to whom we must be ac- 
countable if there be an hereafter, that I am 
come out with a mind superior to all corrup- 
tion, and that I am determined to destroy those 
great and growing evils, or perish in the at- 
tempt." 

The Council met, and Clive stated to them 
his full determination to effect a thorough re» 
form, and to use for that purpose the whole of 
the ample authority, civil and military, which 
had been confided to him. Johnstone, one of 
the boldest and worst men in the assembly, 
made some show of opposition. Clive inter- 
rupted him, and haughtily demanded whether 
he meant to question the power of the new 
government. Johnstone was cowed, and dis- 
claimed any such intention. All the faces 
round the board grew long and pale ; and not 
another syllable of dissent was uttered. 

Clive redeemed his pledge. He remained in 
India about a year and a half; and in thai 
short time effected one of the most extensive, 
difficult, and salutary reforms that ever was 
accomplished by any statesman. This was 
the part of his life on which he afterwards 
looked back with most pride. He had it in his 
power to triple his already splendid fortune, to 
connive at abuses while pretending to remove 
them, to conciliate the good-will of all the 
English in Bengal, by giving up to their rapa- 
city a helpless and timid race, who knew not 
where lay the island which sent forth their op- 
pressors; and whose complaints had little 
chance of being heard across fifteen thousand 
miles of ocean. He knew that if he applied 
himself in earnest to the work of reformation, 
he should raise every bad passion in arms 
against him. He knew how unscrupulous, 
how implacable, would be the hatred of those 
ravenous adventurers, who, having counted on 
accumulating in a few months fortunes sufficient 
to support peerages, should find all their hopes 
frustrated. But he had chosen the good part ; 
and he called up all the force of his mind for 
a battle far harder than that of Plassey. AJ 
first success seemed hopeless ; but very soon 



MALCOLM'S LIFE OF CLIVE. 



337 



all obstacles began to bend before that iron 
courage and that vehement will. The receiv- 
ing of presents from the natives was rigidly- 
prohibited. The private trade of the servants 
of the Company was put down. The whole 
settlement seemed to be set, as one man, 
against thes measures. But the inexorable 
governor declared that, if he could not find 
sapport at Fort William, he would procure it 
elsewhere ; and sent for some civil servants 
from Madras to assist him in carrying on the 
administration. The most factious of his op- 
ponents he turned out of their offices. The rest 
submitted to what was inevitable; and in a 
very short time all resistance was quelled. 

But Clive was far too wise a man not to see 
that the recent abuses were partly to be ascrib- 
ed to a cause which could not fail to produce 
similar abuses as soon as the pressure of his 
strong hand was withdrawn. The Company 
had followed a mistaken policy with respect to 
the remuneration of its servants. The salaries 
were too low to afford even those indulgences 
which are necessary to the health and comfort 
of Europeans in a tropical climate. To lay 
by a rupee from such scanty pay was impos- 
sible. It could not be supposed that men of 
even average abilities would consent to pass 
the best years of life in exile, under a burning 
sun, for no other consideration than these stinted 
wages. It had accordingly been understood, 
from a very early period, that the Company's 
agents were at liberty to enrich themselves by 
thejr private trade. This practice had been 
seriously injurious to the commercial interests 
of the corporation. That very intelligent ob- 
server, Sir Thomas Roe, in the reign of James 
the First, strongly urged the Directors to apply 
a remedy to the abuse. " Absolutely prohibit 
the private trade," said he, " for your business 
will be better done. I know this is harsh. 
Men profess they come not for bare wages. 
But you will take away this plea if you give 
great wages to their content; and then you 
know what you part from." 

In spite of this excellent advice the Compa- 
ny adhered to the old system, paid low sala- 
ries, and connived at the by-gains of its ser- 
vants. The pay of a member of Council was 
only three hundred pounds a year. Yet it was 
notorious that such a functionary could hardly 
live in India for less than ten times that sum ; 
and it could not be expected that he would be 
content to live even handsomely in India with- 
out laying up something against the time of his 
return to England. This system, before the 
conquest of Bengal, might affect the amount of 
the dividends payable to the proprietors, but 
could do little harm in any other way. But 
the Company was now a ruling body. Its ser- 
vants might still be called factors, junior mer- 
chants, senior merchants. But they were in 
truth proconsuls, propraetors, procurators of 
extensive regions. They had immense power. 
Their regular pay was universally admitted to 
be insufficient. They were, by the ancient 
Asage of the service, and by the implied per- 
mission of their employers, warranted in en- 
riching themselves by indirect means; and 
this had been the origin of the frightful oppres- 
sion and corruDtion which had desolated Ben- 



gal. Clive saw clearly that it was absurd tc 
give men power,, and to expect that they would 
be content to live in penury He had justlv 
concluded that no reform could be effectual 
which should not be coupled with a plan for 
liberally remunerating the civil servants of the 
Company. The Directors, he knew, were not 
disposed to sanction any increase of the sala« 
ries out of their own treasury. The only 
course which remained open to the governor, 
was one which exposed him to much misre 
presentation, but which we think him fully 
justified in adopting. He appropriated to the 
support of the service the monopoly of salt, 
which has formed, down to our own time, a 
principal head of Indian revenue ; and he di- 
vided the proceeds according to a scale which 
seems to have been not unreasonably fixed 
He was in consequence accused by his ene 
mies, and has been accused by historians, o> 
disobeying his instructions — of violating his 
promises — of authorizing that very abuse 
which it was his especial mission to destroy 
— namely, the trade of the Company's ser 
vants. But every discerning and impartia. 
judge will admit, that there was really nothing 
in common between the system v/hich he set 
up and that which he was sent to destroy. 
The monopoly of salt had been a source of 
revenue to the governments of India before 
Clive was born. It continued to be so long 
after his death. The civil servants were 
clearly entitled to a maintenance out of the 
revenue, and all that Clive did was to charge 
a particular portion of the revenue with their 
maintenance. He thus, while he put an end 
to the practices by which gigantic fortunes 
had been rapidly accumulated, gave to every 
British functionary employed in the East the 
means of slowly, but surely, acquiring a com- 
petence. Yet, such is the injustice of mankind, 
that none of those acts which are the'real stains 
of his life, has drawn on him so much obloquy 
as this measure, which was in truth a reform 
necessary to the success of all his other re- 
forms. 

He had quelled the opposition of the civil 
service : that of the army was more formida- 
ble. Some of the retrenchments which had 
been ordered by the Directors affected the in- 
terests of the military service; and a storm 
arose, such as even Caesar would not willingly 
have faced. It was no light thing to encounter 
the resistance of those who held the power of 
the sword, in a country governed only by the 
sword ! Two hundred English officers engaged 
in a conspiracy against the government, and 
determined to resign their commissions on the 
same day, not doubting that Clive would grant 
any terms rather than see the army, on which 
alone the British empire in the East rested, left 
without commanders. They little knew the 
unconquerable spirit with which they had tc 
deal. Clive had still a few officers.round hi* 
person on whom he could rely. He sent to 
Fort St. George for a fresh supply. He gav 
commissions even to mercantile agents wh 
were disposed to support him at this crisis , 
and he sent orders that every officer who re 
signed should be instantly brought up to Cal- 
cutta. The conspirators fcund that thev 



338 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



miscalculated. The gorernor was inexorable. 
The troops were steady. The sepoys, over 
whom Clive had always possessed extraordi- 
nary influence, stood by him with unshaken 
fidelity. The leaders in the plot were arrested, 
tried, and cashiered. The rest, humbled and 
dispirited, begged to be permitted to withdraw 
their resignations. Many of them declared 
their repentance even with tears. The younger 
offenders Clive treated with lenity. To the 
ringleaders he was inflexibly severe ; but his 
severity was pure from all taint of private ma- 
levolence. While he sternly upheld the just 
authority of his office, he passed by personal 
insults and injuries with magnanimous disdain. 
One of the conspirators was accused of having 
planned the assassination of the governor ; but 
Clive would not listen to the charge. "The 
officers," he said, " are Englishmen, not assas- 
sins." 

While he reformed the civil service and 
established his authority over the army, he was 
equally successful in his foreign policy. His 
landing on Eastern ground was the signal for 
immediate peace. The Nabob of Oude, with a 
large army, lay at that time on the frontier of 
Bahar. He had been joined by many Afghans 
and Mahrattas, and there was no small reason 
to expect a general coalition of all the native 
powers against the English. But the name of 
Clive quelled in an instant all opposition. The 
enemy implored peace in the humblest lan- 
guage, and submitted to such terms as the new 
governor chose to dictate. 

At the same time, the government of Bengal 
was placed on a new footing. The power of 
the English in that province had hitherto been 
altogether undefined. It was unknown to the 
ancient constitution of the empire, and it had 
been ascertained by no compact. It resembled 
the power which, in the last decrepitude of the 
western empire, was exercised over Italy by 
the great chiefs of foreign mercenaries, the 
Ricimers and the Odoacers, who put up and 
pulled down at their pleasure a succession of 
insignificant princes, dignified with the names 
of Cassar and Augustus. But as in one case, 
so in the other, the warlike strangers at length 
found it expedient to give to a domination 
which had been established by arms alone, the 
sanction of law and ancient prescription. 
Theodoric thought it politic to obtain from the 
distant court of Byzantium a commission ap- 
pointing him ruler of Italy ; and Clive, in the 
same manner, applied to the court of Delhi for 
a formal grant of the powers of which he 
already possessed the reality. The Mogul was 
absolutely helpless ; and, though he murmured, 
had reason to be well pleased that the English 
were disposed to give solid rupees, which he 
never could have extorted from them, in ex- 
change for a few Persian characters which 
cost him nothing. A bargain was speedily 
struck ; and the titular sovereign of Hindostan 
issued a warrant, empowering the Company to 
collect and administer the revenues of Bengal, 
Orissa, and Bahar. 

There was still a Nabob, who stood to the 

ritish authorities in the same relation in 
which the last drivelling Chilperics and Chil- 
flerics of the Merovingian line stood to their 



able and vigorous Mayors of the Palace — to 
Charles Martel and to Pepin. At one time 
Clive had almost made up his mind to discard 
this phantom altogether ; but he afterwards 
thought that it might be convenient still to use 
the name of the Nabob, particularly in dealings 
with other European nations. The French, the 
Dutch, and the Danes, would, hp conceived, 
submit far more readily to the authority of the 
native prince, whom they had always been ac- 
customed to respect, than to that of a rival 
trading corporation. This policy may, at that 
time, have been judicious. But the pretence 
was soon found to be too flimsy to impose on 
anybody; and it was altogether laid aside. The 
heir of Meer Jaffier still resides at Moorsheda- 
bad, the an'cient capital of his house, still bears 
the title of Nabob, is still accosted by the Eng- 
lish as "Your Highness," and is still suffered 
to retain a portion of the regal state which sur- 
rounded his ancestors. A pension of a hun- 
dred and sixty thousand pounds a year is an 
nually paid to him by the government. His 
carriage is surrounded by guards, and preceded 
by attendants with silver maces. His person 
and his dwelling are exempted from the ordi- 
nary authority of the ministers of justice. But 
he has not the smallest share of political 
power, and is, in fact, only a noble and wealthy 
subject of the Company. 

It would have been easy for Clive, during 
his second administration in Bengal, to accu- 
mulate riches such as no subject in Europe 
possessed. He might, indeed, without subject- 
ing the rich inhabitants of the province to any 
pressure beyond that to which their mildest 
rulers had accustomed them, have received 
presents to the amount of three hundred thou- 
sand pounds a year. The neighbouring px'inces 
would gladly have paid any price for his 
favour. But he appears to have strictly ad- 
hered to the rules which he laid doAvn for the 
guidance of others. The Prince of Benares 
offered him diamonds of great value. The 
Nabob of Oude pressed him to accept a large 
sum of money and a casket of costly jewels. 
Clive courteously, but peremptorily, refused ; 
and it deserves notice that he made no merit 
of his refusal, and that the facts did not come 
to light till after his death. He kept an exact 
account of his salary, of his share of the profits 
accruing from the trade in salt, and of those 
presents, which, according to the fashion of the 
East, it would be churlish to refuse. Out of 
the sum arising from these resources, he de- 
frayed the expenses of his situation. The sur- 
plus he divided among a few attached friends 
who had accompanied him to India. He 
always boasted, and as far as we can judge he 
boasted with truth, that his last administra- 
tion diminished instead of increasing his for- 
tune. 

One large sum indeed he accepted. Meer 
Jaffier had left him by will above sixty thon 
sand pounds sterling, in specie and jewels 
and the rules which had been recently laid 
down extended only to presents from the living 
and did not affect legacies from the dead. Clivt 
took the money, but not for himself. He made 
the whole over to the Company, in trust foi 
officers and soldiers invalided in their service 



MALCOLM'S LIFE OF CLIVE. 



339 



The fund, which still bears his name, owes its 
origin to this princely donation. 

After a stay of eighteen months, the state of 
his health rendered it necessary for him to re- 
turn to Europe. At the close of January, 1767, 
he quitted for the last time the country on 
whose destinies he had exercised so mighty an 
influence. 

His second return from Bengal was not, like 
his first, greeted by the acclamations of his 
r.ountrymen. Numerous causes were already 
at work which imbittered the remaining years 
of his life, and hurried him to an untimely 
grave. His old enemies at the India House 
were still powerful and active ; and they had 
been reinforced by a large band of allies, whose 
violence far exceeded their own. The whole 
crew of pilferers and oppressors from whom 
he had rescued Bengal, persecuted him with 
the implacable rancour which belongs to such 
abject natures. Many of them even invested 
their property in India stock, merely that they 
might be better able to annoy the man whose 
firmness had set bounds to their rapacity. 
Lying newspapers were set up for no purpose 
but to abuse him ; and the temper of the public 
mind was then such, that these arts, which 
under ordinary circumstances would have 
been ineffectual against truth and merit, pro- 
duced, ah extraordinary impression. 

The great events which had taken place in 
India had called into existence a new class of 
Englishmen, to whom their countrymen gave 
the name of Nabobs. These persons had 
generally sprung from families neither ancient 
nor opulent ; they had generally been sent at 
an early age to the East; and they had there 
acquired large fortunes, which they had brought 
back to their native land. It was natural that, 
not having had much opportunity of mixing 
with the best society, they should exhibit some 
of the awkwardness and some of the pomposity 
of upstarts. It was natural that, during their 
sojourn in Asia, they should have acquired 
some tastes and habits surprising, if not dis- 
gusting, to persons who never had quitted 
Europe. It was natural that, having enjoyed 
great consideration in the East, they should 
not be disposed to sink into obscurity at home ; 
and as they had money, and had not birth or 
high connection, it was natural that they should 
display a little obtrusively the advantage which 
they possessed. Wherever they settled there 
was a kind of feud between them and the old 
nobility and gentry, similar to that which raged 
in France between the farmer-general and the 
marquess. This enmity to the aristocracy long 
continued to distinguish the servants of the 
Company. More than twenty years after the 
time of which we are now speaking, Burke 
pronounced, that among the Jacobins might 
be reckoned "the East Indians almost to a 
man, who cannot bear to find that their present 
importance does not bear a proportion to their 
wealth." 

The Nabobs soon became a most unpopular 
class of men. Some of them had in the East 
displayed eminent talents, and rendered great 
Bervices to the state ; but at home their talents 
were not shown to advantage, and their ser- 
vices were little known. That they had sprung 



from obscurity, that they had acquired great 
wealth, that they exhibited it insolently, thai 
they spent it extravagantly, that they raised 
the price of every thing in their neighbour- 
hood, from fresh eggs to rotten boroughs ; that 
their liveries outshone those of dukes, that 
their coaches were finer than that of the Lord 
Mayor, that the examples of their large and ill- 
governed households corrupted half the ser- 
vants in the country; that some of them, with 
all their magnificence, could not catch the tone 
of good society, but, in spite of the stud and 
the crowd of menials, of the plate and the 
Dresden china, of the venison and the Bur- 
gundy, were still low men ; — these were things 
which excited, both in the class from which 
they had sprung, and in that into which they 
attempted to force themselves, that bitter aver- 
sion which is the effect of mingled envy and 
contempt. But when it was also rumored that 
the fortune which had enabled its possessor to 
eclipse the Lord-Lieutenant on the race-ground, 
or to carry the county against the head of a 
house as old as " Domesday Book," had been 
accumulated by violating public faith — by de- 
posing legitimate princes, by reducing whole 
provinces to beggary — all the higher and bet- 
ter as well as all the low and evil parts of hu- 
man nature, were stirred against the wretch 
who had obtained, by guilt and dishonour, the 
riches which he now lavished with arrogant 
and inelegant profusion. The unfortunate 
Nabob seemed to be made up of those foibles 
against which comedy has pointed the most 
merciless ridicule, and of those crimes which 
have thrown the deepest gloom over tragedy 
— of Turcaret and Nero, of Monsieur Jourdain 
and Richard the Third. A tempest of execra- 
tion and derision, such as can be compared 
only to that outbreak of public feeling against 
the Puritans which took pjace at the time of 
the Restoration, burst on the servants of the 
Company. The humane man was horror- 
struck at the way in which they had got their 
money, the thrifty man at the way in which 
they spent it. The dilettante sneered at theii 
want of taste. The maccaroni black-balled 
them as vulgar fellows. Writers the most un- 
like in sentiment and style — Methodists and 
libertines, philosophers and buffoons — were 
for once on the same side. It is hardly too 
much to say, that, during a space of about 
thirty years, the whole lighter literature of 
England was coloured by the feelings which 
we have described. Foote brought on the 
stage an Anglo-Indian chief, dissolute, ungene- 
rous, and tyrannical, ashamed of the humble 
friends of his youth, hating the aristocracy, 
yet childishly eager to be numbered among 
them, squandering his weairn on panders and 
flatterers, tricking out his chairmen with the 
most costly hot-house flowers, and astounding 
the ignorant with jargon about rupe°s, lacs, 
and jaghires. Mackenzie, with more delicate 
humour, depicted a plain country family, raised 
by the Indian acquisitions of one of its mem- 
bers to sudden opulence, and exciting derision 
by an awkward mimicry of the manners of 
the great. Cowper, in that lofty expostulation 
whioh glows with the very spirit of the He 
brew poets, placed the oppression of India fore 



aio 



MACAULAY'S MISCELI ANEOUS WRITINGS. 



most in the list of those national crimes for 
which God had punished England with years 
of disastrous war, with discomfiture in her 
own seas, and with the loss of her transatlan- 
tic empire. If any of our readers will take the 
trouble to search in the dusty recesses of cir- 
culating libraries for some novel published 
sixty years ago, the chance is, that the villain 
or sub-villain of the story will prove to be a 
ravage old Nabob, with an immense fortune, 
a tawny complexion, a bad liver, and a worse 
heart. 

Such,, as far as we can now judge, was the 
feeling of the country respecting Nabobs in 
general. And Clive was eminently the Nabob 
— the ablest, the most celebrated, the highest in 
rank, the highest in fortune, of all the fraterni- 
ty. His wealth was exhibited in a manner 
which could not fail to excite odium. He 
lived with great magnificence in Berkeley 
Square. He reared one palace in Shropshire, 
and another at Claremont. His parliamentary 
influence might vie with that of the greatest 
families. But in all this splendour and power, 
envy found something to sneer at. On some 
of his relations, wealth and dignity seem to 
have sate as awkwardly as on Mackenzie's 
" Margery Mushroom." Nor was he himself, 
with all his great qualities, free from those 
weaknesses which the satirists of that age re- 

Eiresented as characteristic of his whole class. 
n the field, indeed, his habits were remarkably 
simple. He was constantly on horseback, was 
never seen but in his uniform, never wore silk, 
never entered a palanquin, and was content 
with the plainest fare. But when he was no 
longer at ihs head of an army, he laid aside 
this Spartan temperance for the ostentatious 
luxury of a Sybarite. Though his person was 
ungraceful, and though his harsh features were 
redeemed from vulgar ugliness only by their 
stern, dauntless, and commanding expression, 
he was fond of rich and gay clothing, and re- 
plenished his wardrobe with absurd profusion. 
Sir John Malcolm gives us a letter worthy of 
Sir Matthew Mite, in which Clive orders "two 
hundred shirts, the best and finest that can be 
got for love or money." A few follies of this 
description, grossly exaggerated by report, pro- 
duced an unfavourable impression on the pub- 
lic mind. But this was not the worst. Black 
stories, of which the greater part were pure 
inventions, were circulated respecting his con- 
duct in the East. He had to bear the whole 
odium, not only of these bad acts to which he 
had once or twice stooped, but of all the bad 
acts of all the English in India — of bad acts 
committed when he was absent — nay, of bad 
acts which he had manfully opposed and se- 
verely punished. The very abuses against 
which he had waged an honest, resolute, and 
successful war, were laid to his account. He 
was, in fact, regarded as the personification of 
all the vices and weaknesses which the public, 
with or without reason, ascribed to the English 
adventurers in Asia. We have ourselves heard 
old men, who Knew nothing of his history, but 
who still retained the prejudices conceived in 
their youth, talk of him as an incarnate fiend. 
Johnson always held this language. Brown, 
^hoHj Clive employed to lay out his pleasure- 



grounds, was amazed to see in the house of hi/ 
noble employer a chest which had once been 
filled with gold from the treasury of Moorshe 
dabad ; and could not understand how the con 
science of the criminal suffered him to sleep 
with such an object so near to his bedchamber 
The peasantry of Surrey looked with mysteri- 
ous horror on the stately house that was rising 
at Claremont, and whispered that the great 
wicked lord had ordered the walls to be made 
so thick in order to keep out the devil, who 
would one c\ay carry him away bodily. Among 
the gaping clowns who drank in this frightful 
story, was a worthless ugly lad of the name of 
Hunter, since widely known as William Hunt- 
ingdon, S.S. ; and the superstition which was 
strangely mingled with the knavery of that re- 
markable impostor, seems to have derived no 
small nutriment from the tales which he heard 
of the life and character of Clive.* 

In the mean time, the impulse which Clive 
had given to the administration of Bengal, was 
constantly becoming fainter and fainter. His 
policy was to a great extent abandoned ; the 
abuses which he had suppressed began to re- 
vive ; and at length the evils which a bad 
government had engendered, were aggravated 
by one of those fearful visitations which the 
best government cannot avert. In the summer 
of 1770, the rains failed; the earth was parch- 
ed up ; the tanks were empty ; the rivers shrank 
within their beds ; a famine, such as is known 
only in countries where every household de- 
pends for support on its own little patch of 
cultivation, filled the whole valley of the Ganges 
with misery and death. Tender and delicate 
women, whose veils had never been lifted be- 
fore the public gaze, came forth from the inner 
chambers in which Eastern jealousy had kept 
watch over their beauty, threw themselves on 
the earth before the passers-by, and with loud 
waitings implored a handful of rice for their 
children. The Hoogley every day rolled down 
thousands of corpses close by the porticoes 
and gardens of the English conquerors. The 
very streets of Calcutta were blocked up by 
the dying and the dead. The lean and feeble 
survivors had not energy enough to bear the 
bodies of their kindred to the funeral pile or to 
the holy river, or even to scare away the jack- 
als and vultures, who fed on human remains 
in the face of day. The extent of the mortality 
was never ascertained, but it was popularly 
reckoned by millions. This melancholy intel- 
ligence added to the excitement which already 
prevailed in England on Indian subjects. The 
proprietors of East India stock were uneasy 
about their dividends. All men of commoa 
humanity were touched by the calamities of 
our unhappy subjects, and indignation soon 
began to mingle itself with pity. It was ru- 
moured that the Company's servants had 
created the famine by engrossing all the rice 
of the country ; that they had sold grain for 
eight, ten, twelve times the price at which they 
had bought it; that one English functionary, 
who, the year before, was not worth one hun- 
dred guineas, had, during that season of mise- 



* See Huntingdon's Kingdom, of Heaven taktn H 
Prayer, and his Letters. 



MALCOLM'S LIFE OF CLIVE. 



.141 



ry, remitted sixty thousand pounds to London. 
These charges we believe to have been utterly 
unfounded. That servants of the Company 
had ventured, since Clive's departure, to deal 
in rice, is probable. That if they dealt in rice, 
they must have gained by the scarcity, is cer- 
tain. But there is no reason for thinking that 
ihey either produced or aggravated an evil 
which physical causes sufiiciently explain. 
The outcry which was raised against them on 
this occasion was, we suspect, as absurd as 
the imputations which, in times of dearth at 
home, were once thrown by statesmen and 
judges, and are still thrown by two or three 
old women, on the corn-factors. It was, how- 
ever, so loud and so general, that it appears to 
have imposed on an intellect raised so high 
above vulgar prejudices as that of Adam 
Smith.* What was still more extraordinary, 
these unhappy events greatly increased the 
unpopularity of Lord Clive. He had been 
6ome years in England when the famine took 
place. None of his measures had the smallest 
tendency to produce such a calamity. If the 
servants $£ the Company had traded in rice, 
they had done so in direct contravention of the 
rule which he had laid down, and, while in 
power, had resolutely enforced. But in the 
eyes of his countrymen, he was, as we have 
said, the Nabob — the Anglo-Indian character 
personified ; and, while he was building and 
planting in Surrey, he was held responsible for 
all the effects of a dry season in Bengal. 

Parliament had hitherto bestowed very little 
attention on our Eastern possessions. Since 
the death of George the Second, a rapid suc- 
cession of weak administrations, each of which 
was in turn flattered and betrayed by the court, 
had held the semblance of power. Intrigues 
in the palace, riots in the city, and insurrec- 
tionary movements in the American colonies, 
had left them little leisure to study Indian po- 
litics. Where they did interfere, their inter- 
ference was feeble and irresolute. Lord 
Chatham, indeed, during the short period of 
his ascendency in the councils of George the 
Third, had meditated a bold and sweeping mea- 
sure respecting the acquisitions of the Com- 
pany. But his plans were rendered abortive 
by the strange malady which about that time 
began to overcloud his splendid genius. 

At length, in 1772, it was generally felt that 
Parliament could no longer neglect the affairs 
of India. The government was stronger than 
any which had held power since the breach 
between Mr. Pitt and the great Whig connec- 
tion in 1761. No pressing question of domes- 
tic or European policy required the attention 
of public men. There was a short and delu- 
sive lull between two tempests. The excite- 
ment produced by the Middlesex election was 
over; the discontent of America did not yet 
threaten civil war ; the financial difficulties of 
the Company brought on a crisis ; the minis- 
ters were forced to take up the subject ; and 
the whole storm, which had long been gather- 
ing, now broke at once on the head of Clive. 

His situation was indeed singularly unfor- 
funate. He was hated throughout the coun- 



• Wealth of Nations, Book IV. chap, v.— Digression. 



try, hated at the India House, hated, above all, 
by those wealthy and powerful servants of the 
Company, whose rapacity and tyranny he had 
withstood. He had to bear the double odium 
of his bad and of his good actions— of every 
Indian abuse, and of every Indian reform. 
The state of the political world was such, 
that he could count on the support of no pow« 
erful connection. The party to which he had 
belonged, that of George Grenville, had been 
hostile to the government, and yet had never 
cordially united with the other sections of the 
Opposition — with the little band who still fol- 
lowed the fortunes of Lord Chatham, or with 
the large and respectable body of which Lord 
Rockingham was the acknowledged leader 
George Grenville was now dead : his follow 
ers were scattered; and Clive, unconnected 
with any of the powerful factions which di- 
vided the Parliament, could reckon on the votes 
only of those members who were returned by 
himself. His enemies, particularly those who 
were the enemies of his virtues, were unscru- 
pulous, ferocious, implacable. Their malevo- 
lence aimed at nothing less than the utter ruin 
of his fame and fortune. They wished to see 
him expelled from Parliament, to see his spurs 
chopped off, to see his estate confiscated ; and 
it may be doubted whether even such a result 
as this would have quenched their thirst for 
revenge. 

Clive's parliamentary tactics resembled his 
military tactics. Deserted, surrounded, out- 
numbered, and with every thing at stake, he 
did not even deign to stand on the defensive, 
but pushed boldly forward to the attack. At 
an early stage of the discussions on Indian af- 
fairs, he rose, and in a long and elaborate 
speech, vindicated himself from a large part 
of the accusations which had been brought 
against him. He is said to have produced a 
great impression on his audience. Lord Chat- 
ham, who, now the ghost of his former self, 
loved to haunt the scene of his glory, was that 
night under the gallery of the House of Com- 
mons, and declared that he had never heard a 
finer speech. It was subsequently printed 
under Clive's direction, and must be allowed 
to exhibit, not merely strong sense and a manly 
spirit, but talents both for disquisition and de- 
clamation, which assiduous culture might have 
improved into the highest excellence. He 
confined his defence on this occasion to the 
measures of his last administration ; and suc- 
ceeded so far, that his enemies thenceforth 
thought it expedient to direct their attacks 
chiefly against the earlier part of his life. 

The earlier part of his life unfortunately pre- 
sented some assailable points to their hostility. 
A committee was chosen by ballot, U> inquir* 
into the affairs of India ; and by this committee 
the whole history of that great revolution which 
threw down Surajah Dowlah, and raised Meer 
Jaffier, was sifted with malignant care. Chvo 
was subjected to the most unsparing examina- 
tion and cross-examination, and afterwards 
bitterly complained that he, the Baron of Plas- 
sey, had been treated like a sheep-stealer. The 
boldness and ingenuousness oi his replies 
would alone suffice to show how alien from his 
nature were the frauds to which, in the course 



342 



MAOAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



his Eastern negotiations, he had sometimes 
escended. He avowed the arts which he had. 
mployed to deceive Omichund ; and resolutely 
j d that he was not ashamed of them, and that, 
n the same circumstances, he would again act 
in the same manner. He admitted that he had 
receivei. .immense sums from Meer Jaffier; but 
he denied that, in doing so, he had violated 
any obligation of morality or honour. He laid 
claim, on the contrary, and not without some 
reason, to the praise of eminent disinterested- 
ness. He described, in vivid language, the 
situation in which his victory had placed him ; 
— a great prince dependent on his pleasure ; 
an opulent city afraid of being given up to 
plunder; wealthy bankers bidding against each 
other for his smiles; vaults piled with gold 
and jewels, thrown open to him alone. " By 
God, Mr. Chairman," he exclaimed, " at this 
moment I stand astonished at my own modera- 
tion !" 

The inquiry was so extensive that the Houses 
rose before it had been completed. It was con- 
tinued in the following session. When at 
length the committee had concluded its la- 
bours, enlightened and impartial men had little 
difficulty in making up their minds as to the 
result. It was clear that Clive had been guilty 
of some acts which it is impossible to vindi- 
cate without attacking the authority of all the 
most sacred laws which regulate the inter- 
course of individuals and of states. But it was 
equally clear that he had displayed great ta- 
lents, and even great virtues ; that he had ren- 
dered eminent services both to his country and 
to the people of India ; and that it was in truth 
net for his dealings with Meer Jaffier, nor for 
the fraud which he had practised on Omi- 
chund, but for his determined resistance to 
avarice and tyranny that he was now called in 
question. 

Ordinary criminal justice knows nothing of 
set-off. The greatest desert cannot be pleaded 
in answer to a charge of the slightest trans- 
gression , If a man has sold beer on Sunday 
morning, it is no defence that he has saved the 
life of a fellow-creature at the risk of his own. 
If he has harnessed a Newfoundland dog to 
his little child's carriage, it is no defence that 
he was wounded at Waterloo. But it is not in 
this way that we ought to deal with men who, 
raised far above ordinary restraints, and tried 
by far more than ordinary temptations, are en- 
titled to a more than ordinary measure of in- 
dulgence. Such men should be judged by their 
contemporaries as they will be judged by pos- 
terity. Their bad actions ought not, indeed, to 
be caJed good ; but their good and bad actions 
ought to be fairly weighed; — and if on the 
whole the good preponderate, the sentence 
ought to be one, not merely of acquittal, but of 
approbation. Not a single great ruler in his- 
tory can be absolved by a judge who fixes his 
eye inexorably on one or two unjustifiable acts. 
Bruce, the deliverer of Scotland ; Maurice, the 
deliverer of Germany; William, the deliverer 
of Holland; his great descendant, the deliverer 
of England ; Murray, the good regent ; Cosmo, 
the father of his country; Henry IV. of France; 
Peter the Great of Russia — how would the best 
..i them oass such a scrutiny! History takes 



wider views ; and the best tribunal for grea* 
political cases is that tribunal which antici* 
pates the verdict of history. 

Reasonable and moderate men of all parlie* 
felt this in Clive's case. They could not jto- 
nounce him blameless ; but they were not dis- 
posed to abandon him to that low-minded and 
rancorous pack who had run him down, an<. 
'were eager to worry him to death. Lord North, 
though not very friendly to him, was not dis< 
posed to go to extremities against him. While 
the inquiry was still in progress, Clive, who 
had some years before been created a Knight 
of the Bath, was installed with great pomp in 
Henry the Seventh's Chapel. He was soon 
after appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Shropshire. 
When he kissed hands, George III., who had 
always been partial to him, admitted him to a 
private audience, talked to him half an hour 
on Indian politics, and was visibly affected 
when the persecuted general spoke of his ser- 
vices and of the way in which they had been 
requited. 

At length the charges came in a definite 
form before the House of Commons. Bur- 
goyne, chairman of the committee, a man of 
wit, fashion, and honour, an agreeable drama- 
tic writer, an officer whose courage was never 
questioned, and whose skill was at that time 
highly esteemed, appeared as the accuser. 
The members of the administration took dif- 
ferent sides ; for in that age all questions were 
open questions except such as were brought 
forward by the government, or such as implied 
some censure on the government. Thurlow, the 
Attorney-General, was among the assailants. 
Wedderburne, the Solicitor-General, strongly 
attached to Clive, defended his friend with ex- 
traordinary force of argument and language. 
It is a curious circumstance that, some years 
later, Thurlow was the most conspicuous 
champion of Warren Hastings, while Wed- 
derburne was among the most unrelenting per- 
secutors of that great though not faultless 
statesman. Clive spoke in his own defence 
at less length and with less art than in the 
preceding year, but with great energy and pa- 
thos. He recounted his great actions and his 
wrongs ; and, after bidding his hearers remem- 
ber that they were about to decide not only on 
his honour but on their own, retired from the 
House. 

The Commons resolved that acquisitions 
made by the arms of the State belong to the 
State alone, and that it is illegal in the ser- 
vants of the State to appropriate such acqusi- 
tions to themselves. They resolved that this 
wholsome rule appeared to have been system- 
atically violated by the English functionaries 
in Bengal. On a subsequent day they went 
a step further, and resolved that Clive had, by 
means of the power which he possessed as 
commander of the British forces in India, ob- 
tained large sums from Meer Jaffier. Here 
the House stopped. They had voted the major 
and minor of Burgoyne's syllogism, but they 
shrunk from drawing the logical conclusion. 
When it was moved that Lord Clive had 
abused his powers and set an evil example to 
the servants of the public, the previous quesrion 
was put and carried. At length, long after tha 



MALCOLM'S LIFE OF CLIVE. 



343 



eun had risen on an animated debate, Wedder- 
burne moved that Lord Clive had at the same 
time rendered great and meritoricas services 
to his country, and this motion passed without 
a division. 

The result of this memorable '.inquiry ap- 
pears to us, on the whole, honourable to the 
justice, moderation, and discernment of the 
Commons. They had, indeed, no great tempta- 
tion to do wrong. They would have been very 
Dad judges of an accusation brought against 
Jenkinson or against Wilkes. But the ques- 
tion respecting Clive was not a party question, 
and the House accordingly acted with the good 
sense and good feeling which may always be 
expected from an assembly of English gentle- 
men, not blinded by faction. 

The equitable and temperate proceedings of 
she British Parliament were set off to the great- 
est advantage by a foil. The wretched govern- 
ment of Louis XV. had murdered, directly or 
indirectly, almost every Frenchman who had 
served his country with distinction in the East. 
Labourdonnais was flung into the Bastile, and, 
ifter years of suffering, left it only to die. Du- 
pleix, stripped of his immense fortune, and 
Broken-hearted by humiliating attendance in 
antechambers, sank into an obscure grave. 
Lally was dragged to the common place of 
execution with a gag between his lips. The 
Commons of England, on the other hand, treat- 
ed their living captain with that discriminating 
justice which is seldom shown except to the 
dead. They laid down sound general princi- 
ples ; they delicately pointed out where he had 
deviated from those principles ; and they tem- 
pered a gentle censure with liberal eulogy. 
The contrast struck Voltaire, always partial to 
England, and always eager to expose the 
abuses of the Parliaments of France. Indeed 
he seems at this time to have meditated a his- 
tory of the conquest of Bengal. He mentioned 
his designs to Dr. Moore when that amusing 
writer visited him at Ferney. Wedderburne 
took great interest in the matter, and pressed 
Clive to furnish materials. Had the plan been 
carried into execution, we have no doubt that 
Voltaire would have produced a book contain- 
ing much lively and picturesque narrative, 
many just and humane sentiments poignant- 
ly expressed, many grotesque blunders, many 
sneers at the Mosaic chronology, much scan- 
dal about the Catholic missionaries, and much 
sublime theophilanthropy stolen from the New 
Testament, and put into the mouths of virtuous 
and philosophical Brahmins. 

Clive was now secure in the enjoyment of 
his fortune and his honours. He was sur- 
rounded by attached friends and relations, and 
he had not yet passed the season of vigorous 
bodily and mental exertion. But clouds had 
long been gathering over his mind, and now 
settled on it in thick darkness. From early 
youth he had been subject to fits of that strange 
melancholy "which rejoiceth exceedingly and 
is glad when it can find the grave." While 
still a writer at Madras, he had twice attempt- 
ed to destroy himself. Business and prospe- 
rity had produced a salutary effect cji his 
spirits. In India, while he was occupied by 
great affairs, in England, while wealth and 



rank had still the charm of novelty, he had 
borne up against his constitutional misery 
But he had now nothing to do, and nothing to 
wish for. His active spirit in an inactive situ* 
ation drooped and withered like a plant in an 
uncongenial air. The malignity with which 
his enemies had pursued him, the indignity 
with which he had been treated by the com- 
mittee, the censure, lenient as it was, which 
the House of Commons had pronounced, the 
knowledge that he was regarded by a large 
portion of his countrymen as a cruel and per- 
fidious tyrant, all concurred to irritate and de- 
press him. In the mean time, his temper was 
tried by acute physical suffering. During his 
long residence in tropical climates, he had 
contracted several painful distempers. In or- 
der to obtain ease he called in the help of opi- 
um; and he was gradually enslaved by this 
treacherous ally. To the last, however, his 
genius occasionally flashed through the gloom. 
It was said that he would sometimes, after sit- 
ting silent and torpid for hours, rouse himself 
to the discussion of some great question, would 
display in full vigour all the talents of the sol- 
dier and the statesman, and would then sink 
back into his melancholy repose. 

The disputes with America had now become 
so serious, that an appeal to the sword seemed 
inevitable ; and the ministers were desirous 
to avail themselves of the services of Clive. 
Had he still been what he was when he raised 
the siege of Patna, and annihilated the Dutch 
army and navy at the mouth of the Ganges, it 
is not improbable that the resistance of the 
Colonists would have been put down, and thai 
the inevitable separation would have been de- 
ferred for a few years. But it was too late. His 
strong mind was fast sinking under many 
kinds of suffering. On the 22d of November 
1774, he died by his own hand. He had just 
completed his forty-ninth year. 

In the awful close of so much prosperity 
and glory, the vulgar saw only a confirmation 
of all their prejudices ; and some men of real 
piety and talents so far forgot the maxims both 
of religion and of philosophy, as confidently to 
ascribe the mournful event to the just ven- 
geance of God and the horrors of an evil con- 
science. It is with very different feelings that 
we contemplate the spectacle of a great mind 
ruined by the weariness of satiety, by the pangs 
of wounded honour, by fatal diseases, and 
more fatal remedies. 

Clive committed great faults ; and we have 
not attempted to disguise them. But his faults, 
when weighed against his merits, and viewed 
in connection with his temptations, do not ap- 
pear to us to deprive him of his right to an 
honourable place in the estimation of pos 
terity. § 

From his first visit to India dates therenowc 
of the English arms in the East. Till he ap- 
peared, his countrymen were despised as mere 
pedlars, while the French were revered as a 
people formed for victory and command. His 
courage and capacity dissolved the charm. 
With the defence of Arcot commences that 
long series of Oriental triumphs which closes 
the fall of Ghazni. Nor must we forget that 
he was only twenty-five years old when he aj» 



844 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



proved himself ripe lor military command. 
This is a rare if not a singular distinction. It 
is true that Alexander. Condi, and Charles the 
Twelfth won great battles at a still earlier age ; 
but those princes were surrounded by veteran 
generals of distinguished skill, to whose sug- 
gestions must be attributed the victories of the 
Granieus. of Rocroi. and of Narva. Clive, an 
inexperienced youth, had yet more experience 
than any of those who served under him. He 
had to form himself, to form his officers* and 
to form his army. The only man. as far as we 
recollect, who at an equally early age ever 
gave equal proof of talents for war. was Napo- 
leon Bonaparte. 

From Clive's second visit to India dates the 
political ascendency ot the English in that 
country. His dexterity and resolution realized, 
in the course of a few months, more than all 
the gorgeous visions which had floated before 
the imagination of Dupleix. Such an extent 
of cultivated tei ritory, such an amount of reve- 
nue, such a multitude of subjects, was never 
added to the dominion of Rome by the most 
successful proconsul. Nor were such wealthy 
spoils ever borne under arches of triumph, 
down the Sacred Way, and through the crowd- 
ed Forum, to the threshold of Tarpeian Jove. 
The fame of those who subdued Antiochus and 
Tigranes grows dim when compared with the 
splendour ot' the exploits which the young 
English adventurer achieved at the head of an 
army not equal in numbers to one-half of a 
Roman legion. 

From Clive's third visit to India dates the 
parity of the administration of our Eastern 
empire. When he landed at Calcutta in 1765, 
Seagal was regarded as a place to which Eng- 



lishmen were sent only to get rich by any 
means, in the shortest possible time. He first 
made dauntless and unsparing war on that gi- 
gantic system of oppression, extortion, and cor- 
ruption. In that war he manfully put to hazard 
his ease, his fame, and his splendid fortune. 
The same sense of justice which forbade us 
to conceal or extenuate the faults of his earlier 
days, compels us to admit that those faults 
were nobly repaired. If the reproach of the Com- 
pany and of its servants has been taken away — 
if in India the yoke of foreign masters, else- 
where the heaviest of all yokes, has been found 
lighter than that of any native dynasty — if to 
that gang of public robbers which once spread 
terror through the whole plain of Bengal, has 
succeeded a' body of functionaries not more 
highly distinguished by ability and diligence 
than by integrity, disinterestedness, and public 
spirit — if we now see men like Munro, Elphin- 
stone. and Metcalfe, after leading victorious 
armies, after making and deposing kings, re- 
turn, proud of their honourable poverty, from 
a land which once held out to every greedy 
factor the hope of boundless wealth — the praise 
is in no small measure due to Clive. His name 
stands high on the roll of conquerors. But it is 
found in a better list — in the list of those who 
have done and sunered much for the happiness 
ot' mankind. To the warrior, history will as- 
sign a place in the same rank with Lucullus 
and Trajan. Nor will she deny to the reform- 
er, a share of that veneration with which 
France cherishes the memory of Turgot, and 
with which the latest generation of Hindoos 
will contemplate the statue of Lord WLIaia 
Bentinck, 



SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 



346 



LIFE AND WHITINGS OF SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE/ 



[Kiji.;iii:i:',n lli.vn.-.v k,i: Octoj;£k, \'>:.',H.. 



Mn. CouaTF.sfAr has long been well known 
to politicians as an industrious and useful offi- 
cial man, and as an upright and con :-.i stent 
member ot Parliament. He has been one of 
the mo'-.t moderate, and, at the same time, one 
of the least pliant members of the Conservative 
party. His conduct has, on some questions, 
i/'r'-.'i so Whitish, that both those who ap- 
plauded and those who condemned it have 
ned In . claim to be considered as a 
Tory. But his Toryism, such as it is, he has 
held Cast -to through all changes of fortune and 
fashion ; and he has at last retired from public 
life, leaving behind him, to the best of out 
belief, no personal enemy, and carrying with 
him the respect and good-will of many who 
strongly dissent from bis opinions. 

This book, the fruit of Mr. Courtenay' 
sore, is introduced by a preface, in which he 
informs us, that the assistance furnhhed to 
him from various quarters "has taught him 
the superiority' of literature to politics for de- 
veloping the kindlier feelings, and conducing 
ha an agreeable life/* We are truly glad that 
Mr. Courtenay IS BO well satisfied with ). 
employment, arid we heartily congratulate him 
OH having been driven by events to make an 
exchange which, advantageous as it is, few 
people make whLe they can avoid it He has 
little reason, in our opinion, to envy any of 
who are still engaged in a pursuit, from 
which, at most, they can only expect that, by 
relinquishing liberal studies and social plea- 
• ores, — by passing nights without sleep, and 
summers without one glimpse of the beauty of 
nature, — they may attain that laborious, that 
invidious, that closely watched slavery which 
is mocked with the name of Power. 

The volumes before uo are fairly entitled 
o the praise of diligence, care, good sense, and 
impartiality; and these qualities are sufficient 
o make a book valuable, but not quite suffi- 
cient to make it readable. Mr. Courtenay has 
not sufficiently studied the arts of selection and 
compression. The information with which he 
famishes us must still, we apprehend, be con- 
sidered as so much raw material. To manu- 
facture it will be highly useful, but it is not yet 
in such a form that it can be enjoyed by the 
die consumer. To drop metaphor, we are 
afraid that this work will be less acceptable to 
those who read for the sake of reading, than to 
those who read in order to write. 

We cannot help adding, though we are ex- 
tremely unwilling to quarrel with Mr. Cour- 
tenay about politics, that the book would not 
be at all the worse if it contained fewer snarls 
against the Whigs of the present day. Not 



* Memoirs of the Life, Workt, and Correspondence of 
Sir Wiltiam Temple. J5y the Right Hon. TuoMtf Pere- 
auiME Coubtenay. 2 voU. fevo. London. 1836. 



only are these passages oat of place, but seme 
of them are intrinsically such that they would 
become the editor of a third-rate party news- 
paper better than a gentleman of Mr. Courte- 
nay's talents and knowledge. For example, 
we are told that " H is a remarkable circum 
tance, familiar to those who are acquainted 
with history, but suppressed by the new Whigs, 
that the liberal politician of the seventeenth 
century and the greater part of the eighteenth, 
never extended their liberality to the native 
Irish or the professors of the ancient religion." 
What schoolboy of fourteen is ignorant of this 
remarkable circumstance ? What Whig, new 
or old, was ever such an idiot as to think that 
it could be suppressed 'i Really, we might as 
well say that it in a remarkable circumstance, 
familiar to people well read in history, but 
carefully suppressed by the clergy of (he 
Established Church, that in the fifteenth cen- 
tury England was Catholic. We are tempted 
to make some remarks on another passage, 
which eeems to be the peroration of a speech 
intended to be spoken against the Reform bill: 
but we forbear. 

We doubt whether it will be found that tiie 
memory of Bir William Temple owes much to 
Mr. Couitenay's researches. Temple is one 
of those men whom the world has agreed to 
highly without knowing much about 
them, and who are therefore more likely to 
lose than to gain by a close examination. Yet 
he is not without fair pretensions to the most 
honourable place among the statesmen of his 
time. A few of thern equalled or surpassed 
him in talents ; but they were men of i^> good 
repute for honesty. A few may be named whose 
patriotism was purer, nobler, and more dis- 
interested than his ; but they were men of no 
em i n eat ability. Morally, he was above Shaftes- 
bury; intellectually, he was above Russell. 

To say of a man that he occupied a high 
position in times of misgovernment, cf cor- 
ruption, of civil and religious faction, and that, 
nevertheless, he contracted no great stain and 
bore no part in any crime; — that he won the 
esteem of a profligate court and of a turbulent 
people, without being guilty of any great sub- 
serviency to either, — seems to be very high 
praise ; and all this may with truth be said of 
Temple. 

Yet Temple is not a man to our taste. A 
temper not naturally good, but under strict 
command, — a constant regard to decorum, — a 
rare caution in playing that mixed game of 
skill and hazard, human life, — a disposition to 
be content with small and certain winnings 
rather than go on doubling the stake, — these 
seem to us to be the most remarkable features 
of his character. This sort of moderat'OD, 
when united, a? in him it was, with very <on 



34ti 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



eiderable abilities, is, under ordinary circum- 
stances, scarcely to be distinguished from the 
highest and purest integrity; and yet maybe 
perfectly compatible with laxity of principle, 
with coldness of heart, and with the most in- 
tense selfishness. Temple, we fear, had not 
sufficient warmth and elevation of sentiment 
to deserve the name of a virtuous man. He 
did not betray or oppress his country : nay, he 
rendered considerable service to her; but he 
risked nothing for her. No temptation which 
either the King or the Opposition could hold 
out ever induced him to come forward as the 
supporter either of arbitrary or of factious 
measures. But he was most careful not to give 
offence by strenuously opposing such measures. 
He never put himself prominently before the 
public eye, except at conjunctures when 1 e 
was almost certain to gain, and could not pos- 
sibly lose ; — at conjunctures when the interest 
of the state, the views of the court, and the 
passions of the multitude all appeared for an 
instant to coincide. By judiciously availing 
himself of several of these rare moments, he 
succeeded in establishing a high character for 
wisdom and patriotism. When the favourable 
crisis was passed, he never risked the reputa- 
tion which he had won. He avoided the great 
offices of state which a caution almost pusilla- 
nimous, and confined himself to quiet and se- 
cluded departments of public business, in 
which he could enjoy moderate but certain ad- 
vantage without incurring envy. If the cir- 
cumstances of the country became such that 
it was impossible to take any part in politics 
without some danger, he retired to his Library 
and his Orchard ; and, while the nation groan- 
ed under oppression, or resounded with tumult 
and with the din of civil arms, amused him- 
self by writing Memoirs and tying up Apricots. 
His political career bore some resemblance to 
the military career of Louis XIV. Louis, lest 
his royal dignity should be compromised by 
i failure, never repaired to a siege, till it had 
been reported to him by the most skilful offi- 
cers in his service that nothing could prevent 
the fall of the place. When this was ascer- 
tained, the monarch, in his helmet and cuirass, 
appeared among the tents, held councils of 
war, dictated the capitulation, received the 
keys, and then returned to Versailles to hear 
his flatterers repeat that Turenne had been 
beaten at Mariendal, that Conde had been 
forced to raise the siege of Arras, and that the 
only warrior whose glory had never been ob- 
scured by a single check was Louis the Great ! 
Yet Conde and Turenne will always be con- 
sidered captains of a very different order from 
the invincible Louis ; and we must own that 
many statesmen who have committed very 
great faults, appear to us to be deserving of 
more esteem than the faultless Temple. For 
in truth his faultlessness is chiefly to be as- 
cribed to his extreme dread of all responsibi- 
lity; — to his determination rather to leave his 
country in a scrape than to run any chance of 
being in a scrape himself, He seems to have 
been averse from danger ; and it must be ad- 
mitted that the dangers to which a public man 
was exposed, in those days of conflicting ty- 
ranny and sedition, were of the most serious 



kind. He could not bear discomfort, bodily o* 
mental. His lamentations when, in the course 
of his diplomatic journeys, he was put a little 
out his way, and forced, in the vulgar phrase, 
to rough it, are quite amusing. He talks of 
riding a day or two on a bad Westphalian road, 
of sleeping on straw for one night, of travelling 
in winter when the snow lay on the ground, as 
if he had gone on an expedition to the North 
Pole or to the source of the Nile. This kind 
of valetudinarian effeminacy, this habit of cod- 
dling himself, appears in all parts of his con- 
duct. He loved fame, but not with the love of 
an exalted and generous mind. He loved it as 
an end, not at all as a means ; — as a personal 
luxury, not at all as an instrument of advantage 
to others. He scraped it together and treasured 
it up with a timid and niggardly thrift ; and 
never employed the hoard in any enterprise, 
however virtuous and honourable, in which 
there was hazard of losing one particle. No 
wonder if such a person did little or nothing 
which deserves positive blame. But much 
more than this may justly be demanded of a 
man possessed of such abilities and placed in 
such a situation. Had Temple been brought 
before Dante's infernal tribunal, he would not 
have been condemned to the deeper recesses 
of the abyss. He would not have been boiled 
with Dundee in the crimson pool of Bulicame, 
or hurled with Danby into the seething piteh 
of Malebolge, or congealed with Churchill in 
the eternal ice of Giudecca ; but he would per* 
haps have been placed in a dark vestibule next 
to the shade of that inglorious pontiff — 

" Che fece per viltate il gran rifiuto." 

Of course a man is not bound to be a politi- 
cian any more than he is bound to be a soldier ; 
and there are perfectly honourable ways of 
quitting both politics and the military profes- 
sion. But neither in the one way of life, nor 
in the other, is any man entitled to take all the 
sweet and leave all the sour. A man who 
belongs to the army only in time of peace,— 
who appears at reviews in Hyde Park, escorts 
the sovereign with the utmost valour and 
fidelity to and from the House of Lords, and re- 
tires as soon as he thinks it likely that he may 
be ordered on an expedition — is justly thought 
to have disgraced himself. Some portion of 
the censure due to such a holiday-soldier may 
justly fall on the mere holiday-politician, who 
flinches from his duties as soon as those du- 
ties become difficult and disagreeable ; — thai is 
to say, as soon as it becomes peculiarly im- 
portant that he should resolutely perform thera. 

But though we are far indeed from consider- 
ing Temple as a perfect statesmen, though we 
place him below many statesmen who have 
committed very great errors, we cannot deny 
that, when compared with his contemporaries, 
he makes a highly respectable appearance. 
The reaction which followed the victory of the 
popular party over Charles the First, had pro- 
duced a hurtful effect on the national charac- 
ter ; and this effect was most discernible in the 
classes and in the places which had been mosj 
strongly excited by the recent Revolution. The 
deterioration was greater in London than in the 
country, and was greatestof all in the courtly and 



SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 



34? 



official circles. Almost all thatremained of what 
had been good and noble in the Cavaliers and 
Roundheads of 1642, was *now to be found in 
the middling orders. The principles and feel- 
jfhgs which prompted the " Grand Remon- 
strance" were still strong among the sturdy- 
yeomen, and the decent God-fearing merchants. 
The spirit of Derby and Capel still glowed in 
many sequestered manor-houses ; but among 
:hose political leaders who, at the time of the 
Restoration, were still young, or in the vigour 
of manhood, there was neither a Southampton 
nor a Vane, neither a Falkland nor a Hamp- 
den. That pure, fervent, and constant loyalty 
which, in the preceding reign, had remained 
unshaken on fields of disastrous battle, in 
foreign garrets and cellars, and at the bar of 
the High Court of Justice, was scarcely to be 
found among the rising courtiers. As little, or 
still less, could the new chiefs of parties lay 
claim to the great qualities of the statesmen 
who had stood at the head of the Long Parlia- 
ment. Hampden, Pym, Vane, Cromwell, are 
discriminated from the ablest politicians of 
the succeeding generation, by all the strong 
lineaments which distinguish the men who 
produce revolutions from the men whom revo- 
lutions produce. The leader in a great change, 
the man who stirs up a reposing community, 
and overthrows a deeply-rooted system, may be 
a very depraved man ; but he can scarcely be 
destitute of some moral qualities which extort 
even from enemies a reluctant admiration — 
fixedness of purpose, intensity of will, enthu- 
siasm which is not the less fierce or perse- 
vering, because it is sometimes disguised under 
the semblance of composure, and which bears 
down before it the force of circumstances and 
the opposition of reluctant minds. These 
qualities, variously combined with all sorts of 
virtues and vices, may be found, we think, in 
most of the authors of great civil and religious 
movements, — in Caesar, in Mohammed, in 
Hildebrand, in Dominic, in Luther, in Robes- 
pierre ; and these qualities were found, in no 
scanty measure, among the chiefs of the party 
which opposed Charles the First. The cha- 
racter of the men whose minds are formed in 
the midst of the confusion which follows a 
great revolution is generally very different. 
Heat, the natural philosophers tell us, produces 
rarefaction of the air, and rarefaction of the air 
produces cold. So zeal makes revolutions, 
and revolutions make men zealous for nothing. 
The politicians of v/hom we speak, whatever 
may be their natural capacity or courage, are 
almost always characterized by a peculiar 
levity, a peculiar inconstancy, an easy, apa- 
thetic way of looking at the most solemn ques- 
tions, a willingness to leave the direction of 
their course to fortune and popular opinion, a 
notion that one public cause is pretty nearly 
as good as another, and a firm conviction that 
h is much better to be the hireling of the worst 
cause than to be. a martyr to the best. 

This was most strikingly the case with the 
English statesmen of the generation which fol- 
lowed the Restoration. They had neither the 
enthusiasm of the Cavalier, nor the enthusiasm 
of the Republican. They had been early eman- 
cipated fiom the dominion of old usages and 



feelings ; yet they had not acquired a strong 
passion for innovation. Accustomed to see old 
establishments shaking, falling, lying in ruins 
all around them, — to live under a succession 
of constitutions, of which the average dura- 
tion was about a twelvemonth, — they had no 
religious reverence for prescription ; — nothing 
of that frame of mind which naturally springs 
from the habitual contemplatior. of immemorial 
antiquity and immovable stabiluy. Accustom- • 
ed, on the other hand, to see change after change . 
welcomed with eager hope and ending in dis- 
appointment, — to see shame and confusion of 
face follow the extravagant hopes and predic- 
tions of rash and fanatical innovators — they 
had learned to look on professions of public 
spirit, and on schemes of reform, with distrust 
and contempt. They had sometimes talked 
the language of devoted subjects — sometimes 
that of ardent lovers of their country. But 
their secret creed seems to have been, that 
loyalty was one great delusion, and patriotism 
another. If they really entertained any predi- 
lection for the monarchical or for the popular 
part of the constitution, — for Episcopacy or for 
Presbyterianism, — that predilection was feeble 
and languid ; and instead of overcoming, as in 
the times of their fathers, the dread of exile, con- 
fiscation, and death, was rarely of proof to resist 
the slightest impulse of selfish ambition or of 
selfish fear. Such was the texture of the Pres- 
byterianism of Lauderdale, and of the specula- 
tive republicanism of Halifax. The sense of 
political honour seemed to be extinct. With 
the great mass of mankind, the test of integrity 
in a public man is consistency. This test, 
though very defective, is perhaps the best that 
any, except very acute or very near observers, 
are capable of applying ; and does undoubtedly 
enable the people to form an estimate of the 
characters of the great, which, on the whole, 
approximates to correctness. But during the 
latter part of the seventeenth century, mcr n- 
sistency had necessarily ceased to be a dis- 
grace ; and a man was no more taunted with 
it, than he is taunted with being black at Tim- 
buctoo. Nobody was ashamed of avowing 
what was common to him with the whole 
nation. In the short space of about seven 
years, the supreme power had been held by the 
Long Parliament, by a Council of Officers, by 
Barebone's Parliament, by a Council of Officers 
again, by a Protector according to the Instru- 
ment of Government, by a Protector according 
to the humble petition and advice, by the Long 
Parliament again, by a third Council of Officers, 
by the Long Parliament a third time, by the 
Convention, and by the kin§. In such times, 
consistency is so inconvenient to a man who 
affects it, and to all who are connected with 
him, that it ceases to be regarded as a virtue, 
and is considered as impracticable obstinacy 
and idle scrupulosity. Indeed, in such times, 
a good citizen may be bound in duty to serve 
a succession of governments. Blake did to 
in one profession, and Hale in another; an v 1 
the conduct of both has been approved by pos- 
terity. But it is clear that when inconsistency 
with respect to the most important public 
questions has ceased to be a reproach, incon 
sistency with respect to Questions of minor 



348 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



niportance is not likely to be regarded as 
'Vjishonouiable. In a country in which many 
very honest people had, within the space of a 
few months, supported the government of the 
Protector, that of the Rump, and that ol the 
King, a man was not likely to be ashamed of 
abandoning his party for a place, or of voting 
for a bill which he had opposed. 

The public men of the times which followed 
the Restoration were by no means deficient in 
courage or ability ; and some kinds of talent 
appear to have been developed amongst them 
to a remarkable — we might almost say, to a 
morbid and unnatural degree. Neither Thera- 
menes in ancient, nor Talleyrand in modern 
times, had a finer perception of all the pecu- 
liarities of character, and of all the indications 
of coming change, than some of our country- 
men of those days. Their power of reading 
things of high import, in signs which to others 
were invisible or unintelligible, resembled 
magic. But the curse of Reuben was upon 
them all : " Unstable as water, thou shall not 
excel." 

This character is susceptible of innumerable 
modifications, according to the innumerable 
varieties of intellect and temper in which it 
may be found. Men of unquiet minds and 
violent ambition followed a fearfully eccentric 
course — darted wildly from one extreme to 
another — served and betrayed all parties in 
turn — showed their unblushing forekeads al- 
ternately in the van of the most corrupt admi- 
nistrations and the most factious oppositions — 
were privy to the most guilty mysteries, first 
of the Cabal, and then of the Rye-House Plot 
— abjured their religion to win their sovereign's 
favour, while they were secretly planning his 
overthrow — shrived themselves to Jesuits with 
letters in cipher from the Prince of Orange in 
their pockets — corresponded with the Hague 
whilst in office under James — began to corres- 
pond with St. Germains as soon as they had 
kissed hands for office under William. But 
Temple was not one of these. He was not 
destitute of ambition. But his was not one of 
those souls within which unsatisfied ambition 
anticipates the tortures of hell, gnaws like the 
worm which dieth not, and burns like the fire 
which is not quenched. His principle was to 
make sure of safety and comfort, and to let 
greatness come if it would. It came : he en- 
joyed it : and in the very first moment in which 
it could no longer be enjoyed without danger 
and vexation, he contentedly let it go. He was 
not exempt, we think, from the prevailing politi- 
cal immorality. His mind took the contagion, 
but took it admodum recipientis; — in a form so 
mild that an undiscerning judge might doubt 
whether it were indeed the same fierce pesti- 
lence that was raging all around. The malady 
partook of the constitutional languor of the 
patient. The general corruption, mitigated by 
his calm and unadventurous temperament, 
showed itself in omissions and desertions, not 
in positive crimes ; and his inactivity, though 
sometimes timorous and selfish, becomes re- 
spectable when compared with the malevolent 
and perfidious restlessness of Shaftesbury and 
Sunder! and. 

Temple sprang from a family which, though 



ancient and honourable, had, before his time, 
been scarcely mentioned in our history ; but 
which, long after his death, produced so many 
eminent men, and formed such distinguished 
alliances, that it exercised, in a regular and 
constitutional manner, an influence in the state 
scarcely inferior to that which, in widely differ- 
ent times, and by widely different arts, the 
house of Neville attained in England, and that 
of Douglas in Scotland. During the latter 
years of George II., and through the whole 
reign of George III., members of that widely 
spread and powerful connection were almost 
constantly at the head either of the Government 
or of the Opposition. There were times when 
the " cousinhood," as it was once nicknamed, 
woiald of itself have furnished almost all the 
materials necessary for the construction of an 
efficient cabinet. Within the space of fifty 
years, three First Lords of the Treasury, three 
Secretaries of State, two Keepers of the Privy 
Seal, and four First Lords of the Admiralty 
were appointed from among the sons and grand- 
sons of the Countess Temple. 

So splendid have been the fortunes of the 
main stock of the Temple family, continued by 
female succession. William Temple, the first 
of the line who attained to any great historical 
eminence, was of a younger branch. His fa- 
ther, Sir John Temple, was Master of the Rolls 
in Ireland, and distinguished himself among 
the Privy Councillors of that kingdom by the 
zeal with which, at the commencement of the 
struggle between the crown and the Long 
Parliament, he supported the - popular cause. 
He was arrested by order of the Duke of Or- 
mond, but regained his liberty by an exchange, 
repaired to England, and there sat in the House 
of Commons as burgess for Chichester. ... He at- 
tached himself to the Presbyterian party, and 
was one of those moderate members who, at 
the close of the year 1648, voted for treating 
with Charles on the basis to which that prince 
had himself agreed, and who were, in conse- 
quence, turned out of the House, with small 
ceremony, by Colonel Pride. Sir John seems, 
however, to have made his peace with the 
victorious Independents, for, in 1653, he re- 
sumed his office in Ireland. 

Sir John Temple was married to a sister of 
the celebrated Henry Hammond, a learned and 
pious divine, who took the side of the king 
with very conspicuous zeal during the Civil 
War, and was deprived of his preferment in the 
church after the victory of the Parliament. On 
account of the loss which Hammond sustained 
on this occasion, he has the honour of being 
designated, in the cant of that new brood of 
Oxonian sectaries who unite the worst parts of 
the Jesuit to the worst parts of the Orange- 
man, as Hammond, Presbyter, Doctor, and 
Confessor. 

William Temple, Sir John's eldest son, was 
born in London, in the year 1628. He received 
his early education under his maternal ur cle, 
was subsequently sent to school at Bishop- 
Stortford, and, at seventeen, began to reside at 
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where the 
celebrated Cudworth was his tutor. The times 
were not favourable to study. The Civil War 
disturbed even the quiet cloisters and bowling 



SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 



349 



greens of Cambridge, produced violent revolu- 
tions in the government and discipline of the 
colleges, and unsettled the minds of the stu- 
dents. Temple forgot at Emmanuel all the little 
Greek which he had brought from Bishop- 
Stortford, and never retrieved the loss ;— a cir- 
cumstance which would hardly be worth notic- 
ing but for the almost incredible fact, that fifty 
years later, he was so absurd as to set up his 
own authority against that of Bentley on ques- 
tions of Greek history and philology. He made 
no proficiency either in the old. philosophy 
which still lingered in the schools of Cam- 
bridge, or in the new philosophy of which 
Lord Bacon was the founder. But tc the end 
of his life he continued to speak of the jormer 
with ignorant admiration, and of the latter 
with equally ignorant contempt. 

After residing at Cambridge two years, he 
departed without taking a degree, and set out 
upon his travels. He seems then to have been 
a lively, agreeable young man of fashion, not 
by any means deeply read, but versed in all 
the superficial accomplishments of a gentle- 
man, and acceptable in all polite societies. In 
politics he professed himself a Royalist. His 
opinions on religious subjects seem to have 
been such as might be expected from a young 
man of quick parts, who had received a ram- 
bling education, who had not thought deeply, 
who had been disgusted by the morose austeri- 
ty of the Puritans, and who, surrounded from 
childhood by the hubbub of conflicting sects, 
might easily learn to feel an impartial contempt 
for them all. 

On his road to France he fell in with the son 
and daughter of Sir Peter Osborne. Sir Peter 
was Governor of Guernsey for the king, and 
the young people were, like the father, warm 
for the royal cause. At an inn where they 
stopped, in the Isle of Wight, the brother 
amused himself with inscribing on the windows 
his opinion of the ruling powers. For this in- 
stance of malignancy the whole party were ar- 
rested and brought before the governor. The 
sister, trusting to the tenderness which, even 
in those troubled times, scarcely any gentle- 
man of any party ever failed to show where a 
woman was concerned, took t!he crime on her- 
self, and was immediately set at liberty with 
her fellow-travellers. 

This incident, as was natural, made a deep 
impression on Temple. He was only twenty. 
Dorothy Osborne was twenty-one. She is said 
to have been handsome ; and there remains 
abundant proof that she possessed an ample 
share of the dexterity, the vivacity, and the 
tenderness of her sex. Temple soon became, 
in the phrase of that time, her servant, and she 
returned his regard. But difficulties as great 
as ever expanded a novel to the fifth volume, op- 
posed their wishes. When the courtship com- 
menced, the father of the hero was sitting in 
the Long Parliament, the father of the heroine 
was holding Guernsey for King Charles. 
Even wh n the war ended, and Sir Peter Os- 
borne returned to his seat at Chicksands, the 
prospects of the lovers were scarcely less 
gloomy. Sir John Temple had a more advan- 
tageous alliance in view for his son. Dorothy 
Osborne was in the mean time beseiged bv as 
23 



many suitors as were drawn to Belmont by the 
fame of Portia. The most distinguished on 
the list was Henry Cromwell. Destitute of the 
capacity, the energy, the magnanimity of his 
illustrious father, destitute also of the meek 
and placid virtues of his elder brother, this 
young man was perhaps a more formidable 
rival in love than either of them would have 
been. Mrs.' Hutchinson, speaking the senti- 
ments of the grave and aged, describes him as 
an " insolent fool," and a " debauched ungodly 
Cavalier." These expressions probably mean 
that he was one who, among young and dissi« 
pated people, would pass for a fine gentleman. 
Dorothy was fond of dogs of larger and more 
formidable breed than those which lie on mo- 
dern hearth-rugs ; and Henry Cromwell pro- 
mised that the highest functionaries at Dublin 
should be set to work to procure her a fine 
Irish greyhound. She seems to have felt his 
attentions as very flattering, though his father 
was then only Lord-General, and not yet Pro- 
tector. Love, however, triumphed over ambi- 
tion, and the young lady appears never to have 
regretted her decision ; though, in a letter writ- 
ten just at the time when all England was ring- 
ing with the news of the violent dissolution of 
the Long Parliament, she could not refrain 
from reminding Temple, with pardonable va- 
nity, " how great she might have been, if she 
had been so wise as to have taken hold of the 
offer of H. C." 

Nor was it only the influence of rivals that 
Temple had to dread. The relations of his 
mistress regarded him with personal dislike, 
and spoke of him as an unprincipled adven- 
turer, without honour or religion, ready to ren- 
der services to any party for the sake of pre- 
ferment. This is, indeed, a very distorted view 
of Temple's character. Yet a character, even 
in the most distorted view taken of it by the 
most angry and prejudiced minds, generally 
retains something of its outline. No carica- 
turist ever represented Mr. Pitt as a Falstaff, 
or Mr. Fox as a skeleton ; nor did any libeller 
ever impute parsimony to Sheridan, or profu- 
sion to Marlborough. It must be allowed that 
the turn of mind whicn the eulogists of Tem- 
ple have dignified with the appellation of phi- 
losophical indifference, and which, however 
becoming it may be in an old and experienced 
statesman, has a somewhat ungraceful appear- 
ance in youth, might easily appear shocking to 
a family who were ready to fight or suffer mar- 
tyrdom for their exiled king and their perse- 
cuted church. The poor girl was exceedingly 
hurt and irritated by these imputations on her 
lover, defended him warmly behind his back, 
and addressed to himself some very tender and 
anxious admonitions, mingled with assurances 
of her confidence in his honour and virtue. On 
one occasion she was most highly provoked by 
the way in which one of her brothers spoke 
of Temple : " We talked ourselves weary," 
she says — "he renounced me, and I defied 
him." 

Nearly seven years did this arduous wooing 
continue. We are not accurately informed 
respecting Temple's movements duiing that 
time. But he seems to have led a rambling 
life, sometimes on the Continent, sometimes it 



350 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Ireland, sometimes in London. He made him- 
self master of the French and Spanish lan- 
guages, and amused himself by writing Essays 
and Romances — an employment which at least 
served the purpose of forming his style. The 
specimen which Mr. Courtenay has preserved 
of those early compositions is by no means 
contemptible. Indeed, there is one passage 
on Like and Dislike which could have been pro- 
duced only by a mind habituated carefully to 
reflect on its own operations, and Avhich re- 
minds us of the best things in Montaigne. 

He appears to have kept up a very active cor- 
respondence with his mistress. His letters are 
lost, but hers have been preserved ; and many 
of them appear in these volumes. Mr. Cour- 
tenay expresses some doubt whether his read- 
ers will think him justified in inserting so 
large a number of these epistles. We only 
wish that there were twice as many. Very 
little indeed of the diplomatic correspondence 
of that generation is so well [worth reading. 
There is a vile phrase of which bad historians 
are exceedingly fond — " the dignity of history." 
One writer is in possession of some anecdotes 
which would illustrate most strikingly the ope- 
ration of the Mississippi scheme on the man- 
ners and morals of the Parisians. But he 
suppresses those anecdotes because they are 
too low for the dignity of history. Another is 
strongly tempted to mention some facts indi- 
cating the horrible state of the prisons of Eng- 
land two hundred years ago. But he hardly 
thinks that the sufferings of a dozen felons 
pigging together on bare bricks in a hole fifteen 
feet square would form a subject suited to the 
dignity of histoiy. Another, from respect for 
the dignity of history, publishes an account of 
the reign of George II., without ever mention- 
ing Whitefield's preaching in Moorfields. How 
should a writer, who can talk about senates, 
and congresses of sovereigns, and pragmatic 
sanctions, and ravelines, and counterscarps, 
and battles where ten thousand men are killed 
and six thousand men with fifty stands of co- 
lours and eighty guns taken, stoop to the Stock- 
Exchange, to Newgate, to the theatre, to the 
tabernacle 1 

Tragedy has its dignity as well as history ; 
and how much the tragic art has owed to that 
lignity any man may judge who will compare 
the majestic Alexandrines in which the " Seig- 
neur Oreste" and " Madame Andromaque" utter 
their complaints, with the chattering of the fool 
in " Lear," and of the nurse in " Romeo and 
Juliet." 

That an historian should not record trifles, 
that he should confine himself to what is im- 
portant, is perfectly true. But many writers 
seem never to have considered on what the his- 
torical importance of an event depends. They 
seem not to oe aware that the importance of a 
fact, when that fact is considered with refer- 
ence to its immediate effects, and the import- 
ance of the same fact, when that fact is con- 
sidered as part of the materials for the con- 
struction of a science, are two very different 
things. The quantity of good or evil which a 
transaction produces is by no means necessa- 
rily proportioned to the quantity of light which 
that transaction affords as to the way in which 



good or evil may hereafter be produced. The 
poisoning of an emperor is in one sense a fat 
more serious matter than the poisoning of a 
rat. But the poisoning of a rat may be an era 
in chemistry ; and an emperor may be poisoned 
by such ordinary means, and with such ordi- 
nary symptoms, that no scientific journal would 
notice the occurrence. An action for a hun. 
dred thousand pounds is in one sense a more 
momentous affair than an action for fifty 
pounds. But it by no means follows that the 
learned gentlemen who report the proceedings 
of the courts of law ought to give a fuller ac- 
count of an action for a hundred thousand 
pounds than of an action for fifty pounds. For 
a cause, in which a large sum is at stake, may 
be important only to the particular plaintiff 
and the particular defendant. A cause, on the 
other hand, in which a small sum is at stake, 
may establish some great principle interesting 
to half the families in the kingdom. The case 
is exactly the same with that class of subjects 
of which historians treat. To an Athenian, in 
the time of the Peloponnesian war, the result 
of the battle of Delium was far more important 
than the fate of the comedy of the " Knights." 
But to us the fact that the comedy of the 
" Knights" was brought on the Athenian stage 
with success is far more important than the fact 
that the Athenian phalanx gave way at Delium. 
Neither the one event nor the other has any 
intrinsic importance. We are in no danger 
of being speared by the Thebans. We are not 
quizzed in the " Knights." To us, the import- 
ance of both events consists in the value of 
the general truth which is to be learned from 
them. What general truths do we learn from 
the accounts which have come down to us of 
the battle of Delium ] Very little more than 
this, that when two armies fight, it is not im- 
probable that one of them will be very soundly 
beaten — a truth which it would not, we appre- 
hend, be difficult to establish, even if all me- 
mory of the battle of Delium were lost among 
men. But a man who becomes acquainted 
with the comedy of the "Knights," and with 
the history of that comedy, at once feels his 
mind enlarged. Society is presented to him 
under a new aspect. He may have read and 
travelled much. He may have visited all the 
countries of Europe, and the civilized nations 
of the East. He may have observed the man 
ners of many barbarous races. But here is 
something altogether different from every thing 
which he has seen either among polished men 
or among savages. Here is a community, po- 
litically, intellectually, and morally unlike any 
other community of which he has the means 
of forming an opinion. This is the really pre- 
cious part of history, — the corn which some 
threshers carefully sever from the chaff, for 
the purpose of gathering the chaff into the 
garner, and flinging the corn into the fire. 

Thinking thus, we are glad to learn so much, 
and would willingly learn more, about the 
loves of Sir William and his mistress. In the 
seventeenth century, to be sure, Louis XIV 
was a much more important person than Tem- 
ple's sweetheart. But death and time equalize 
all things. Neither the great king, nor the 
beauty of Bedfordshire —neither the gorgeous 



SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 



351 



paradise of Marli nor Mistress Osborne's fa- 
vourite walk " in the common that lay hard by 
1he house, where a great many young wenches 
used to keep sheep and cows and sit in the 
shade singing of ballads," — is any thing to us. 
Louis and Dorothy are alike dust. A cotton- 
mill stands on the ruins of Marli, and the Os- 
bornes have ceased to dwell under the ancient 
roof of the Chicksands. But of that informa- 
tion, for the sake of which alone it is worth 
while to study remote events, we find so much 
in the love-letters which Mr. Courtenay has 
published, that we would gladly purchase 
equally interesting billets with ten times their 
weight in state papers taken at random. To us 
surely it is as useful to know how the young 
ladies of England employed themselves a hun- 
dred and eighty years ago, — how far their 
minds were cultivated, what were their fa- 
vourite studies, what degree of liberty was 
allowed to them, and what use they made of 
mat liberty, what accomplishments they most 
valued in men, and what proofs of tenderness 
delicacy permitted them to give to favoured 
suitors, — as to know all about the seizure of 
Franche Comte and the treaty of Nimeguen. 
The mutual relations of the two sexes seem to 
us to be at least as important as the mutual 
relations of any two governments in the world ; 
and a series of letters, written by a virtuous, 
amiable, sensible girl, and intended for the eye 
of her lover alone, can scarcely fail to throw 
some light on the relations of the sexes; where- 
as it is perfectly possible, as all who have 
made any historical researches can attest, to 
read bale after bale of despatches and protocols 
without catching one glimpse of light about the 
relations of governments. 

Mr. Courtenay proclaims that he is one of 
Dorothy Osborne's devoted servants, and ex- 
presses a hope that the publication of her letters 
will add to the number. We must declare our- 
selves his rival. She really seems to have been 
a very charming young woman — modest, ge- 
nerous, affectionate, intelligent, and sprightly, 
— a royalist, as was to be expected from her 
connections, without any of that political aspe- 
rity which is as unwomanly as a long beard, — 
religious, and occasionally gliding into a very 
pretty and enduring sort of preaching, yet not 
too good to partake of such diversions as Lon- 
don afforded under the melancholy rule of the 
Puritans, or to giggle a little at a ridiculous 
sermon from a divine who was thought to be 
one of the great lights of the Assembly at 
Westminster, — with a little turn for coquetry, 
which was yet perfectly compatible with warm 
and disinterested attachment, and a little turn 
for satire, which yet seldom passed the bounds 
of good nature. She loved reading ; but her 
studies were not those of Elizabeth and Lady 
Jane Grey. She read the verses of Cowley 
and Lord Broghill, French Memoirs recom- 
mended by her lover, and the Travels of Fer- 
nando Mendez Pinto. But her favourite books 
were those ponderous French Romances which 
modern readers know chiefly from the pleasant 
satire of Charlotte Lennox. She could not, 
however, help laughing at the vile English into 
which they were translated. Her own style is 
rerv agreeable ; n >r arc her letters at all the 



worse for some passages in which rallery and 
tenderness are mixed in a very engaging 
namby-pamby. 

When at last the constancy of the lovers had 
triumphed over all the obstacles which kins- 
men and rivals could oppose to their union, a 
yet more serious calamity befell them. Poor 
Mistress Osborne fell ill of the small-pox, and, 
though she escaped with life, lost all her 
beauty. To this most severe trial the affection 
and honour of the lovers of that age was not 
unfrequently subjected. Our readers probably 
remember what Mrs. Hutchinson tells us of 
herself. The lofty Cornelia-like spirit of the 
aged matron seems to melt into a long-forgotten 
softness when she relates how her beloved 
Colonel " married her as soon as she was able 
to quit the chamber, when the priest and all 
that saw her were affrighted to look on her. 
But God," she adds, -^ith a not ungraceful va- 
nity, " recompensed his justice and constancy, 
by restoring her as well as before." Temple 
showed on this occasion the same "justice and 
constancy" which did so much honour to 
Colonel Hutchinson. The date of the marriage 
is not exactly known. But Mr. Courtenay sup- 
poses it to have taken place about the end of 
the year 1654. From this time we lose sight 
of Dorothy, and are reduced to form our opi- 
nion of the terms on which she and her hus- 
band were, from very slight indications which 
may easily mislead us. 

Temple soon went to Ireland, and resided 
with his father, partly in Dublin, partly in the 
county of Carlow. Ireland was probably then 
a more agreeable residence for the higher 
classes, as compared with England, than it has 
ever been before or since. In no part of the 
empire were the superiority of Cromwell's 
abilities and the force of his character so sig- 
nally displayed. He had not the power, and 
probably had not the inclination, to govern that 
island in the best way. The rebellion of the 
aboriginal race had excited in England a strong 
religious and national aversion to them ; nor 
is there any reason to believe that the Pro- 
tector was so far beyond his age as to be free 
from the prevailing sentiment. He had van- 
quished them; he knew that they were in his 
power; and he regarded them as a band of 
malefactors and idolaters, who were mercifully 
treated if they were not smitten with the edge 
of the sword. On those who resisted he had 
made war as the Hebrews made war on the 
Canaanites. Drogheda was as Jericho ; and 
Wexford as Ai. To the remains of the old 
population the conqueror granted a peace, 
such as that which Joshua granted to the Gi- 
beonites. He made them hewers of wood and 
drawers of water. But, good or bad, he could 
not be otherwise than great. Under favourable 
circumstances, Ireland would have found in 
him a most just and beneficent ruler. She 
found him a tyrant; not a small, teasing tyrant, 
such as those who have so long been her curse 
and her shame, — but one of those awful tyrants 
who, at long intervals, seem to be sent on 
earth, like avenging angels, with some high 
commission of destruction and renovation. He 
was no man of half measures, of mean affronts 
and ungracious concessions. His Protestant 



352 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ascendency was not an ascendency of ribands, 
and fiddles, and statues, and processions. He 
wonld never have dreamed of abolishing penal 
laws against the Irish Catholics, and withhold- 
ing from them the elective franchise — of giving 
them the elective franchise, and excluding them 
from Parliament — of admitting them to Parlia- 
ment, and refusing to them a full and equal 
^participation in all the blessings of society and 
"government. The thing most alien from his 
clear intellect and his commanding spirit was 
petty persecution. He knew how to tolerate, 
and he knew how to destroy. His administra- 
tion in Ireland was an administration on what 
are now called Orange principles, — followed out 
most ably, most steadily and undauntedly, most 
unrelentingly, to every extreme consequence to 
which those principles lead; and it would, if con- 
tinued, inevitably have produced the effect which 
he contemplated, — an entire decomposition and 
reconstruction of society. He had a great and 
definite object in view, — to make Ireland 
thoroughly English — to make it another York- 
shire or Norfolk. Thinly peopled as Ireland 
then was, this end was not unattainable ; and 
there is every reason to believe that if his po- 
licy had been followed during fifty years this 
end would have been attained. Instead of an 
emigration, such as we now see from Ireland 
to England, there was, under his government, 
a constant and large emigration from England 
to Ireland. This tide of population ran almost 
as strongly as that which now runs from Mas- 
sachusetts and Connecticut to the states behind 
the Ohio. The native race was driven back 
before the advancing van of the Anglo-Saxon 
population, as the American Indians or the 
tribes of Southern Africa are now driven back 
before the white settlers. Those fearful phe- 
nomena which have almost invariably attended 
the planting of civilized colonies in uncivilized 
countries, and which had been known to the 
nations of Europe only by distant and ques- 
tionable rumour, were now publicly exhibited 
in their sight. The words, "extirpation," 
" eradication," were often in the mouths of the 
English back-settlers of Leinster and Munster 
— cruel Words — yet, in their cruelty, containing 
more mercy than much softer expressions 
which have since been sanctioned by universi- 
ties, and cheered by Parliaments. For it is in 
truth more merciful to extirpate a hundred 
thousand people at once, and to fill the void 
with a well-governed population, than to mis- 
govern millions through a long succession of 
generations. We can much more easily par- 
don tremendous severities inflicted for a great 
object, than an endless series of paltry vexa- 
tions and oppressions inflicted for no rational 
object at all. 

Ireland was fast becoming English. Civili- 
zation and wealth were making rapid progress 
in almost every part of the island. The effects 
of that iron despotism are described to us by a 
hostile witness in very remarkable language. 
"Which is more wonderful," says Lord Cla- 
rendon, "all this was done and settled within 
little more than two years, to that degree of 
perfection that there were many buildings 
raised for beauty as well as use, orderly and 
regular plai tations of trees, and fences; and 



enclosures raised throughout the kingdom 
purchases made by one from another at very 
valuable rates, and jointures made upon mar« 
riages, aiad all other conveyances and settle* 
ments executed, as in a kingdom at peace with- 
in itself, and where no doubt could be made 
of the validity of titles." 

All Temple's feelings about Irish questions 
were those of a colonist and a member of the 
dominant caste. He troubled himself as little 
about the welfare of the remains of the old Celtic 
population as an English farmer on the Swan 
river troubles himself about the New Holland- 
ers, or a Dutchboor at the Cape about the Caffres. 
The years which he passed in Ireland while the 
Cromwellian system was in full operation he 
always described as "years of great satisfac- 
tion." Farming, gardening, county business, 
and studies rather entertaining than profound, 
occupied his time. In politics he took no part, 
and many years after he attributed this inac- 
tion to his love of the ancient constitution, 
which, he said, "would not suffer him to enter 
into public affairs till the way was plain for 
the king's happy restoration." It does not ap- 
pear, indeed, that any offer of employment was 
made to him. If he really did refuse any pre- 
ferment, we may, without much breach of 
charity, attribute the refusal rather to the cau- 
tion which, during his whole life, prevented 
him from running any risk than to the fervour 
of his loyalty. 

In 1660 he made his first appearance in pub- 
lic life. He sat in the Convention which, ii» 
the midst of the general confusion that pro 
ceded the Restoration, was summoned by the 
chiefs of the army of Ireland to meet in Dub- 
lin. After the king's return, an Irish Parlia- 
ment was regularly convoked, in which Tem- 
ple represented the county of Carlow. The 
details of his conduct in this situation are not 
known to us. But we are told in general 
terms, and can easily believe, that he showed 
great moderation and great aptitude for busi- 
ness. It is probable that he also distinguished 
himself in debate ; for many years afterwards 
he remarked, that " his friends in Ireland used 
to think that, if he had any talent at all, it lay 
in that way." 

In May, 1663, the Irish Parliament was pro- 
rogued, and Temple repaired to England with 
his wife. His income amounted to about five 
hundred pounds a year, a sum which was then 
sufficient for the wants of a family mixing in 
fashionable circles. He passed two years in 
London, where he seems to have led that easy, 
lounging life which was best suited to his 
temper. 

He was no^ however, unmindful of his in- 
terest. He had brought with him letters of 
introduction from the Duke of Ormond, the 
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, to Clarendon, and 
to Henry Bennet, Lord Arlington, who was 
Secretary of State. Clarendon was at the head 
of affairs. But his power was visibly declin- 
ing, and was certain to decline more and more 
every day. An observer much less discerning 
than Temple might easily perceive that the 
Chancellor was a man who belonged to a by 
gone world; — a representative of a past age, 
of obsolete modes of thinking, of unfashion* 



SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 



353 



able vices, and of more unfashionable virtues. 
His long exile had made him a stranger in the 
country of his birth. His mind, heated by con- 
flict and by personal suffering, was far more 
set against popular and tolerant courses than 
it had been at the time of the breaking out of 
the Civil War. He pined for the decorous 
tyranny of the Old Whitehall ; for the days of 
that sainted king who deprived the people of 
their money and their ears, but let their wives 
and their daughters alone ; and could scarcely 
reconcile himself to a court with a mistress 
and without a Star-Chamber. By taking this 
course he made himself every day more odious', 
both to the sovereign, who loved pleasure much 
more than prerogative, and to the people, who 
dreaded royal prerogative much more than 
royal pleasures; and was at last more detested 
by the court than any chief of the Opposition, 
and more detested by the Parliament than any 
pander of the court. 

Temple, whose great maxim was to offend 
no party, was not likely to cling to the falling 
fortunes of a minister the study of whose life 
was to offSnd all parties. Arlington, whose 
influence was gradually rising as that of Cla- 
rendon diminished, was the most useful patron 
lo whom a young adventurer could attach him- 
self. This statesman, without virtue, wisdom, 
or strength of mind, had raised himself to 
greatness by superficial qualities, and was the 
mere creature of the time, the circumstances, 
and the company. The dignified reserve of 
manners which he had acquired during a resi- 
dence in Spain provoked the ridicule of those 
who considered the usages of the French court 
as the only standard of good breeding, but 
served to impress the crowd with a favourable 
opinion of his sagacity and gravity. In situa- 
tions where the solemnity of the Escurial 
would have been out of place, he threw it aside 
without difficulty, and conversed with great 
humour and vivacity. While the multitude 
were talking of "Bennet's grave looks,"* his 
mirth made his presence always welcome in 
the royal closet. While in the antechamber 
Buckingham was mimicking the pompous 
Castilian strut of the Secretary for the diver- 
sion of Mistress Stuart, this stately Don was 
ridiculing Clarendon's sober counsels to the 
king within, till his majesty cried with laugh- 
ter and the Chancellor with vexation. There 
perhaps never was a man whose outward de- 
meanour made such different impressions on 
different people. Count Hamilton, for exam- 
ple, describes him as a stupid formalist, who 
had been made Secretary solely on account 
of his mysterious and important looks. Cla- 
rendon, on the other hand, represents him as a 
man whose " best faculty was raillery," and 
who was, " for his pleasant and agreeable hu- 
mour, acceptable unto the king." The truth 
seems to be that, destitute as he was of all the 
higher qualifications of a minister, he had a 
wonderful talent for becoming, in outward 
semblance, all things to all men. He had two 
aspects, a busy and serious one for the public, 
whom he wished to awe into respect, and a gay 



* "Bennet's grave looks were a pretence," is a line 
ha one of the best political poems of that age. 



one for Charles, who thought that .he greatest 
service which could be rendered to a prince was 
to amuse him. Yet both these were masks, 
which he laid aside when they had served their 
turn. Long after, when he had retired to his 
deer-park and fish-ponds in Suffolk, and hao. 
no motive to act the part either of the hidalgo 
or of the buffoon, Evelyn, who was neither an 
unpractised nor an undiscerning judge, con- 
versed much with him, and pronounced him to 
be a man of singularly polished manners, and 
of great colloquial powers. 

Clarendon, proud and imperious by nature, 
soured by age and disease, and relying on his 
great talents and services, sought out no new 
allies. He seems to have taken a sort of mo- 
rose pleasure in slighting and provoking all 
the rising talent of the kingdom. His connec- 
tions were almost entirely confined to the small 
circle, every day becoming smaller, of old Ca- 
valiers who had been friends of his youth or 
companions of his exile. Arlington, on the 
other hand, beat up everywhere for recruits. 
No man had a greater personal following, and 
no man exerted himself more to serve his ad- 
herents. It was a kind of habit with him to 
push up his dependants to his own level, and 
then to complain bitterly of their ingratitude 
because they did not choose to be his depend- 
ants any longer. It was thus that he quarrelled 
with two successive Treasurers, Clifford and 
Danly. To Arlington, Temple attached him- 
self, and was not sparing of warm professions 
of affection, or even, we grieve to say, of gross 
and almost profane adulation. In no long 
time he obtained his reward. 

England was in a very different situation, 
with respect to foreign powers, from that which 
she had occupied during the splendid adminis- 
tration of the Protector. She v/as engaged in 
war with the United Provinces, then governed 
with almost regal power by the Grand Pen- 
sionary, John De Witt ; and though no war had 
ever cost the kingdom so much, none had 
ever been more feebly and meanly conducted. 
France had espoused the interest of the States- 
General. Denmark seemed likely to take the 
same side. Spain, indignant at the close poli- 
tical and matrimonial alliance which Charles 
had formed with the house of Braganza, was 
not disposed to lend him any assistance. The 
Great Plague of London had suspended trade, 
had scattered the ministers and nobles, had 
paralyzed every department of the public ser- 
vice, and had increased the gloomy discontent 
which misgovernment had begun to excite 
throughout the nation. One continental ally 
England possessed — the Bishop of Munster; a 
restless and ambitious prelate, bred a soldier, 
and still a soldier in all his passions. He hated 
the Dutch, who had interfered in the affairs of 
his see, and declared himself willing to risk 
his little dominions for the chance of revenge. 
He sent, accordingly, a strange kind of ambas- 
sador to London — a Benedictine monk, who 
spake bad English, and looked, says Lord Cla- 
rendon, " like a carter." This person brought 
a letter from the Bishop offering to make an 
attack by land on the Dutch territory. The 
English ministers eagerly caught at the pro 
posal, and promised a subsidy of 500,U00 rix 



354 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



dollars to their new ally. It was determined 
to send an English agent to Munster; and 
Arlington, to whose department the business 
belonged, fixed on Temple for this post. 

Temple accepted the commission, and ac- 
quitted himself to the satisfaction of his em- 
ployers, though the whole plan ended in nothing ; 
and the Bishop, after pocketing an instalment 
of his subsidy, made haste to conclude a sepa- 
rate peace. Temple, at a later period, looked 
back with no great satisfaction to this part of 
his life ; and excused himself for undertaking 
a negotiation from which little good could re- 
sult, by saying that he was then young and 
very new in business. In truth, he could 
hardly have been placed in a situation where 
.he eminent diplomatic talents which he pos- 
sessed could have appeared to less advantage. 
He could not bear much wine ; and none but 
a hard drinker had any chance of success in 
Westphalian society. Under all these disad- 
vantages, however, he gave so much satisfac- 
tion that he was created a baronet, and ap- 
pointed resident at the viceregal court of 
Brussels. 

Brussels suited Temple far better than the 
palaces of the boar-hunting and wine-bibbing 
princes of Germany. He now occupied the 
most important post of observation in which a 
diplomatist could be stationed. He was placed 
in the territory of a great neutral power, be- 
tween the territories of the two great powers 
which were at war with England. From this 
excellent school he soon came forth the most 
accomplished negotiator of his age. 

In the mean time the government of Charles 
had suffered a succession of humiliating disas- 
ters. The extravagance of the court had dis- 
sipated all the means which Parliament had 
supplied for the purpose of carrying on offen- 
sive hostilities. It was determined to wage 
only a defensive war ; and even for defensive 
war the vast resources of England, managed 
j triflers and public robbers, were found in- 
ufficient. The Dutch insulted the British 
coasts, sailed up the Thames, took Sheerness, 
and carried their ravages to Chatham. The 
blaze of the ships burning in the river was seen 
at London ; it was rumoured that a foreign 
army had landed at Gravesend ; and military 
men seriously proposed to abandon the Tower. 
To such a depth of infamy had maladministra- 
tion reduced that proud and victorious nation 
which a few years before had dictated its plea- 
sure to Mazarin, to the States-General, and to 
the Vatican. Humbled by the events of the 
war, and dreading the just anger of Parlia- 
ment, the English Ministry hastened to huddle 
up a peace with France and Holland at Breda. 

But a new scene was now about to open. It 
had already been for some time apparent to 
discerning observers, that England and Holland 
were threatened by a common danger, much 
more formidable than any which they had 
reason to apprehend from each other. The 
old enemy of their independence and of their 
religion was no longer to be dreaded. The 
iceptre had passed away from Spain. That 
mighty empire, on which the sun never set, 
which had crushed the liberties of Italy and 
Germany, which had occupied Paris with its 



armies, and covered the British seas with its 
sails, was at the mercy of every spoiler ; and 
Europe saw with dismay the rapid growth of a 
new and more formidable power. Men looked 
to Spain, and saw only weakness disguised and 
increased by pride, — dominions of vast bulU 
and little strength, tempting, unwieldy, and de«- 
fenceless, — an empty treasury, — a haughty, 
sullen, and torpid nation, — a child on the 
throne, — factions in the council, — ministers 
who served only themselves, and soldiers who 
were terrible only to their countrymen. Men 
looked to France, and saw a large and com- 
pact territory, — a rich soil, — a central situation, 
— a bold, alert, and ingenious people, — large 
revenues,— numerous and discip-ined troops, 
— an active and ambitious prince, in the flower 
of his age, surrounded by generals of unrivalled 
skill. The projects of Louis could be counter- 
acted only by ability, vigour, and union on the 
part of his ne>ghbours. Ability and vigour 
had hitherto been found in the councils of 
Holland alone, and of union there was no ap- 
pearance in Europe. The question of Portu- 
guese independence separated England from 
Spain. Old grudges, recent hostilities, mari- 
time pretensions, commercial competition, se- 
parated England as widely from the United 
Provinces. 

The great object of Louis, from the beginning 
to the end of his reign, was the acquisition of 
those large and valuable provinces of the 
Spanish monarchy which lay contiguous to the 
eastern frontier of France.- Already, before the 
conclusion of the treaty of Breda, he had in- 
vaded those provinces. He now pushed on his 
conquests with scarcely any resistance. Fort- 
ress after fortress was taken. Brussels itself 
was in danger ; and Temple thought it wise to 
send his wife and children to England. But 
his sister, Lady Giffard, who had been some 
time his inmate, and who seems to have been 
a more important personage in his family than 
his wife, still remained with him. 

De Witt saw the progress of the French 
arms with painful anxiety. But it was not in 
the power of Holland alone to save Flanders ; 
and the difficulty of forming an extensive co- 
alition for that purpose appeared almost insu- 
perable. Louis, indeed, affected moderation. 
He declared himself willing to agree to a com- 
promise with Spain. But these offers were 
undoubtedly mere professions, intended to quiet 
the apprehensions of the neighbouring powers ; 
and, as his position became every day more 
and more advantageous, it was to be expected 
that he would rise in his demands. 

Such was the state of affairs when Terrjple 
obtained from the English Ministry permission 
to make a tour in Holland incognito. In com- 
pany with Lady Giffard he arrived at the 
Hague. He was not charged with any public 
commission, but he availed himself of this 
opportunity of introducing himself to De Witt. 
" My only business, sir," he said, " is to see 
the things which are most considerable in your 
country, and I should execute my design very 
imperfectly if I went away without seeing 
you." De Witt, who, from report, had formed 
a high opinion of Temple, was pleased by tho 
compliment, and replied with a frankness an<? 



SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 



355 



cordiality which at once led to intimacy. The 
two statesmen talked calmly over the causes 
which had estranged England from Holland, 
congratulated each other on the peace, and then 
began to discuss the new dangers which me- 
naced Europe. Temple, who had no authority 
to say any thing on behalf of the English go- 
vernment, expressed himself very guardedly. 
De Witt, who was himself the Dutch govern- 
ment, had no reason to be reserved. He openly 
declared that his wish was to see a general 
coalition formed for the preservation of Flan- 
iers. His simplicity and openness amazed 
Temple, who had been accustomed to the af- 
fected solemnity of his patron, the Secretary, 
and to the eternal doublings and evasions 
which passed for great feats of statesmanship 
among the Spanish politicians at Brussels. 
''Whoever," he wrote to Arlington, "deals 
with M. De Witt must go the same plain way 
that he pretends to in his negotiations, without 
refining or colouring, or offering shadow for 
substance." He was scarcely less struck by 
the modest dwelling and frugal table of the 
first citizeti of the richest state in the world. 
While Clarendon was amazing London with a 
dwelling more sumptuous than the palace of 
his master, while Arlington was lavishing his 
ill-gotten wealth on the decoys and orange- 
gardens and interminable conservatories of 
Euston, — the great statesman who had frus- 
trated all their plans of conquest, and the roar 
of whose guns they had heard with terror even 
in the galleries of Whitehall, kept only a single 
servant, walked about the streets in the plain- 
est garb, and never used a coach except for 
visits of ceremony. 

Temple sent a full account of his interview 
with De Witt to Arlington, who, in consequence 
of the fall of the Chancellor, now shared with 
the Duke of Buckingham the principal direc- 
tion of affairs. Arlington showed no disposition 
to meet the advances of the Dutch minister. 
Indeed, as was amply proved a few years later, 
both he and his master were perfectly willing 
to purchase the means of misgoverning England 
by giving up, not only Flanders, but the whole 
Continent to France. Temple, who distinctly 
saw that a moment had arrived at which it was 
possible to reconcile his country with Holland, 
— to reconcile Charles with the Parliament, — 
to bridle the power of Louis, — to efface the 
shame of the late ignominious war, — to restore 
England to the same place in Europe which 
she had occupied under Cromwell, became 
more and more urgent in his representations. 
Arlington's replies were for some time couched 
in cold and ambiguous terms. But the events 
which followed the meeting of the Parliament, 
in the autumn of 1667, appear to have produced 
an entire change in his views. The discontent 
of the nation was deep and general. The ad- 
ministration was attacked in all its parts. The 
king and the ministers laboured, not unsuc- 
cessfully, to throw on Clarendon the blame of 
past miscarriages ; but though the Commons 
were resolved that the late Chancellor should 
be the first victim, it was by no means clear 
that he would be the last. The Secretary was 
personally attacked with great bitterness in 
the course of the debates. One of the resolu- 



tions of the Lower House against Clarendon 
could be understood only as a censune of th« 
foreign policy of the government, as too fa 
vourable to France. To these events chieflj 
we are inclined to attribute the change which 
at this crisis took place in the measures ot 
England. The Ministry seem to have felt that, 
if they wished to derive any advantage from 
Clarendon's downfall, it was necessary for 
them to abandon what was supposed to be 
Clarendon's system; and by some splendid and 
popular measure to win the confidence of the 
nation. Accordingly, in December, 1667, Tem- 
ple received a despatch containing instructions 
of the highest importance. The plan which he 
had so strongly recommended was approved ; 
and he was directed to visit De Witt as 
speedily as possible, and to ascertain whether 
the States were willing to enter into an offen- 
sive and defensive league with England against 
the projects of France. Temple, accompanied 
by his sister, instantly set out for the Hague, 
and laid the propositions of the English go- 
vernment before the Grand Pensionary. The 
Dutch statesman answered with his character- 
istic straightforwardness, that he was fully 
ready to agree to a defensive alliance, but that 
it was the fundamental principle of the foreign 
policy of the States to make no offensive league 
under any circumstances whatsoever. With 
this answer Temple hastened from the Hague 
to London, had an audience of the king, re- 
lated what had passed between himself and 
De Witt, exerted himself to remove the unfa- 
vourable opinion which had been conceived 
of the Grand Pensionary at the English court, 
and had the satisfaction of succeeding in all 
his objects. On the evening of the 1st of 
January, 1668, a council was held, at which 
Charles declared his resolution to unite with 
the Dutch on their own terms. Temple and 
his indefatigable sister immediately sailed 
again for the Hague, and, after weathering a 
violent storm in which they were very nearly 
lost, arrived in safety at the place of their des 
tination. 

On this occasion, as on every other, the deal 
ings between Temple and De Witt were sin- 
gularly fair and open. When they met, Temple 
began by recapitulating what had passed at 
their last interview. De Witt, who was as 
little given to lying with his face as with his 
tongue, marked his assent by his looks while 
the recapitulation proceeded; and when it was 
concluded, answered that Temple's memory 
was perfectly correct, and thanked him for 
proceeding in so exact and sincere a manner. 
Temple then informed the Grand Pensionary 
that the King of England had determined to 
close with the proposal of a defensive alliance. 
De Witt had not expected so speedy a resolu- 
tion, and his countenance indicated surprise as 
well as pleasure. But he did not retract ; and it 
was speedily arranged that England and Hol- 
land should unite for the purpose of compelling 
Louis to abide by the compromise which he 
had formerly offered. The next object of the 
two statesmen was to induce another govern 
ment to become a party to their league. The 
victories of Gustavus and Torstenson, and 
the political talents of Oxenstiern, had ob 



356 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



taincd for Sweden a consideration in Europe 
disproportioned to her real power. The 
Princes of Northern Germany stood in great 
awe of her. And De Witt and Temple 
agreed that if she could be induced to accede 
to the league, " it would be too strong a bar for 
France to venture on." Temple went that 
same evening to Count Dona, the Swedish 
minister at the Hague ; took a seat in the most 
unceremonious manner; and, with that air of 
frankness and good-will by which he often suc- 
ceeded in rendering his diplomatic overtures 
acceptable, explained the scheme which was 
in agitation. Dona was greatly pleased and 
nattered. He had not powers which would 
authorize him to conclude a treaty of such 
importance. But he strongly advised Temple 
and De Witt to do their part without delay, and 
seemed confident that Sweden would accede. 
The ordinary course of public business in Hol- 
land was too slow for the present emergency ; 
and De Witt appeared to have some scruples 
about breaking through the established forms. 
But the urgency and dexterity of Temple pre- 
vailed. The States-General took the responsi- 
bility of executing the treaty with a celerity 
unprecedented in the annals of the federation, 
and indeed inconsistent with its fundamental 
laws. The state of public feeling was, how- 
ever, such in all the provinces, that this irregu- 
larity was not merely pardoned but applauded. 
When the instrument had been formally signed, 
the Dutch commissioners embraced the Eng- 
lish plenipotentiary with the warmest expres- 
sions of kindness and confidence. " At Breda," 
exclaimed Temple, " we embraced as friends — 
here as brothers." 

This memoralle negotiation occupied only 
five days. De Witt complimented Temple in 
high terms on having effected in so short a 
time what must, under other management, 
have been the work of months ; and Temple, 
in his despatches, s;poke in equally high terms 
of De Witt. " I must add these words to do 
M, de Witt right, that I found him as plain, as 
direct and square in the course of this business 
as any man could be, though often stiff in 
points where he thought any advantage could 
accrue to his country ; and have all the reason 
in the world to be satisfied with him ; and for 
his industry, no man had ever more I am sure. 
For these five days at least, neither of us spent 
any idle hours, neither day nor night." 

Sweden willingly acceded to the league, 
which is known in history by the name of the 
Triple Alliance ; and after some signs of ill- 
humour on the part of France, a general paci- 
fication was the result. 

The Triple Alliance may be viewed in two 
lights — as a measure of foreign policy, and as 
a measure of domestic policy — and under both 
aspects it seems to us deserving of all the 
praise which has been bestowed upon it. 

Dr. Lingard, who is undoubtedly a very able 
and well-informed writer, but whose great fun- 
damental rule of judging seems to be that the 
popular opinion on an historical question can- 
not possibly be correct, speaks very slightingly 
of that celebrated treaty ; and Mr. Courtenay, 
who by no means regards Temple with f that 
nrofound veneration which is generally found 



in biographers, has conceded, in cur opiaion, 
far too much to Dr. Lingard. 

The reasoning of Dr. Lingard is simply this 
— The Triple Alliance only compelled Louil 
to make peace on the terms on which, before 
the alliance was formed, he had offered tl 
make peace. How can it then be said thaV 
this alliance arrested his caret r, and preserved 
Europe from his ambition 1 Now, this reason- 
ing is evidently of no force at all, except on 
the supposition that Louis would have held 
himself bound by his former offers, if the alli- 
ance had not been formed : and if Dr. Lingard 
thinks this a reasonable supposition, we should 
be disposed to say to him, in the words of that 
great politician, Mrs. Western — "Indeed, bro- 
ther, you would make a fine plenipo to ne- 
gotiate with the French. They would soon 
persuade you that they take towns out of mere 
defensive principles." Our own impression 
is, that Louis made his offer only in order to 
avert some such measure as the Triple Alli- 
ance, and adhered to it only in consequence 
of that alliance. He had refused to consent to 
an armistice. He had made all his arrange- 
ments for a winter campaign. In the very 
week in which Temple and the States con- 
cluded their agreement at the Hague, Franche 
Comte was attacked by the French armies 
and in three weeks the whole province was 
conquered. This prey Louis was compelled 
to disgorge. And what compelled him ? Did 
the object seem to him small or contemptible ! 
On the contrary, the annexation of Franche 
Comte to his kingdom was one of the farourite 
projects of his life. Was he withheld by re- 
gard for his word 1 ? Did he, who never in any 
other transaction of his reign showed the 
smallest respect for the most solemn obliga- 
tions of public faith, — who violated the Treaty 
of the Pyrenees, who violated the Treaty of 
Aix, who violated the Treaty of Nimeguen, 
who violated the Partition Treaty, who violated 
the Treaty of Utrecht, — feel himself restrained 
by his word on this single occasion? Can 
any person who is acquainted with his charac- 
ter, and with his whole policy, doubt, that, if 
the neighbouring powers would have looked 
quietly on, he would instantly have risen in. 
his demands ? How then stands the case 
He wished to keep Franche Comte. It was 
not from regard to his word that he ceded 
Franche Comte. Why, then, did he cede 
Franche Comte? We answer, as all Europe 
answered at the time, from fear of the Triple 
Alliance. 

But grant that Louis was not really stopped 
in his progress by this famous league, still it 
is certain that the world then, and long after, 
believed that he was so stopped ; and this was 
the prevailing impression in France as well as 
in other countries. Temple, therefore, at the 
very least, succeeded in raising the credit cf 
his country, and lowering the credit of a rival 
power. Here there is no room for contro- 
versy. No grubbing among old state-papers 
will ever bring to light any document which 
will shake these facts — that Europe believed 
the ambition of France to have been curbed 
by the three powers; that England, a few 
months before the least among -he nations 



SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 



357 



fcrcsd to abandon her own seas, unable to de- 
fend the mouths of her own rivers, regained 
almost as high a place in the estimation of her 
neighbours as she had held in the times of 
Elizabeth and Oliver ;— and that all this change 
of opinion was produced in five days by wise 
and resolute counsels, without the firing of a 
single gun. That the Triple Alliance effected 
this will hardly be disputed ; and if it effected 
nothing else, it must still be regarded as a 
masterpiece of diplomacy. 

Considered as a measure of domestic policy, 
this treaty seems to be equally deserving of 
approbation. It did much to allay discontents, 
to reconcile the sovereign with a people who 
had, under his wretched administration, be- 
come ashamed of him and of themselves. It 
was a kind of pledge for internal good govern- 
ment. The foreign relations of the kingdom 
had at that time the closest connection with 
our domestic policy. From the Restoration, 
to the accession of the house of Hanover, 
Holland and France were to England what 
the right-hand horseman and the left-hand 
horsematwin Burger's fine ballad were to 
Wildgraf, — the good and the evil counsellor, — 
the angel of light and the angel of darkness. 
The ascendency of France was inseparably 
connected with the prevalence of tyranny in 
domestic affairs. The ascendency of Holland 
was as inseparably connected with the preva- 
lence of political liberty, and of mutual tolera- 
tion among Protestant sects. How fatal and 
degrading an influence Louis was destined to 
exercise on the British counsels, how great a 
deliverance our country was destined to owe 
to the States, could not be foreseen when the 
Triple Alliance was concluded. Yet even then 
all discerning men considered it as a good 
omen for the English constitution and the re- 
formed religion, that the government had at- 
tached itself to Holland, and had assumed a 
firm and somewhat hostile attitude towards 
France. The fame of this measure was the 
greater, because it stood so entirely alone. It 
was the single eminently good act performed 
by the government during the interval between 
the Restoration and the Revolution.* Every 
person who had the smallest part in it, and 
some who had no part in it at all, battled for a 
share of the credit. The most close-fisted re- 
publicans were ready to grant money for the 
purpose of carrying into effect the provisions 
of this popular alliance ; and the great Tory 
poet of that age, in his finest satires, repeatedly 
spoke with reverence of the "triple bond." 

This negotiation raised the fame of Temple 
both at home and abroad to a great height, — to 
such a height, indeed, as seems to have excited 
the jealousy of his friend Arlington. While 
London and Amsterdam resounded with accla- 
mations of joy, the Secretary, in very cold 
official language, communicated to his friend 
the approbation of the king ; and lavish as the 
government was of titles and of money, its 
ablest servant was neither ennobled nor en- 
riched. 



*"The only good public thiiy? that hath been done 
B'nce the kin? come into England."— Pepys' Diarv, 
February It 1667-8. "' 



Temple's next mission was to Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle, where a general congress met for the 
purpose of perfecting the work of the Triple 
Alliance. On his road he received abundant 
proofs of the estimation in which he was held. 
Salutes were fired from the walls of the towns 
through which he passed ; the population 
poured forth into the streets to see him ; and 
the magistrates entertained him with speeches 
and banquets. After the close of the negotia« 
tions of Aix, he was appointed ambassador at 
the Hague. But in both these missions he ex- 
perienced much vexation from the rigid, and, 
indeed, unjust parsimony of the government. 
Profuse to many unworthy applicants, the 
ministers were niggardly to him alone. They 
secretly disliked his politics ; and they seem 
to have indemnified themselves for the humi- 
liation of adopting his measures by cutting 
down his salary and delaying the settlement 
of his outfit. 

At the Hague he was received with cordiali-' 
ty by De Witt, and with the most signal marks 
of respect by the States-General. His situa 
lion was in one point extremely delicate. The 
Prince of Orange, the hereditary chief of the 
faction opposed to the administration of De 
Witt, was the nephew of Charles. To pre- 
serve the confidence of the ruling party with- 
out showing any want of respect to so near a 
relation of his own master was no easy task. 
But Temple acquitted himself so well, that he 
appears to have been in great favour, both 
with the Grand Pensionary and Avith the 
prince. 

In the main, the years which he spent at the 
Hague seem, in spite of some pecuniary diffi- 
culties, occasioned by the ill-will of the English 
ministers, to have passed very agreeably. He 
enjoyed the highest personal consideration. 
He was surrounded by objects interesting in 
the highest degree to a man of his observant 
turn of mind. He had no wearing labour, no 
heavy responsibility, and if he had no oppor- 
tunity of adding to his high reputation, he ran 
no risk of impairing it. 

But evil times were at hand. Though Charles 
had for a moment deviated into a wise and 
dignified policy, his heart had always been 
with France ; and France employed every 
means of seduction to lure him back. His 
impatience of control, his greediness for mo- 
ney, his passion for beauty, his family affec- 
tions, all his tastes, all his feelings, wera 
practised on with the utmost dexterity. His 
interior cabinet was now composed of men 
such as that generation, and that generation 
alone, produced ; of men at whose auda- 
cious profligacy the rats of our own time 
look with the same sort of admiring despair 
with which our sculptors contemplate the The- 
seus, and our painters the Cartoons. To be a 
real, hearty, deadly enemy of the liberties and 
religion of the nation was, in that dark con 
clave, an honourable distinction ; a distinction 
which belonged only to the daring and imperu 
ous Clifford. His associates were men to 
whom all creeds and all constitutions wtre 
alike ; who were equally ready to profess am! 
to persecute the faith of Geneva, of Lambeth, 
and of Rome ; who were equally ready to V« 



358 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



tools of power without any sense of loyalty, 
and stirrers of sedition without any zeal for 
freedom. 

It was hardly possible even for a man so 
penetrating as De Witt to foresee to what 
depths of wickedness and infamy this execra- 
ble administratior would descend. Yet many 
signs of the great wo which was coming on 
Europe — the visit of the Duchess of Orleans to 
her brother, — the unexplained mission of 
Buckingham to Paris, — the sudden occupation 
of Lorraine by the French, — rendered the 
Grand Pensionary uneasy; and his alarm in- 
creased when he learned that Temple had re- 
ceived orders to repair instantly to London. 
He earnestly pressed for an explanation. 
Temple very sincerely replied that he hoped 
that the English ministers would adhere to the 
principles of the Triple Alliance. "I can an- 
swer," he said, " only for myself. But that I 
can do. If a new system is to be adopted, I 
will never have any part in it. I have told the 
king so ; and I will make my words good. If 
I return, you will know more ; and if I do not 
return, you will guess more." De Witt smiled, 
and answered that he would hope the best; 
and would do all in his power to prevent 
others from forming unfavourable surmises. 

In October, 1670, Temple reached London; 
and all his worst suspicions were immediately 
more than confirmed. He repaired to the Se- 
cretary's house, and was kept an hour and a 
half waiting in the antechamber, whilst Lord 
Ashley was closeted with Arlington. When 
at length the doors were thrown open, Arling- 
ton was dry and cold, asked trifling questions 
about the voyage, and then, in order to escape 
from the necessity of discussing business, 
called in his daughter — an engaging little girl 
of three years old, who was long after de- 
scribed by poets " as dressed in all the bloom 
of smiling nature," and whom Evelyn, one of 
the witnesses of her inauspicious marriage, 
mournfully designated as " the sweetest, hope- 
fullest, most beautiful child, and most virtuous 
too." Any particular conversation was impos- 
sible ; and Temple, who, with all his constitu- 
tional or philosophical indifference, was suffi- 
ciently sensitive on the side of vanity, felt this 
treatment keenly. The next day he offered 
himself to the notice of the king, who was 
snuffing up the morning air, and feeding his 
ducks in the Mall. Charles was civil, but, 
like Arlington, carefully avoided all conversa- 
tion on politics. Temple found that all his 
most respectable friends were entirely ex- 
cluded from the secrets of the inner council ; 
and were awaiting in anxiety and dread for 
what those mysterious deliberations might pro- 
duce. At length he obtained a glimpse of 
light. The bold spirit and fierce passions of 
Clifford rendered him the most unfit of all 
men to be the keeper of a momentous secret. 
He told Temple, with great vehemence, that 
the States had behaved basely, that De Witt 
was a rogue and a rascal, that it was below the 
King of England, or any other king, to have 
any thing to do with such wretches ; that this 
ought to be made known to all the world, and 
that it was the duty of the minister at the 
Hague to declare it publicly. Temple com- 



manded his temper as well as he could, anc 
replied, calmly and firmly, that he shcuk 
make no such declaration, and that if he wera 
called upon to give his opinion of the States 
and their ministers, he would say exactly -wiat 
he thought. 

He now saw clearly that the tempest was 
gathering fast, — that the great alliance which 
he had framed, and over which he had watch- 
ed with parental care, was about to be dis« 
solved, — that times were at hand when it 
would be necessary for him, if he continued in 
public life, either to take part decidedly against 
the court, or to forfeit the high reputation 
which he enjoyed at home and abroad. He 
began to make preparations for retiring alto- 
gether from business. He enlarged a little 
garden which he had purchased at Sheen, and 
laid out some money in ornamenting his house 
there. He was still nominally ambassador to 
Holland ; and the English ministers continued 
some months to flatter the States with the hope 
that he would speedily return. At length, in 
June, 1671, the designs of the " Cabal" were 
ripe. The infamous treaty with France had 
been ratified. The season of deception was 
past, and that of insolence and violence had 
arrived. Temple received his formal dismis- 
sion, kissed the king's hand, was repaid for his 
services with some of those vague compliments 
and promises which cost so little to the cold 
heart, the easy temper, and the ready tongue of 
Charles, and quietly withdrew to his little nest, 
as he called it, at Sheen. 

There he amused himself with gardening, 
which he practised so successfully that the 
fame of his fruit soon spread far and wide 
But letters were his chief solace. He had, as 
we have mentioned, been from his youth in 
the habit of diverting himself with composi- 
tion. The clear and agreeable language of his 
despatches had early attracted the notice of his 
employers ; and before the peace of Breda, he 
had, at the request of Arlington, published a 
pamphlet on the war, of which nothing is now 
known, except that it had some vogue at the 
time, and that Charles, not a contemptible 
judge, pronounced it to be very well written. 
He had also, a short time before he began to 
reside at the Hague, written a treatise on the 
State of Ireland, in which he showed all the 
feelings of a Cromwellian. He had gradually 
formed a style singularly lucid and melodious, 
— superficially deformed, indeed, by Gallicisms 
and Hispanicisms, picked up in travel, or in ne- 
gotiation, — but at the bottom pure English,— 
generally flowing with careless simplicity, but 
occasionally rising even into Ciceronian mag- 
nificence. The length of his sentences has often 
been remarked. But in truth this length is only 
apparent. A critic who considers as one sen- 
tence every thing that lies between two full stops 
will undoubtedly call Temple's sentences long. 
But a critic who examines them carefully will 
find that they are not swollen by parenthetical 
matter; that their structure is scarcely ever 
intricate ; that they are formed merely by accu- 
mulation ; and that, by the simple process of 
leaving out conjunctions, and substituting full 
stops for colons and semicolons, they m'ght, 
without any alteration in the orde/ of th* 



SIR WILLIAM 1EMPLE. 



359 



waris, be broKen tip into very short periods, 
with no sacrifice except that of euphony. The 
long sentences of Hooker and Clarendon, on 
the contrary, are really long sentences, and 
cannot be turned into short ones, without 
being entirely taken to pieces. 

The best known of the works which Temple 
composed during his first retreat from official 
Business are, an Essay on Government, which 
seems to us exceedingly childish ; and an Ac- 
count of the United Provinces, which we think 
a masterpiece in its kind. Whoever com- 
pares these two pieces will probably agree 
with us in thinking that Temple was not a 
very deep or accurate reasoner, but was an 
excellent observer, — that he had no call to 
philosophical speculation, but that he was 
qualified to excel as a writer of Memoirs and 
Travels. 

While Temple was engaged in these pur- 
suits, the great storm which had long been 
brooding over Europe burst with such fury as 
for a moment seemed to threaten ruin to all 
free governments and all Protestant churches. 
France arid England, without seeking for any 
decent pretext, declared war against Holland. 
The immense armies of Louis poured across 
the Rhine, and invaded the territory of the 
United Provinces. The Dutch seemed to be 
paralyzed with terror. Great towns opened 
their gates to straggling parties. Regiments 
flung down their arms without seeing an ene- 
my. Guelderlaad, Overyssel, Utrecht were 
overrun by the conquerors. The fires of the 
French camp were seen from the walls of Am- 
sterdam. In the first madness of their despair, 
tie devoted people turned their rage against 
the most illustrious of their fellow-citizens. 
De Ruyter was saved with difficulty from as- 
sassins. De Witt was torn to pieces by an in- 
furiated rabble. No hope was left to the Com- 
monwealth, save in the dauntless, the ardent, 
the indefatigable, the unconquerable spirit 
which glowed under the frigid demeanour of 
the young Prince of Orange. 

That great man rose at once to the full dig- 
nity of his part, and approved himself a wor- 
thy descendant of the line of heroes who had 
vindicated the liberties of Europe against the 
house of Austria. Nothing could shake his 
fidelity to his country — not his close connec- 
tion with the royal family of England — not the 
most earnest solicitations — not the most tempt- 
ing offers. The spirit of the nation, — that spi- 
rit which had maintained the great conflict 
against the gigantic power of Philip — revived 
in all its strength. Counsels such as are in- 
spired by a generous despair, and are almost 
always followed by a speedy dawn of hope, 
were gravely concerted by the statesmen of 
Holland. To open their dikes, — to man their 
ships, — to leave their country, with all its mira- 
c.es of art and industry, — its cities, its canals, 
its villas, its pastures, arid its tulip gardens, — 
buried under the waves of the German ocean, 
—to bear to a distant clime their Calvinistic 
faith and their old Batavian liberties, to fix, 

Eerhaps with happier auspices, the new Stadt- 
ouse of their Commonwealth, under other 
stars, and amidst a strange vegetation, in the 
Spice-Islands of the Eastern seas, — such were 



the plans which they had the spirit to form 
and it is seldom that men who have the spirit 
to form such plans, are reduced to the neces 
sity of executing them. 

The allies had, during a short period, ob- 
tained the most appalling success. This was 
their auspicious moment. They neglected to 
improve it. It passed away ; and it returned 
no more. The Prince of Orange arrested the 
progress of the French armies. Louis re 
turned to be amused and flattered at Versailles. 
The country was under water. The winter 
approached. The weather became stormy 
The fleets of the combined kings could no 
longer keep the sea. The republic had ob- 
tained a respite ; and the circumstances were 
such that a respite was, in a military view, 
important; in a political view, almost decisive 

The alliance against Holland, formidable as 
it was, was yet of such a nature that it coula 
not succeed at all unless it succeeded at once. 
The English ministers could not carry on the 
war without money. They could legally obtain 
money only from the Parliament ; and tney were 
most unwilling to call Parliament together. 
The measures which Charles had adopted at 
home were even more unpopular than his 
foreign policy. He had bound himself by a 
treaty with Louis to re-establish the Catholic 
religion in England ; and, in pursuance of this 
design, he had entered on the same course 
which his brother afterwards pursued with 
greater obstinacy to a more fatal end. He had 
annulled, by his own sole authority, the laws 
against Catholics and other dissenters. The 
matter of the Declaration of Indulgence exas- 
perated one half of his subjects, and the man- 
ner the other half. Liberal men would have 
rejoiced to see toleration granted, at least to 
all Protestant sects. Many High Churchmen 
had no objection to the king's dispensing power 
But a tolerant act done in an unconstitutional 
way excited the -opposition of all those who 
were zealous either for the Church or for the 
privileges of the people ; that is to say, of 
ninety-nine Englishmen out of a hundred. 
The ministers were, therefore, most unwilling 
to meet the Houses. Lawless and desperate 
as their counsels were, the boldest of them had 
too much value for his neck to think of resort- 
ing to benevolences, privy seals, sh p-money, 
or any of the other unlawful modes of extortion 
which former kings had employed. The au- 
dacious fraud of shutting up the exchequer 
furnished them with about twelve hundred 
thousand pounds : — a sum which, even in bet- 
ter hands than theirs, would hardly have suf 
need for the war-charges of a single year. 
And this was a step which could never be re- 
peated ; — a step which, like most breaches of 
public faith, was speedily found to have caused 
pecuniary difficulties greater than those which 
it removed. All the money that could be 
raised was gone ; Holland was not conquered; 
and the king had no other resource but in a 
Parliament. 

Had a general election taken place at this 
crisis, it is probable that the country would 
have sent up representatives as resolutely hos 
tile to the court as those who met in November 
1640; that the whole domestic and foreiga 



360 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



policy of the government would have been in- 
stantly changed ; and that the members of the 
Cabal would have expiated their crimes on 
Tower Hill. But the House of Commons was 
still the same which had been elected twelve 
years before, in the midst of the transports of 
joy, repentance, and loyalty which followed the 
Restoration ; and no pains had been spared tc 
attach it to the court by places, pensions, and 
bribes. To the great mass of the people it was 
scarcely less odious than the cabinet. Yet, 
though it did not immediately proceed to those 
strong measures which a new House would in 
all probability have adopted, it was sullen and 
unmanageable ; and undid, slowly indeed and 
by degrees, but most effectually, all that the 
Ministers had done. In one session it anni- 
hilated their system of internal government. 
tn a second session, it gave a deathblow to 
their foreign policy. 

The dispensing power was the first object 
of attack. The Commons would not expressly 
approve the Avar; but neither did they as yet 
expressly' condemn it; and they were even 
willing to grant the king a supply for the pur- 
pose of continuing hostilities, on condition that 
he would redress internal grievances, among 
which the Declaration of Indulgence had a 
foremost place. 

Shaftesbury, who was Chancellor, saw that 
jhe game was up, — that he had got all that 
was to be got by siding with despotism and 
Popery, and that it was high time to think of 
being a demagogue and a good Protestant. 
The Lord Treasurer Clifford was marked out 
by his boldness, by his openness, by his zeal 
for the Catholic religion, by something which, 
compared with the villany of his colleagues, 
might almost be called honesty, to be the scape- 
goat of the whole conspiracy. The king came 
in person to the House of Peers to request their 
lordships to mediate between him and the 
Commons touching the Declaration of Indul- 
gence. He remained in the House while his 
speech was taken into consideration, — a com- 
mon practice with him ; — for the debates 
amused his sated mind, and were sometimes, 
he used to say, as good as a comedy. A more 
sudden turn his majesty had certainly never 
seen in any comedy or intrigue, either at his 
own playhouse or at the duke's, than that 
which this memorable debate produced. The 
Lord Treasurer spoke with characteristic ar- 
dour and intrepidity in the defence of the De- 
claration. When he sat down, the Lord 
Chancellor rose from the woolsack, and to 
the amazement of the king and of the House, 
attacked Clifford — attacked the Declaration for 
which he had himself spoken in council — gave 
up the whole policy of the cabinet — and 
declared himself on the side of the House of 
Commons. Even that age had not witnessed 
«o portentous a display of impudence. 

The king, by the advice of the French court, 
which cared much more about the war on the 
Continent than about the conversion of the 
English heretics, determined to save his fo- 
reign policy at the expense of his plans in 
favour of the Catholic Church. He obtained a 
supply ; and in return for this concession he 
cancelled the Declaration of Indulgence, and 



made a formal renunciation of the dispensing 
power before he prorogued the Houses. 

But it was no more in his power to go on 
with the war than to maintain his arbitrary 
system at home. His ministry, betrayed with 
in and fiercely assailed from without, went 
rapidly to pieces. Clifford threw down the 
white staff, and retired to the woods of Ugbrook, 
vowing, with bitter tears, that he would never 
again see that turbulent city and that perfidious 
court. Shaftesbury was ordered to deliver up 
the great seal ; and instantly carried over his 
front of brass and his tongue of poison to the 
ranks of the Opposition. The remaining mem- 
bers of the Cabal had neither the capacity of 
the late Chancellor, nor the courage and en- 
thusiasm of the late Treasurer. They were not 
only unable to carry on their foreign projects, 
but began to tremble for their own lands and 
heads. The Parliament, as soon as it again 
met, began to murmur against the alliance 
with France and the war with Holland ; and 
the murmur gradually swelled into a fierce 
and terrible clamour. Strong resolutions were 
adopted against Lauderdale and Buckingham. 
Articles of impeachment were exhibited against 
Arlington. The Triple Alliance was men- 
tioned with reverence in every debate; and 
the eyes of all men were turned towards the 
quiet orchard, where the author of that great 
league was amusing himself with reading and 
gardening. 

Temple was ordered to attend the king, and 
was charged with the office of negotiating a 
separate peace with Holland. The Spanish 
ambassador to the court of London had been 
empowered by the States-General to treat in 
their name. With him Temple came to a 
speedy agreement ; and in three days a treaty 
was concluded. 

The highest honours of the State were now 
within Temple's reach. After the retirement 
of Clifford, the white staff had been delivered 
to Thomas Osborne, soon after created Earl 
of Danby, who was related to Lady Temple, 
and had, many years earlier, travelled and 
played tennis with Sir William. Danby was 
an interested and unscrupulous man, but by no 
means destitute of abilities or of judgment. 
He was, indeed, a far better adviser than any 
in whom Charles had hitherto reposed confi- 
dence. Clarendon was a man of another 
generation, and did not in the least understand 
the society which he had to govern. The mem- 
bers of the Cabal were ministers of a foreign 
power, and enemies of the Established Church 
and had in consequence raised against them- 
selves and their master an irresistible stora* 
of national and religious hatred. Danby wish- 
ed to strengthen and extend the prerogative : 
but he had the sense to see that this could be 
done only by a complete change of system. 
He knew the English»people and the House of 
Commons ; and he knew that the course which 
Charles had recently taken, if obstinately pur- 
sued, might well end before the windows of 
the Banqueting House. He saw that the true 
policy of the crown was to ally itself, not with 
the feeble, the hated, the down-trodden Ca- 
tholics, but with the powerful, the wealthy, tne 
popular, the dominant Church of England ; to 



SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 



361 



trust for aid, not to a foreign prince whose 
name was hateful to the British nation* and 
whose succours could be obtained only on 
terms of vassalage, but to the old Cavalier 
party, to the landed gentry, the clergy, and the 
universities. By rallying round the throne the 
whole strength of the Royalists and High- 
Churchmen, and by using without stint all the 
resources of corruption, he flattered himself 
that he could manage the Parliament. That 
he failed is to be attributed less to himself than 
to his master. Of the disgraceful dealings 
which were still kept up with the French 
court, Danby deserved little or none of the 
blame, though he suffered the whole punish- 
ment. 

Danby, with great parliamentary talents, had 
paid little attention to foreign politics; and 
wished for the help of some person on whom 
he could rely in that department. A plan was 
accordingly arranged for making Temple Se- 
cretary of State. Arlington was the only mem- 
ber of the Cabal who still held office in Eng- 
land. The temper of the House of Commons 
made it naeessa?y to remove him, or rather, to 
require him to <,ell out ; for at that time the 
great offices of state were bought and sold as 
commissions in the army now are. Temple 
was informed that he should have the seals 
if he would pay Arlington six thousand pounds. 
The transaction had nothing in it discreditable, 
according to the notions of that age ; and the 
investment would have been a good one ; for 
we imagine that at that time the gains which 
a Secretary of State might make without doing 
any thing considered as improper, were very 
considerable. Temple's friends offered to lend 
him the money; but he was fully determined 
not to take a post of so much responsibility in 
times so agitated, and under a prince on whom 
so little reliance could be placed, and accepted 
the embassy to the Hague, leaving Arlington 
to find another purchaser. 

Before Temple left England he had a long 
audience of the king, to whom he spoke with 
great severity of the measures adopted by the 
late ministry. The king owned that things had 
turned out ill. " But," said he, " if I had been 
well served, I might have made a good business 
of it." Temple was alarmed at this language, 
and inferred from it that the system of the Ca- 
bal had not been abandoned, but only sus- 
pended. He therefore thought it his duty to 
go, as he expresses it, " to the bottom of the 
matter." He strongly represented to the king 
the impossibility of establishing either abso- 
lute government or the Catholic religion in 
England ; and concluded by repeating an ob- 
servation which he had heard at Brussels from 
M. Gourville, a very intelligent Frenchman, 
well known to Charles : " A king of England," 
said Gourville, "who is willing to be the man 
of his people, is the greatest king in the world : 
but if he wishes to be more, by heaven he 
is nothing at all!" The king betrayed some 
symptoms of impatience during this lecture ; 
but at last laid his hand kindly on Temple's 
shoulder, and said, « You are right, and so is 
Gourville ; and I will be the man of my people." 
With this assurance Temple repaired to the 



Hague in July, 1674. Holland was now se» 
cure, and France was surrounded on every 
side by enemies. Spain and the Empire were 
in arms for the purpose of compelling Louis to 
abandon ail that he had acquired since the 
treaty of the Pyrenees. A congress for the 
putpose of putting an end to the war was 
opened atNimeguen under the mediation of 
England, in 1675 ; and to that congress Temple 
was deputed. The work of conciliation, how- 
ever, went on very slowly. The belligerent 
powers were still sanguine, and the mediating 
power was unsteady and insincere. 

In the mean time the Opposition in England 
became more and more formidable, and seem 
ed fully determined to force the king into a war 
with France. Charles was desirous of making 
some appointments which might strengthen 
the administration, and conciliate the confi 
dence of the public. No man was more esteem 
ed by the nation than Temple ; yet he had never 
been concerned in any opposition to any go- 
vernment. In July, 1677, he was sent for from 
Nimeguen. Charles received him with ca- 
resses, earnestly pressed him to accept the seals 
of Secretary of State, and promised to bear half 
the charge of buying out the present holder. 
Temple was charmed by the kindness and po- 
liteness of the king's manner, and by die live- 
liness of his conversation ; but his prudencfc 
was not to be so laid asleep. He calmly and 
steadily excused himself. The king affected to 
treat his excuses as mere jests, and gayly said, 
" Go, get you gone to Sheen. We shall have 
no good of you till you have been there ; and 
when you have rested yourself, come up again." 
Temple withdrew, and stayed two days at hit 
villa, but returned to town in the same mind 
and the king was forced to consent at least tc 
a delay. 

But while Temple thus carefully shunned 
the responsibility of bearing a part in the ge- 
neral direction of affairs, he gave a signal proof 
of that never-failing sagacity which enabled 
him to find out ways of distinguishing himself 
without risk. He had a principal share in 
bringing about an event which was at the time 
hailed with general satisfaction, and which 
subsequently produced consequences of the 
highest importance. This was the marriage 
of the Prince of Orange and the Lady Mary. 

In the following year Temple returned to 
the Hague ; and thence he was ordered, at the 
close of 1678, to repair to Nimeguen, for the 
purpose of signing the hollow and unsatis 
factory treaty by which the distractions of 
Europe were for a short time suspended. He 
grumbled much at being required to sign bad 
articles which he had not framed, and still 
more at having to travel in very cold weather. 
After all, a difficulty of etiquette prevented him 
from signing, and he returned to the Hague. 
Scarcely had he arrived there when he received 
intelligence that the king, whose embarrass- 
ments -were now far greater than ever, was 
fully resolved immediately' to appoint him Se 
cretary of State. He a third time declined that 
high post, and began to make preparations for 
a journey to Italy ; thinking, doubtless, that he 
should spend his time much duore pleasant]? 



?.«2 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



among pictures and ruins than in such a whirl- 
pool of political and religious frenzy as was 
then raging in London. 

But the king was in extreme necessity, and 
was no longer to be so easily put off. Temple 
received positive orders to repair instantly to 
England. He obeyed, and found the country 
in a state even more fearful than that which he 
had pictured to himself. 

Those are terrible conjunctures, when the 
discontents of a nation — not light and capri- 
cious discontents, but discontents which had 
been steadily increasing during a long series 
of years — have attained their full maturity. 
The discerning few predict the approach of 
these conjunctures, but predict in vain. To 
the many, the evil season comes as a total 
eclipse of the sun at noon comes to a people 
of savages. Society which, but a short time 
before, was in a state of perfect repose, is on a 
sudden agitated with the most fearful convul- 
sions, and seems to be on the verge of disso- 
lution ; and the rulers who, till the mischief 
was beyond the reach of all ordinary remedies, 
had never bestowed one thought on its exist- 
ence, stand bewildered and panic-stricken, 
without hope or resource, in the midst of the 
confusion. One such conjuncture this gene- 
ration has seen. God grant that it may never 
see another! At such a juncture it was that 
Temple landed on English ground in the be- 
ginning of 1679. 

The Parliament had obtained a glimpse of the 
King's dealings with France; and their anger 
nad been unjustly directed against Danby, 
whose conduct as to that matter had been, on 
the whole, deserving rather of praise than of 
censure. The Popish Plot, the murder of God- 
frey, the infamous inventions of Oates, the dis- 
covery of Colman's letters, had excited the 
nation to madness. All the disaffections which 
had been generated by eighteen years of mis- 
government had come to the birth together. 
At this moment the king had been advised to 
dissolve that Parliament which had been elected 
just after his restoration; and which, though 
its composition had since that time been greatly 
altered, was still far more deeply imbued with 
the old Cavalier spirit than any that had pre- 
ceded or that was likely to follow it. The ge- 
neral election had commenced, and was pro- 
ceeding with a degree of excitement never be- 
fore known. The tide ran furiously against 
the court. It was clear that a majority of the 
new House of Commons would be — to use a 
word which came into fashion a few months 
later — decided Whigs. Charles had found it 
necessary to yield to the violence of the public 
feeling. The Duke of York was on the point 
of retiring to Holland. " I never," says Temple, 
who had seen the abolition of monarchy, the 
dissolution of the Long Parliament, the fall of 
the Protectorate, the declaration of Monk against 
the Rump, — " I never saw greater disturbance 
in men's minds." 

The king now with the utmost urgency he- 
bought Temple to take the seals. The pecu- 
niary part of the arrangement no longer pre- 
sented any difficulty ; and Sir William was not 
^uite so decided in his refusal as he had for- 
merly been. He took three days to consider the 



posture of affairs, and to examine his own 
feelings; and he came to the conclusion thai 
" the scene was unfit for such an actor as he 
knew himself to be." Yet he felt that, by re- 
fusing help to the king at such a crisis he 
might give much offence and incur much cen> 
sure. He shaped his course with his usua. 
dexterity. He affected to be very desirous of a 
seat in Parliament; yet he contrived to be an 
unsuccessful candidate; and, when all tht 
writs were returned, he represented that i 
would be useless for him to take the seals till 
he could procure admittance to the House of 
Commons ; and in this manner he succeeded 
in avoiding the greatness which others desirec 
to thrust upon him. 

The Parliament met ; and the violence of its 
proceedings surpassed all expectation. The 
Long Parliament itself, with much greater pro- 
vocation, had at its commencement been less 
violent. The Treasurer was instantly driven 
from office, impeached, sent to the Tower. 
Sharp and vehement votes were passed on the 
subject of the Popish Plot. The Commons 
were prepared to go much further, — to wrest 
from the king his prerogative of mercy in cases 
of high political crimes, and to alter the suc- 
cession to the crown. Charles was thoroughly 
perplexed and dismayed. Temple saw him 
almost daily, and thought that at last he was 
impressed with a deep sense of his errors, and 
of the miserable state into which they had 
brought him. Their conferences became longer 
and more confidential : and Temple began to 
flatter himself with the hope that he might be 
able to reconcile parties at home as he had re- 
conciled hostile states abroad, — that he might 
be able to suggest a plan which should allay 
all heats, efface the memory of all past griev- 
ances, — secure the nation from misgovern- 
ment, and protect the crown against the en- 
croachments of Parliament. 

Temple's plan was, that the existing Privy 
Council, which consisted of fifty members, 
should be dissolved — that there should no 
longer be a small interior council, like that 
which is now designated as the Cabinet, — .that 
a new Privy Council of thirty members should 
be appointed, — and that the king should pledge 
himself to govern by the constant advice of 
this body,— to suffer all his affairs of every 
kind to be freely debated there, and not to re- 
serve any part of the public business for a 
secret committee. 

Fifteen members of this new Council were 
to be great officers of state. The other fifteen 
were to be independent noblemen and gentle- 
men of the greatest weight in the country. In 
appointing them particular regard was to be 
had to the amount of their property. The 
whole annual income of the councillors was 
estimated at £300,000. The annual income 
of all the members of the House of Commons 
was not supposed to exceed £400,000. The 
appointment of wealthy councillors Temple 
describes as " a chief regard, necessary to this 
constitution." 

This plan was the subject of frequent con. 
versation between the king and Temple. Afte! 
a month passed in discussions, to which nc 
third person appears to have been privv 



SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 



36j 



Charles declared himself satisfied of the expe- 
diency of the proposed measure, and resolved 
lo carry it into effect. 

It is much to be regretted that Temple has 
left us no account of these conferences. His- 
torians have, therefore, been left to form their 
own conjectures as to the object of this very 
extraordinary plan,— " this constitution," as 
Temple "himself calls it. And we cannot say 
that any explanation which has yet been given 
seems to us quite satisfactory. Indeed, almost 
all the writers whom we have consulted appear 
to consider the change as merely a change of 
administration; and, so considering it, they 
generally applaud it. Mr. Courtenay, who has 
evidently examined this subject with more at- 
tention than has often been bestowed upon it, 
seems to think Temple's scheme very strange, 
unintelligible, and absurd. It is with very 
great diffidence that we offer our own solution 
of what we have always thought one of the 
great riddles of English history. We are 
Wrongly inclined to suspect that the appointment 
of the new Privy Council was really a much 
more remarkable event than has generally 
been supposed ; and that what Temple had in 
view was to effect, under colour of a change of 
administration, a permanent change in the 
constitution. 

The plan, considered as a plan for the forma- 
tion of a cabinet, is so obviously inconvenient 
that we cannot easily believe this to have been 
Temple's chief object. The number of the new 
Council alone would be a most serious objec- 
tion. The largest cabinets of modern times 
. have not, we believe, consisted of more than 
fifteen members. Even this number has gene- 
rally been thought too large. The Marquess 
Wellesley, whose judgment, on a question cf 
;xecutive administration, is entitled to as much 
respect as that of any statesman that England 
ever produced, expressed, on a very important 
occasion,* his conviction that even thirteen 
vas an inconveniently large number. But in 
a cabinet of thirty members, what chance 
could there be of finding unity, secrecy, expe- 
dition, — any of the qualities which such a body 
ought to possess 1 If indeed the members of 
such a cabinet were closely bound together by 
interest, if they all had a deep stake in the per- 
manence of the administration, if the majority 
were dependent on a small number of leading 
men, the thirty might perhaps act as a smaller 
number would act, though more slowly, more 
awkwardly, and with more risk of improper 
disclosures. But the Council which Temple 
proposed was so framed that if, insteaa of 
thirty members, it had contained only ten, it 
would still have I een the most unwieldy and 
discordant cabinet that ever sat. One-half of 
the members were to be persons holding no 
office, — persons who had no motive to compro- 
mise their opinions, or to take any share of the 
responsibilty of an unpopular measure ; — per- 
sons, therefore, who might be expected, as 
often as there might be a crisis requiring the 
most cordial co-operation, to draw off from the 
rest, and to throw every difficulty in the way 
of the public business. The circumstar.ce that 



* In the negotiations of 1812. 



they were men of enormoas private wealth 
only made the matter worse. The House of 
Commons is a checking body, and therefore it 
is desirable that it should, to a great extent 
consist of men of independent fortune, who 
receive nothing and expect nothing from the 
government. But with executive boards the 
case is quite different. Their business is not 
to check, but to act. The very same things, 
therefore, which are the virtues of Parliaments, 
may be vices in Cabinets. We can hardly 
conceive a greater curse to the country than an 
administration, the members of which should 
be as perfectly independent of each other, and 
as little under the necessity of making mutual 
concessions, as the representatives of London 
and Devonshire in the House of Commons are, 
or ought to be. Now Temple's new Council 
was to contain fifteen members, who were to 
hold no offices, and the average amount of 
whose private estates was ten thousand 
pounds a year ; an income which, in propor- 
tion to the wants of a man of rank of that 
period, was at least equal to thirty thousand a 
year in our own time. Was it to be expected 
that such men would gratuitously take on 
themselves the labour and responsibility of 
ministers, and the unpopularity which the best 
ministers must sometimes be prepared to 
brave 1 Could there be any doubt that an op- 
position would soon be formed within the ca- 
binet itself, and that the consequence would be 
disunion, altercation, tardiness in operations, 
the divulging of secrets, every thing most alien 
from the nature of an executive council 1 

Is it possible to imagine that considerations 
so grave and so obvious should have altoge- 
ther escaped the notice of a man of Temple's 
sagacity and experience 1 One of two things 
appears to us to be certain, — either that his 
project has been misunderstood, or that his 
talents for public affairs have been overrated. 

We lean to the opinion that his project has 
been misunderstood. His new Council, as we 
have shown, would have been an exceedingly 
bad cabinet. The inference which we are in- 
clined to draw is this, — that he meant his Coun- 
cil to serve some other purpose than that of a 
mere cabinet. Barillon used four or five words 
which contain, Ave think, the key of the whole 
mystery. Mr. Courtenay calls them pithy words, 
but he does not, if we are right, apprehend 
their whole force. " Ce sont," said Barillon, 
" des etats, non des consiels." 

In order clearly to understand what we ima- 
gine to have been Temple's views, we must 
remember that the government of England was 
at that moment, and had been during nearly 
eighty years, in a state of transition. A change, 
not the less real nor the less extensive because 
disguised under ancient names and forms, was 
in constant progress. The theory of the con» 
stitution — the fundamental laws which fix the 
powers of the three branches of the legislature 
— underwent no material change between the 
time of Elizabeth and the time of William IIL 
The most celebrated laws of the seventeenth 
century on those subjects — the Petition of 
Right — the Declaration of Right — are purely 
declaratory. They purport to be merely re- 
' citals of the old polity of England. They <k 



364 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



not establish free government as a salutary 
improvement, but claim it as an undoubted 
and immemorial inheritance. Nevertheless, 
there can be no doubt that, during the period 
of which we speak, all the mutual relations of 
all the orders of the state did practically under- 
go an entire change. The letter of the law 
might be unaltered, but at the beginning of the 
seventeenth century the power of the crown 
was, in fact, decidedly predominant in the 
state ; and at the end of that century the power 
of Parliament, and especially of the Lower 
House, had become, in fact, decidedly predo- 
minant. At the beginning of the century the 
sovereign perpetually violated, with little or no 
opposition, the clear privileges of Parliament. 
At the close of the century the Parliament had 
virtually drawn to itself just as much as it 
chose of the prerogative of the crown. The 
sovereign retained the shadow of that autho- 
rity of which the Tudors had held the sub- 
stance. He had a legislative veto which he 
never ventured to exercise, — a power of ap- 
pointing ministers whom an address of the 
Commons could at any moment force him to 
discard, — a power of declaring war, which, 
without parliamentary support, could not be 
carried on for a single day. The Houses of 
Parliament were now not merely legislative 
assemblies — not merely checking assemblies : 
they were great Councils of State, whose voice, 
when loudly and firmly raised, was decisive on 
all questions of foreign and domestic policy. 
There was no part of the whole system of go- 
vernment with which they had not power to 
interfere by advice equivalent to command, 
and if they abstained from intermeddling with 
some department of the executive administra- 
tion, they were withheld from doing so only by 
their own moderation, and by the confidence 
which they reposed in the ministers of the 
crown. There is perhaps no other instance 
in history of a change so complete in the real 
constitution of an empire, unaccompanied by 
any corresponding change in the theoretical 
constitution. The disguised transformation of 
the Roman commonwealth into a despotic mo- 
narchy, under the long administration of Au- 
gustus, is perhaps the nearest parallel. 

This great alteration did not take place with- 
out strong and constant resistance on the part 
of the kings of the house of Stuart. Till 1642 
that resistance was generally of an open, vio- 
lent, and lawless nature. If the Commons 
refused supplies, the sovereign levied a " be- 
nevolence." If the Commons impeached a 
favourite minister, the sovereign threw the 

efs of the Opposition into prison. Of these 
rts to keep down the Parliament by des- 
potic force without the pretext of law, the last, 
the most celebrated, and the most wicked, was 
the attempt to seize the five members. That 
attempt was the signal for civil war, and was 
followed by eighteen years of blood and con- 
fusion. 

The days of trouble passed by,- the exiles 
returned ; the throne was again set up in its 
high place ; the peerage and the hierarchy re- 
covered their ancient splendour. The funda- 
mental laws which had. been recited in the 
Petition of Right were again solemnly recog- 



nised. The theory of the English constitution 
was the same on the day when the hand of 
Charles II. was kissed by the kneeling Houses 
at Whitehall as on the day when his father set 
up the royal standard at Nottingham. There 
was a short period of doting fondness, an hya» 
terica passio of loyal repentance and love. But 
emotions of this sort are transitory; and the 
interests on which depends the progress of 
great societies are permanent. The transport 
of reconciliation was soon over, and the old 
struggle recommenced. 

The old struggle recommenced; — but not 
precisely after the old fashion. The sovereign 
*was not, indeed, a man whom any common 
warning would have restrained from the gross- 
est violations of law. But it was no common 
warning that he had received. All round him 
were the recent signs of the vengeance of an 
oppressed nation, — the fields on which the 
noblest blood of the island had been poured 
forth, — the castles shattered by the cannon of 
the parliamentary armies, — the hall where sat 
the stern tribunal to whose bar had been led, 
through lowering ranks of pikemen, the cap- 
tive heir of a hundred kings, — the stately pilas- 
ters before which the great execution had been 
so fearlessly dqne in the face of heaven and 
earth. The restored prince, admonished by 
the fate of his father, never ventured to attack 
his Parliaments with open and arbitrary vio- 
lence. It was at one time by means of the 
Parliament itself, at another time by means 
o" the courts of law, that he attempted to re- 
gain for the crown its old predominance. He 
began with great advantages. The Parliament 
of 1661 was called while the nation was still 
full of joy and tenderness. The great majority 
of the House of Commons were zealous royal- 
ists. All the means of influence which the 
patronage of the crown afforded were used 
without limit. Bribery was reduced to a sys- 
tem. The king, when he could spare money 
from his pleasures for nothing else, could spare 
it for purposes of corruption. While the defence 
of the coasts was neglected, while ships rotted, 
while arsenals lay empty,whileturbulentcrowds 
of unpaid seamen swarmed in the streets of the 
seaports, something could still be scraped to- 
gether in the treasury for +he members of the 
House of Commons. The gold of France was 
largely employed for the same purpose. Yet 
it was found, as indeed might have been fore- 
seen, that there is a natural limit to the effect 
which can be produced by means like these. 
There is one thing which the most corrupt 
senates are unwilling to sell, and that is the 
power which makes them worth buying. The 
same selfish motives which induce them to 
take a price for a particular vote, will induce 
them to oppose every measure of which the 
effect would be to lower the importance, and 
consequently the price, of their votes. About 
the income of their power, so to speak, they 
are quite ready to make bargains. But they 
are not easily persuaded to part with any frag 
ment of the principal. It is curious to observe 
how, during the long continuance of this Par 
liament — the pensionary Parliament, as il was 
nicknamed by contemporaries — though every 
circumstance seemed to be favourable to the 



SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 



365 



crown, the power of the crown was constantly- 
sinking, and that of the Commons constantly 
rising. The meetings of the Houses were more 
frequent than in former reigns ; their inter- 
ference was more harassing to the government 
than in former reigns ; they had begun to make 
peace, to make war, to pull down, if they did 
not set up, administrations. Already a new 
class of statesmen had appeared, unheard of 
before that time, but common ever since. Un- 
der the Tudors and the earlier Stuarts, it was 
generally by courtly arts or by official skill 
and knowledge that a politician raised himself 
to power. From the time of Charles II. down 
to our own days a different species of talent, 
parliamentary talent, has been the most valu- 
able of all the qualifications of an English 
statesman. It has stood in the place of all 
other acquirements. It has covered ignorance, 
weakness, rashness, the most fatal maladminis- 
tration. A great negotiator is nothing when 
compared with a great debater ; and a minis- 
ter who can make a successful speech need 
trouble himself little about an unsuccessful 
expedition. _This is the talent which has made 
judges without law, and diplomatists without 
French — which has sent to the Admiralty men 
who did not know the stern of a ship from her 
bowsprit, and to the India Board men who did 
not know the difference between a rupee and 
a pagoda — which made a foreign secretary of 
Mr. Pitt, who, as George II. said, had never 
opened Vattel — and which was very near mak- 
ing a chancellor of the exchequer of Mr. Sheri- 
dan, who could not work a sum in long divi- 
sion. This was the sort of talent which raised 
Clifford from obscurity to the head of affairs. 
To this talent Danby — by birth a simple coun- 
try gentleman — owed his white staff, his gar- 
ter, and his dukedom. The encroachment of 
the power of the Parliament on the power of 
the crown resembled a fatality, or the opera- 
tion of some great law of nature. The will 
of the individual on the throne or of the indi- 
viduals in the two Houses seemed to go for no- 
thing. The king might be eager to encroach, 
yet something constantly drove him back. The 
Parliament might be loyal, even servile, yet 
something constantly urged them forward. 

These things were done in the green tree. 
What then was likely to be done in the dry? 
The Popish Plot and the general election came 
together, and found a people predisposed to the 
most violent excitation. The composition of 
the House of Commons was changed. The 
legislature was filled with men who leaned to 
Republicanism in politics, and to Presbyterl- 
anism in religion. They no sooner met than 
they commenced a series of attacks on the go- 
vernment, which, if successful, must have 
made them supreme in the state. 

Where was this to end ? To us who have 
seen the solution, the question presents few 
difficulties. But to a statesman of the age of 
Charles II. — to a statesman who wished, with- 
out depriving the Parliament of its privileges, 
10 maintain the monarch in his old supremacy 
— it must have appeared very perplexing. 

Clarendon had, when minister, struggled, 
honestly perhaps, but, as was his wont, obsti- 
nately, proudly, and offensively, against the 
24 



growing power of the Commons. He was for 
allowing them their old authority, and not one 
atom more. He would never have claimed for 
the crown a right to levy taxes from the peo- 
ple, without the consent of Parliament. Bui 
when the Parliament, in the first Dutch war, 
most properly insisted on knowing how it was 
that, the money which they had voted had pro- 
duced so little effect, and began to inquire 
through what hands it had passed, and oa 
what services it had been expended, Clarendon 
considered this as a monstrous innovation. He 
told the king, as he himself says, "that he 
could not be too indulgent in the defence of the 
privileges of Parliament, and that he hoped he 
would never violate any of them ; but he de- 
sired him to be equally solicitous to prevent the 
excesses in Parliament, and not to suffer them 
to extend their jurisdiction to cases they have 
nothing to do with ; and that to restrain them 
within their proper bounds and limits is as 
necessary as it is to preserve them from being 
invaded ; and that this was such a new en- 
croachment as had no bottom." This is a sin- 
gle instance. Others might easily be given. 

The bigotry, the strong passions, the haughty 
and disdainful temper, which made Claren- 
don's great abilities a source of almost un- 
mixed evil to himself, and to': the public, had 
no place in the, character of Temple. To 
Temple, however, as well as to Clarendon, the 
rapid change which was taking place in the 
real working of the constitution gave great 
disquiet ; particularly as he had never sat in 
the English Parliament, and therefore regarded 
it with none of the predilection which men na- 
turally feel for a body to which they belong, 
and for a theatre on which their own talents 
have been advantageously displayed. 

To wrest by force from the House of Com 
mons its newly acquired powers was impossi 
ble ; nor was Temple a man to recommend 
such a stroke, even if it had been possible 
But was it possible that the House of Com 
mons might be induced to let those powers 
drop — that, as a great revolution had been ef- 
fected without any change in the outward form 
of the government, so a great counter-revolu- 
tion might be effected in the same manner — 
that the crown and the Parliament might be 
placed in nearly the same relative position in 
which they had stood in the reign of Elizabeth, 
and this might be done without one sword 
drawn, without one execution, and with the ge- 
neral acquiescence of the nation 1 

The English people — it was probabi}- thus 
that Temple argued — will not bear to be go- 
verned by the unchecked power of the sovc 
reign, nor ought they to be so governed. Al 
present there is no check but the Parliament. 
The limits which separate the power of check- 
ing those who govern, from the power of go- 
verning, are not easily to be defined. The 
Parliament, therefore, supported by the nation ; 
is rapidly drawing to itself all the powers of 
government. If it were possible to frame some 
other check on the power of the crown, some 
check which might be less galling to the sove- 
reign than that by which he is now constantly 
tormented, and yet which might appear to th« 
people to be a tolerar.e security against mal 



386 



M.\CA.ULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



administration, Parliaments wou.ci probably 
meddle less ; and they would be less supported 
by public opinion in their meddling. That 
(he king's hands may not be rudely tied by 
others, he must consent to tie them lightly 
himself. That the executive administration 
may not be usurped by the checking body, 
something of the character of a checking body 
must be given to the body which conducts the 
executive administration. The Parliament is 
now arrogating to itself every day a larger 
share of the functions of the Privy Council. 
We must stop the evil by giving to the Privy 
Council something of the constitution of a 
Parliament. Let the nation see that all the 
king's measures are directed by a cabinet 
composed of representatives of every order in 
the state — by a cabinet which contains, not 
placemen alone, but independent and popular 
noblemen and gentlemen who have large es- 
tates and no salaries, and who are not likely to 
sacrifice the public welfare, in which they have 
a deep stake, and the credit which they have 
attained with the country, to the pleasure of a 
court from which they receive nothing. When 
the ordinary administration is in such hands 
as these, the people will be quite content to see 
the Parliament become what it formerly was — 
an extraordinary check. They will be quite 
willing that the House of Commons should 
meet only once in three years for a short ses- 
sion, and should take as little part in matters 
of state as they did a hundred years ago. 

Thus we believe that Temple reasoned : for 
on this hypothesis his scheme is intelligible ; 
and on any other hypothesis appears to us, as 
it does to Mr. Courtenay, exceedingly absurd 
and immeaning. This Council was strictly 
what Earillon called it — an assembly of states. 
There are the representatives of all the great 
sections of the community — of the Church, of 
the Law, of the Peerage, of the Commons. 
The exclusion of one-half of the councillors 
from office under the crown — an exclusion 
which is quite absurd when we consider the 
Council merely as an executive board — be- 
comes at once perfectly reasonable when we 
consider the Council as a body intended to re- 
strain the crown, as well as to exercise the 
powers of the crown — to perform some of the 
functions of a Parliament, as well as the func- 
tions of a cabinet. We see, too, why Temple 
dwelt so much on the private wealth of the 
members — why he instituted a comparison 
between their united income and the united 
incomes of the members of the House of Com- 
mons. Such a parallel would have been idle 
in the case of a mere cabinet. It is extremely 
significant in the case of a body intended to 
supersede the House of Commons in some 
very important function's. 

We can hardly help thinking that the notion 
of this Parliament on a small scale was sug- 
gested to Temple by what he had himself seen 
in the United Provinces. The original Assem- 
bly of the States-General consisted, as he tells 
us, of above eight hundred persons. But this 
jreat body was represented by a smaller coun- 
cil of about thirty, which bore the name and 
exercised the powers of the States-General. 
\t .as* the real States altogether ceased to 



meet, and their power, though still a part of the 
theory of the constitution, became obsolete in 
practice. We do not, of course, imagine that 
Temple either expected or wished that Parlia- 
ments should be thus disused ; but he did ex- 
pect, we think, that something like what had 
happened in Holland would happen in Eng- 
land, and that a large portion of the functions 
lately assumed by Parliament would be quietly 
transferred to the miniature Parliament which 
he proposed to create. 

Had this plan, with some modifications, been 
tried at an earlier period, in a more composed 
state of the public mind, and by a better sove- 
reign, we are by no means certain that it would 
not have effected the purpose for which it was 
designed. • The restraint imposed on the king 
by the Council of Thirty, whom he had himself 
chosen, would have been feeble indeed when 
compared with the restraint imposed by Parlia- 
ment. But it would have been more constant. 
It would have acted every year, and all the 
year round ; and before the Revolution the ses- 
sions of Parliament were short and the re- 
cesses long. The advice of the Council would 
probably have prevented any very monstrous 
and scandalous measures; and would conse- 
quently have prevented the discontents which 
followed such measures, and the salutary laws 
which are the fruits of such discontents. We 
believe, for example, that the second Dutch 
war would never have been approved by such 
a Council as that which Temple proposed. 
We are quite certain that the shutting up of the 
Exchequer would never even have been men- 
tioned in such a Council. The people, pleased 
to think that Lord Russell, Lord Cavendish, 
and Mr. Powle, unplaced and unpensioned, 
were daily representing their grievances, and 
defending their rights in the royal presence, 
would not have pined quite so much for the 
meeting of Parliaments. The Parliament, 
when it met, would have found fewer and less 
glaring abuses to attack. There would have 
been less misgovernment and less reform. We 
should not have been cursed with the Cabal, or 
blessed with the Habeas Corpus Act. In the 
mean time, the Council would, unless some at 
least of its powers had been delegated to a 
smaller body, have been feeble, dilatory, di- 
vided, unfit for every thing which requires 
secrecy and despatch, and peculiarly unfit for 
the administration of war. 

The Revolution put an end, in a very differ- 
ent way, to the long contest between the king 
and the Parliament. From that time, the 
House of Commons has been predominant in 
the state. The cabinet has really been, from 
that time, a committee nominated by the crown 
out of the prevailing party in Parliament 
Though the minority in the Commons are con- 
stantly proposing to condemn executive mea- 
sures, or call for papers which may enable the 
House to sit in judgment on such measures, 
these propositions are scarcely ever carried; 
and if a proposition of this kind is carried 
against the government, a change of Ministry 
almost necessarily follows. Growing and 
struggling power always gives more annoy- 
ance and is more unmanageable than estat>« 
lished power. The House of Commons gave 



SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 



30^ 



Infinitely more trouble to the ministers of 
Charles II. than to any minister of later times ; 
for, in the time of Charles II. the House was 
checking ministers in whom it did not confide. 
Now that its ascendency is fully established, it 
either confides in ministers or turns them out. 
This is undoubtedly a far better state of things 
than that which Temple wished to introduce. 
The modern cabinet is a far better Executive 
Council than his. The worst House of Com- 
mons that has sat since the Revolution was a 
far more efficient check on misgovernment 
than his fifteen independent councillors would 
have been. Yet, every thing considered, it 
seems to us that his plan was the work of an 
cbservant, ingenious, and fertile mind. 

On this occasion, as on every occasion on 
which he came prominently forward, Temple 
had the rare good fortune to please the public 
as well as the sovereign. The general exulta- 
tion was great when it was known that the old 
Council, made up of the most odious tools of 
power, was dismissed — that small interior 
committees, rendered odious by the recent 
memory of Xhe Cabal, were to be disused — and 
that the king would adopt no measure till it 
had been discussed and approved by a body, 
of which one half consisted of independent 
gentlemen and noblemen, and in which such 
persons as Russell, Cavendish, and Temple 
himself had seats. Town and country were in 
a ferment of joy. The bells were rung, bon- 
fires were lighted, and the acclamations of Eng- 
land were re-echoed by the Dutch, who con- 
sidered the influence obtained by Temple as a 
certain omen of good for Europe. It is, indeed, 
much to the honour of his sagacity, that every 
one of his great measures should, in such times, 
have pleased every party which he had any 
interest in pleasing. This was the case with 
the Triple Alliance — Avith the Treaty which 
concluded the Second Dutch War — with the 
marriage of the Prince of Orange — and, finally, 
with the institution of this new Council. 

The only people who grumbled were thosft 
popular leaders of the House of Commons who 
were not among the thirty; and if our view of 
the measure be correct, they were precisely the 
people who had good reason to grumble. They 
were precisely the people whose activity and 
whose influence the new Council was intended 
to destroy. 

But there was very soon an end of the bright 
hopes and loud applauses with which the pub- 
lication of this scheme had been hailed. The 
perfidious levity of the king and the ambition 
of the chiefs of parties produced the instant, 
entire, and irremediable failure of a plan which 
nothing but firmness, public spirit, and self- 
denial on the part of all concerned in it could 
conduct to a happy issue. Even before the 
project was divulged, its author had already 
found reason to apprehend that it would fail. 
Considerable difficulty was experienced in 
framing the list of councillors. There were 
two men in particular about whom the king and 
Temple could not agree, — two men deeply taint- 
ed with the vices common to the English states- 
men of that age, but unrivalled in talents, address, 
and influence. These were the Earl of Shaftes- 
bury, and George Saville Visccunt Halifax. 



It was a favourite exercise among the Greek 
sophists to write panegyrics on characters pro- 
verbial for depravity. One professor of rheto« 
ric sent to Socrates a panegyric on Busirist 
and Isocrates himself wrote another which has 
come down to us. It is, we presume, from an 
ambition of the same kind that some writers 
have lately shown a disposition to eulogize 
Shaftesbury. But the attempt is vain. The 
charges against him rest on evidence not to be 
invalidated by any arguments which human 
wit can devise ; or by any information which 
may be found in old trunks and escrutoires. 

It is certain that, just before the Restoration, 
he declared to the regicides that he would be 
damned, body and soul, rather than suffer a 
hair of their heads to be hurt ; and that, just 
after the Restoration, he was one of the judges 
who sentenced them to death. It is certain 
that he was a principal member of the most 
profligate administration ever known; and 
that he was afterwards a principal member of 
the most profligate Opposition ever known. It 
is certain that, in power, he did not scruple to 
violate the great fundamental principle of the 
constitution, in order to exalt the Catholics; 
and that, out of power, he did not scruple to 
violate every principle of justice, in order to 
destroy them. There were in that age honest 
men, — William Penn is an instance — who 
valued toleration so highly, that they would 
willingly have seen it established, even by an 
illegal exertion of the prerogative. There 
were many honest men who dreaded arbitrary 
power so much, that, on account of the alliance 
between Popery and arbitrary power, they 
were disposed to grant no toleration to Papists 
On both those classes we look with indulgence 
though we think both in the wrong. Bui 
Shaftesbury belonged to neither class. He 
united all that was worst in both. From the 
friends of toleration he borrowed their contempt 
for the constitution ; and from the friends of 
liberty their contempt for the rights* of con- 
science. We never can admit that his conduct 
as a member of the Cabal was redeemed by 
his conduct as a leader of Opposition. On the 
contrary, his life was such, that every part of 
it, as if by a skilful contrivance, reflects infamy 
on every other. We should never have known 
how abandoned a prostitute he was in place 
if we had not known how desperate an incen 
diary he was out of it. To judge of him fairly 
we must bear in mind that the Shaftesbury who 
in office, was the chief author of the Declara- 
tion of Indulgence, was the same Shaftesbury 
who, out of office, excited and kept up the sa 
vage hatred of the rabble of London against 
the very class to whom that Declaration of In- 
dulgence was intended to give illegal relief. 

It is amusing to see the excuses that are 
made for him. We will give two specimens. 
It is acknowledged that he was one of the 
ministry who had made the alliance with 
France against Holland, and that this alliance 
was most pernicious. What, then, is the de 
fence 1 ? Even this — that he betrayed his mas 
ter's counsels to the Electors of Saxony and 
Brandenburg, and tried to rouse all the Pro- 
testant powers of Germany to defend the States. 
Again, it is acknowledged that he was uerplv 



368 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WHITINGS. 



concerned in she Declaration of Indulgence, 
and that his conduct on that occasion was not 
only unconstitutional, but quite inconsistent 
with the course which he afterwards took re- 
specting the professors of the Catholic faith. 
What, then, is the defence 1 Even this — that 
he meant only to allure concealed Papists to 
avow themselves, and thus to become open 
marks for the vengeance of the public. As 
often as he is charged with one treason, his 
advocates vindicate him by confessing two. 
They had better leave him where they find him. 
For him there is no escape upwards. Every 
outlet by which he can creep out of his present 
position, is one which lets him down into a still 
lower and fouler depth of infamy. To white- 
wash an Ethiopian is a proverbially hopeless 
attempt; but to whitewash an Ethiopian by 
giving him a new coat of blacking, is an enter- 
prise more extraordinary still. That in the 
course of Shaftesbury's unscrupu-ous and re- 
vengeful opposition to the court he rendered 
one or two most useful services to his country, 
we admit. And he is, we think, fairly entitled, 
if that be any glory, to have his name eternally 
associated with the Habeas Corpus Act, in the 
same way in which the name of Henry VIII. is 
associated with the reformation of the Church, 
and that of Jack Wilkes with the freedom of 
the press. 

While Shafcesbury was still living, his cha- 
racter was elaborately drawn by two of the 
greatest writers of the age, — by Butler, with 
characteristic brilliancy of wit, — by Dryden, 
with even more than characteristic energy and 
loftiness, — by both with all the inspiration of 
hatred. The sparkling illustrations of Butler 
have been thrown into the shade by the bright- 
er glory of that gorgeous satiric Muse, who 
comes sweeping by in sceptred pall, borrowed 
from her more august sisters. But the de- 
scriptions well deserve to be compared. The 
reader will at once perceive a considerable 
difference between Butler's 

" politician, 

With more heads than a beast in vision," 

and the Ahithophel of Dryden. Butler dwells 
on Shaftesbury's unprincipled versatility; on 
his wonderful and almost instinctive skill in 
discerning the approach of a change of for- 
tune ; and in the dexterity with which he ex- 
tricated himself from the snares in which he 
left his associates to perish. 

" Our state-artificer foresaw 
Which way the world began to draw. 
For as old sinners have all points 
O' th' compass in their bones and joints, 
Can by their pangs and aches find 
All turns and changes of the wind, 
And better than by Napier's bones 
feel in their own the age of moons: 
So guilty sinners in a state 
Can by their crimes prognosticate, 
And in their consciences feel pain 
Some days before a shower of rain. 
He, therefore, wisely cast about 
All ways he could to insure his throat." 

In Dryden's great portrait, on the contrary, 
violent passion, implacable revenge, boldness 
amounting to temerity, are the most striking 
features. Ahithophel is one of the " great wits 
to ma&auss near allied." And again — 



"A daring pilot in extremity, 
Pleased with the danger when the waves went higfc 
He sought the storms ; but for a calm unfit, 
Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit."» 

The dates of the two poems will, we think, 
explaia this discrepancy. The third part of 
Hudibras appeared in 1678, when the character 
of Shaftesbury had as yet but imperfectly de« 
veloped itself. He had, indeed, been a traitor 
to every party in the state ; but his treasons 
had hitherto prospered. Whether it were acci- 
dent or sagacity, he had timed his desertions 
in such a manner that fortune seemed to go to 
and fro with him from side to side. The ex- 
tent of his perfidy was known ; but it was not 
till the Popish Plot furnished him with a ma- 
chinery which seemed sufficiently powerful 
for all his purposes, that the audacity of his 
spirit and the fierceness of his malevolent 
passions became fully manifest. His subse- 
quent conduct showed undoubtedly great abili- 
ty, but not ability of the sort for which he had 
formerly been so eminent. He was now head- 
strong, sanguine, full of impetuous confidences 
in his own wisdom and his own good luck. 
He whose fame as a political tactician had 
hitherto rested chiefly on his skilful retreats 
now set himself to break down all the bridges 
behind him. His plans were castles in the 
air: — his talk was rodomontade. He took no 
thought for the morrow ; — he treated the court 
as if the king were already a prisoner in his 
hands ; — he built on the favour of the multi- 
tude, as if that favour were not proverbially 
inconstant. The signs of the coming reaction 
were discerned by men of far less sagacity 
than his ; and scared from his side men more 
consistent than he had ever pretended to be. 
But on him they were lost. The counsel of 
Ahithophel, — that counsel which was as if a man 
had inquired of the oracle of God, — was turned 
into foolishness. He who had become a by 
word for the certainty with which he foresaw, 
and the suppleness with which he evaded dan- 
ger, now, when beset on every side with snares 
and death, seemed to be smitten with a blind- 
ness as strange as his former clearsightedness, 
and turning neither to the right nor to the left 
strode straight on with desperate hardihood tr 
his doom. Therefore, after having early ac- 



* It has never, we believe, been remarked, that two 
of the most striking lines in the description of Ahitho- 
phel are borrowed, and from a most obscure quarter. 
In Knolles' History of the Turks, printed more than 
sixty years before the appearance of Absalom and Ahi- 
thophel, are the following verses, under a portrait of the 
Sultan Mustapha I.:— 

"Greatnesse on goodnesse loves to slide, not stand, 
And leaves for Fortune's ice Vertue's firme land " 

Dryden's words are — 

" But Wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand, 1 
And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land." 

The circumstance is the more remarkable, because 
Dryden has really no couplet more intensely Dryden- 
ian, both in thought and expression, than this, of which 
the whole thought, and almost the whole expression, 
are stolen. 

As we are on this subject, we cannot refrain from ob- 
serving that Mr. Courtenay has done Dryden injustice, 
by inadvertently attributing to him some feeble linca 
which are in Tate's part of Absalom and Abithoobel. 



SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 



369 



quirid. and long preserved, the reputation of 
infallible wisdom and invariable success, he 
lived to see a mighty ruin wrought by his own 
ungovernable passions ;— to see the great par- 
ty which he had led, vanquished, and scatter- 
ed, and trampled down; — to see all his own 
devilish enginery of lying witnesses, partial 
sheriffs, packed juries, unjust judges, blood- 
thirsty mobs, ready to be employed against 
himself and his most devoted followers; — to 
fly from that proud city whose favour had al- 
most raised him to be Mayor of the Palace ; — 
to hide himself in squalid retreats; to cover 
his gray head with ignominious disguises ; — 
and he died in hopeless exile, sheltered by a 
state which he had cruelly injured and insult- 
ed, from Hie vengeance of a master whose fa- 
vour he had purchased by one series of crimes, 
and forfeited by another. 

Halifax had, in common with Shaftesbury, 
and with almost all the politicians of that age, 
a very loose morality where the public were 
concerned ; but in his case the prevailing in- 
fection was modified by a very peculiar con- 
stitution botn of heart and head ; — by a temper 
singularly free from gall, and by a refining 
and skeptical understanding. He changed 
his course as often as Shaftesbury; but he 
did not change it to the same extent, or in the 
same direction, Shaftesbury was the very re- 
verse of a trimmer. His disposition led him 
generally to do his utmost to exalt the side 
which was up, and to depress the side which 
was down. His transitions were from extreme 
to extreme. While he stayed with a party, he 
went all lengths for it: — when he quitted it, he 
went all lengths against it. Halifax was em- 
phatically a trimmer, — a trimmer both by in- 
tellect and by constitution. The name was 
fixed on him by his contemporaries ; and he 
was so far from being ashamed of it that he 
assumed it as a badge of honour. He passed 
from faction to faction. But instead of adopt- 
ing and inflaming the passions of those whom 
he joined, he tried to diffuse among them 
something of the spirit of those whom he had 
just left. While he acted with the Opposition, 
he was suspected of being a spy of the court; 
and when he had joined the court, all the To- 
ries were dismayed by his republican doc- 
trines. 

He wanted neither arguments nor eloquence 
to exhibit what was commonly regarded as 
his wavering policy in the fairest light. He 
trimmed, he said, as the temperate zone trims 
between intolerable heat and intolerable cold 
— as a good government trims between despot- 
ism and anarchy — as a pure church trims be- 
tween the errors of the Papists and those of 
the Anabaptists. Nor was this defence by any 
means without weight; for though there is 
abundant proof that his integrity was not of 
strength to withstand the temptations by which 
his cupidity and vanity were sometimes as- 
sailed, yet his dislike of extremes, and a for- 
giving and compassionate temper which seems 
to nave been natural to him, preserved him 
from all participation in the worst crimes of 
his time. If both parties accused him of de- 
serting them, both were compelled to admit 
that thev had great obligations to his humani- 



ty; and that, though an uncertain friend, ha 
was a placable enemy. He voted in favour 
of Lord Strafford, the victim of the Whigs. 
He did his utmost to save Lord Russell, the 
victim of the Tories. And on the whole, we 
are inclined to think that his public life, though 
far indeed from faultless, has as few great 
stains as that of any politician who took an 
active part in affairs during the troubled and 
disastrous period of ten years which elapsed 
between the fall of Lord Danby and the Revo- 
lution. 

His. mind was much less turned to particu- 
lar observations, and much more to general 
speculation, than that of Shaftesbury. Shaftes- 
bury knew the king, the Council, the Parlia- 
ment, the city, better than Halifax ; but Halifax 
would have written a far better treatise on po- 
litical science than Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury 
shone more in consultation, and Halifax in 
controversy : — Shaftesbury was more fertile in 
expedients, and Halifax in arguments. No- 
thing that remains from the pen of Shaftesbury 
will bear a comparison with the political tracts 
of Halifax. Indeed, very little of the prose of 
that age is so well worth reading as the " Cha- 
racter of a Trimmer," and the "Anatomy of an 
Equivalent." What particularly strikes us in 
those works, is the writer's passion for gene- 
ralization. He was treating of the most excit- 
ing subjects in the most agitated times — he 
was himself placed in the very thick of the 
civil conflict: — yet there is no acrimony, no* 
thing inflammatory, nothing personal. He pre- 
serves an air of cold superiority, — a certain 
philosophical seretity, which is perfectly mar- 
vellous, — he treats every question as an abstract 
question, — begins with the widest propositions 
— argues those propositions on general grounds 
— and often, when he has brought out his theo- 
rem, leaves the reader to make the application, 
without adding an allusion to particular men or 
to passing events. This speculative turn of mind 
rendered him a bad adviser in cases which re- 
quired celerity. He brought forward, with won- 
derful readiness and copiousness, arguments, 
replies to those arguments, rejoinders to those 
replies, general maxims of policy, and analogous 
cases from history. But Shaftesbury was the 
man for a prompt decision. Of the parliamen- 
tary eloquence of these celebrated rivals, we 
can judge only by report ; and so judging, wa 
should be inclined to think that, though Shaftes- 
bury was a distinguished speaker, the superio- 
rity belonged to Halifax. Indeed the readiness of 
Halifax in debate, the extent of his knowledge, 
the ingenuity of his reasoning, the liveliness 
of his expression, and the silver clearness and 
sweetness of his voice, seem to have made the 
strongest impression on his contemporaries. 
By Dryden he is described as 

" Of piercing wit and pregnant thought, 
Endued by nature and by learning taught 
To move assemblies." 

His oratory is utterly and irretrievably lost so 
us, like that of Somers, of Bolingbroke, of 
Charles Townshend — of many others Avhu 
were accustomed to rise amidst the breathless 
expectation of senates, and to sit down amidst 
reiterated bursts of applause. But old men 
who lived to admire the eloquence of Pultene* 



<I70 



MAC AULA rS MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



in its meridian, and that of Pitt in its splendid 
dawn, still murmured that they had heard no- 
thing like the great speeches of Lord Halifax 
on the Exclusion Bill. The power of Shaftes- 
bury over large masses was unrivalled. Ha- 
lifax was disqualified by his whole character, 
moral and intellectual, for the part of a dema- 
gogue. It was in small circles, anc^ above all, 
in the House of Lords, that his ascendency was 
Celt. 

Shaftesbury seems to have troubled himself 
very little about theories of government. Ha- 
lifax was, in speculation, a strong republican, 
and did not conceal it. He often made here- 
ditary monarchy and aristocracy the subjects 
of his keen pleasantry, while he was fighting 
the battles of the court, and obtaining for him- 
self step after step in the peerage. In this way 
he attempted to gratify at once his intellectual 
vanity and his more vulgar ambition. He 
shaped his life according to the opinion of the 
multitude, and indemnified himself by talking 
according to his own. His colloquial powers 
were great; his perceptions of the ridiculous 
exquisitely fine ; and he seems to have had 
the rare art of preserving the reputation of 
good-breeding and good-nature, while habitu- 
ally indulging hir strong propensity to mockery. 

Temple wished to put Halifax into the new 
Council, and to leave out Shaftesbury. The 
king objected strongly to Halifax, to whom he 
had taken a great dislike, which is not ac- 
counted for, and which did 'not last long. 
Temple replied that Halifax was a man emi- 
nent both by his station and by his abilities, 
and would, if excluded, do every thing against 
the new arrangement, that could be done by 
eloquence, sarcasm, and intrigue. All who 
were consulted were of the same mind ; and 
the king yielded, but not till Temple had al- 
most gone on his knees. The point was no 
sooner settled than his majesty declared that 
he would have Shaftesbury too. Temple again 
had recourse to entreaties and expostulation. 
Charles told him that the enmity of Shaftesbury 
would be at least as formidable as that of Hali- 
fax ; and this was true : but Temple might 
have replied that by giving power to Halifax 
they gained a friend, and that by giving power 
to Shaftesbury they only strengthened an ene- 
my. It was vain to argue and protest. The 
king only laughed and jested at Temple's 
anger ; and Shafte ibury was not only sworn 
of the Council, but appointed Lord President. 

Temple was so bitterly mortified by this step, 
that he had at one time resolved to have nothing 
to do with the new administration ; and se- 
riously thought of disqualifying himself from 
sitting in the Council by omitting to take the 
sacrament. But the urgency of Lady Temple 
and Lady Giffard induced him to abandon that 
intention. 

The Council was organized on the 21st of 
April, 1679 ; and on the very next day one of 
the fundamental principles on which it had 
been constructed was violated. A secret com- 
mittee, or, in the modern phrase, a cabinet of 
nine members was formed. But as this com- 
mittee included Shaftesbury and Monmouth, 
it contained within itself the elements of as 
much faction as would have sufficed to impede 



all business. Accordingly there soon arose a 
small interior cabinet, consisting of Esses 
Sunderland, Halifax, and Temple. For a tini<» 
perfect harmony and confidence subsisted be 
tween the four. But the meetings of the thirty 
were stormy. Sharp retorts passed between 
Shaftesbury and Halifax, who led the opposite 
parties. In the Council, Halifax generally had 
the advantage. But it soon became apparent 
that Shaftesbury still had at his back the ma- 
jority of the House of Commons. The discon* 
tents, which the change of ministry had for a 
moment quieted, broke forth again with re- 
doubled violence ; and the only effect which 
the late measures appeared to have produced 
was, that the Lord President, with all the dig- 
nity and authority belonging to his Mgh place, 
stood at the head of the Opposition. The im- 
peachment of Lord Danby was eagerly pro- 
secuted. The Commons were determined to 
exclude the Duke of York from the throne. 
All offers of compromise were rejected. It 
must not be forgotten, however, that in the 
midst of the confusion, one inestimable law, — 
the only benefit which England has derived 
from the troubles of that period, but a benefit 
which may well be set off against a great mass 
of evil, — the Habeas Corpus Act, was pushed 
through the Houses, and received the royal 
assent. 

The king, finding the Parliament as trouble- 
some as ever, determined to prorogue it ; and 
he did s<3 without even mentioning his inten- 
tion to the Council by whose advice he had 
pledged himself, only a month before, to con 
duct the government. The councillors were 
generally dissatisfied, and Shaftesbury swore 
with great vehemence that if he could find ou' 
who the secret advisers were he would have 
their heads. 

The Parliament rose : London was deserted 
and Temple retired to his villa, whence, on 
council days, he went to Hampden Court. 
The post of Secretary was again and again 
pressed on him by his master, and by his three 
colleagues of the inner cabinet. Halifax, in 
particular, threatened laughingly to burn down 
the house at Sheen. But Temple was immo- 
vable. His short experience of English politics 
had disgusted him; and he felt himself so 
much oppressed by the responsibility under 
which he at present lay, that he had no in- 
clination to add to the load. 

When the term fixed for the prorogation had 
nearly expired, it became necessary to consider 
Avhat course should be taken. The king and 
his four confidential advisers thought that a 
new Parliament might be more manageable, 
and could not possibly be more refractory than 
that which they now had, and they therefore 
determined on a dissolution. But when the 
question was proposed at Council, the majority, 
jealous, it should seem, of the small directing 
knot, and unwilling to bear the unpopularity 
of the measu res of government while excluded 
from all power, joined Shaftesbury, and the 
members of the cabinet were left alone in the 
minority. The king, however, had made up 
his mind, and ordered the Parliament to be in- 
stantly dissolved. Temple's Council was now 
nothing more than an ordinary Privy Council, 



SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 



371 



if indeed itwere not something less ; and though 
Temple threw the blame of this on the king, on 
Lord Shaftesbury, on everybody but himself, it 
is evident that the failure of his plan is to be 
traced to its own inherent defects. His Council 
was too large to transact business which re- 
quired expedition, secrecy, and cordial co- 
operation. A cabinet was therefore formed 
within the Council. The cabinet and the ma- 
jority of the Council differed ; and, as was to 
be expected, the cabinet carried their point. 
Four votes outweighed six-and-twenty. This 
being the case, the meetings of the thirty were 
not only useless, but positively obnoxious. 

At the ensuing election, Temple was chosen 
for the University of Cambridge. The only 
objection that was made to him by the mem- 
bers of that learned body was, that in his little 
work on Holland he had expressed great ap- 
probation of the tolerant policy of the States ; 
and this blemish, however serious, was over- 
looked in consideration of his high reputation, 
and of the strong recommendations with which 
he was furnished by the court. 

During the summer he remained at Sheen, 
and amused himself with rearing melons ; leav- 
ing to the three other members of the inner 
cabinet the whole direction of public affairs. 
Some unexplained cause began, about this time, 
to alienate them from him. They do not ap- 
pear to have been made angry by any part of 
his conduct, or to have disliked him personally. 
But they had, we suspect, taken the measure 
of his mind, and satisfied themselves that he 
was not a man for that troubled time, and that 
he would be a mere encumbrance to them : 
living themselves for ambition, they despised 
his love of ease. Accustomed to deep stakes 
in the game of political hazard, they despised 
his piddling play. They looked on his cautious 
measure? with the sort of scorn with which the 
gamblers at the ordinary, in Sir Walter Scott's 
novel, regarded Nigel's practice of never touch- 
ing a card but when he was certain to win. 
He soon found that he was left out of their se- 
crets. The king had, about this time, a dan- 
gerous attack of illness. The Duke of York, 
on receiving the nerrs, returned from Holland. 
The sudden appearance of the detested Popish 
successor excited anxiety throughout the coun- 
try. Temple was greatly amazed and disturbed. 
He hastened up to London and visited Essex, 
who professed to be astonished and mortified, 
but could not disguise a sneering smile. Temple 
then saw Halifax, who talked to him much 
about the pleasures of the country, the anxie- 
ties of office, and the vanity of all human things, 
but carefully avoided politics, and when the 
duke's return was mentioned, only sighed, shook 
his head, shrugged his shoulders, and lifted up 
his eyes and hands. In a short time Temple 
found that his two friends had been quizzing 
him; and that they had themselves sent for the 
duke in order that his Royal Highness might, 
if the king should die, be on the spot to frustrate 
the designs of Monmouth. 

He was soon convinced, by a still stronger 
proof, that though he had not exactly offended 
bis master, or his colleagues, in the cabinet, he 
had ceased to enjoy their confidence. The 
result of the general election had been 



decidedly unfarourable to the government 
and Shaftesbury impatiently expected the da) 
when the Houses were to meet. The king; 
guided by the advice of the inner cabinet, de- 
termined on a step of the highest importance. 
He told the Council that he had resolved to 
prorogue the new Parliament for a year, and 
requested them not to object ; for he had, he 
said, considered the subject fully, and had 
made up his mind. All who were not in the 
secret were thunderstruck — Temple as much 
as any. Several members rose and entreated 
to be heard against the prorogation. But the 
king silenced them, and declared that his reso- 
lution was unalterable. Temple, greatly hurt 
at the manner in which both himself and the 
Council had been treated, spoke with great 
spirit. He would not, he said, disobey the king 
by objecting to a measure on which his ma- 
jesty was determined to hear no argument; 
but he would most earnestly entreat his ma- 
jesty, if the present Council was incompetent 
to advise him, to dissolve it and select another ; 
for it was absurd to have councillors who did 
not counsel, and who were summoned only to 
be silent witnesses of the acts of others. The 
king listened courteously. But the members 
of the cabinet resented this reproof highly; 
and from that day Temple was almost as much 
estranged from them as from Shaftesbury. 

He wished to retire altogether from business, 
But just at this time, Lord Russell, Lord Ca 
vendish, and some other councillors of the po- 
pular party, waited on the king in a body, de- 
clared their strong disapprobation of his mea- 
sures, and requested to be excused from at- 
tending any more at Council. Temple feared 
that if, at this moment, he also were to with- 
draw, he might be supposed to act in concert 
with those decided opponents of the court, and 
to have determined on taking a course hostile 
to the government. He therefore continued to 
go occasionally to the board, but he had no 
longer any real share in the direction of public 
affairs. 

At length the long term of the prorogation 
expired. In October, 1680, the Houses met: 
and the great question of the Exclusion was 
revived. Few parliamentary contests in our 
history appear to have called forth a greater 
display of talent ; none certainly ever called 
forth more violent passions. The whole nation 
was convulsed by party spirit. The gentlemen 
of every county, the traders of every town, the 
boys at every public school, were divided into 
exclusionists and abhorrers. The book-stalls 
were covered with tracts on the sacredness of 
hereditary right, on the omnipotence of Parlia- 
ment, on the dangers of a disputed succession, 
and on the dangers of a Popish reign. It was 
in the midst of this ferment that Temple took 
his seat, for the first time, in the House of 
Commons. 

The occasion was a very great one. His 
talents, his long experience of affairs, his un 
spotted public character, the high posts which 
he had filled, seemed to mark him out as a man 
on whom much would depend. He acted likfl 
himself. He saw that, if he supported the Ex 
elusion, he made the king and the heir-pre 
sumptive his enemies; and that, if he opposed 



372 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



it, he made himself an object of hatred to the 
unscrupulous and turbulent Shaftesbury. He 
neither supported nor opposed it. He quietly 
absented himself from the House. Nay, he 
took care, he tells us, never to discuss the 
question in any society whatever. Lawrence 
Hyde, afterwards Earl of Rochester, asked him 
why he did not attend in his place. Temple re- 
plied that he acted according to Solomon's ad- 
vice, neither to oppose the mighty, nor go about 
to stop the current of a river. The advice, what- 
ever its value may be, is not to be found either 
in the canonical or apocryphal writings ascrib- 
ed to Solomon. But Temple was much in the 
habit of talking about books which he had 
never read ; and one of those books, we are 
afraid, was his Bible. Hyde answered, " You 
are a wise and a quiet man." And this might 
be true. But surely such wise and quiet men 
have no call to be members of Parliament in 
critical times. 

A single session was quite enough for 
Temple. When the Parliament was dissolved, 
and another summoned at Oxford, he obtained 
an audience of the king, and begged to knoAv 
whether his majesty wished him to continue 
in Parliament. Charles, who had a singularly 
quick eye for the weaknesses of all who came 
near him, had no doubt seen through and 
through Temple, and rated the parliamentary 
support of so cool and guarded a friend at its 
proper value. He answered good-naturedly, 
but we suspect a little contemptuously, "I doubt, 
as things stand, your coming into the House 
will not do much good. I think you may as 
well let it alone." Sir William accordingly in- 
formed his constituents that he should not again 
apply for their suffrages ;■ and set off for Sheen, 
resolving never again to meddle with public 
affairs. He soon found that the king was dis- 
pleased with him. Charles, indeed, in his usual 
easy way, protested that he was not angry, — 
not at all. But in a few days he struck Temple's 
name out of the list of privy councillors. Why 
this was done Temple declares himself unable 
to comprehend. But surely it hardly required 
his long and extensive converse with the world 
to teach him that there are conjunctures when 
men think that all who are not with them are 
against them, — that there are conjunctures 
when a lukewarm friend, who Avill not put him- 
self the least out of his way, who will make no 
exertion, who will run no risk, is more distaste- 
ful than an enemy. Charles had hoped that 
the fair character of Temple would add credit 
to an unpopular and suspected government. 
But his majesty soon found that this fair cha- 
racter resembled pieces of furniture which we 
have seen in the drawing-rooms of very precise 
old-ladies, which are a great deal too white to 
be used. This exceeding niceness was alto- 
gether out of season. Neither party wanted a 
man who was afraid of taking a part, of in- 
curring abuse, of making enemies. There 
were probably many good and moderate men 
who would have hailed the appearance of a 
respectable mediator. But Temple was not a 
mediator. He was merely a neutral. 

At last, however, he had escaped from pub- 
lic life, and found himself at liberty to follow 
his favourite pursuits. His fortune was easy. 



He had about fifteen hundred a year, besides 
the Mastership of the Rolls in Ireland; an 
office in which he had succeeded his father, and 
which was then a mere sinecure for life, 
requiring no residence. His reputation both 
as a negotiator and a writer stood high. He 
resolved to be safe, to enjoy himself, and to let 
the world take its course ; and he kept his re» 
solution. 

Darker times followed. The Oxford Parlia- 
ment was dissolved. The Tories were triumph- 
ant. A terrible vengeance was inflicted on the 
chiefs of the Opposition. Temple learned in 
his retreat the disastrous fate of several of his 
old colleagues in Council. Shaftesbury fled to 
Holland. ' Russell died on the scaffold. Essex 
added a yet sadder and more fearful story to 
the bloody chronicles of the Tower. Monmouth 
clung in agonies of supplication round the 
knees of the stern uncle whom he had wronged, 
and tasted a bitterness worse than that of death, 
— the bitterness of knowing that he had hum- 
bled himself in vain. A tyrant trampled on the 
liberties and religion of the realm. The na- 
tional spirit swelled high under the oppression. 
Disaffection spread even to the strongholds of 
loyalty, — to the cloisters of Westminster, to the 
schools of Oxford, to the guardroom of the 
household troops, to the very hearth and bed- 
chamber of the sovereign. But the troubles 
which agitated the whole society did not reach 
the quiet, orangery in which Temple loitered 
away several years without once seeing the 
smoke of London. He now and then appeared 
in the circle at Richmond or Windsor. But 
the only expressions which he is recorded to 
have used during those perilous times, were 
that he would be a good subject, but that he 
had done with politics. 

The Revolution came. Temple remained 
strictly neutral during the short struggle ; and 
then transferred to the new settlement the same 
languid sort of loyalty which he had felt for 
his former masters. He paid court to William 
at Windsor, and William dined with him at 
Sheen. But in spite of the most pressing soli- 
citations, he refused to become Secretary of 
State. The refusal evidently proceeded only 
from his dislike of trouble and danger ; and 
not, as some of his admirers would have us 
believe, from any scruple of conscience or 
honour. For he consented that his son should 
take the office of Secretary at War under the 
new c ■ rereigns. That unfortunate young man 
destroyed himself within a week after his ap- 
pointment, from vexation at finding that his 
advice had led the king into some improper 
steps with regard to Ireland. He seems to have 
inherited his father's extreme sensibility to 
failure ; without that singular prudence which 
kept his father out of all situations in which 
any serious failure was to be apprehended. 
The blow fell heavy on the family. They re- 
tired in deep dejection to Moor Park, which they 
now preferred to Sheen, on account of the great- 
er distance from London. In that spot,* then 
very secluded, Temple passed the remainder 



* Mr. Courtenay (vol. ii. p. 160) confounds Moor Part 
in Surrey, where Temple resided, with the Moor Part 
in Hertfordshire, which he praises in the essay on Gar- 
dening. 



SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 



373 



at his life. The air agreed with him. The 
soil was fruitful, and well suited to an experi- 
mental farmer and gardener. The grounds 
were laid out with the angular regularity 
which Sir William had admired in the flower- 
beds of Haarlem and the Hague. A beautiful 
rivulet, flowing from the hills of Surrey, bound- 
ed the domain. But a straight canal which, 
bordered by a terrace, intersected the garden, 
was probably more admired by the lovers of 
the picturesque in that age. The house was 
small, but neat and well furnished; — the 
neighbourhood very thinly peopled. Temple 
had no visiters, except a few friends who were 
willing to travel twenty or thirty miles in 
order to see him ; and now and then a foreigner 
whom curiosity brought to have a look at the 
author of the Triple Alliance. 

Here, in May, 1694, died Lady Temple. 
From the time of her marriage we know little 
of her, except that her letters were always 
greatly admired, and that she had the honour 
to correspond constantly with Queen Mary. 
Lady Giffard, who, as far as appears, had al- 
ways been T5n the best terms with her sister- 
in-law, still continued to live with Sir William. 

But there were other inmates of Moor Park 
to whom ' a far higher interest belongs. An 
eccentric, uncouth, disagreeable, young Irish- 
man, who had narrowly escaped plucking at 
Dublin, attended Sir William as an amanuen- 
sis, for twenty pounds a year and his board, — 
dined at the second table, wrote bad verses in 
praise of his employer, and made love to a 
very pretty, dark-eyed young girl, who waited 
on Lady Giffard. Little did Temple imagine 
that the coarse exterior of his dependant con- 
cealed a genius equally suited to politics and 
to letters ; — a genius destined to shake great 
kingdoms, to stir the laughter and the rage of 
millions, and to leave to posterity memorials 
which can perish only with the English lan- 
guage. Little did he think that the flirtation 
in his servants' hall, which he perhaps scarcely 
deigned to make the subject of a jest, was the 
beginning of a long unprosperous love, which 
was to be as widely famed as the passion of 
Petrarch, or of Abelard. Sir William's secre- 
tary was Jonathan Swift — Lady Giffard's wait- 
ing-maid was poor Stella. 

Swift retained no pleasing recollections of 
Moor Park. And we may easily suppose a 
situation like his to have been intolerably 
painful to a mind haughty, irascible, and con- 
scious of pre-eminent ability. Long after, 
when he stood in the Court of Requests with a 
circle of gartered peers round him, or punned 
and rhymed with cabinet ministers over Secre- 
tary St. John's Mount-Pulciano, he remembered, 
with deep and sore feeling, how miserable he 
used to be for days together when he suspected 
that Sir William had taken something ill. He 
could hardly believe that he, the same Swift 
who chid the Lord Treasurer, rallied the Cap- 
tain General, and confronted the pride of the 
Duke of Buckinghamshire with pride still 
more inflexible, could be the same being who 
had passed nights of sleepless anxiety, in 
musing over a cross look or a testy word of a 
patron. " Faith," he wrote to Stella, with bitter 
levity " Sir William spoiled a fine gentleman." 



Yet in justice to Temple we must say, tha 
there is no reason to think that Swift was more 
unhappy at Moor Park than he would have been 
in a similar situation under any roof in Eng- 
land. We think also that the obligations which 
the mind of Swift owed to that of Temple were 
not inconsiderable. Every judicious reader 
must be struck by the peculiarities which dis- 
tinguish Swift's political tracts from all similar 
works produced by mere men of letters. Let 
any person compare, for example, the conduct 
of the Allies, or the Letter to the October Club, 
with Johnson's False Alarm, or Taxation no 
Tyranny, and he will be at once struck by the 
difference of which we speak. He may possi- 
bly think Johnson a greater man than Swift. 
He may possibly prefer Johnson's style to 
Swift's. But he will at once acknowledge that 
Johnson writes like a man who has never been 
out of his study. Swift writes like a man who 
has passed his whole life in the midst of pub- 
lic business, and to whom the most important 
affairs of state are as familiar as his weekly 
bills. 

" Turn him to any cause of policy, 
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose, 
Familiar as his garter." 

The difference, in short, between a political 
pamphlet by Johnson, and a political pamphlet 
by Swift, is as great as the difference between 
an account of a battle by Doctor Southey and 
the account of the same battle I Colonel Na- 
pier. It is impossible to doubt mat the supe- 
riority of Swift is to be, in a great measure, 
attributed to his long and close connection with 
Temple. 

Indeed, remote as the alleys and flower-pots 
of Moor Park were from the haunts of the busy 
and the ambitious, Swift had ample opportuni- 
ties of becoming acquainted with the hidden 
causes of many great events. William was in 
the habit of consulting Temple, and occasion- 
ally visited him. Of what passed between 
them very little is known. It is certain, how- 
ever, that when the Triennial Bill had been 
carried through the two Houses, his majesty, 
who was exceedingly unwilling to pass it, sen 
the Earl of Portland to learn Temple's opinioa 
Whether Temple thought the bill in itself a 
good one does not appear ; but he clearly saw 
how imprudent it must be in a prince, situated 
as William was, to engage in an altercation 
with his Parliament; and directed Swift i& 
draw up a paper on the subject, which, how- 
ever, did not convince the king. 

The chief amusement of Temple's declining 
years was literature. After his final retreat 
from business, he wrote his very agieeable 
memoirs ; corrected and transcribed many of 
his letters ; and published several miscella 
neous treatises, the best of which, we think, is 
that on Gardening. The style of his essays is, 
on the whole, excellent, — almost always pleas 
ing, and now and then stately and splendid 
The matter is generally of much less value ; as 
our readers will readily believe when we in- 
form them that Mr. Courtenay — a biographer, 
— that is to say, a literary vassal, bound by the 
immemorial law of his tenure to render ho« 
mage, aids, reliefs, and all other customary 



374 



MAOAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



services to his lord, — avows that he cannot 
give an opinion about the essay on " Heroic 
Virtue/' because he cannot read it without 
skipping; — a circumstance which strikes us 
as peculiarly strange, when we consider how 
long Mr. Courtenay was at the India Board, 
and how many thousand paragraphs of the 
copious official eloquence of the East he must 
have perused. 

One of Sir William's pieces, however, de- 
serves notice, not, indeed, on account of its 
intrinsic merit, but on account of the light 
which it throws on some curious weaknesses 
of his character ; and on account of the extra- 
ordinary effect which it produced on the re- 
public of letters. 

A most idle and contemptible controversy 
had arisen in France touching the comparative 
merit of the ancient and modern writers. It 
was certainly not to be expected that, in that 
age, the question would be tried according to 
those large and philosophical principles of 
criticism which guided the judgments of Les- 
sing and of Herder. But it might have been 
expected, that those who undertook to decide 
the point would at least take the trouble to 
read and understand the authors on whose 
merits they were to pronounce. Now, it is no 
exaggeration to say that, among the disputants 
who clamoured, some for the ancients, and 
some for the moderns, very few were decently 
acquainted with either ancient or modern 
literature, and not a single one was well ac- 
quainted with both. In Racine's amusing pre- 
face to the " Iphigenie," the reader may find 
noticed a most ridiculous mistake, into which 
one of the champions of the moderns fell about 
a passage in the Alcestis of Euripides. An- 
other writer blames Homer for mixing the four 
Greek dialects — Doric, Ionic, iEolic, and Attic 
—just, says he, as if a French poet were to put 
Gascon phrases and Picard phrases into the 
midst of his pure Parisian writing. On the 
other hand, it is no exaggeration to say that the 
defenders of the ancients were entirely unac- 
quainted with the greatest productions of later 
times ; nor, indeed, were the defenders of the 
moderns better informed. The parallels which 
were instituted in the course of this dispute 
are inexpressibly ridiculous. Balzac was se- 
lected as the rival of Cicero. Corneille was 
declared to unite the merits of iEschylus, 
Sophocles, and Euripides. We should like to 
see a " Prometheus" after Corneille's fashion. 
The "Provincial Letters," masterpieces un- 
doubtedly of reasoning, wit, and eloquence, 
were pronounced to be superior to all the 
writings of Plato, Cicero, and Lucian together, 
— particularly in the art of dialogue — an art in 
which, as it happens, Plato far excelled all 
men, and in which Pascal, great and admira- 
ble in other respects, is notoriously deficient. 

This childish controversy spread to Eng- 
land; and some mischievous demon suggested 
w Temple the thodght of undertaking the de- 
fence of the ancients. As to his qualifications 
for the task, it is sufficient to say, that he knew 
Dot a word of Greek. But his vanity, which, 
when he was engaged in the conflicts of active 
iif<?, and surrounded by rivals, had been kept 



in tolerable order by his discretion, now, when 
he had long lived in seclusion, and had become 
accustomed to regard himself as by far the first 
man of his circle, rendered him blind to his 
own deficiencies. In an evil hour he pub« 
lished an "Essay on Ancient and Modern 
Learning." The style of this treatise is very 
good — the matter ludicrous and contemptible 
to the last degree. There we read how Lycur* 
gus travelled into India, and brought the Spar* 
tan laws from that country — how Orpheus and 
Musssus made voyages in search of knowledge, 
and how Orpheus attained to a depth of learn- 
ing which has made him renowned in all suc- 
ceeding ages — how Pythagoras passed twenty- 
two years in Egypt, and, after graduating there, 
spent twelve years more at Babylon^ where the 
Magi admitted, him ad eundem — how the ancient 
Brahmins lived two hundred years — how the 
earliest Greek philosophers foretold earth 
quakes and plagues, and put down riots by 
magic — and how much Ninus surpassed in 
abilities any of his successors on the throne of 
Assyria. The moderns, he owns, have found 
cut the circulation of the blood ; but, on the 
other hand, they have quite lost the art of ma- 
gic ; nor can any modern fiddler enchant fishes, 
fowls, and serpents by his performance. He 
tells us that " Thales, Pythagoras, Democritus, 
Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus 
made greater progresses in the several empires 
of science than any of their successors have 
since been able to reach ;" which is as much 
as if he had said that the greatest names in 
British science are Merlin, Michael Scott, Dr. 
Sydenham, and Lord Bacon. Indeed, the man- 
ner in which he mixes the historical and the 
fabulous reminds us of those classical diction- 
aries, intended for the use of schools, in which 
Narcissus, the lover of himself, and Narcissus, 
the freedman of Claudius — Pollux, the son of 
Jupiter and Leda, and Pollux, the author of the 
Onomasticon — are ranged under the same 
heading, and treated as personages equally 
real. The effect of this arrangement resembles 
that Avhich would be produced by a dictionary 
of modern names, consisting of such articles 
as the following: — "Jones, William, an emi 
nent Orientalist, and one of the Judges of the 
Supreme Court of Judicature in Bengal — Davy, 
a fiend who destroys ships — Thomas, a found- 
ling, brought up by Mr. Allworthy." It is from 
such sources as these that Temple seems to 
have learned all that he knew about the an- 
cients. He puts the story of Orpheus between 
the Olympic games and the battle of Arbela 5 
as if we had exactly as much reason for be- 
lieving that Orpheus led beasts with his lyre, 
as we have for believing that there were races 
at Pisa, or that Alexander conquered Darius. 

He manages little better when he comes to 
the moderns. He gives us a catalogue of those 
whom he regards as the greatest wits of later 
times. It is sufficient to say that, in his list of 
Italians, he has omitted Dante, Petrarch, Ari- 
osto, and Tasso ; in his list of Spaniards, Lope 
and Calderon ; m his list of French, Pascal, 
Bossuet, Moliere, Corneille, Racine, and Boi« 
leau; and in his list of English, Chaucer} 
Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton 



SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 



375 



In tht midst of all this vast mass of absurdity- 
one paragraph stands out pre-eminent. The 
doctrine of Temple — not a very comfortable 
one — is, that the human race is constantly de- 
generating ; and that the oldest books in every 
kind are the best. In confirmation of this doc- 
trine, he remarks that the Fables of iEsop are 
the best fables, and the letters of Phalaris the 
best letters in the world. On the merit of the 
letters of Phalaris he dwells with great warmth 
and with extraordinary felicity of language. 
Indeed, we could hardly select a more favour- 
able specimen of the graceful and easy ma- 
jesty to which his style sometimes rises than 
this unlucky passage. He knows, he says, 
that some learned men, or men who pass for 
learned, such as Politian, have doubted the 
genuineness of these letters. But of these 
doubts he speaks with the greatest contempt. 
Now it is perfectly certain, first, that the letters 
are very bad ; secondly, that they are spuri- 
ous ; and thirdly, that, whether they be bad or 
good, spurious or genuine, Temple could know 
nothing of the matter ; inasmuch as he was no 
mor' able «to construe aline of them than to 
decxpher an Egyptian obelisk. 

This Essay, silly as it is, was exceedingly 
well received, both in England and on the 
Continent. And the reason is evident. The 
classical scholars, who saw its absurdity, 
were generally on the side of the ancients, 
and were inclined rather to veil than to expose 
the blunders of an ally ; the champions of the 
moderns were generally as ignorant as Temple 
himself; and the multitude were charmed by 
his flowing and melodious diction. He was 
doomed, however, to smart, as he well de- 
served, for his vanity and folly. 

Christchurch at Oxford was then widely and 
justly celebrated as a place where the lighter 
parts of classical learning were cultivated 
with success. With the deeper mysteries of 
philology neither the instructors nor the pupils 
had the smallest acquaintance. They fancied 
themselves Scaligers, as Bentley scornfully 
said, as soon as they could write 'a copy of 
Latin verses with only two or three small 
faults. From this college proceeded a new 
edition of the Letters of Phalaris, which were 
rare, and had been in request since the appear- 
ance of Temple's Essay. The nominal editor 
was Charles Boyle, a young man of noble 
family and promising parts; but some older 
members of the society lent their assistance. 
While this work was in preparation, an idle 
quarrel, occasioned, it should seem, by the 
negligence and misrepresentations of a book- 
seller, arose between Boyle and the king's 
librarian, Richard Bentley. Boyle, in the pre- 
face to his edition, inserted a bitter reflection 
on Bentley. Bentley revenged himself by- 
proving that the Epistles of Phalaris were for- 
geries; and in his remarks, on this subject 
jeated Temple, not indecently, but with no 
great reverence. 

Temple, who was quite unaccustomed to 
any but the most respectful usage, who, even 
while engaged in politics, had always shrunk 
from all rude collision, and had generally 
»ucceeded in avoiding it, and whose sensitive- 



ness had been increased by many years cf se- 
clusion and flattery, — was moved to the most 
violent resentment; complained, very unjust- 
ly, of Bentley's foul-mouthed raillery, and de- 
clared that he had commenced an answer, but 
had laid it aside, " having no mind to enter the 
lists with such a mean, dull, unmannerly pe» 
dant." Whatever may be thought of the tern* 
per which Sir William showed on this occa- 
sion, we cannot too highly applaud his discre- 
tion in not finishing and publishing his answer, 
which would certainly have been a most ex- 
traordinary performance. 

He was not, however, without defenders. 
Like Hector, when struck down prostrate by 
Ajax, he was in an instant covered by a thick 
crowd of shields — 

"ovtis eSvvriaaTo vot/ieva \ao>v 
Ovrauai ovSs PciXeiv npiv yap Ttipif5i\an.v apioToi, 
IlovXvSanas re, km Aiveias, kcli Sio; 'Ayr/vap, 
"Zap-nriduv t apxos Avkiuv, koli TAauKOS aii«/itr>p." 

Christchurch was up in arms ; and though 
that college seems then to have been almost 
destitute of severe and accurate learning, no 
academical society could show a greater array 
of orators, wits, politicians, — bustling adven- 
turers, who united the superficial accomplish- 
ments of the scholar with the manners and arts 
of the man of the world, and this formidable 
body resolved to try how far smart repartees, 
well turned sentences, confidence, puffing, and 
intrigue could, on the question whether a 
Greek book were or were not genuine, supply 
the place of a little knowledge of Greek. 

Out came the reply to Bentley, bearing the 
name of Boyle, but in truth written by Atter- 
bury, with the assistance of Smalridge and 
others. A most remarkable book it is, and 
often reminds us of Goldsmith's observation, 
that the French would be the best cooks in the 
world if they had any butcher's meat, for that 
they can make ten dishes out of a nettle top. 
It really deserves the praise, whatever tha't 
praise may be worth, of being the best book 
ever written by any man on the wrong side of 
a question of which he was profoundly igno- 
rant. The learning of the confederacy is that 
of a schoolboy, and not of an extraordinary 
schoolboy; but it is used with the skill and 
address of most able, artful, and experienced 
men ; it is beaten out to the very thinnest leaf, 
and is disposed in such a way as to seem ten 
times larger than it is. The dexterity with 
which they avoid grappling with those parts 
of the subject with which they know them- 
selves to be incompetent to deal is quite won- 
derful. Now and then, indeed, they commit 
disgraceful blunders, for which old Busby, un- 
der whom they had studied, would have whip- 
ped them all round. But this circumstance 
only raises our opinion of the talents which 
made such a fight with such scanty means. 
Let our readers, who are not acquainted with 
the controversy, imagine a Frenchman who 
had acquired just English enough to read the 
Spectator with a dictionary, coming forward to 
defend the genuineness of "Rowleys Poems" 
against Percy and Farmer; and they will hav« 
some notion of th; feat which Atterbury had 



8Y6 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



the audacity to undertake, and which, for a 
time, it was really thought that he had per- 
formed. 

The illusion was soon dispelled. BenLey's 
answer forever settled the question, and es- 
tablished his claim to the first place amongst 
classical scholars. Nor do those do him jus- 
tice who represent the controversy as a battle 
between wit and learning. For, though there 
is a lamentable deficiency of learning on the 
side of Boyle, there is no want of wit on the 
side of Bentley. Other qualities too, as valua- 
ble as either wit or learning, appear conspi- 
cuously in Bentley's book ; — a rare sagacity, 
an unrivalled power of combination, a perfect 
mastery of all the weapons of logic. He was 
greatly indebted to the furious outcry which 
the misrepresentations, sarcasms, and intrigues 
of his opponents had raised against him; — an 
outcry in which fashionable and political cir- 
cles joined, and which was re-echoed by thou- 
sands who did not know whether Phalaris 
ruled in Sicily or in Siam. His spirit, daring 
even to rashness — self-confident, even to neg- 
ligence — and proud, even to insolent ferocity, 
—was awed for the first and for the last time 
— awed, not into meanness or cowardice, 
but into wariness and sobriety. For once he 
ran no risks ; he left no crevice unguarded ; 
he wantoned in no paradoxes ; above all, he 
returned no railing for the railing of his ene- 
mies. In almost every thing that he has writ- 
ten we can discover proofs of genius and 
learning. But it is only here that his genius 
and .earning appear to have been constantly 
under the guidance of good sense and good 
temper. Here we find none of that besotted 
reliance on his own powers and on his own 
luck, which he showed when he undertook to 
edite Milton ; none of that perverted ingenuity 
which deforms so many of his notes on Ho- 
race ; none of that disdainful carelessness by 
which he laid himself open to the keen and 
dexterous thrusts of Middleton ; none of that 
extravagant vaunting and savage scurrility by 
which he afterwards dishonoured his studies 
and his profession, and degraded himself al- 
most to the level of De Paucs. 

Temple did not live to witness the utter and 
irreparable defeat of his champions. He died, 
indeed, at a fortunate moment, just after the 
appearance of Boyle's book, and while all 
England was laughing at the way in which the 
Christchurch men had handled the pedant. In 
Boyle's book, Temple was praised in the high- 
est terms, and compared to Memmius — not a 
very happy comparison ; for the only particu- 
lar information which we have about Mem- 
mius is, that in agitated times he thought it 
his duty to attend exclusively to politics ; and 
that his friends could not venture, except when 
the republic was quiet and prosperous, to in- 
trude on him with their philosophical and 
poetical productions. It is on this account, 
that Lucretius puts up the exquisitely beauti- 
ful prayer for peace with which his poem 
opens : 

" Xam neque nos agere hoc patriae tempore iniquo 
Possumus teque animo, nee Memmii clara propago 
Talibus in rebus communi deesse saiuti." 



This description is surely by no means ap« 
plicable to a statesman who had, through the 
whole course of his life, carefully avoided ex- 
posing himself in seasons of trouble : who had 
repeatedly refused, in the most critical con 
junctures, to be Secretary of State; and who 
now, in the midst of revolutions, plots, foreign 
and domestic wars, was quietly writing non 
sense about the visits of Lycurgus to the Brah 
mins, and the tunes which Arion played to the 
Dolphin. 

We must not omit to mention that, while the 
controversy about Phalaris was raging, Swift, 
in order to show his zeal and attachment, 
wrote the " Battle of the Books ;" — the earliest 
piece in which his peculiar talents are discern- 
ible. We may observe, that the bitter dislike 
of Bentley, bequeathed by„Temple to Swift, 
seems to have been communicated by Swift to 
Pope, to Arbuthnot, and to. others who continued 
to tease the great critic, long after he had 
shaken hands very cordially both with Boyle 
and Atterbury. 

Sir William Temple died at Moor Park in 
January, 1699. He appeared to have suffered 
no intellectual decay. His heart was buried 
under a sun-dial which still stands in his fa 
vourite garden. His body was laid in West- 
minster Abbey by the side of his wife ; and a 
place hard by was set apart for Lady Giffard, 
who long survived him. Swift was his literary 
executor, and superintended the publication of 
his Letters and Memoirs, not without some 
acrimonious contests with the family. 

Of Temple's character little more remai- 
to be said. Burnet acmccs him of nolding ir- 
religious opinions, and corrupting everybody 
who came near him. But the vague assertion 
of so rash and partial a writer as Burnet, about 
a man with whom, as far as we know, he 
never exchanged a word, is of very little 
weight. It is, indeed, by no means improbable 
that Temple may have been a free-thinker. 
The Osbornes thought him so when he was a 
very young man. And it is certain that a 
large proportion of the gentlemen of rank and 
fashion who made their entrance into society 
while the Puritan party was at the height of 
power, and while the memory of the reign of 
that party was still recent, conceived a strong 
disgust for all religion. The imputation was 
common between Temple and all the most dis- 
tinguished courtiers of the age. Rochester 
and Buckingham were open scoffers, and MuJ- 
grave very little better. Shaftesbury, though 
more guarded, was supposed to agree with 
them in opinion. All the three noblemen who 
were Temple's colleagues during the short 
time of his continuance in the cabinet, were 
of very indifferent repute as to orthodoxy 
Halifax, indeed, was generally considered as 
an atheist; but he solemnly denied the charge; 
and, indeed, the truth seems to be, that he was 
more religiously disposed than most of the 
statesmen of that age; though two impulses 
which were unusually strong in him, — a pas- 
sion for ludicrous images, and a passion for 
subtle speculations, — sometimes prompted him 
to talk on serious subjects in a manner which 
gave great and just offence. It is not even 



SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 



377 



unlikely that Temple, who seldom went below 
me surface of any question, may have been 
infected with the prevailing skepticism. All 
that we can say un the subject is, that there is 
no trace of impiety in his works ; and that the 
ease with which he carried his election for a 
university, where the majority of the voters 
were clergymen, though it proves nothing as 
to his opinions, must, we think, be considered 
as proving that he was not, as Burnet seems 
to insinuate, in the habit of talking atheism to 
all who came near him. 

Temple, however, will scarcely qarry with 
him any great accession of authority to the 
side either of religion or of infidelity. He 
was no profound thinker. He was merely a 
man of lively parts and quick observation, 
— a man of the world amongst men of let- 
ters, — a man of letters amongst men of the 
world. Mere scholars were dazzled by the 
ambassador and cabinet councillor ; mere po- 
liticians by the essayist and historian. But 
neither as a writer nor as a statesman can we 
»Mot to him any very high place. As a man, 



he seems to us to have been excessively self 
ish, but very sober, wary, and far-sighted in 
his selfishness; — to have known better than 
most people know what he really wanted in 
life ; and to ha^e pursued what he wanted with 
much more than ordinary steadiness and sa- 
gacity ; — never suffering himself to be drawn 
aside either by bad or by good feelings. It 
was his constitution to dread failure more than 
he desired success, — to prefer security, com 
fort, repose, leisure, to the turmoil and anxiety 
which are inseparable from greatness ; — and 
this natural languor of mind, when contrasted 
with the malignant energy of the keen and 
restless spirits among whom his lot was cast, 
sometimes appears to resemble the moderation 
of virtue. But we must own, that he seems 
to us to sink into littleness and meanness when 
we compare him — we do not say with any high 
ideal standard of morality, — but with many of 
those frail men who, aiming at noble ends, but 
often drawn from the right path by strong pas- 
sions and strong temptations, have left to p ob 
terity a doubtful and checkered fame 



am 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



CHURCH AND STATE/ 



[Edinburgh Review for April, 1839.] 



The author of this volume is a young man 
of unblemished character and of distinguished 
parliamentary talents, the rising hope of those 
stern and unbending Tories, who follow, re- 
luctantly and mutinously, a leader, whose ex- 
perience and eloquence are indispensable to 
them, but whose cautious temper and moderate 
opinions they abhor. It would not be at all 
strange if Mr. Gladstone were one of the most 
onpopular men in England. But we believe 
that we do him no more than justice when we 
say, that his abilities and his demeanour have 
obtained for him the respect and good-will of 
all parties. His first appearance in the cha- 
racter of an author is therefore an interesting 
event; and it is natural that the gentle wishes 
of the public should go with him to his trial. 

We are much pleased, without any reference 
to the soundness or unsoundness of Mr. Glad- 
stone's theories, to see a grave and elaborate 
treatise on an important part of the philosophy 
of government proceed from the pen of a 
young man who is rising to eminence in the 
House of Commons. There is little danger 
that people engaged in the conflicts of active 
life will be too much addicted to general spe- 
culation. The opposite vice is that which 
most easily besets them. The times and tides 
of business and debate tarry for no man. A 
politician must often talk and act before he has 
thought and read. He may be very ill-informed 
respecting a question ; all his notions about it 
may be vague and inaccurate ; but speak he 
must ; and if he is a man of talents, of tact, 
and of intrepidity, ne soon finds that, even 
under such circumstances, it is possible to 
speak successfully. He finds that there is a 
great difference between the effect of written 
words, which are perused and reperused in the 
stillness of the closet, and the effect of spoken 
words, which, set off by the graces of utterance 
and gesture, vibrate for a single moment on the 
ear. He finds that he may blunder without 
much chance of being detected, that he may 
reason sophistically, and escape unrefuted. 
He finds that, even on knotty questions of 
trade and legislation, he can, without reading 
ten pages, or thinking ten minutes, draw forth 
loud plaudits, and sit down with the credit of 
having made an excellent speech. Lysias, 
says Plutarch, wrote a defence for a man who 
was to be tried before one of the Athenian tri- 
bunals. Long before the defendant had learn- 
«d the speech by heart, he became so much 
dissatisfied with it, that he went in great dis- 
tress to the author. "I was delighted with 
your speech the first time I read it ; but I liked 



* The State irt its relations with the Church. By W. E. 
Gladstone, Esq., Student of Christchurch, and M. P. 
for Newark 8vo. Second Edition. London. 1839. 



it less the second time, and still less the third 
time ; and now it seems to me to be nc defence 
at all." " My good friend," said Lysias, " you 
quite forget that the judges are to hear it only 
once." The case is the same in the English 
Parliament. It would be as idle in an orator 
to waste deep meditation and long research on 
his speeches, as it would be in the manager of 
a theatre to adorn all the crowd of courtiers 
and ladies who cross over the stage in a pro- 
cession with real pearls and diamonds. It is 
not by accuracy or profundity that men become 
the masters of great assemblies. And why be 
at the charge of providing logic of the best 
quality, when a very inferior article will be 
equally acceptable 1 Why go as deep into a 
question as Burke, only in order to be, like 
Burke, coughed down, or ieft speaking to green 
benches and red boxes 1 This has long ap- 
peared to us to be the most serious of the evils 
which are to be set off against the many bless- 
ings of popular government. It is a fine and 
true saying of Bacon, that reading makes a 
full man, talking a ready man, and writing an 
exact man. The tendency of institutions like 
those of England is to encourage readiness in 
public men, at the expense both of fulness and 
of exactness. The keenest and most vigorous 
minds of every generation, minds often admi- 
rably fitted for the investigation of truth, are 
habitually employed in producing arguments, 
such as no man of sense would ever put intc a 
treatise intended for publication, — arguments 
which are just good enough to be used once, 
when aided by fluent delivery and pointed lan- 
guage. The habit of discussing questions in 
this way necessarily reacts on the intelligence 
of our ablest men, particularly of those who 
are introduced into Parliament at a very early 
age, before their minds have expanded to full 
maturity. The talent for debate is developed 
in such men to a degree which, to the multi- 
tude, seems as marvellous as the perform- 
ances of an Italian improvisator. But they are 
fortunate, indeed, if they retain unimpaired the 
faculties which are required for close reason- 
ing or for enlarged speculation. Indeed, we 
should sooner expect a great original work on 
political science — such a work, for example, 
as the " Wealth of Nations" — from an apothe- 
cary in a country town, or from a minister in 
the Hebrides, than from a statesman who, ever 
since he was one-and-twenty, had been a dis- 
tinguished debater in the House of Commons. 
We therefore hail with pleasure, though as- 
suredly not with unmixed pleasure, the appear- 
ance of this work. That a young politician 
should, in the intervals afforded by his parlia- 
mentary avocations, have constructed and pro- 
pounded, with much study and mental toil, an 
original theory on a great problem in politics^ 



CHURCH AND STATE. 



379 



Is a circumstance which, aDstracted from all 
consideration of the soundness or unsoundness 
of his opinions, must be considered as highly 
creditable to him. We certainly cannot wish 
that Mr. Gladstone's doctrines may become 
fashionable among public men. But we hearti- 
ly wish that his laudable desire to penetrate 
beneath the surface of questions, and to arrive, 
by long and intent meditation, at the knowledge 
of great general laws, were much more fashion- 
able than we at all expect it to become. 

Mr. Gladstone seems to us to be, in many 
respects, exceedingly well qualified for philo- 
sophical investigation. His mind is of large 
grasp ; nor is he deficient in dialectical skill. 
But he does not give his intellect fair play. 
There is no want of light, but a great want 
of what Bacon would have called dry light. 
Whatever Mr. Gladstone sees is refracted and 
distorted by a false medium of passions and 
prejudices. His style bears a remarkable ana- 
logy to his mode of thinking, and indeed exer- 
cises great influence on his mode of thinking. 
His rhetoric, though often good of its kind, 
darkens and.perplexes the logic which it should 
illustrate. Half his acuteness and diligence, 
with a barren imagination and a scanty voca- 
bulary, would have saved him from almost all 
his mistakes. He has one gift most dangerous 
to a speculator, — a vast command of a kind 
of language, grave and majestic, but of vague 
and uncertain import, — of a kind of language 
which affects us much in the same way in 
which the lofty diction of the chorus of Clouds 
affected the simple-hearted Athenian. 

u ytj tov <j>deynaTos, a; tepov, Kai ae\ivov, Kai reparuScs. 

When propositions have been established, 
and nothing remains but to amplify and deco- 
rate them, this dim magnificence may be in 
place. But if it is admitted into a demonstra- 
tion, it is very much worse than absolute non- 
sense ; — just as that transparent haze through 
which the sailor sees capes and mountains of 
false sizes and in false bearings, is more dan- 
gerous than utter darkness. Now, Mr. Glad- 
stone is fond of employing the phraseology of 
which we speak in those parts of his work 
which require the utmost perspicuity and pre- 
cisipn of which human language is capable, 
and in this way he deludes first himself, and 
then his readers. The foundations of his 
theory, which ought to be buttresses of ada- 
mant, are made out of the flimsy materials 
which are fit only for perorations. This fault 
is one which no»subsequent care or industry 
can correct. The more strictly Mr. Gladstone 
reasons on his premises, the more absurd are 
the conclusions which he brings out; and 
when at last his good sense and good nature 
recoil from the horrible practical inferences to 
which his theory leads, he is reduced some- 
times to take refuge in arguments inconsistent 
with his fundamental doctrines ; and some- 
times to escape from the legitimate conse- 
quences of his false principles under cover 
of equally false history. 

It would be unjust not to say that this book, 
though not a good book, shows more talent 
than many good books. It contains some elo- 
quent and ingenious passages. It bears the 



signs of much patient thought. It is written 
throughout with excellent taste and excellent 
temper ; nor is it, so far as we have observed, 
disfigured by one expression unworthy of a 
gentleman, a scholar, or a Christian. But the 
doctrines which are put forth in it appear to 
us, after full and ca4m consideration, to be 
false ; to be in the highest degree pernicious ; 
to be such as, if followed out in practice to 
their legitimate consequences, would inevita- 
bly produce the dissolution of society; and for 
this opinion we shall proceed to give our rea- 
sons with that freedom which the importance 
of the subject requires, and which Mr. Glad- 
stone both by precept and by example invites us 
to use, but, we hope, without rudeness, and, we 
are sure, without malevolence. 

Before we enter on an examination of this 
theory, we wish to guard ourselves against 
one misconception. It is possible that some 
persons who have read Mr. Gladstone's book 
carelessly, and others who have merely heard 
in conversation or seen in a newspaper that 
the member for Newark has written in defence 
of the Church of England against the support- 
ers of the Voluntary System, may imagine that 
we are writing in defence of the Voluntary Sys- 
tem, and that we desire the abolition of the 
Established Church. This is not the case. It 
would be as unjust to accuse us of attacking 
the Church because we attack Mr. Gladstone's 
doctrines, as it would be to accuse Locke of 
wishing for anarchy because he refuted Fil 
mer's patriarchal theory of government ; or to 
accuse Blackstone of recommending the con- 
fiscation of ecclesiastical property because he 
denied that the right of the rector to tithe was 
derived from the Levitical law. It is to be 
observed that Mr. Gladstone rests his case on 
entirely new grounds, and does not differ more 
widely from us than from some of those who 
have hitherto been considered as the most 
illustrious champions of the Church. He is 
not content with the "Ecclesiastical Polity," 
and rejoices that the latter part of that cele- 
brated work " does not carry with it the weight 
of Hooker's plenary authority." He is not 
content with Bishop Warburton's "Alliance of 
Church and State." "The propositions of that 
work generally," he says, " are to be received 
with qualification;" and he agrees with Boling- 
broke in thinking that Warburton's whole the- 
ory rests upon a fiction. He is still less satis- 
fied with Paley's "Defence of the Church," 
which he pronounces to be "tainted by the 
original vice of false ethical principles," and 
" full of the seeds of evil." He conceives that 
Dr. Chalmers has taken a partial view of the 
subject, and "put forth much questionable mat- 
ter." ' In truth, on almost every point on which 
we are opposed to Mr. Gladstone, we have on 
our side the authority of some divine, eminent 
as a defender of existing establishments. 

Mr. Gladstone's whole theory rests on this 
great fundamental proposition — that the Pro- 
pagation of Religious Truth is one of the prin- 
cipal ends of government, as government. I r 
Mr. Gladstone has not proved this proposition, 
his system vanishes at once. 

We are desirous, before we enter on the dis 
cussion of this important qu< stion, to point oui 



380 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



clearly a distinction which, though very obvi- 
ous, seems to be overlooked by many excel- 
lent people. In their opinion, to say that the 
ends of government are temporal and not spi- 
ritual, is tantamount to saying that the tempo- 
ral welfare of man is of more importance than 
his spiritual welfare. But this is ah entire 
mistake. The question is not whether spiritual 
interests be or be not superior in importance 
to temporal interests, but whether the machi- 
nery which happens at any moment to be em- 
ployed for the purpose of protecting certain 
temporal interests of a society, be necessarily 
such a machinery as is fitted to promote the 
spiritual interests of that society. It is certain 
that without a division of duties the world 
could not go on. It is of very much more im- 
portance that men should have food than that 
they should have pianofortes. Yet it by no 
means follows that every pianoforte-maker 
ought to add the business of a baker to his 
own ; for if he did so, we should have both much 
worse music and much worse bread. It is of 
much more importance that the knowledge 
of religious truth should be widely diffused 
than that the art of sculpture should flourish 
among us. Yet it by no means follows that 
the Royal Academy ought to unite with its pre- 
sent functions those of the Society for promot- 
ing Christian Knowledge, to distribute theolo- 
gical tracts, to send forth missionaries, to turn 
out Nollekens for being a Catholic, Bacon for 
being a Methodist, and Flaxman for being a 
Swedenborgian. For the effect of such folly 
would be that we should have the worst possi- 
ble Academy of Arts, and the worst possible 
Society for the Promotion of Christian Know- 
ledge. The community, it is plain, would be 
thrown into universal confusion, if it were 
supposed to be the duty of every association 
which is formed for one good object to pro- 
mote every other good object. 

As to some of the ends of civil government, 
all people are agreed. That it is designed to 
protect our persons and our property, — that it 
is designed to compel us to satisfy our wants, 
not by rapine, but by industry, — that it is de- 
signed to compel us to decide our differences, 
not by the strong hand, but by arbitration, — 
that it is designed to direct our whole force, as 
that of one man, against any other society 
which may offer us injury, — these are propo- 
sitions which will hardly be disputed. 

Now these are matters in which man, with- 
out any reference to any higher being or to 
any future state, is very deeply interested. 
Eveiy man, be he idolater, Mohammedan, Jew, 
Papist, Socinian, Deist, or Atheist, naturally 
loves life, shrinks from pain, desires those 
comforts which can be enjoyed only in com- 
munities where property is secure. To be 
murdered, to be tortured, to be robbed, to be 
sold into slavery, to be exposed to the outrages 
of gangs of foreign banditti calling themselves 
patriots — these are evidently evils from which 
men of every religion and men of no religion 
wish to bf> protected ; and therefore it will 
hardly be disputed that men of every religion 
and of no religion have thus far a common 
interest in being well governed. 

But the hopes and fears of man are not 



limited to this short life and to this visible 
world. He finds himself surrounded by the 
signs of a power and wisdom higher than his 
own ; and, in all ages and nations, men of all 
orders of intellect, from Bacon and Newton 
down to the rudest tribes of cannibals, hav<» 
believed in the existence of some superior 
mind. Thus far the voice of mankind is al- 
most unanimous. But whether there be one 
God or many — what may be his natural and 
what his moral attributes — in what relation 
his creatures stand to him — whether he have 
ever disclosed himself to us by any other reve- 
lation than that which is written in all the 
parts of the glorious and well-ordered world 
which he has made — whether his revelation 
be contained in any permanent record — how 
that record should be interpreted, and whether 
it have pleased him to appoint any unerring 
interpreter on earth — these are questions re- 
specting which there exists the widest diver- 
sity of opinion, and respecting which the great 
majority of our race has, ever since the dawn 
of regular history, been deplorably in error. 

Now here are two great objects : — One is the 
protection of the persons and estates of citi- 
zens from injury ; the other is the propagation 
of religious truth. No two objects more en- 
tirely distinct can well be imagined. The 
former belongs wholly to the visible and tangi- 
ble world in which we live ; the lattef belongs 
to that higher world which is beyond the reach 
of our senses. The former belongs to this 
life ; the latter to that which is to come. Men 
who are perfectly agreed as to the importance 
of the former object, and as to the way of at- 
taining it, differ as widely as possible respect- 
ing the latter object. We must therefore pause 
before we admit that the persons, be they whe 
they may, who are intrusted with power for 
the promotion of the former object, ought al- 
ways to use that power for the promotion of 
the latter object. 

Mr. Gladstone conceives that the duties of 
governments are paternal ; — a doctrine which 
we will not believe till he can show us some 
government which loves its subjects as a fa- 
ther loves a child, and which is as superior in 
intelligence to its subjects as a father is supe^ 
rior to a child. He tells us, in lofty, the ugh 
somewhat indistinct language, that "Govern- 
ment occupies in moral the place of to no.? in 
physical science." If government be indeed 
to 7r*v in moral science, we do not understand 
why rulers should not assume <all the functions 
which Plato assigned to them. Why should 
they not take away the child from the mother, 
select the nurse, regulate the scnool, overlook 
the play-ground, fix the hours of labour and of 
recreation, prescribe what ballads shall be 
sung, what tunes shall be played, what books 
shall be read, what physic shall be swallowed ! 
— why should not they choose our wives, limit 
our expenses, and stint us to a certain number 
of dishes, of glasses of wine, and of cups of 
teal Plato, whose hardihood in speculation 
was perhaps more wonderful than any otner 
peculiarity of his extraordinary mind, and vho 
shrank from nothing to which his principles 
led, went this whole length. Mr. Gladstone is 
not so intrepid. He contents himself with lav- 



CHURCH AND STATE. 



381 



ng down this proposition — that, whatever be 
the body which in any community is employed 
to protect the persons and property of men, 
that body ought also, in its corporate capacity, 
to profess a religion, to employ its power for 
the propagation of that religion, and to require 
conformity to that religion, as an indispensable 
qualification for all civil office. He distinctly 
declares that he does not in this proposition 
confine his view to orthodox governments, or 
even to Christian governments. The circum- 
stance that a religion is false does not, he tells 
us, diminish the obligation of governors, as 
such, to uphold it. If they neglect to do so, 
"we cannot," he says, "but regard the fact as 
aggravating the case of the holders of Such 
creed." "I do not scruple to affirm," he adds, 
"that if a Mohammedan conscientiously be- 
lieves his religion to come from God, and to 
teach divine truth, he must believe that truth to 
be beneficial, and beneficial beyond all other 
things to the soul of man ; and he must, there- 
fore, and ought to desire its extension, and to 
use for its extension all proper and legitimate 
means; andrthat, if such Mohammedan be a 
prince, he ought to count among those means 
the application of whatever influence or funds 
he may lawfully have at his disposal for such 
purposes." 

Surely this is a hard saying. Before we ad- 
mit that the Emperor Julian, in employing his 
power for the extinction of Christianity, was 
doing no more than his duty — before we admit 
that the Arian, Theodoric, would have com- 
mitted a crime if he had suffered a single be- 
liever in the divinity of Christ to hold any civil 
employment in Italy — before we admit that the 
Dutch government is bound to exclude from 
office all members of the Church of England ; 
the King of Bavaria to exclude from office all 
Protestants ; the Great Turk to exclude from 
office all Christians ; the King of Ava to ex- 
clude from office all who hold the unity of 
God — we think ourselves entitled to demand 
very full and accurate demonstration. When 
the consequences of a doctrine are so startling, 
we may well require that its foundations shall 
be very solid. 

The following paragraph is a specimen of 
the arguments by which Mr. Gladstone has, as 
he conceives, established his great fundamen- 
tal proposition : 

" We may state the same proposition in a 
nitre general form, in which it surely must 
command universal assent. Wherever there 
is power in the universe, that power is the 
property of God, the King of that universe — 
his property of right, however for a time with- 
holden or abused. Now this property is, as it 
were, realized, is used according to the will of 
the owner, when it is used for the purposes he 
has ordained, and in the temper of mercy, jus- 
tice, truth, and faith, which he has taught us. 
But those principles never can be truly, never 
can be permanently, entertained in the human 
breast, except by a continual reference to their 
source, and the supply of the divine grace. 
The powers, therefore, that dwell in individu- 
als acting as a government, as well as those 
that dwell in individuals acting for themselves, 
25 



can only be secured for right uses by applyjns 
to them a religion." 

Here are propositions of vast and indefinite 
extent, conveyed in language which has a cer- 
tain obscure dignity and sanctity, — attractive, 
we doubt not, to many minds. But the mo- 
ment that we examine these propositions 
closely, — the moment that we bring them to 
the test by running over but a very few of the 
particulars which are included in them, we 
find them to be false and extravagant. This 
doctrine which "must surely command uni- 
versal assent" is, that every association of 
human beings, which exercises any power 
whatever, — that is to say, every association 
of human beings, — is bound, as such associa- 
tion, to profess a religion. Imagine the effect 
which would follow if this principle were 
really in force during four-and-twenty hours. 
Take one instance out of a million : — A stage- 
coach company has power over its horses. 
This power is the property of God. It is used 
according to the will of God when it is used 
with mercy. But the principle of mercy can 
never be truly or permanently entertained in 
the human breast without continual reference 
to God. The powers, therefore, that dwell in 
individuals acting as a stage-coach company, 
can only be secured for right uses by applying 
to them a religion. Every stage-coach com- 
pany ought, therefore, in its collective capacity, 
to profess some one faith — to have its articles, 
and its public worship, and its tests. That this 
conclusion, and an infinite number of conclu- 
sions equally strange, follow of necessity from 
Mr. Gladstone's principle, is as certain as it is 
that two and two make four. And if tha legiti- 
mate conclusions be so absurd, there must be 
something unsound in the principle. 

We will quote another passage of the same 
sort : — 

" Why, then, we now come to ask, should 
the governing body in a state profess a religion] 
First, because it is composed of individual 
men; and they, being appointed to act in a defi- 
nite moral capacity, must sanctify their acts 
done in that capacity by the offices of religion; 
inasmuch as the acts cannot otherwise be ac- 
ceptable to God, or any thing but sinful and 
punishable in themselves. And whenever we 
turn our face away from God in our conduct, 
we are living atheistic ally In fulfil- 
ment, then, of his obligations as an individual, 
the statesman must be a worshipping man. 
But his acts are public — the powers and in- 
struments with which he works are public — 
acting under and by the authority of the law, 
he moves at his word ten thousand subject 
arms ; and because such energies are thus es- 
sentially public, and wholly out of the range 
of mere individual agency, they must be sanc- 
tified not only by the private personal prayers 
and piety of those who fill public situations, 
but also by public acts of the men composing 
the public body. They must offer prayer and 
praise in their public and collective charactei 
— in that character wherein they constitute the 
organ of the nation, and wield its collected 
force. Whenever there is a reasoning agencv 



382 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



there is a moral duty and responsibility in- 
volved in it- The governors are reasoning 
agents for tlie nation, in their conjoint acts as 
such. And therefore there must be attached to 
this agency, as that without which none of our 
responsibilities can be met, a religion. And 
this religion must b" ftat of the conscience of 
the governor, or none." 

Here again we find propositions of immense 
extent, and of sound so orthodox and solemn, 
that many good people, we doubt not, have 
been greatly edified by it. But let us examine 
the words closely, and it will immediately be- 
come plain, that if these principles be once ad- 
mitted, there is an end of all society. No com- 
bination can be formed for any purpose of 
mutual help,— for trade, for public works, for 
the relief of the sick or the poor, for the promo- 
tion of art or science, unless the members of 
the combination agree in their theological 
opinions. Take any such combination at ran- 
dom— the London and Birmingham Railway 
Company, for example— and observe to what 
consequences Mr. Gladstone's arguments in- 
evitably lead. " Why should the Directors of 
the Railv/ay Company, in their collective ca- 
pacity, profess a religion 1 First, because the 
direction is composed of individual men ap- 
pointed to act 'in a definite moral capacity — 
bound to look carefully to the property, the 
limbs, and the lives of their fellow creatures- 
bound to act diligently for their constituents- 
bound to govern their servants with humanity 
and justice— bound to fulfil with fidelity many 
important contracts. They must, therefore, 
Banctify their acts by the offices of religion, or 
these acts will be sinful and punishable in 
themselves. In fulfilment, then, of his obliga- 
tions as an individual, the Director of the Lon- 
don and Birmingham Railway Company must 
be a worshipping man. But his acts are public. 
He acts for a body. He moves at his word ten 
thousand subject arms. And because these 
energies are out of the range of his mere indi- 
vidual agency, they must be sanctified by pub- 
lic acts of devotion. The Railway Directors 
must offer prayer and praise in their public 
and collective character, in that character 
wherewith they constitute the organ of the 
Company, and wield its collected power. 
Wherever there is reasoning agency, there is 
moral responsibility. The Directors are rea- 
soning agents for the Company. And there- 
fore there must be attached to this agency, as 
that without which none of our responsibilities 
can be met— a religion. And this religion 
must be that of the conscience of the Director 
himself, or none. There must be public wor- 
ship and a test. No Jew, no Socinian, no 
Presbyterian, no Catholic, no Quaker, must be 
permitted to be the organ of the Company, and 
to wield its collected force." Would Mr. Glad- 
stone really defend this proposition 1 We are 
sure that he would not ; but we are sure that 
to this proposition, and to innumerable similar 
propositions, his reasoning inevitably leads. 
Again, — 

" National will and agency are indisputably 
one, binding either a dissentient minority of the 
mbject body, in a manner that nothing but the 



recognition of the doctrine of national person- 
ality can justify. National honour and good 
faith are words in every one's mouth. How 
do they less imply a personality in nations 
than the duty towards God, for which we now 
contend 1 ? They are strictly and essentially 
distinct from the honour and good faith of the 
individuals composing the nation. France is 
a person to us, and we to her. A wilful injury 
done to her is a moral act, and a moral act 
quite distinct from the acts of all the individu 
als composing the nation. Upon broad facts 
like these we may rest, without resorting to the 
more technical proof which the laws afford in 
their manner of dealing with corporations. If, 
then, a nation have unity of will, have pervad- 
ing sympathies, have the capability of reward 
and suffering contingent upon its acts, shall 
we deny its responsibility ; its need of religion 

to meet that responsibility 1 A nation, 

then, having a personality, lies under the obli- 
gation, like the individuals composing its go- 
verning body, of sanctifying the acts of that 
personality by the offices of religion, and thus 
we have a new and imperative ground for the 
existence of a state religion." 

A new ground, certainly, but whether very 
imperative may be doubted. Is it not perfectly 
clear, that this argument applies with exactly 
as much force to every combination of human 
beings for a common purpose, as to govern- 
ments 1 Is there any such combination in the 
world, whether technically a corporation or not, 
which has not this collective personality from 
which Mr. Gladstone deduces such extraordi- 
nary consequences 1 Look at banks, insurance 
offices, dock companies, canal companies, 
gas companies, hospitals, dispensaries, asso- 
ciations for the relief of the poor, associations 
for apprehending malefactors, associations of 
medical pupils for procuring subjects, associa- 
tions of country gentlemen for keeping fox- 
hounds, book societies, benefit societies, clubs 
of all ranks, from those which have lined Pali- 
Mall and St. James's Street with their palaces, 
down to the " Free-and-easy" which meets in 
the shabby parlour of a village inn. Is there 
a single one of these combinations to which 
Mr. Gladstone's argument will not apply as 
well as to the State 1 In all these combina- 
tions—in the Bank of England, for example, 
or in the Athenesum Club— the will and agency 
of the society are one, and bind the dissentient 
minority. The Bank and the Athenseum have 
a good faith and a justice different from the 
good faith and justice of the individual mem- 
bers. The Bank is a person to those who 
deposit bullion with it. The Athenaeum is a 
person to the butcher and the wine-merchant. 
If the Athenaeum keeps money at the Bank, 
the two societies are as much persons to each 
other as England and France. Either society 
may increase in prosperity; either may fall 
into difficulties. If, then, they have this unity 
of will ; if thev are capable of doing and suffer- 
ing good and' evil, can we, to use Mr. Glad* 
stone's words, "deny their responsibility, or 
their need of a religion to meet that responsi- 
bility V Joint-stock banks, therefore, and 
clubs, " having a personality, lie under the ne 



CHURCH AND STATE. 



385 



sessity of sanctifying that personality, by me 
offices of religion ;" and thus we have " a new 
and imperative ground" for requiring all the 
directors and clerks of joint-stock banks, and 
all the officers of clubs, to qualify by taking the 
sacrament. 

The truth is, that Mr. Gladstone has fallen 
into an error very common among men of less 
talents than his own. It is not unusual for a 
person who is eager to prove a particular pro- 
position, to assume a major of huge extent, 
which includes that particular proposition, 
without ever reflecting that it includes a great 
deal more. The fatal facility with which Mr. 
Gladstone multiplies expressions stately and 
sonorous, but of indeterminate meaning, emi- 
nently qualifies him to practise this sleight on 
himself and on his readers. He lays down 
broad general doctrines about power, when the 
only power of which he is thinking is the power 
of governments, — about conjoint action, when 
the only conjoint action of which he is think- 
ing is the conjoint action of citizens in a state. 
He first resolves on his conclusion. He then 
makes a major of most comprehensive dimen- 
sions; and, having satisfied himself that it con- 
tains his conclusion, never troubles himself 
about what else it may contain. And as soon 
as we examine it, we find that it contains an 
infinite number of conclusioas, every one of 
which is a monstrous absurdity. 

It is perfectly true, that it would be a very 
good thing if all the members of all the asso- 
ciations in the world were men of sound reli- 
gious views. We have no doubt that a good 
Christian will be under the guidance of Chris- 
tian principles, in his conduct as director of a 
canal company or steward of a charity dinner. 
If he were — to recur to a case which we before 
put — a member of a stage-coach company, he 
would, in that capacity, remember that "a right- 
eous man regardeth the life of his beast." But it 
does not follow that every association of men 
must, therefore, as such association,profess a re- 
ligion. It is evident that many great and useful 
objects can be attained in this world only by 
co-operation. It is equally evident that there 
cannot be efficient co-operation, if men proceed 
on the principle that they must not co-operate 
for one object unless they agree about other ob- 
jects. Nothing seems to us more beautiful or 
admirable in our social system, than the faci- 
lity Avith which thousands of people* who per- 
haps agree only on a single point, combine 
their energies for the purpose of carrying that 
single point. We see daily instances of this. 
Two men, one of them obstinately prejudiced 
against missions, the other president of a mis- 
sionary society, sit together at the board of an 
hospital, and heartily concur in measures for 
the health and comfort of the patients. Two 
men, one of whom is a zealous supporter and 
the other a zealous opponent of the system pur- 
sued in Lancaster's schools, meet at the Men- 
dicity Society, and act together with the utmost 
cordiality. The gensral rule we take to be un- 
loubfedly this, that it is lawful and expedient 
for men to unite in an association for the pro- 
motion of a good object, though they may 
differ with respect to other objects of a still 
higner importance 



It will hardly be denied that the security of 
the persons and property of men is a good ob« 
ject, and that the best way, indeed the only way, 
of promoting that object is to combine men 
together in certain great corporations — which 
are called states. These corporations are very 
variously, and, for the most part, very imperfect- 
ly organized. Many of them abound with fright- 
ful abuses. But it seems reasonable to believe 
that the worst that ever existed was, on the 
whole, preferable to complete anarchy. 

Now, reasoning from analogy, we should 
say that these great corporations would, like 
all other associations, be likely to attain their 
end most perfectly if that end were kept singly 
in view; and that to refuse the services of 
those who are admirably qualified to promote 
that end, because they are not also qualified to 
promote some other end, however excellent, 
seems at first sight as unreasonable as it would 
be to provide, that nobody who was not a fellow 
of the Antiquarian Society should be a go- 
vernor of the Eye Infirmary ; or that nobody 
who was not a member of the Society for pro- 
moting Christianity among the Jews should be 
a trustee of the Theatrical Fund. 

It is impossible to name any collection of hu- 
man beings to which Mr. Gladstone's reasonings 
would apply more strongly than to an army. 
Where shall we find more complete unity of 
action than in an army ! Where else do so 
many human beings implicitly obey one ruling 
mind? What other mass is there which moves 
so much like one man 1 Where is such tre- 
mendous power intrusted to those who com- 
mand 1 Where is so awful a responsibility 
laid upon them ? If Mr. Gladstone has made 
out, as he conceives, an imperative necessity 
for a state religion, much more has he made 
it out to be imperatively necessary that every 
army should, in its collective capacity, profess a 
religion. Is he prepared to adopt this conse- 
quence 1 

On the morning of the 13th of August, in 
the year 1704, two great captains, equal in au- 
thority, united by close private and public ties, 
but of different creeds, prepared for a battle, 
on the event of which were staked the liberties 
of Europe. Marlborough had passed a part 
of the night in prayer, and before daybreak 
received the sacrament according to the rites 
of the Church of England. He then has- 
tened to join Eugene, who had probably just 
confessed himself to a Popish priest. The 
generals consulted together, formed their plan 
in concert, and repaired each to his own post 
Marlborough gave orders for public prayers. 
The English chaplains read the service at 
the head of the English regiments. The 
Calvinistic chaplains of the Dutch army, 
with heads on which hand of bishop had 
never been laid, poured forth their supplica- 
tions in front of their countrymen. In the 
mean time the Danes would listen to their Lu- 
theran ministers; and Capuchins might en- 
courage the Austrian squadrons, and pray to 
the Virgin for a blessing on the arms of the 
Holy Roman Empire. The battle commences, 
and these men of various religions all act like 
members of one body. The Catholic and the 
Protestant generals exert themselves to assis.. 



384 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



and to surpass each other. Before sunset the 
Empire is saved. France has lost in a day 
the fruits of eighty years of intrigue and of 
victory. And the allies, after conquering toge- 
ther, return thanks to God separately, each af- 
ter his own form of worship. Now, is this 
practical atheism? Would any man in his 
senses say, that, because the allied army had 
unity of action and a common interest, and 
because a heavy responsibility lay on its 
chiefs, it was therefore imperatively necessary 
that the army should, as an army, have one 
established religion — that Eugene should be 
deprived of his command for being a Catholic 
— that all the Dutch and Austrian colonels 
should be broken for not subscribing the Thir- 
ty-nine Articles 1 Certainly not — the most ig- 
norant grenadier on the field of battle would 
have seen the absurdity of such a proposition. 
"I know," he would have said, " that the Prince 
of Savoy goes to mass, and that our Corporal 
John cannot abide it ; but what has the mass to 
do with taking the village of Blenheim 1 The 
prince wants to beat the French, and so does 
Corporal John. If we stand by each other, we 
shall most likely beat them. If we send all 
the Papists and Dutch away, Tallard will have 
every man of us." Mr. Gladstone himself, we 
imagine, would admit that our honest grenadier 
had the best of the argument ; and if so, what 
fellows? Even this : that all Mr. Gladstone's 
general principles about power, and responsi- 
bility, and personality, and conjoint action, 
must be given up ; and that, if his theory is to 
stand at all, it must stand on some other foun- 
dation. 

We have now, we conceive, shown that it 
may be proper to form men into combinations 
for important purposes, which combinations 
shall have unity and common interests, and 
shall be under the direction of rulers intrusted 
with great power and lying under solemn re- 
sponsibility ; and yet that it may be highly im- 
proper that these combinations should, as such, 
profess any one system of religious belief, or 
perform any joint .act of religious worship. 
How, then, is it proved that this may not be the 
case with some of those great combinations 
which we call States 1 We firmly believe that 
it is the case with some states. We firmly 
believe that there are communities in which 
it would be as absurd to mix up theology with 
government, as it would have been in the 
right wing of the allied army at Blenheim to 
commence a controversy with the left wing, in 
the middle of the battle, about purgatory and 
the worship of images. 

It is the duty, Mr. Gladstone tells us, of the 
persons, be they who they may, who hold su- 
preme power in the state, to employ that 
power in order to promote whatever they may 
deem to be theological truth. Now, surely, be- 
fore he can call on us to admit this proposition, 
htt is bound to prove that these persons are 
likely to do more good than harm by so em- 
ploying their power. The first question is, 
whether a government, proposing to itself the 
propagation of religious truth, as one of its 
principal ends, is more likely to lead the peo- 
ple right than to lead them wrong ? Mr. Glad- 



stone evades this question, and perhaps it was 
his wisest course to do so. 

"If," says he, "the government be good, lei 
it have its natural duties and powers at its 
command • but, if not good, let it be made so. 

We follow, therefore, the true course 

in looking first for the true &*., or abstract con 
ception of a government, of course with allow- 
ance for the evil and frailty that are in man, 
and then in examining whether there be com- 
prised in that i$i* a capacity and consequent 
duty on the part of a government to lay down 
any laws, or devote any means for the pur- 
poses of religion, — in short, to exercise a 
choice upon religion." 

Of course, Mr. Gladstone has a perfectrighl 
to argue any abstract question ; provided that 
he will constantly bear in mind that it is only 
an abstract question that he is arguing. Whe- 
ther a perfect government would or would not 
be a good machinery for the propagation of 
religious truth, is certainly a harmless, and 
may, for aught we know, be an edifying sub- 
ject of inquiry. But it is very important that 
we should remember, that there is not, and 
never has been, any such government in the 
world. There is no harm at all in inquiring 
what course a stone thrown into the air would 
take, if the law of gravitation did not operate. 
But the consequences would be unpleasant, if 
the inquirer, as soon as he had finished his 
calculation, were to begin to throw stones about 
in all directions, without considering that his 
conclusion rests on a false hypothesis ; and' 
that his projectiles, instead of flying away 
through infinite space, will speedily return in 
parabolas, and break the windows and heads 
of his neighbours. 

It is very easy to say that governments are 
good, or, if not good, ought to be made so. Bui 
what is meant by good government ? And how 
are all the bad governments in the world to be 
made good 1 And of what value is a theory 
which is true only on a supposition in the 
highest degree extravagant 1 

We do not admit that, if a government were, 
for all its temporal ends, as perfect as human 
frailty allows, such government would, there- 
fore, be necessarily qualified to propagate true 
religion. For we see that the fitness of govern- 
ments to propagate true religion is by no means 
proportioned to their fitness for the temporal 
ends of their institution. Looking at indivi- 
duals, we see that the princes under whose 
rule nations have been most ably protected 
from foreign and domestic disturbance, and 
have made the most rapid advances in civiliza- 
tion, have been by no means good teachers of 
divinity. Take, for example, the best French 
sovereign, — Henry the Fourth, a king who re 
stored order, terminated a terrible civil war 
brought the finances into an excellent cono> 
tion, made his country respected throughout 
Europe, and endeared himself to the great body 
of the people whom he ruled. Yet this man 
was twice a Huguenot, and twice a Papist. 
He was, as Davila hints, strongly suspected of 
having no religion at all in theory; and waa 
certainly not much under religious restraint* 



CHURCH AND STATE. 



385 



a his practice. Take the Czar Peter, — the 
Empress Catharine, — Frederick the Great. It 
will surely not be disputed that these sove- 
reigns, with all their faults, were, if we con- 
sider them with reference merely to the tempo- 
ral ends of government, far above the average 
of merit. Considered as theological guides, 
Mr. Gladstone would probably put them below 
the most abject drivellers of the Spanish 
branch of the house of Bourbon. Again, when 
we pass from individuals to systems, we by no 
means find that the aptitude of governments for 
propagating religious truth is proportioned to 
their aptitude for secular functions. Without 
being blind admirers either of the French or 
of American institutions, we think it clear that 
the persons and property of citizens are better 
protected in France and in New England, than 
in almost any society that now exists, or that 
has ever existed, — very much better, certainly, 
than under the orthodox rule of Constantine or 
Thebdosius. But neither the government of 
France nor that of New England is so organized 
as to be fit for the propagation of theological 
doctrines. -Nor do we think it improbable, 
that the most serious religious errors might 
prevail in a state, which, considered merely 
with reference to temporal objects, might ap- 
proach far nearer than any that has ever been 
known to the iShl of what a state should be. 

But we shall leave this abstract question, 
and look at the world as we find it. Does, 
then, the way in which governments generally 
obtain their power, make it at all probable that 
they will be more favourable to orthodoxy than 
to heterodoxy ] A nation of barbarians pours 
down on a rich and unwarlike empire, enslaves 
the people, portions out the land, and blends 
the institutions which it finds in the cities with 
those which it has brought from the woods. A 
handful of daring adventurers from a civilized 
nation, wander to some savage country, and 
reduce the aboriginal race to bondage. A suc- 
cessful general turns his arms against the 
state which he serves. A society made brutal 
by oppression, rises madly on its masters, 
sweeps away ail old laws and usages, and, 
when its first paroxysm of rage is over, sinks 
down passively under any form of polity which 
may spring out of the chaos. A chief of a 
party, as at Florence, becomes imperceptibly 
a sovereign and the founder of a dynasty. A 
captain of mercenaries, as at Milan, seizes on 
a city, and by the sword makes himself its 
ruler. An elective senate, as at Venice, usurps 
permanent and hereditary power. It is in events 
such as these that governments have generally 
originated; and we can see nothing in such 
events to warrant us in believing that the go- 
vernments thus called into existence will be 
peculiarly well fitted to distinguish between re- 
ligious truth and heresy. 

When, again, we look at the constitutions of 
governments which have become settled, we 
find no great security for the orthodoxy of 
rulers. One magistrate holds power because 
his name was drawn out of a purse ; another, 
because his father held it before him. There 
are representative systems of al. sorts, — large 
constituent bodies, small constituent bodies, 
umversa 1 suffrage, high pecuniary qualifica- 



tions. We see that, for the temporal ends of 
government, some of these constitutions are 
very skilfully constructed, and that the very 
worst of them is preferable to anarchy. But 
it passes our understanding to comprehend 
what connection any one of them has with 
theological truth. 

And how stands the fact 1 Have not aimoAS 
all the governments in the world always been 
in the wrong on religious subjects 1 Mr. Glad- 
stone, we imagine, would say, that, except in 
the time of Constantine, of Jovian, and of a 
very few of their successors, and occasionally 
in England since the Reformation, no govern- 
ment has ever been sincerely friendly to the 
pure and apostolical Church of Christ. If, 
therefore, it be true that every ruler is bound 
in conscience to use his power for the propa- 
gation of his own religion, it will follow, that 
for one ruler who has been bound in conscience 
to use his power for the propagation of truth, 
a thousand have been bound in conscience to 
use their power for the propagation of false- 
hood. Surely this is a conclusion from which 
common sense recoils. Surely, if experience 
shows that a certain machine, when used to 
produce a certain effect, does not produce that 
effect once in a thousand times, but produces, 
in the vast majority of cases, an effect directly 
contrary, we cannot be wrong in saying, that it 
is not a machine of which the principal end is 
to be so used. 

If, indeed, the magistrate would content him 
self with laying his opinions and reasons before 
the people, and would leave the people, uncor- 
rupted by hope or fear, to judge for themselves, 
we should see little reason to apprehend that 
his interference in favour of error would be 
seriously prejudicial to the interests of truth 
Nor do we, as will hereafter be seen, object to 
his taking this course, when it is compatible 
with the efficient discharge of his more espe- 
cial duties. But this will not satisfy Mr. Glad- 
stone. He would have the magistrate resort 
to means which have great tendency to make 
malcontents, to make hypocrites, to make care- 
less nominal conformists, but no tendency 
whatever to produce honest and rational con- 
viction. It seems to us quite clear that an 
inquirer who has no wish, except to know the 
truth, is more likely to arrive at the truth than 
an inquirer who knows that, if he decides one 
way, he shall be rewarded, and that, if he de- 
cides the other way, he shall be punished. 
Now, Mr. Gladstone would have governments 
propagate their opinions by excluding all dis- 
senters from all civil offices. That is to say, 
he would have governments propagate their 
opinions by a process which has no reference 
whatever to the truth or falsehood of those 
opinions, by arbitrarily uniting certain worldly 
advantages with one set of doctrines, and cer- 
tain worldly inconveniences with another set 
It is of the very nature of argument to serve 
the interest of truth ; but if rewards and pu 
nishments serve the interest of truth, it is by 
mere accident. It is very much easier to find 
arguments for the Divine authority of the Gos 
pel than for the Divine authority of the Koran, 
But it is just as easy to bribe or rack a Jew 
Into Mohammedanism as into Christianity. 



386 



MACiNULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



From racks, indeed, and from all penalties 
directed against the persons, the property, and 
the liberty of heretics, the humane spirit of 
Mr. Gladstone shrinks with horror. He only 
maintains that conformity to the religion of 
the state ought to be an indispensable qualifi- 
cation for office ; and he would think it his 
duty, if he had the power, to revive the Test 
Act, to enforce it rigorously, and to extend it 
10 important classes who were formerly exempt 
from its operation. 

This is indeed a legitimate consequence of 
his principles. But why stop here 1 Why not 
roast Dissenters at slow fires ? All the general 
reasonings on which this theory rests evidently 
lead to a sanguinary persecution. If the pro- 
pagation of religious truth be a principal end 
of government, as government; if it be the 
duty of a government to employ for that end its 
constitutional power ; if the constitutional 
power of governments extends, as it most un- 
questionably does, to the making of laws for 
the burning of heretics ; if burning be, as it 
most assuredly is, in many cases, a most ef- 
fectual mode of suppressing opinions — why 
should we not burn 1 If the relation in which 
government ought to stand to the people be, as 
Mr. Gladstone tells us, a paternal relation, we 
are irresistibly led to the conclusion that per- 
secution is justifiable. For the right of propa- 
gating opinions by punishment is one which 
belongs to parents as clearly as the right to 
give instruction. A boy is compelled to attend 
family worship ; he is forbidden to read irreli- 
gious books ; if he will not learn his catechism, 
he is sent to bed without his supper; if he 
plays truant at church-time, a task is set him. 
If he should display the precocity of his talents 
by expressing impious opinions before his 
brothers and sisters, Ave should not much blame 
his father for cutting short the controversy 
with a horsewhip. All the reasons which lead 
us to think that parents are peculiarly fitted to 
conduct the education of their children, and 
that education is a principal end of the parental 
relation, lead us also to think, that parents 
ought to be allowed to use punishment, if ne- 
cessary, for the purpose of forcing children, 
who are incapable of judging for themselves, 
to receive religious instruction and to attend 
religious worship. Why, then, is this preroga- 
tive of punishment, so eminently paternal, to 
be withheld from a paternal government ? It 
seems to us, also, to be the height of absurdity 
to employ civil disabilities for the propagation 
of an opinion, and then to rhrink from employ- 
ing other punishments for the same purpose. 
For nothing can be clearer than that if you 
punish at all, you ought to punish enough. 
The pain caused by punishment is pure un- 
mixed evil, and never ought to be inflicted ex- 
cept for the sake of some good. It is mere 
foolish cruelty to provide penalties which tor- 
ment the criminal without preventing the 
crime. Now it is possible, by sanguinary per- 
secution unrelentingly inflicted, to suppress 
opinions. In thii way the Albigenses were put 
down. In this way the Lollards were put 
down. In this way the fair promise of the Re- 
formation was blighted in Italy and Spain. But 
w«* may safely defy Mr. Gladstone to point ov L 



a single instance in which the system whici 
he recommends has succeeded. 

And why should he be so tender-hearted 1 
What reason can he give for hanging a mur 
derer, and suffering a heresiarch to escap* 
without even a pecuniary mulct ? Is the here* 
siarch a less pernicious member of societ) 
than the murderer ? Is not the loss of one sou. 
a greater evil than the extinction of many 
lives ? And the number of murders committed 
by the most profligate bravo that ever let out 
his poniard to hire in Italy, or by the most sa- 
vage buccanier that ever prowled on the 
Windward Station, is small indeed, when com- 
pared with the number of souls which have 
been caught in the snares of one dexterous 
heresiarch. If, then, the heresiarch causes 
infinitely greater evils than the murderer, why 
is he not as proper an object of penal legisla- 
tion as the murderer ? We can give a reason, 
— a reason, short, simple, decisive, and con- 
sistent. We do not extenuate the evil which 
the heresiarch produces ; but we say that it is 
not evil of that sort against which it is the end 
of government to guard. But how Mr. Glad- 
stone, who considers the evil which the here- 
siarch produces as evil of the sort against 
which it is the end of government to guard, can 
escape from the obvious consequences of his 
doctrine, we do not understand. The world is 
full of parallel cases. An orange-woman stops 
up the pavement with her wheelbarrow, and a 
policeman takes her into custody. A miser 
who has amassed a million, suffers an old 
friend and benefactor to die in a workhouse, 
and cannot be questioned before any tribunal 
for his baseness and ingratitude. Is this be- 
cause legislators think the orange-woman's 
conduct worse, than the miser's? Not at all. 
It is because the stopping up of the pathway is 
one of the evils against which it is the busi- 
ness of the public authorities to protect so- 
ciety, and heartlessness is not one of those 
evils. It would be the height of folly to say, 
that the miser ought, indeed, to be punished, 
but that he ought to be punished less severely 
than the orange-woman. 

The heretical Constantius persecutes Athana- 
sius; and why not? Shall Caesar execute the 
robber who has taken one purse, and spare the 
wretch who has taught millions to rob the 
Creator of his honour, and to bestow it on the 
creature 1 The orthodox Theodosius perse- 
cutes the Arians, and with equal reason. Shall 
an insult offered to the Caesarean majesty be 
expiated by death, and shall there be no penalty 
for him who degrades to the rank of a creature 
the Almighty, the infinite Creator ? We have 
a short answer for both : " To Cassar the things 
which are Caesar's. Coesar is appointed foi 
the punishment of robbers and rebels. He is 
not appointed for the purpose of either propa 
gating or exterminating the doctrine of consub 
stantiality of the Father and the Son." "Not 
so," says Mr. Gladstone. " Coesar is bound in 
conscience to propagate whatever he thinks to 
be the truth as to this question. Constantius is 
bound to establish the Arian worship through" 
out the empire, and to displace the bravesl 
captains of his legions, and the ablest ministers 
of his Treasury, if they ho r d the Nicene faith. 



CHURCH AND STATE 



387 



Theodosius is equally bound to turn out every 
public .servant whom his Arian predecessors 
have put in. But if Constantius lays on 
Athanasius a line of a single aureus, if Theodo- 
k;us imprisons an Arian presbyter for a week, 
•his is most unjustifiable oppression." Our 
readers will be curious to know how this dis- 
tinction is made out. 

The reasons which Mr. Gladstone gives 
against persecution affecting life, limb, and 
property, may be divided into two classes; 
first, reasons which can be called reasons only 
by extreme courtesy, and which nothing but 
the most deplorable necessity would ever have 
induced a man of his abilities to use; and, se- 
condly, reasons which are really reasons, and 
which have so much force, that they not only 
completely prove his exception, but completely 
upset his general rule. His artillery on this 
occasion is composed of two sets of pieces,- — 
pieces which will not go off at all, and pieces 
which go off with a vengeance, and recoil with 
most crushing effect upon himself. 

"We, aff fallible creatures," says Mr. Glad- 
stone, " have no right, from any bare specula- 
tions of our own, to administer pains and 
penalties to our fellow-creatures, wheihcr mi 
social or religious grounds. We have the right 
to enforce the laws of the land by such pains 
and penalties, because it is expressly given by 
Him who has declared that the civil rulers are 
to bear the sword or the punishment of evil- 
doers, and for the encouragement of them that 
do well. And so, in things spiritual, had it 
pleased God to give to the Church or to the 
State this power, to be permanently exercised 
over their members, or mankind at large, we 
should have the right to use it; but it does nol 
appear to have been so received, and, conse- 
quently, it should not be exercised." 

We should be sorry to think that the security 
of our lives and property from persecution 
rested on no better ground than this. Is not a 
teacher of heresy an evildoer '! Has not heresy 
been condemned in many countries, and in our 
own among them, by the laws of the land, 
which, as Mr. Gladstone says, it is justifiable 
to enforce by penal sanctions'! If a heretic is 
not specially mentioned in the text to which 
Mr. Gladstone refers, neither is an assassin, a 
kidnapper, or a highwayman. And if the 
silence of the New Testament as to all inter- 
ference of government to stop the progress of 
heresy be a reason for not fining or imprison- 
ing heretics, it is surely just as good a reason 
for not excluding them from office. 

"God," says Mr. Gladstone, "has seen fit to 
authorize the employment of force in the one 
ease and not in the other ; for it was with re- 
gard to chastisement inflicted by the sword for 
an insult offered to himself, that the Redeemer 
declared his kingdom not to be of this world ; 

meaning, apparently in an especial manner, 
ttiat it should be otherwise than after this 
world's fashion, in respect to the sanctions by 
v/hich its laws should be maintained." 

Now here, Mr. Gladstone, quoting from me- 
mory, has fallen into an error. The very re- 
markable words which he cites do not appear 



to have had any reference to the wound inflicted 
by Peter on Malchus. They were addressed to 
Pilate, in answer to the question, " Art thou the 
King of the Jews?" We cannot help saying, 
that we are surprised that Mr. Gladstone should 
not have more accurately verified a quotation 
on which, according to him, principally de- 
pends the right of a hundred millions of his 
fellow-subjects, idolaters and Dissenters, tr 
their property, their liberty, and their lives. 

Mr. Gladstone's interpretations of Scripture 
are lamentably destitute of one recommenda- 
tion^ which he considers as of the highest va 
lue : — they are by no means in accordance 
with the general precepts or practice of th< 
Church, from the time when the Christiana 
became strong enough to persecute down to a 
very recent period. A dogma favourable to 
toleration is certainly not a dogma "quod sem- 
per, quod ubique, quod omnibus." Dossuet was 
able to say, we fear with too much truth, that 
on one point all Christians had long been 
unanimous, — the right of the civil magistrate 
to propagate truth by the sword ; that even 
heretics had been orthodox as to this right, and 
that the Anabaptists and Socinians were the 
first who called it in question. We will not 
pretend to say what is the best explanation pf 
the text under consideration ; but we are sure 
Mr. Gladstone's is the worst. According to 
him, government ought to exclude Dissenters 
from office, but not to fine them, because 
Christ's kingdom is not of this world. We do 
not see why the line may not be drawn at a 
hundred other places as well as at that which 
he has chosen. We do not see why Lord Cla- 
rendon, in recommending the act of 1C64 
against conventicles, might not have said, "It 
bath been thought by some that this <l<mis of 
men might with advantage be not only im- 
prisoned, but pilloried. But me thinks, my 
lords, we arc inhibited from the punishment 
of the pillory by that scripture, 'My kingdom 
is not of this world.' " Archbishop Laud, when 
he sate on Burton in the Star-Chamber, might 
have said, "I pronounce for the pillory; and, 
indeed, I could wish that all such wretches 
were delivered to the fire, but that our Lord 
hath said that his kingdom is not of this 
world." And Gardiner might have written to 
the Sheriff of Oxfordshire, "See that execution 
be done without fail on Master Ridley and 
Master Latimer, as you will answer the same 
to the queen's grace at your peril. But if they 
shall desire to have some gunpowder for the 
shortening of their torment, I see not but that 
you grant it, as it is written, lle%num meum non 
est de hoc mundo ; that is to say, ' My kingdom 
is not of this world.'" 

But Mr. Gladstone has other arguments 
against persecution, — arguments which are of 
so much weight, that they are decisive, not only 
against persecution, but against his whole 
theory. "The government," he says, "is in 
competent to exercise minute and constant su 
pervision over religious opinion." And hence 
he infers, that a "government exceeds its pro- 
vince when it comes to adapt a scale of punish 
ments to variations in religious opinion, ac- 
cording to their respective degrees of variation 
from the established creed. To decline afford 



tf88 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



mg countenance to sects is a single and simple 
rule. To punish their professors, according to 
their several errors, even were there no other 
objection, is one for which the state may assume 
functions wholly ecclesiastical, and for which 
it is not intrinsically fitted." 

This is, in our opinion, quite true, but how 
does it agree with Mr. Gladstone's theory] 
What ! The government incompetent to exer- 
cise even such a degree of supervision over 
religious opinion as is implied by the punish- 
ment of the most deadly heresy ! The govern- 
ment incompetent to measure even the grossest 
deviations from the standard of truth ! The 
government not intrinsically qualified to judge 
of the comparative enormity of any theological 
errors ! The government so ignorant on these 
subjects, that it is compelled to leave, not 
merely subtle heresies, — discernible only' by 
the eye of a Cyril or a Bucer, — but Socinianism, 
Deism, Mohammedanism, Idolatry, Atheism, 
unpunished ! To whom does Mr. Gladstone as- 
sign the office of selecting a religion for the 
state, from among hundreds of religions, every 
one of which lays claim to truth 1 Even to this 
same government, which he now pronounces 
to be so unfit for theological investigations, 
that it cannot venture to condemn a man for 
-worshipping a lump of stone with a score of 
heads and hands ! We do not remember ever 
to have fallen in with a more extraordinary 
instance of inconsistency. When Mr. Glad- 
stone wishes to prove that the government 
ought to establish and endow a religion, and to 
fence it with a test act, — government is to km 
in the moral world. Those who would confine 
it to secular ends take a low view of its nature. 
A religion must be attached to its agency ; and 
this religion must be that of the conscience of 
the governor, or none. It is for him to decide 
between Papists and Protestants, Jansenists 
and Molinists, Arminians and Calvinists, 
Episcopalians and Presbyterians, Sabellians 
and Tritheists, Homoosians and Homoiousians, 
Nestorians and Eutychians, Monothelites and 
Monophysites, Psedobaptists and Anabaptists. 
It is for him to rejudge the Acts of Nice and 
Rimini, of Ephesus' and Chalcedon, of Con- 
stantinople and St. JohnLateran, of Trent and 
Dort. It is for him to arbitrate betweeen the 
Greek and the Latin procession, and to deter- 
mine whether that mysterious filioque shall or 
shall not have a place in the national creed. 
When he has made up his mind, he is to tax 
the whole community, in order to pay people 
to teach his opinion, whatever it may be. He 
is to rely on his own judgment, though it may 
be opposed to that of nine-tenths of the society. 
He is to act on his own judgment at the risk 
of exciting the most formidable discontents. 
He is to inflict, perhaps on a great majority 
of the population, what, whether Mr. Gladstone 
in ay choose to call it persecution or not, will 
always be felt as persecution by those who 
suffer it. He is on account of differences, 
often too slight for vulgar comprehension, to 
deprive the state of the services of the ablest 
men. He is to deoase and enfeeble the com- 
munity which he governs, from an empire into 
a sect. In our own country, for example, mil- 
uns of Catholics, millions of Protestant Dis- 



senters, are to be excluded from all puwer atd 
honours. A great hostile fleet is on the sea • 
but Nelson is not to command in the Channe* 
if in the mystery of the Trinity he confounds 
the persons ! An invading army has landed 
in Kent ; but the Duke of Wellington is not to 
be at the head of our forces if he divides the 
substance ! And, after all this, Mr. Gladstone 
tells us that it would be wrong to imprison a 
Jew, a Mussulman, or a Budhist, for a day; 
because really a government cannot under- 
stand these matters, and ought not to meddle 
with questions which belong to the Church. 
A singular theologian, indeed, this government! 
— so learned that it is competent to exclude 
Grotius from office for being a Semi-Pelagian, 
— so unlearned that it is incompetent to fine a 
Hindoo peasant a rupee for going on a pil- 
grimage to Juggernaut ! 

" To solicit and persuade one another," says 
Mr. Gladstone, " are privileges which belong 
to us all ; and the wiser and better man is 
bound to advise the less wise and good : but 
he is not only not bound, he is not allowed, 
speaking generally, to coerce him. It is untrue, 
then, that the same considerations which bind 
a government to submit a religion to the free 
choice of the people, would therefore justify 
their enforcing its adoption." 

Granted. But it is true that all the same 
considerations which would justify a govern- 
ment in propagating a religion by means of 
civil disabilities, would justify the propagating 
of that religion by penal laws. To solicit ! I'j 
it solicitation to tell a Catholic duke, that he 
must abjure his religion or walk out of the 
House of Lords ] To persuade ! Is it per- 
suasion to tell a barrister of distinguished elo- 
quence and learning, that he shall grow old in 
his stuff gown while his pupils are seated above 
him in ermine, because he cannot digest the 
damnatory clauses of the Athanasian creed] 
Would Mr. Gladstone think, that a religious 
system which he considers as false — Socinian- 
ism, for example — was submitted to his free 
choice, if it were submitted in these terms. 
"If you obstinately adhere to the faith of the 
Nicehe fathers, you shall not be burned in 
Smithfield — you shall not be sent to Dorchester 
jail — you shall not even pay double land tax. 
But you shall be shut out from all situations 
in which you might exercise your talents with 
honour to yourself and advantage to the coun- 
try. The House of Commons, the bench of 
magistracy, are not for such as you. You shall 
see younger men, your inferiors in station and 
talents, rise to the highest dignities and attract 
the gaze of nations, while you are doomed to 
neglect and obscurity. If you have a son of 
the highest promise — a son such as other fa 
thers would contemplate with delight — the deve- 
lopement of his fine talents and of his generous 
ambition shall be a torture to you. You shall 
look on him as a being doomed to lead, as you 
have led, the abject life of a Roman, or a Nea- 
politan, in the midst of the great English people 
All those high honours, so much more precious 
than the most costly gifts of despots, with 
which a free country decorates its illustrious 
citizens, shall be to him, as they have be«n to 



CHURCH AND STATE. 



389 



you, objects, not of hope and virtuous emula- 
tion, but of hopeless, envious pining. Educate 
him, if you wish him to feel his degradation. 
Educate him, if you wish to stimulate his crav- 
ing for what he never must enjoy. Educate 
him, if you would imitate the barbarity of that 
petty Celtic tyrant who fed his prisoners on 
salted food till they called eagerly for drink, 
and then let down an empty cup into the dun- 
geon, and left them to die of thirst." Is this to so- 
licit, to persuade, to submit religion to the free 
choice of man 1 Would a fine of a thousand 
pounds — would imprisonment in Newgate for 
six months, under crrcumstances not disgrace- 
ful — give Mr. Gladstone the pain which he 
would feel, if he were to be told that he was to 
be dealt with in the way in which he would 
himself deal with more than one-half of his 
countrymen 1 

We are not at all surprised to find such in- 
consistency even in a man of Mr. Gladstone's 
talents. The truth is, that every man is, to a 
great extent, the creature of the age. It is to 
no purpose that he resists the influence which 
the vast mass, in which he is but an atom, 
must exercise on him. He may try to be a 
man of the tenth century: but he cannot. 
Whether he will or no, he must be a man of 
the nineteenth century. He shares in the mo- 
tion of the moral as well as in that of the phy- 
sical world. He can no more be as intolerant 
as he would have been in the days of the Tu- 
dors, than he can stand in the evening exactly 
where he stood in the morning. The globe 
goes round from west to east; and he must go 
round with it. When he says that he is where 
he was, he means only that he has moved at 
the same rate with all around him. When he 
.says that he has gone a good way to the west- 
ward, he means only that he has not gone to 
the eastward quite so rapidly as his neigh- 
bours. Mr. Gladstone's book is, in this re- 
spect, a very gratifying performance. It is the 
measure of what a man can do to be left be- 
hind by the world. It is the strenuous effort 
of a very vigorous mind to keep as far in the 
rear of the general progress as possible. And 
yet, with the most intense exertion, Mr. Glad- 
stone cannot help being, on some important 
points, greatly in advance of Locke himself; 
and with whatever admiration he may regard 
Laud, it is well for him, we can tell him, that 
he did not write in the days of that zealous pri- 
mate, who would certainly have refuted the 
expositions of Scripture which we have quoted 
Dy one oLthe keenest arguments that can be 
addressed to human ears. 

This is not the only instance in which Mr. 
Gladstone has shrunk in a very remarkable 
manner from the consequences of his own 
theory. If there be in the whole world a state 
to which this theory is applicable, that state is 
the British Empire in India. Even we, who 
detest paternal governments in general, shall 
admit that the duties of the governments of 
India are, to a considerable extent, paternal. 
There the superiority of the governors to the 
gcr erned in moral science is unquestionable. 
The conversion of the whole people to the 
worst form that Christianity evar wore in the 



darkest ages would be a most happj event. .. 
is not necessary that a man should ba a Chris« 
tian to wish for the propagation of Christianity 
in India. It is sufficient that he should be a 
European not much below the ordinary Eurc 
pean level of good sense and humanity. Com 
pared with the importance of the interests at 
stake, all those Scotch and Irish questions 
which occupy so large a portion of Mr. Glad« 
stone's book sink into insignificance. In no 
part of the world, since the days of Theodosius, 
has so large a heathen population been subject 
to a Christian government. In no part of the 
world is heathenism more cruel, more licen- 
tious, more fruitful of absurd rites and perni- 
cious laws. Surely, if it be the duty of 
government to use its power and its revenue 
in order to bring seven millions of Irish Ca- 
tholics over to the Protestant Church, it is a 
fortiori the duty of the government to use its 
power and its revenue in order to make se- 
venty millions of idolaters Christians. If it be 
a sin to suffer John Howard or William Penn 
to hold any office in England, because they are 
not in communion with the Established Church, 
surely it must be a crying sin indeed to admit 
to high situations men who bow down, in tem- 
ples covered with emblems of vice, to the 
hideous images of sensual or malevolent gods 

But no. Orthodoxy, it seems, is more shock- 
ed by the priests of Rome than by the priests 
of Kalee. The plain red brick building — 
Adullam's Cave, or Ebenezer Chapel — where 
uneducated men hear a half educated man talk 
of the Christian law of love, and the Christian 
hope of glory, is unworthy of the indulgence 
which is reserved for the shrine where the 
Thug suspends a portion of the spoils of mur- 
dered travellers ; and for the car which grinds 
its way through the bones of self-immolated 
pilgrims. " It would be," says Mr. Gladstone, 
"an absurd exaggeration to maintain it as the 
part of such a government as that of the Bri- 
tish in India to bring home to the door of every 
subject at once the ministrations of a new and 
totally unknown religion." The government 
ought indeed to desire to propagate Chris- 
tianity. But the extent to which they must 
do so must be " limited by the degree in which 
the people are found willing to receive it." 
He proposes no such limitation in the case of 
Ireland. He would give the Irish a Protestan 
Church whether they like it or not. " We be- 
lieve," says he, " that that which we place 
before them is, whether they know it or not, 
calculated to be beneficial to them ; and that, 
if they know it not now, they will know it 
when it is presented to them fairly. Shall we, 
then, purchase their applause at the expense 
of their substantial, nay, their spiritual in- 
terests?" 

And why does Mr. Gladstone allow to *he 
Hindoo a privilege which he denies to tne 
Irishman t Why does he reserve his greatest 
liberality for the most monstrous errors 1 Why 
does he pay most respect to the opinion of the 
least enlightened people? Why does he with 
hold the right to exercise paternal authority 
from thit one government which is fitter U> ex 
ercise paternal authority than any government 



390 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



»hat ever existed in the world 1 We will give 
Ihe reason in his own words. 

"In British India," he says, " a small num- 
ber of persons advanced to a higher grade of 
civilization, exercise the powers of govern- 
ment over an immensely greater number of 
less cultivated persons, not by coercion, but 
under free stipulation with the governed. 
Now, the rights of a government, in circum- 
stances thus peculiar, obviously depend nei- 
ther upon the unrestricted theory of paternal 
principles, nor upon any primordial or ficti- 
tious contract of indefinite powers, but upon 
an express and known treaty, matter of posi- 
tive agreement, not of natural ordinance." 

Where Mr. Gladstone has seen this treaty 
we cannot guess; for, though he calls it a 
"known treaty," we will stake our credit that 
it is quite unknown both at Calcutta and Ma- 
dras, both in Leadenhall Street and Cannon 
Row — that it is not to be found in any of the 
enormous folios of papers relating to India 
which fill the book-cases of members of Par- 
liament — that it has utterly escaped the re- 
searches of all the historians of our Eastern 
empire — that, in the long and interesting de- 
bates of 1813 on the admission of missionaries 
to India, debates of which the most valuable 
part has been excellently preserved by the 
care of the speakers, no allusion to this im- 
portant instrument is to be found. The truth 
is, that this treaty is a nonentity. It is by co- 
ercion, it is by the sword, and not by free sti- 
pulation with the governed, that England rules 
India ; nor is England bound by any contract 
whatever not to deal with Bengal as she deals 
with Ireland. She may set up a Bishop of 
Patna and a Dean of Hoogley — she may grant 
away the public revenue for the maintenance 
of prebendaries of Benares and canons of 
Moorshedabad — she may divide the country 
into parishes, and place a rector with a stipend 
in every one of them, without infringing any 
positive agreement. If there be such a treaty, 
Mr. Gladstone can have no difficulty in making 
known its date, its terms, and, above all, the 
precise extent of the territory within which we 
have sinfully bound ourselves to be guilty of 
practical atheism. The last point is of great 
importance. For as the provinces of our In- 
dian empire were accjjuired at different times, 
and in very different ways, no single treaty, 
indeed no ten treaties, will justify the system 
pursued by our government there. 

The plain state of the case is this : No man 
in his senses would dream of applying Mr. 
Gladstone's theory to India, because, if so ap- 
plied, it would inevitably destroy our empire, 
and, with our empire, the best chance of spread- 
ing Christianity among the natives. This Mr. 
Gladstone felt. In some way or other his 
theory was to be saved, and the monstrous 
consequences avoided. Of intentional misre- 
presentation we are quite sure that he is in- 
capable. But we cannot acquit him of that 
unconscious disingenuousness from which the 
most upright man, when strongly attached to 
an cpinicn, is seldom wholly free. We believe 
that he recoiled from the ruinous consequences 



which his system would produce if tried i* 
India, but that he did not like to say so lest ha 
should lay himself open to the charge of sacri 
ficing principle to expediency, a word which is 
held in the utmost abhorrence by all his school. 
Accordingly he caught at the notion of a treaty 
— a notion which must, we think, have origi- 
nated in some rhetorical expression which he 
has imperfectly understood. There is one ex- 
cellent way of avoiding the drawing of a false 
conclusion from a false major, and that is by 
having a false minor. Inaccurate history is an 
admirable corrective of unreasonable theory. 
And thus it is in the present case. A bad ge* 
neral rule is laid down and obstinately main- 
tained, wherever the consequences are not too 
monstrous for human bigotry. But when they 
become so horrible that even Christchurch 
shrinks — that even Oriel stands aghast — the 
rule is evaded by means of a fictitious con- 
tract. One imaginary obligation is set up 
against another. Mr. Gladstone first preaches 
to governments the duty of undertaking ah en- 
terprise just as rational as the Crusades — and 
then dispenses them from it on the ground of a 
treaty which is just as authentic as the dona- 
tion of Constantine to Pope Sylvester. His 
system resembles nothing so much as a forged 
bond with a forged release endorsed on the 
back of it. 

With more show of reason he rests the 
claims of the Scotch Church on a contract. 
He considers that contract, however, as most 
unjustifiable, and speaks of the setting up of 
the Kirk as a disgraceful blot on the reign of 
William the Third. Surely it would be amus- 
ing, if it were not melancholy, to see a man 
of virtue and abilities unsatisfied with the ca- 
lamities which one church, constituted on false 
principle, has brought upon the empire, and 
repining that Scotland is not in the same state 
with Ireland — that no Scottish agitator is rais- 
ing rent and putting county members in and 
out — that no Presbyterian association is divid- 
ir.g supreme power with the government — that 
no meetings of precursors and repealers are 
covering the side of the Calton Hill — that 
twenty-five thousand troops are not required 
to maintain orderon the north of theTweed — that 
the anniversary of the battle of Bothwell Bridge 
is not regularly celebrated by insult, riot, and 
murder. We could hardly find a stronger argu- 
ment against Mr. Gladstone's system than that 
which Scotland furnishes. The policy which 
has been followed in that country has been 
directly opposed to the policy which he recom- 
mends. And the consequence is that Scotland, 
having been one of the rudest, one of the poor- 
est, one of the most turbulent countries in Eu- 
rope, has become one of the most highly civil- 
i2ed, one of the most flourishing, one of the 
most tranquil. The atrocities which were of 
common occurrence while an unpopularchurch 
was dominant are unknown. In spite of a mu- 
tual aversion as bitter as ever separated one 
people from another, the two kingdoms which 
compose- our island have been indissolubly 
joined together. Of the ancient national feel- 
ing there remains just enough to be ornamental 
and useful ; just enough to inspire the poet and 



CHURCH AND STATE. 



391 



to kindle a generous and friendly emulation in 
the bosom of the soldier. But for all the ends 
of government the nations are one. And why 
are they so? The answer is simple. The na- 
tions are one for all the ends of government, 
because in their union the true ends of govern- 
ment alone were kept in sight. The nations 
are one because the churches are two. 

Such is the union of England with Scotland, a 
miionwhich resembles the union of the limbs of 
one healthful and vigorous body, all moved by 
one will, all co-operating for common ends. The 
system of Mr. Gladstone would have produced 
a union which can be compared only to that 
which is the subject of a wild Persian fable. 
King Zohak — we tell the story as Mr. Southey 
tells it to us — gave the devil leave to kiss his 
shoulders. Instantly two serpents sprang out, 
who, in the fuiy of hunger, attacked his head, 
and attempted to get at his brain. Zohak 
pulled them away, and tore them with his nails. 
But he found that they were inseparable parts 
of himself, and that what he was lacerating 
was his own flesh. Perhaps we might be able 
to find, if we looked round the world, some po- 
litical union like this — some hideous monster 
of a state, cursed with one principle of sensa- 
tion and two principles of volition — self-loath- 
ing and self-torturing — made up of parts which 
are driven by a frantic impulse to inflict mu- 
tual pain, yet are doomed to feel whatever they 
inflict — which are divided by an irreconcilable 
hatred, yet are blended in an indissoluble iden- 
tity. Mr. Gladstone, from his tender concern 
for Zohak, is unsatisfied because the devil has 
as yet kissed only one shoulder — because there 
is not a snake mangling and mangled on the 
left to keep in countenance his brother on the 
right. 

But we must proceed in our examination 
of his theory. 

Having, as he conceives, proved that it is 
the duty of every government to profess some 
religion or other, right or wrong, and to esta- 
blish that religion, he then comes to the ques- 
tion what religion a government ought to pre- 
fer, and he decides this question in favour of 
the form of Christianity established in Eng- 
land. The Church of England is, according to 
him, the pure Catholic Church of Christ, which 
possesses the apostolical succession of minis- 
ters, and within whose pale is to be found that 
unity which is essential to truth. For her de- 
cisions he claims a degree of reverence far 
beyond what she has ever, in any of her for- 
mularies, claimed for herself; far beyond what 
the moderate school of Bossuet demands for the 
Pope, and scarcely short of what the most bi- 
goted Catholic would ascribe to Pope and Ge- 
neral Council together. To separate from her 
communion is schism. To reject her tradi- 
tions of interpretations of Scripture is sinful 
presumption. 

Mr. Gladstone pronounces the right of pri- 
vate judgment, as it is generally understood 
throughout Protestant Europe, to be a mon- 
strous abuse. He declares himself favourable, 
indeed, to the exercise of private judgment 
after a fashion of his own. We have, accord- 
ing to him, aright to judge all the doctrines 



of the Church of England to be sound, but no 
to judge any of them to be unsound. He has 
no objection, he assures us, to active inquiry 
into religious questions; on the contrary, h« 
thinks it highly desirable, as long as it does 
not lead to diversity of opinion ; — which is ai 
much as if he were to recommend the use of 
fire that will not burn down houses, or of 
brandy that will not make men drunk. He 
conceives it to be perfectly possible for men 
to exercise their intellects vigorously and free- 
ly on theological subjects, and yet to come to 
exactly the same conclusions with each other 
and with the Church of England. And for this 
opinion he gives, as far as we have been able 
to discover, no reason whatever, except that 
everybody who vigorously and freely exercises 
his understanding on Euclid's Theorems as- 
sents to them. " The activity of private judg- 
ment," he truly observes, " and the unity and 
strength of conviction in mathematics vary 
directly as each other." On this unquestion- 
able fact he constructs a somewhat question- 
able argument. Everybody who freely in- 
quires agrees, he says, with Euclid. But the 
Church is as much in the right as Euclid. 
Why, then, should not every free inquirer 
agree with the Church? We could put many 
similar questions. Either the affirmative or 
the negative of the proposition that King 
Charles wrote Icon Basilike is as true as that 
two sides of a triangle are greater than the 
third side. Why, then, do Dr. Wordsworth and 
Mr. Hallam agree in thinking two sides of a 
triangle greater than the third side and yet 
differ about the genuineness of the Icon Basi- 
like? The state of the exact sciences proves, 
says Mr. Gladstone, that, as respects religion, 
"the association of these two ideas, activity 
of inquiry and variety of conclusion, is a fal- 
lacious one." We might just as well turn the 
argument the other way, and infer, from the 
variety of religious opinions, that there must 
necessarily be hostile mathematical sects, some 
affirming and some denying that the square of 
the hypothenuse is equal to the squares of the 
sides. But we do not think either the one 
analogy or the other of the smallest value. 
Our way of ascertaining the tendency of free 
inquiry is simply to open our eyes and look at 
the world in which we live, and there we see 
that free inquiry on mathematical subjects pro- 
duces unity, and that free inquiry on moral 
subjects produces discrepancy. There would 
undoubtedly be less discrepancy if inquirers 
were more diligent and candid. But discre 
pancy there will be among the most diligent 
and candid as long as the constitution of the 
human mind and the nature of moral evidence 
continue unchanged. That we have not free- 
dom and unity together is a very sad thing, 
and so it is that we have not wings. But w«? 
are just as likely to see the one defect removed 
as the other. It is not only in religion that 
discrepancy is found. It is the same with all 
matters which depend on moral evidence- 
with judicial questions, for example, and with 
political questions. All the judges may woik 
a sum in the rule of three on the same princi 
pie, and bring out the same conclusion. Bui 



392 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



it does not follow that, however honest and 
laborious they may be, they will be of one 
mind on the Douglas case. So it is vain to 
hope that there may be a free constitution 
under which every representative will be una- 
nimously elected, and every law unanimously 
passed ; and it would be ridiculous for a states- 
man to stand wondering and bemoaning him- 
self because people who agree in thinking that 
two and two make four cannot agree about the 
new poor law or the administration of Canada. 

There are two intelligible and consistent 
courses which may be followed with respect 
to the exercise of private judgment ; — that of 
the Romanist, who interdicts it because of its 
inevitable inconveniences ; and that of the 
Protestant, who permits it in spite of its inevi- 
table inconveniences. Both are more reason- 
able than Mr. Gladstone, who would have free 
private judgments without its inevitable incon- 
veniences. The Romanist produces repose by 
means of stupefaction. The Protestant en- 
courages activity, though he knows that where 
there is much activity, there will be some 
aberration. Mr. Gladstone wishes for the' 
unity of the fifteenth century with the active 
and searching spirit of the sixteenth. He 
might as well wish to be in two places at 
once. 

When Mr. Gladstone sayi that we "actually 
require discrepancy of opinion — require and 
demand error, falsehood, blindness, and plume 
ourselves on such discrepancy as attesting a 
freedom which is only valuable when used for 
unity in the truth," he expresses himself with 
more energy than precision. Nobody loves 
discrepancy for the sake of discrepancy. But 
a person who conscientiously believes that 
free inquiry is, on the whole, beneficial to 
the interests of truth, and that, from the imper- 
fection of the human faculties, wherever there 
is much free inquiry there will be some dis- 
crepancy, — may, without impropriety, consider 
such discrepancy, though in itself an evil, as 
a sign of good. That there are fifty thousand 
thieves in London is a very melancholy fact. 
But, looked at in one point of view, it is a rea- 
son for exultation. For what other city could 
maintain fifty thousand thieves 1 What must 
be the mass of wealth where the fragments 
gleaned by lawless pilfering rise to so large an 
amount T St. Kilda would not support a single 
pickpocket. The quantity of theft is, to a cer- 
tain extent, an index of the quantity of useful 
industry and judicious speculation. And just 
as we may, from the great number of rogues 
in a town, infer that much honest gain is made 
there ; so may we often, from the quantity of 
error in a community, draw a cheering infer- 
ence as to the degree in which the public mind 
\s turned to those inquiries which alone can 
lead to rational convictions of truth. 

Mr. Gladstone seems to imagine that most 
Protestants think it possible for the same doc- 
trine to be at once true and false ; or that they 
think it immaterial whether, on a religious 
question, a man comes to a true or false con- 
clusion. If there be any Protestants who hold 
notions so absurd, we abandon them to his cen- 
tre 



The Protestant doctrine touching the right 
of private judgment — that doctrine, which is 
the common foundation of the Ang. ican, the 
Lutheran, and the Calvinistic Churches' — thai 
doctrine by which every sect of Dissenters vin- 
dicates its separation — we conceive not to be 
this, tfiat opposite opinions may both be true 
ncr this, that truth and falsehood are both 
equally good ; nor yet this, that all speculativft 
error is necessarily innocent: — but this, 'J\at 
there is on the face of the earth no visible 
body to whose decrees men are bound to sub- 
mit their private judgment on points of faith. 

Is there always such a visible body 1 Was 
there such a visible body in the year 1500 7 If 
not, why are we to believe that there is such a 
body in the year 18391 If there was such a 
body in 1500, what was it 1 Was it the Church 
of Rome 1 And how can the Church of Eng- 
land be orthodox now if the Church of Rome 
was orthodox then 1 

"In England," says Mr. Gladstone, "the 
case was widely different from that of the Con- 
tinent. Her reformation did not destroy, but 
successfully maintained, the unity and succes- 
sion of the Church in her apostolical ministry. 
We have, therefore, still among us the ordain- 
ed hereditary witnesses of the truth, conveying 
it to us through an unbroken series from our 
Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles. This is 
to us the ordinary voice of authority ; of au- 
thority equally reasonable and equally true, 
whether we will hear, or whether we will for- 
bear." 

Mr. Gladstone's reasoning is not so clear as 
might be desired. We have among us, he 
says, ordained hereditary witnesses of the 
truth, and their voice is to us the voice of au- 
thority. Undoubtedly, if there are witnesses 
of the truth, their voice is the voice of autho- 
rity. But this is little more than saying that 
the truth is the truth. Nor is truth more true 
because it comes in an unbroken series from 
the apostles. The Nicene faith is not more 
true in the mouth of the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, than in that of a Moderator of the Gene- 
ral Assembly. If our respect for the authority 
of the Church is to be only consequent upon 
our conviction of the truth of her doctrines, we 
come at once to that monstrous abuse, — the 
Protestant exercise of private judgment. But 
if Mr. Gladstone means that we ought to be- 
lieve that the Church of England speaks the 
truth, because she has the apostolical succes- 
sion, we greatly doubt whether such a doctrine 
can be maintained. In the first place, what 
proof have we of the fact 1 We have, indeed, 
heard it said that Providence would certainly 
have interfered to preserve the apostolical suc- 
cession of the true Church. But this is an ar- 
gument fitted for understandings of a different 
kind from Mr. Gladstone's. He will hardly 
tell us that the Church of England is the true 
Church because she has the succession ; and 
that she has the succession because she is the 
true Church. 

What evidence, then, have we for the fact 
of the apostolical succession ] And here w« 
may easily defend the truth against Oxlord 
with the same arguments with which, in old 



CHURCH AND STATE. 



393 



times, the truth was defended by Oxford against 
Rome. In this stage of our combat with Mr. 
Gladstone, we need few weapons except those 
which we find in the well-furnished and well- 
ordered armoury of Chillingworth. 

The transmission of orders from the apos- 
tles to an English clergyman of the present 
day, must have been through a very great 
number of intermediate persons. Now it is 
probable that no clergyman in the Church of 
England can trace up his spiritual genealogy 
from bishop to bishop, even so far back as 
the time of the Reformation. There remains 
fifteen or sixteen hundred years during which 
the history of the transmission of his orders is 
buried in utter darkness. And whether he be 
ft priest by succession from the apostles, de- 
pends on the question, whether, during that 
long period, some thousands of events took 
place, any one of which may, without any gross 
improbability, be supposed not to have taken 
place. We have not a tittle of evidence to any 
one of these events. We do not even know 
the names or countries of the men to whom it 
was taken for granted that these events hap- 
pened. We do not know whether the spiritual 
ancestors of any one of our contemporaries 
were Spanish or Armenian, Arian or Ortho- 
dox. In the utter absence of all particular 
evidence, we are surely entitled to require that 
there should be very strong evidence indeed, 
that the strictest regularity was observed in 
every generation ; and that episcopal func- 
tions were exercised by none who were not 
bishops by succession from the apostles. But 
we have no such evidence. In the first place, 
we have not full and accurate information 
touching the polity of the Church during the 
century that followed the persecution of Nero. 
That, during this period, the overseers of all 
the little Christian societies scattered through 
the Roman empire held their spiritual autho- 
rity by virtue of holy orders derived from the 
apostles, cannot be proved by contemporary 
testimony, or by any testimony which can be 
regarded as decisive. The question, whether 
the primitive ecclesiastical constitution bore a 
greater resemblance to the Anglican or to the 
Calvinistic model has been fiercely disputed. 
It is a question on which men of eminent 
parts, learning, and piety have differed, and do 
to this day differ very widely. It is a question 
on which at least a full half of the ability and 
erudition of Protestant Europe has, ever since 
the Reformation, been opposed to the Anglican 
pretensions. Mr. Gladstone himself, we are 
persuaded, would have the candour to allow 
that, if no evidence were admitted but that 
which is furnished by the genuine Christian 
literature of the first two centuries, judgment 
would not go in favour of prelacy. And if he 
looked at the subject as calmly as he would 
look a: a controversy respecting the Roman 
Comitia or the Anglo-Saxon Witenagemote, he 
would probably think that the absence of con- 
temporary evidence during so long a period 
was a defect which later attestations, however 
numerous, could but very imperfectly supply. 

It is surely impolitic to rest the doctrines of 
the English Church on an historical theory, 



which, to ninety-nine Protestants out of a hun 
dred, would seem much more questionabk 
than any of those doctrines. Nor is this a.L 
Extreme obscurity overhangs the history of 
the middle ages ; and the facts which are dis« 
cernible through that obscuri'v prove that the 
Church was exceedingly ill regulated. We 
read of sees of the highest dignity openly 
sold — transferred backwards and forwards by 
popular tumult — bestowed sometimes by a pro- 
fligate woman on her paramour — sometimes 
by a warlike baron on a kinsman, still a strip- 
ling. We read of bishops of ten years old — of 
bishops of five years old — of many popes who 
were mere boys, and who rivalled the frantic 
dissoluteness of Caligula — nay, of a female 
pope. And though this last story, once be- 
lieved throughout all Europe, has been dis- 
proved by the ctrict researches of modern 
criticism, the most discerning of those who 
reject it have admitted that it is not intrinsi- 
cally improbable. In our own island, it was 
the complaint of Alfred that not a single priest, 
south of the Thames, and very few on the 
north, could read either Latin or English. And 
this illiterate clergy exercised their ministry 
amidst a rude and half heathen population, in 
which Danish pirates, unchristened, or chris- 
tened by the hundred on a field of battle, were 
mingled with a Saxon peasantry scarcely bet- 
ter instructed in religion. The state of Ireland 
was still worse. "Tota ilia per universam 
Hiberniam dissolutio ecclesiastics disciplinse, 
— ilia ubique pro consuetudine Christiana 
soeva subintroducta barbaries" — are the ex- 
pressions of St. Bernard. We are, therefore, 
at a loss to conceive how any clergyman can 
feel confident that his orders have come down 
correctly. Whether he be really a successor 
of the apostles depends on an immense num- 
ber of such contingencies as these, — whether 
under King Ethelwolf, a stupid priest might 
not, while baptizing several scores of Danish 
prisoners who had just made their option be- 
tween the font and the gallows, inadvertently 
omit to perform the rite on one of these grace- 
less proselytes 1 — whether, in the seventh cen- 
tury, an impostor, who had never received 
consecration, might not have passed himself 
off as a bishop on a rude tribe of Scots? — 
whether a lad of twelve did really, by a cere- 
mony huddled over when he was too drunk to 
know what he was about, convey the episcopa. 
character to a lad of ten 7 

Since the first century, not less, in all proba- 
bility, than a hundred thousand persons have 
exercised the functions of bishops. That many 
of these have not been bishops by apostolical 
succession is quite certain. Hooker admits 
that deviations from the general rule have 
been frequent, and with a boldness worthy 
of his high and statesmanlike intellect, pro- 
nounces them to have been often justifiable. 
"There may be," says he, "sometimes very 
just and sufficient reason to allow ordination 
made without a bishop. Where the Church 
must needs have some ordained, and neither 
hath nor can have possibly a bishop to ordain, 
in case of such necessity the ordinary institu- 
tion of God hath given oftentimes, and may jive 



394 



MACAULAVS MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



place. And therefore we are not simply with- 
out exception to urge a lineal descent of power 
from the apostles by continued succession of 
bishops in every effectual ordination." There 
can be little doubt, we think, that the succes- 
sion, if it ever existed, has often been inter- 
rupted in ways much less respectable. For 
example, let us suppose — and we are sure that 
no person will think the supposition by any 
means improvable — that, in the third century, 
a man of no principle and some parts, who 
has, in the course of a roving and discredita- 
ble life, been a catechumen at Antioch, and 
has there become familiar with Christian 
usages and doctrines, afterwards rambles to 
Marseilles, where he finds a Christian society, 
rich, liberal, and simple-hearted. He pretends 
to be a Christian, attracts notice by his abilities 
and affected zeal, and is raised to the episcopal 
dignity without having ever been baptized. 
That such an event might happen, nay, was 
very likely to happen, cannot well be disputed 
by any one who has read the life of Peregrinus. 
The very virtues, indeed, which distinguished 
the early Christians, seem to have laid them 
open to those arts which deceived 

"Uriel, though Regent of the Sun, and held 
The sharpest-sighted spirit of all in Heaven." 

Now, this unbaptized impostor is evidently 
ao successor of the apostles. He is not even 
a, Christian; and all orders derived through 
inch a pretended bishop are altogether invalid. 
Do we know enough of the state of the world 
and of the Church in the third century, to be 
able to say with confidence that there were not 
at that time twenty such pretended bishops 1 
Every such case makes a break in the apos- 
tolic succession. 

Now, suppose that a break, such as Hooker 
admits to have been both common and justifi- 
able, or such as we have supposed to be pro- 
duced by hypocrisy and cupidity, were found 
in the chain which connected the apostles 
with any of the missionaries who first spread 
Christianity in the wilder parts of Europe— 
who can say how extensive the effect of this 
single break may be] Suppose that St. Pa- 
trick, for example, if ever there was such a 
man, or Theodore of Tarsus, who is said to 
have consecrated in the seventh century the 
first bishops of many English sees, had not the 
true apostolical orders, is it not conceivable 
that such a circumstance may affect the orders 
of many clergymen now living] Even if it 
were possible, which it assuredly is not, to 
prove that the Church had the apostolical or- 
ders in the third century, it would be impossi- 
ble to prove that those orders were not in the 
twelfth century so far lost that no ecclesiastic 
could be certain of the legitimate descent of 
his own spiritual character. And if this were 
so, no subsequent precautions could repair the 
evil. 

Chillingworth states the conclusion at which 
he had arrived on this subject in these very 
remarkable word;, — "That of ten thousand pro- 
bables no one should be false ; that of ten thou- 
sand requisites, whereof any cine may fail, not 
one should be wanting, this to me is extremely 



improbable, and even cousin-german to hnpo» 
sibxe. So that the assurance hereof is like a 
machine composed of an innumerable multi« 
tude of pieces, of which it is strangely unlikely 
but some will be out of order ; and yet, if any 
piece be so, the whole fabric falls of necessity 
to the ground: and he that shall put them to- 
gether, and maturely consider all the possible 
ways of lapsing and nullifying a priesthood in 
the Church of Rome, will be very inclinable to . 
think that it is a hundred to one, that among a 
hundred seeming priests, there is not one true 
one ; nay, that it is not a thing very improba- 
ble that, amongst those many millions which 
make up the Romish hierarchy, there are not 
twenty true." We do not pretend to know to 
what precise extent the canonists of Oxford 
agree with those of Rome as to the circum- 
stances which nullify orders. We will not, 
therefore, go so far as Chillingworth. We 
only say that we see no satisfactory proof of 
the fact, that the Church of England possesses 
the apostolical succession. And, after all, if 
Mr. Gladstone could prove "the apostolical suc- 
cession, what would the apostolical succession 
prove ] He says that " we have among us the 
ordained hereditary witnesses of the truth, con- 
veying it to us through an unbroken series from 
our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles." Is 
this the fact] Is there any doubt that the or- 
ders of the Church of England are generally 
derived from the Church of Rome ] Does not 
the Church of England declare, does not Mr. 
Gladstone himself admit, that the Church of 
Rome teaches much error and condemns much 
truth ] And is it not quite clear, that as far as 
the doctrines of the Church of England differ 
from those of the Church of Rome, so far the 
Church of England conveys the truth through 
a broken series ] 

That the Reformers, lay and clerical, of the 
Church of England, corrected all that required 
correction in the doctrines of the Church of 
Rome, and nothing more, may be quite true. 
But we never can admit the circumstance, that 
the Church of England possesses the apostoli- 
cal succession as a proof that she is thus per- 
fect. No stream can rise higher than its foun- 
tain. • The succession of ministers in the 
Church of England, derived as it is through 
the Church of Rome, can never prove more 
for the Church of England than it proves for 
the Church of Rome. But this is not all. The 
Arian Churches which once predominated in 
the kingdoms of the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths, 
the Burgundians, the Vandals, and the Lom- 
bards, were all Episcopal Churches, and all 
had a fairer claim than that of England to the 
apostolical succession, as being much nearer 
to the apostolical times. In the East, the 
Greek Church, which is at variance on pointa 
of faith with all the Western Churches, has 
an equal claim to this succession. The Nes- 
torian, the Eutychian, the Jacobite Churches- 
all heretical, all condemned by Councils of 
which even Protestant divines have generally 
spoken with respect — had an equal cJaim to the 
apostolical succession. Now if, of teachers 
having apostolical orders, a vast majority have 
taught much error, — if a large pre portion hare 



CHURCH AND STATE. 



395 



taught deadly heresy— If, on the other hand, as 
Mr. Gladstone himself admits, churches not 
having apostolical orders — that of Scotland, 
for example- -have been nearer to the standard 
of orthodoxy than the majority of teachers who 
have had apostolical orders — how can he pos- 
sibly call upon us to submit our private judg- 
ment to the authority of a Church, on the 
ground that she has these orders 1 

Mr. Gladstone dwells much on the import- 
ance of unity in doctrine. Unity, he tells us, 
is essential to truth. And this is most unques- 
tionable. But when he goes on to tell us that 
this unity is the characteristic of the Church 
of England, that she is one in body and in 
spirit, we are compelled to differ from him 
widely. The apostolical succession she may 
or may not have. But unity she most certainly 
has not, and never has had. It is a matter of 
perfect notoriety, that her formularies are 
framed in such a manner as to admit to her 
highest offices men who differ from each other 
more widely than a very high Churchman dif- 
fers from a Catholic, or a very low Church- 
man from a Presbyterian ; and that the general 
leaning of the Church, with respect to some 
important questions, has been sometimes one 
way and sometimes another. Take, for ex- 
ample, the questions agitated between the Cal- 
vinists and the Arminians. Do we find in the 
Church of England, with respect to those ques- 
tions, that unity which is essential to truth 1 
Was it ever found in the Church 1 Is it not 
certain that, at the end of the sixteenth century, 
the rulers of the Church held doctrines as Cal- 
vinistic as ever were held by any Cameronian, 
and not only held them, but persecuted every- 
body who did not hold them 1 And is it not 
equally certain, that the rulers of the Church 
have, in very recent times, considered Calvin- 
ism as a disqualification for high preferment, 
if not for holy orders 1 Look at Archbishop 
Whitgift's Lambeth Articles — Articles in which 
the doctrine of reprobation is affirmed in terms 
strong enough for William Huntington, S. S. 
And then look at the eighty-seven questions 
which Bishop Marsh, within our own memory, 
propounded to candidates for ordination. We 
should be loath to say that either of these cele- 
brated prelates had intruded into a Church 
whose doctrines he abhorred, and deserved to 
be stripped of his gown. Yet it is quite cer- 
tain, that one or the other of them must have 
been very greatly in error. John Wesley 
£.gain, and Cowper's friend, John Newton, 
were both presbyters of this Church. Both 
were men of talents. Both we believe to have 
been men of rigid integrity — men who would 
not have subscribed a Confession of Faith 
which they disbelieved for the richest bishop- 
ric in the empire. Yet, on the subject of pre- 
destination, Newton was strongly attached to 
doctrines which Wesley designated as " blas- 
phemy, which might make the ears of a Chris- 
tian to tingle." Indeed, it will not be disputed 
that the clergy of the Established Church are 
divided as to these questions, and that her for- 
mularies are not found practically to exclude 
-ven scrupulously honest men of both sides 
from her altars. It is notorious that some of i 



her most distinguished rulers think this lati 
tude a good thing, and would be sorry to r,e« 
it restricted in favour of either opinion. And 
herein we most cordially agree with them. 
But what becomes of the unity of the Church, 
and of that truth to which unity is essential^ 
Mr. Gladstone tells us that the Regium Donvm 
was given originally to orthodox Presbyterian 
ministers, but that part of it is now received 
by their heterodox successors. " This," he 
says, " serves to illustrate the difficulties in 
which governments entangle themselves, when 
they covenant with arbitrary systems of opi- 
nion, and not with the Church alone. The 
opinion passes away, but the gift remains." 
But is it not clear, that if a strong Supralapsan 
had, under Whitgift's primacy, left a large 
estate at the disposal of the bishops for eccle- 
siastical purposes, in the hope that the rulers 
of the Church would abide by the Lambeth 
Articles, he would really have been giving his 
substance for the support of doctrines which 
he detested 1 The opinion would have passed 
away, and the gift would have remained. 

This is only a single instance. What wide 
differences of opinion respecting the operation 
of the sacraments are held by bishops and 
presbyters of the Church of England — all men 
who have conscientiously declared their assent 
to her articles — all men who are, according to 
Mr. Gladstone, ordained hereditary witnesses 
of the truth — all men whose voices make up 
what he tells us is the voice of true and rea- 
sonable authority ! Here, again, the Church 
has not unity; and as unity is the essential 
condition of truth, the Church has not the 
truth. 

Nay, take the very question which we are 
discussing with Mr. Gladstone. To what ex- 
tent does the Church of England allow of the 
right of private judgment 1 What degree of 
authority does she claim for herself in virtue 
of the apostolical succession of her ministers'} 
Mr. Gladstone, a very able and a very honest 
man, takes a view of this matter widely dif- 
fering from the view taken by others whom he 
will admit to be as able and honest as himself. 
People who altogether dissent from him on this 
subject eat the bread of the Church, preach in 
her pulpits, dispense her sacraments, confer 
her orders, and carry on that apostolic suc- 
cession, the nature and importance of which, 
according to him, they do not comprehend. 
Is this unity 1 Is this truth 1 

It will be observed that we are not putting 
cases of dishonest men, who, for the sake of 
lucre, falsely pretend to believe in the doc- 
trines of an establishment. We are putting 
cases of men as upright as ever lived, who, 
differing on theological questions of the highest 
importance, and avowing that difference, are 
yet priests and prelates of the same Church 
We therefore say, that, on some points which 
Mr. Gladstone himself thinks of vital import- 
ance, the Church has either not spoken at all, 
or, what is for all practical purposes the same 
thing, has not spoken in language to be under 
stood even by honest and sagacious divines. 
The religion of the Church of England is so 
far from exhibiting that unitv of doctriD* 



396 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



which Mr. Gladstone represents as her dis- 
tinguishing glory, that it is, in fact, a bundle 
of religious systems without number. It com- 
prises the religious system of Bishop Tomline 
and the religious system of John Newton, and 
all the religious systems which lie between 
them. It comprises the religious system of 
Mr. Newman and the religious system of the 
Archbishop of Dublin, and all the religious 
systems which lie between them. All these 
different opinions are held, avowed, preached, 
printed, within the pale of the Church, by men 
of unquestioned integrity and understanding. 

Do we make this diversity a topic of re- 
proach to the Church of England? Far from 
it. We would oppose with all our power every 
attempt to narrow her basis. Would to God 
that a hundred and fifty years ago, a good king 
and a good primate had possessed the power 
as well as the will to widen it. It was a noble 
enterprise, worthy of William and of Tillotson. 
But what becomes of all Mr. Gladstone's elo- 
quent exhortations to unity ? Is it not mere 
mockery to attach so much importance to unity 
in form and name, where there is so little in 
substance — to shudder at the thought of two 
churches in alliance with one state, and to en- 
dure with patience the spectacle of a hundred 
sects battling within one church ? And is it 
not clear that Mr. Gladstone is bound, on all 
his own principles, to abandon the defence of 
a church in which unity is not found ? Is it 
not clear that he is bound to divide the House 
of Commons against every grant of money 
which may be proposed for the clergy of the 
Established Church in the colonies ? He ob- 
jects to the vote for Maynooth, because it is 
monstrous to pay one man to teach truth, and 
another to denounce that truth as falsehood. 
But it is a mere chance whether any sum 
which he votes for the English Church in any 
dependency will go to the maintenance of an 
Arminian or a Calvinist, of a man like Mr. 
Froude or of a man like Dr. Arnold. It is a 
mere chance, therefore, whether it will go to 
support a teacher of truth, or one whc will de- 
nounce that truth as falsehood. 

This argument seems to us at once to dispose 
of all that part of Mr. Gladstone's book which 
respects grants of public money to dissenting 
bodies. All such grants he condemns. But 
surely if it be wrong to give the money of 
the public for the support of those who teach 
any false doctrine, it is wrong to give that 
money for the support of the ministers of the 
Established Church. For it is quite certain 
that, whether Calvin or Arminius be in the 
right, whether Laud or Burnet be in the right, 
a great deal of false doctrine is taught by the 
ministers of the Established Church. If it.be 
said that the points on which the clergy of the 
Church differ ought to be passed over, for the 
sake of the many important points on which 
they agree, why may not the same argument 
be maintained with respect to other sects which 
hold in common with the Church of England 
the fundamental doctrines of Christianity'! 
The principle, that a ruler is bound in con- 
science to propagate religious truth, and to 
propagate no religious doctrine which is un- 
trur., is abandoned as soon as it is admitted 



that a gentlemen of Mr. Gladstone's opinion* 
may lawfully vote the public money to a chap« 
lain whose opinions are those of Paley or of 
Simeon. The question then becomes cue of 
degree. Of course, no individual and no go- 
vernment can justifiably propagate error for 
the sake of propagating error. But both indi-' 
viduals and governments must work with such 
machinery as they have ; and no human ma- 
chinery is to be found which will impart truth 
without some alloy of error. We have shown 
irrefragably, as we think, that the Church of 
England does not afford such a machinery. 
The question then is, with what degree of im- 
perfection in our machinery must we put up 1 
And to this question we do not see how any 
general answer can be given. We must be 
guided by circumstances. It would, for exam- 
ple, be very criminal in a Protestant to con- 
tribute to the sending of Jesuit missionaries 
among a Protestant population. But we do 
not conceive that a Protestant would be to 
blame for giving assistance to Jesuit mission- 
aries who might be engaged in converting the 
Siamese to Christianity. That tares are mixed 
with the wheat is matter of regret; but it is 
better that wheat and tares should grow toge- 
ther than that the promise of the year should 
be blighted. 

Mr. Gladstone, we see with deep regret, cen- 
sures the British government in India for dis- 
tributing a small sum among the Catholic 
priests who minister to the spiritual wants of 
our Irish soldiers. Now, let us put a case to 
him. A Protestant gentleman is attended by 
a Catholic servant, in a part of the country 
where there is no Catholic congregation within 
many miles. The servant is taken ill, and is 
given over. He desires, in great trouble of 
mind, to receive the last sacraments of his 
Church. His master sends off a messenger in 
a chaise-and-four, with orders to bring a con- 
fessor from a town at a considerable distance. 
Here a Protestant lays out money for the pur- 
pose of causing religious instruction and con- 
solation to be given by a Catholic priest. 

Has he committed a sin ? Has he not acted 
like a good master and a good Christian ? 
Would Mr. Gladstone accuse him of "laxity of 
religious principle," of "confounding truth 
with falsehood," of " considering the support 
of religion as a boon to an individual, not as a 
homage to truth?" But how if this servant 
had, for the sake of his master, undertaken a 
jonrney which removed him from the place 
where he might easily have obtained a reli- 
gious attendance? How if his death were oc- 
casioned by a wound received in defending 
his master? Should we not then say that 
the master had only fulfilled a sacred obliga- 
tion of duty. Now, Mr. Gladstone himself 
owns that " nobody can think that the person- 
ality of the state is more stringent, or entails 
stronger obligations, than that of the individu- 
al." How then stands the case of the Indian 
government ? Here is a poor fellow, enlisted 
in Clare or Kerry, sent over fifteen thousand 
miles of sea, quartered in a depressing and 
pestilential climate. He fights for the govern 
ment; he conquers for it; he is wounded; he 
is laid on his pallet, withering away with fever 



CHURCH AJND STATE. 



397 



under that terrible sun, without a friend near 
him. He pines for the consolations of that re- 
.igion which, neglected perhaps in the season 
of health and vigour, now comes back to his 
mind, associated with all the overpowering 
recollections of his earlier days, and of the 
home which he is never to see again. And 
because the state for which he dies sends a 
priest of his own faith to stand at his bedside, 
and to tell him, in language which at once com- 
mands his love and confidence, of the common 
Father, of the common Redeemer, of the com- 
mon hope of immortality, — because the state 
for which he dies does not abandon him in his 
last moments to the care of heathen attendants, 
or employ a chaplain of a different creed to 
vex his departing spirit with a controversy 
about the Council of Trent, — Mr. Gladstone 
finds that India presents a "melancholy pic- 
ture," and that there is " a large allowance of 
false principle" in the system pursued there. 
Most earnestly do we hope that our remarks 
may induce Mr. Gladstone to reconsider this 
part of his work, and may prevent him from 
expressing in that high assembly in which he 
must always be heard with attention, opinions 
so unworthy of his character. 

We have now said almost all that we think 
it necessary to say respecting Mr. Gladstone's 
theory. And perhaps it would be safest for us 
to stop here. It is much easier to pull down 
than to build up. Yet, that we may give Mr. 
Gladstone his revenge, we will state concisely 
our own views respecting the alliance of 
Church and State. 

We set out in company with Warburton, 
and remain with him pretty sociably till we 
come to his contract, a contract which Mr. 
Gladstone very properly designates as a fic- 
tion. We consider the primary end of govern- 
ment as a purely temporal end — the protection 
of the persons and property of men. 

We think that government, like every other 
contrivance of human wisdom, from the high- 
est to the lowest, is likely to answer its main 
end best when it is constructed with a single 
view to that end. Mr. Gladstone, who loves 
Plato, will not quarrel with us for illustrating 
our proposition, after Plato's fashion, from the 
most familiar objects. Take cutlery, for ex- 
ample. A blade which is designed both to 
shave and to carve will certainly not shave so 
well as a razor or carve so well as a carving- 
knife. An academy of painting, which should 
also be a bank, would, in all probability, ex- 
hibit very bad pictures and discount very bad 
bills. A gas company, which should also be 
an infant school society, would, we apprehend, 
light the streets ill, and teach the children ill. 
On this principle, we think that government 
should be organized solely with a view to its 
main end ; and that no part of its efficiency for 
that end should be sacrificed in order to pro- 
mote any other end however excellent. 

But does it follow from hence that govern- 
ments ought never to promote any other end 
than their main end] In no wise. Though 
it is desirable that every institution should 
have a main end, and should be so formed as 
to be in the highest degree efficient for that 
26 



main end ; yet if, without any sacrifice of its 
efficiency for that end, it can promote any 
other good end, it ought to do so. Thus, the 
end for which an hospital is built is the relief 
of the sick, not the beautifying of the street. 
To sacrifice the health of the sick to splen 
dour of architectural effect — to place the build- 
ing in a bad air only that it may present a more 
commanding front to a great public place — to 
make the wards hotter or cooler than they 
ought to be, in order that the columns and 
windows of the exterior may please the pass- 
ers-by, would be monstrous. But if, without 
any sacrifice of the chief object, the hospital 
can be made an ornament to the metropolis, it 
would be absurd not to make it so. 

In the same manner, if a government can, 
without any sacrifice of its main end, promote 
any other good end, it ought to do so. The en- 
couragement of the fine arts, for example, is by 
no means the main end of government ; and it 
would be absurd, in constituting a government, 
to bestow a thought on the question, whether it 
would be a government likely to train Ra- 
phaels and Domenichinos. But it by no means 
follows that it is improper for a government 
to form a national gallery of pictures. The 
same may be said of patronage bestowed on 
learned men — of the publication of archives 
of the collecting of libraries, menageries, plants, 
fossils, antiques — of journeys and voyages foi 
purposes of geographical discovery or astro- 
nomical observation. It is not for these end? 
that government is constituted. But it maj 
well happen that a government may have at 
its command resources which will enable it, 
without any injury to its main end, to serve 
these collateral ends far more effectually than 
any individual or any voluntary association 
could do. If so, government ought to serve 
these collateral ends. 

It is still more evidently the duty of govern- 
ment to promote — always in subordination to 
its main end — every thing which is useful as a 
means for the attaining of that main end. The 
improvement of steam navigation, for example, 
is by no means a primary object of govern- 
ment. But as steam-vessels are useful for the 
purpose of national defence, and for the pur- 
pose of facilitating intercourse between distant 
provinces, and thereby consolidating the force 
of the empire, it may be the bounden duty of 
government to encourage ingenious men to 
perfect an invention which so directly tends to 
make the state more efficient for its great pri- 
mary end. 

Now, on both these grounds, the instruction 
of the people may with propriety engage the 
care of the government. That the people 
should be well educated is in itself a good 
thing; and the state ought therefore to promote 
this object, if it can do so without any sacrifice 
of its primary object. The education of the 
people, conducted on those principles of mo 
rality which are common to all the forms of 
Christianity, is highly valuable as a means of 
promoting the main end for which government 
exists ; and is on this ground an object well 
deserving the attention of rulers. We will noi 
at present go into the general question cf edit* 



398 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



cation, but will confine our remarks to the 
subject which is more immediately before us, 
namely, the religious instruction of the people. 

We may illustrate our view of the policy 
which governments ought to pursue with re- 
flect to religious instruction, by recurring to 
the analogy of an hospital. Religious instruc- 
tion is not the main end for which an hospital 
is built; and to introduce into an hospital any 
regulations prejudicial to the health of the pa- 
tients, on the plea of promoting their spiritual 
improvement — to send a ranting preacher to a 
man who has just been ordered by the physi- 
cian to lie quiet and try to get a little sleep — to 
impose a strict observance of Lent on a con- 
valescent who has been advised to eat heartily 
of nourishing food — to direct, as the bigoted 
Pius the Fifth actually did, that no medical as- 
sistance should be given to any person who de- 
clined spiritual attendance — would be the most 
extravagant folly. Yet it by no means follows 
that it would not be right to have a chaplain to 
attend the sick, and to pay such a chaplain out 
of the hospital funds. Whether it will be pro- 
per to have such a chaplain at all, and of what 
religious persuasion such a chaplain ought to 
be, must depend ,on circumstances. There 
may be a town in which it would be impossible 
to set up a good hospital without the help of 
people of different opinions. And religious 
parties may run so high that, though people of 
different opinions are willing to contribute for 
the relief of the sick, they will not concur in 
the choice of any one chaplain. The High 
Churchmen insist that, if there is a paid chap- 
lain, he shall be a High Churchman. The 
Evangelicals stickle for an Evangelical. Here 
it would evidently be absurd and cruel to let a 
useful and humane design, about which all are 
agreed, fall to the ground, because all cannot 
agree about something else. The governors 
must either appoint two chaplains, and pay 
them both, or they must appoint none; and 
every one of them must, in his individual ca- 
pacity, do what he can for the purpose of pro- 
viding the sick with such religious instruction 
and consolation as will, in his opinion, be most 
useful to them. 

We should say the same of government. 
Government is not an institution for the pro- 
pagation of religion, any more than St. George's 
Hospital is an institution for the propagation 
of religion. And the most absurd and perni- 
cious consequences would follow, if govern- 
ment should pursue, as its primary end, that 
which can never be more than its secondary 
end ; though intrinsically more important than 
its primary end. But a government which con- 
siders the religious instruction of the people 
as a secondary end, and follows out that prin- 
ciple faithfully, will, we think, be likely to do 
much good, and little harm. 

We will rapidly run over some of the conse- 
quences to which this principle leads, and 
point out how it solves some problems which, 
on Mr. Gladstone's hypothesis, admit of no sa- 
tisfactory solution. 

All persecution directed against the persons 
or property of me i is, on our principle, obvi- 
*ms]y indefensible. For the protection of the 



persons and property of men being the primarj 
end of government, and religious instruction 
only a secondary end, to secure the people 
from heresy by making their lives, their limbs, 
or their estates insecure, would be to sacrifice 
the primary end to the secondary end. It would 
be as absurd as it would be in the governors 
of an hospital to direct that the wounds of all 
Arian and Socinian patients should be dressed 
in such a way as to make them fester. 

Again, on our principles, all civil disabilities 
on account of religious opinions are indefensi- 
ble. For all such disabilities make govern- 
ment less efficient for its main end: they limit 
its choice of able men for the administration 
and defence of the state : they alienate from it 
the hearts of the sufferers ; they deprive it of a 
part of its effective strength in all contests with 
foreign nations. Such a course is as absurd 
as it would be in the governors of an hospital to 
reject an able surgeon because he is a Univer- 
sal Restitutionist, and to send a bungler tc 
operate because he is perfectly orthodox. 

Again, on our principles, no government 
ought to press on the people religious instruc- 
tion, however sound, in such a manner as to 
excite among them discontents dangerous to 
public order. For here again government 
would sacrifice its primary end, to an end in- 
trinsically indeed of" the highest importance, 
but still only a secondary end of government, 
as government. This rule at once disposes of 
the difficulty about India — a difficulty of which 
Mr. Gladstone can get rid only by putting in an 
imaginary discharge in order to set aside an 
imaginary obligation. There is assuredly no 
country where it is more desirable that Chris- 
tianity should be propagated. But there is no 
country in which the government is so com- 
pletely disqualified for the task. By using 
our power in order to make proselytes, we 
should produce the dissolution of society, and 
bring utter ruin on all those interests for the 
protection of which government exists. Here 
the secondary end is, at present, inconsistent 
with the primary end, and must therefore be 
abandoned. Christian instruction given by 
individuals and voluntary societies may do 
much good. Given by the government, it 
would do unmixed harm. At the same time, 
we quite agree with Mr. Gladstone in thinking 
that the English authorities in India ought not 
to participate in any idolatrous rite ; and in- 
deed we are fully satisfied, that all such parti- 
cipation is not only unchristian, but also unwise 
and most undignified. 

Supposing the circumstances of a country to 
be such, that the government may with pro- 
priety, on our principles, give religious instruc- 
tion to a people: the next question is, what 
religion shall be taught 1 Bishop Warburton 
answers, the religion of the majority. And we 
so far agree with him, that we can scarcely 
conceive any circumstances in which it would 
be proper to establish, as the one exclusive 
religion of the state, the religion of the mino> 
rity. Such a preference could hardly be given 
without exciting most serious discontent, and 
endangering those interests the protection of 
which is the first object of government. Bu' 



CHURCH AND STATE. 



399 



we never can admit that a ruler can be justi- 
fied in assisting to spread a system of opinions 
solely because that system is pleasing to the 
majority. On the other hand, we cannot agree 
with Mr. Gladstone, who would of course 
answer that the only religion which a ruler 
ought to propagate, is the religion of his own 
conscience. In truth, this is an impossibility. 
And, as we have shown, Mr- Gladstone himself, 
whenever he supports a grant of money to the 
Church of England, is really assisting to pro- 
pagate, not the precise religion of his own 
conscience, but some one or more, he knows 
not how many or which, of the innumerable 
religions which lie between the confines of 
Pelagianism and those of Antinomianism, and 
between the confines of Popery and those of 
Presbyterianism. In our opinion, that reli- 
gious instruction which the ruler ought, in his 
public capacity, to patronise, is the instruction 
from which he, in his conscience, believes that 
the people will learn most good with the small- 
est mixture of evil. And thus it is not neces- 
sarily his own religion that he will select. He 
will, of course, believe that his own religion is 
unmixedly good. But the question which he 
has to consider is, not how much good his reli- 
gion contains, but how much good the people 
v/ill learn, if instruction is given them in that 
Teligion. He may prefer the doctrines and 
government of the Church of England to those 
of the Church of Scotland. But if he knows 
that a Scotch congregation will listen with deep 
attention and respect while an Erskine or a 
Chalmers set before them the fundamental doc- 
trines of Christianity, and that the glimpse of a 
cassock or a single line of a liturgy would be 
the signal for hooting and riot, and would pro- 
bably bring stools and brick-bats about the ears 
of the minister; he acts wisely if he conveys 
religious knowledge to the Scotch rather by 
means of that imperfect Church, as he may 
think it, from which they will learn much, than 
by means of that perfect Church, from which 
they will learn nothing. The only end of 
teaching is, that men may learn ; and it is idle 
to talk of the duty of teaching truth in ways 
which only cause men to cling more firmly to 
falsehood. 

On these principles we conceive that a 
statesman, who might be far, indeed, from re- 
garding the Church of England with the reve- 
rence which Mr. Gladstone feels for her, might 
yet firmly oppose all attempts to destroy her. 
Such a statesman may be far too well acquaint- 
ed with her origin to look upon her with 
superstitious awe. He may know that she 
sprang from a compromise huddled up between 
the eager zeal of reformers and the selfishness 
ef greedy, ambitious, and time-serving politi- 
cians. He may find in every page of her annals 
ample cause for censure. He may feel that he 
could not, with ease to his conscience, sub- 
scribe to all her articles. He may regret that 
all the attempts which have been made to open 
her gates to large classes of nonconformists 
should have failed. Her episcopal polity he 
may consider as of purely human institution. 
He cannot defend her on the ground that she 
possesses the apostolical succession; for he 



does not know whether that succession maj 
not be altogether a fable. He cannot defen 
her on the ground of her unity ; for he knowa 
that her frontier sects are much more remote 
from each other, than one frontier ip from thf 
Church of Rome, or the other from the Church 
of Geneva. But he may think that she teaches 
more truth with less alloy of error than would 
be taught by those who, if she were swept 
away, would occupy the vacant space. He 
may think that the effect produced by her 
beautiful services and by her pulpits on the 
national mind, is, on the whole, highly benefi- 
cial. He may think that her civilizing in- 
fluence is usefully felt in remote districts. He 
may think that, if she were destroyed, a large 
portion of those who now compose her con- 
gregations would neglect all religious duties ; 
and that a still larger part would fall under the 
influence of spiritual mountebanks, hungry for 
gain, or drunk with fanaticism. While he 
would with pleasure admit that all the quali- 
ties of Christian pastors are to be found in 
large measure within the existing body of dis- 
senting ministers, he would perhaps be inclined 
to think that the standard of intellectual and 
moral character among that exemplary class 
of men may have been raised to its present 
hight point and maintained there by the indirec; 
influence of the Establishment. And he may 
be by no means satisfied that, if the Church 
were at once swept away, the place of our 
Samners and Whateleys would be supplied by 
Doddridges and Halls. He may think that the 
advantages which we have described are ob- 
tained, or might, if the existing system were 
slightly modified, be obtained, without any sa- 
crifice of the paramount objects which all 
governments ought to have chiefly in view 
Nay, he may be of opinion that an institution 
so deeply fixed in the hearts and minds of mil 
lions, could not be subverted without loosening 
and shaking all the foundations of civil society 
With at least equal ease he would find reason 
for supporting the Church of Scotland. Noi 
would he be under the necessity of resorting 
to any contract to justify the connection of 
two religious establishments with one govern- 
ment. He would think scruples on that head 
frivolous in any person who is zealous for a 
Church, of which both Dr. Herbert Marsh and 
Dr. Daniel Wilson are bishops. Indeed, he 
would gladly follow out his principles much 
further. He would have been willing to vote 
in 1825 for Lord Francis Egerton's resolution, 
that it is expedient to give a public mainte- 
nance to the Catholic clergy of Ireland ; and 
he would deeply regret that no such measure 
was adopted in 1829. 

In this way, we conceive, a statesman 
might, on our principles, satisfy himself that it 
would be in the highest degree inexpedient to 
abolish the Church, either of England or of 
Scotland. 

But, if there were, in any part of ihe world, a 
national church regarded as heretical by four- 
fifths of the nation committed to its care — a 
church established and maintained by the 
sword — a church producing twice as many 
riots as conversions — a church which, though 



400 



MAGAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



E>ossessing great wealth and power, and though 
ong backed by persecuting laws, had, in the 
course of many generations, been found unable 
to propagate its doctrines, and barely able to 
maintain its ground — a church so odious, that 
fraud and violence, when used against its clear 
rights of property, were generally regarded as 
fair play — a church, whose ministers were 
preaching to desolate walls, and with difficulty 
obtaining their lawful subsistence by the help 
of bayonets — such a church, on our principles, 
could not, we must own, be defended. We 
should say that the state which allied itself 
with such a church, postponed the primary end 
of government to the secondary ; and that the 
consequences had been such as any sagacious 
observer would have predicted. Neither the 
primary nor the secondary end is attained. 
The temporal and spiritual interests of the 
people suffer alike. The minds of men, in- 
stead of being drawn to the church, are alien- 
ated from the state. The magistrate, after 
sacrificing order, peace, union, all the interests 
which it is his first duty to protect, for the pur- 
pose of promoting pure religion, is forced, after 
the experience of centuries, to admit that he 
has really been promoting error. The sounder 
the doctrines of such a church — the more ab- 
■urd and noxious the superstition by which 
those doctrines are opposed — the stronger are 



the arguments against the policy which has d» 
pnved a good cause of its natural advantages. 
Those who preach to rulers the duty of em- 
ploying power to propagate truth would do 
well to remember that falsehood, though no 
match for truth alone, has often been found 
more than a match for truth and power to- 
gether. 

A statesman, judging on our principles, 
would pronounce without hesitation, that a 
church, such as we have last described, never 
ought to have been set up. Funher than this 
we will not venture to speak for him. He 
would doubtless remember that the world is 
full of institutions which, though they never 
ought to have been set up, yet having been set 
up, ought not to be rudely pulled down ; and 
that it is often wise in practice to be content 
with the mitigation of an abuse which, looking 
at it in the abstract, we might feel impatient to 
destroy. 

We have done ; and nothing remains but 
that we part from Mr. Gladstone with the cour- 
tesy of antagonists who bear no malice. We 
dissent from his opinions, but we admire his 
talents; we respect his integrity and benevo- 
lence; and we hope that he will not suffer 
political avocations so entirely to engross him, 
as to leave him no leisure for literature *nd t>h> 
losophy. 



UANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES. 



401 



RANKE'S HISTORY OE THE POPES.* 



[Edinburgh Review, October, 1840.] 



It is hardly necessary for us to say, that this 
s an excellent book excellently translated, 
fhe original work of Professor Ranke is known 
and esteemed wherever German literature is 
studied ; ana has been found interesting even 
in a most inaccurate and dishonest French 
version. It is, indeed, the work of a mind fit- 
ted both for minute researches and for large 
speculations. It is written also in an admi- 
rable spirit, equally remote from levity and 
bigotry ; serious and earnest, yet tolerant and 
impartial. It is, therefore, with the greatest 
pleasure that we now see it take its place 
among the English classics. Of the transla- 
tion we need only say, that it is such as might 
be expected from the skill, the taste, and the 
scrupulous integrity of the accomplished lady, 
who, as an interpreter between the mind of 
Germany and the mind of Britain, has already 
deserved so well of both countries. 

The subject of this book has always appear- 
ed to us singularly interesting. How it was 
that Protestanism did so much, yet did no 
more — how it was that the Church of Rome, 
having lost a large part of Europe, not only 
ceased to lose, but actually regained nearly 
aalf of what she had lost — is certainly a most 
carious and important question; and on this 
question Professor Ranke has thrown far more 
light than any other person who has written 
on it. 

There is not, and there never was, on this 
earth, a work of human policy so well deserv- 
ing of examination as the Roman Catholic 
Church. The history of that Church joins to- 
gether the two great ages of human civiliza- 
tion. No other institution is left standing 
which carries the mind back to the times when 
the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, 
and when camelopards and tigers bounded in 
the Flavian amphitheatre. The proudest royal 
houses are but of yesterday, when compared 
with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That 
line we trace back in an unbroken series, from 
the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nine- 
teenth century, to the Pope who crowned Pepin 
in the eighth ; and far beyond the time of Pepin 
the august dynasty extends, till it is lost in the 
twilight of fable. The republic of Venice came 
next in antiquity. But the republic of Venice 
was modern when compared with the Papacy; 
and the republic of Venice is gone, and the 
Papacy remains. The Papacy remains, not 
in decay, not a mere antique ; but full of hie 
and youthful vigour. The Catholic Church is 



* The Ecclesiastical and Political History of the Popes 
of Home, during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. 
By Leopold Ranke, Professor in the University of 
Berlin : Translated from the German, by Sarah Aus- 
tin. 3 vols. 8vo. London. 1840. 



still sending forth to the furthes. ends of thi 
world missionaries as zealous as those who 
landed in Kent with Augustin ; and still con- 
fronting hostile kings with the same spirit with 
which she confronted Attila. The number of 
her children is greater than in any former age. 
Her acquisitions ip the New World have more 
than compensated her for what she has lost in 
the Old. Her spiritual ascendency extend 
over the vast countries which lie between the 
plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn — coun 
tries which, a century hence, may not impro- 
bably contain a population as large as that 
which now inhabits Europe. The members 
of her community are certainly not fewer than 
a hundred and fifty millions ; and it will be 
difficult to show that all the other Christian 
sects united amount to a hundred and twenty 
millions. Nor do we see any sign which indi- 
cates that the term of her long dominion is 
approaching. She saw the commencement of 
all the governments, and of all the ecclesiasti- 
cal establishments, that now exist in the world; 
and we feel no assurance that she is no - des- 
tined to see the end of them all. She was 
great and respected before the Saxon had set 
foot on Britain — before the Frank had passed 
the Rhine — when Grecian eloquence still flou- 
rished at Antioch — when idols were still wor- 
shipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may 
still exist in undiminished vigour when some 
traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst 
of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken 
arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of 
St. Paul's. 

We often hear it said that the world is con- 
stantly becoming more and more enlightened, 
and that this enlightening must be favourable 
to Protestantism, and unfavourable to Catho- 
licism. We wish that we could think so. Bui 
we see great reason to' doubt whether this be a 
well-founded expectation. We see that during 
the last two hundred and fifty years, the human 
mind has been in the highest degree active- 
that it has made great advances in ever} 
branch of natural philosophy — that it has pro 
duced innumerable inventions tending to pro- 
mote the convenience of life — that medicine, 
surgery, chemistry, engineering, have been 
very greatly improved — that government, po- 
lice, and law have been improved, though not 
quite to the same extent. Yet we see that, 
during these two hundred and fifty years, Pro 
testantism has made no conquests worth speak 
ing of. Nay, we believe that, as far as there 
has been a change, that change has been it 
favour of the Church of Rome. We cannot, 
therefore, feel confident that the progress of 
knowledge will necessarily be fatal to a sv8> 
tern which has, to say the least, stood itt 



403 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ground in spite of the immense progress which 
knowledge has made since the days of Queen 
Elizabeth. 

Indeed, the argument which we are consi- 
dering seems to us to be founded on an entire 
mistake. There are branches of knowledge, 
with respect to which the law of the human 
mind is progress. In mathematics, when once 
a proposition has been demonstrated, it is 
never afterwards contested. Every fresh story 
s as solid a basis for a new superstructure as 
the original foundation was. Here, therefore, 
there is a constant addition to the stock of 
truth. In the inductive sciences again, the 
law is progress. Every day furnishes new 
facts, and thus brings theory nearer and nearer 
to perfection. . There is no chance that either 
in the purely demonstrative, or in the purely 
experimental sciences, the world will ever go 
back or even remain stationary. Nobody 
ever heard of a reaction against Taylor's theo- 
rem, or of a reaction against Harvey's doc- 
trine of the circulation of the blood. 

But with theology the case is very different. 
As respects natural religion — revelation being 
for the present altogether left out of the ques- 
tion — it is not easy to see that a philosopher 
of the present day is more favourably situated 
than Thales or Simonides. He has before him 
just the same evidences of design in the struc- 
ture of the universe which the early Greeks 
had. We say just the same ; for the discove- 
ries of modern astronomers and anatomists 
have really added nothing to the force of that 
argument which a reflecting mind finds in 
every beast, bird, insect, fish, leaf, flower, and 
shell. The reasoning by which Socrates, in 
Xenophon's hearing, confuted the little atheist 
Aristodemus, is exactly the reasoning of Pa- 
ley's "Natural Theology." Socrates makes 
precisely the same use of the statues of Poly- 
cletus and the pictures of Zeuxis, which Paley 
makes of the watch. As to the other great 
question — the question, what becomes of man 
after death — we do not see that a highly edu- 
cated European, left to his unassisted reason, 
is more likely to be in the right than a Black- 
foot Indian. Not a single one of the many 
sciences in which we surpass the Blackfoot 
Indians, throws the smallest light on the state 
of the soul after the animal life is extinct. In 
truth, all the philosophers, ancient and modern, 
who have attempted, without the help of reve- 
lation to prove the immortality of man, from 
Plato down to Franklin, appear to us to have 
failed deplorably. 

Then, again, all the great enigmas which 
perplex the natural theologian are the same in 
all ages. The ingenuity of' a people just 
emenging from barbarism is quite sufficient to 
propound them. The wisdom of Locke or 
Clarke is quite unable to solve them. It is a 
mistake to imagine that subtle speculations 
touching the Divine attributes, the origin of evil, 
the necessity of human actions, the foundation 
of moral obligation, imply any high degree of 
intellectual culture. Such speculations, on 
the contrary, are in a peculiar manner the de- 
light of intelligent children and of half-civil- 
md men. The number of boys is not small 



who, at fourteen, have thought enough or 
these questions to be fully entitled to tho 
praise which Voltaire gives to Zadig, "II en 
savait ce qu'on en a su dans tous les %es", 
c'est-a-dire, fort peu de chose." The book of 
Job shows, that long before letters and arta 
were known to Ionia, these vexing questions 
were debated with no common skill and ek> 
quence, under the tents of the Idumean Emirs 
nor has human reason, in the course of three 
thousand years, discovered any satisfactory 
solution of the riddles which perplexed Eliphaz 
and Zophar. 

Natural theology, then, is not a^progressive 
science. That knowledge of our origin and 
of our destiny which we derive from revela- 
tion, is indeed of very different clearness, and 
very different importance. But neither is re- 
vealed religion of the nature of a progressive 
science. All Divine truth is, according to the 
doctrine of the Protestant churches, recorded 
in certain books. It is equally open to all who 
in any age can read those books ; nor can all 
the discoveries of all the philosophers in the 
M r orld add a single verse to any of 'these books. 
It is plain, therefore, that in divinity there can- 
not be a progress analogous to that which is 
constantly taking place in pharmacy, geology, 
and navigation. A Christian of the fifth cen- 
tury with a Bible is on a par with a Christian 
of the nineteenth century with a Bible, candour 
and natural acuteness being, of course, sup- 
posed equal. It matters not at all that the 
compass, printing, gunpowder, steam, gas, vac- 
cination, and a thousand other discoveries and 
inventions which were unknown in the fifth 
century are familiar to the nineteenth. None 
of these discoveries and inventions have the 
smallest bearing on the question whether man 
is justified by faith alone, or whether the invo- 
cation of saints is an orthodox practice. It 
seems to us, therefore, that we have no secu- 
rity for the future against the prevalence of 
any theological error that has ever prevailed 
in time past among Christian men. We are 
confident that the world will never go back to 
the solar system of Ptolemy; nor is our con fi 
dence in the least shaken by the circumstance 
that even so great a man as Bacon rejected 
the theory of Galileo with scorn; for Bacon 
had not all the means of arriving at a sound 
conclusion which are within our reach, and 
which secure people, who would not have been 
worthy to mend his pens, from falling into his 
mistakes. But we are very differently affected 
when we reflect that Sir Thomas More was 
ready to die for the doctrine of transubstantia- 
tion. He was a man of eminent talents. He 
had all the information on the subject that we 
have, or that, while the world lasts, any human 
being will have. The text " This is my body," 
was in his New Testament as it is in ours. 

The absurdity of the literal interpretation 
was as great and as obvious in the sixteenth 
century as it is' now. No progress that sci- 
ence has made or will make can add to what 
seems to us the overwhelming force of the ar- 
gument against the real presence. We are 
therefore unable to understand why what Sjl 
Thomas More believed respecting transubstan- 



RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE TOPES. 



408 



nation may not be believed to the end of time 
by men equal in abilities and honesty to Sir 
Thomas More. But Sir Thomas More is one 
of the choice specimens of human wisdom and 
virtue, and the doctrine of transubstantiation 
is a kind of proof charge. A faith which stands 
that test will stand any test. The prophesies 
of Brothers and the miracles of Prince Hohen- 
lohe sink to trifles in the comparison. One re- 
servation, indeed, must be made. The books 
and traditions of a sect may contain, mingled 
with propositions strictly theological, other pro- 
positions purporting to rest on the same autho 
rity which relate to physics. If new discover- 
ies should throw discredit on the physical pro- 
positions, the theological propositions, unless 
they can be separated from the physical pro- 
positions, will share in their discredit. In this 
wav, undoubtedly, the progress of science may 
indirectly serve the cause of religious truth. 
The Hindoo mythology, for example, is bound 
up with a most absurd geography. Every 
young Brahmin, therefore, who learns geogra- 
phy in our colleges, learns to smile at the Hin- 
doo mythology. If Catholicism has not suffer- 
ed to an equal degree from the Papal decision 
that The sun goes round the earth, this is be- 
cause all intelligent Catholics now hold, with 
Pascal, that in deciding the point at all the 
Church exceeded her powers, and was, there- 
fore, justly left destitute of that supernatural 
assistance which, in the exercise of her legiti- 
mate functions, the promise of her Founder 
authorized her to expect. 

This reservation affects not at all the truth 
of our proposition, that divinity, properly so 
called, is not a progressive science. A very 
common knowledge of history, a very little ob- 
servation of life, will suffice to prove that no 
learning, no sagacity, affords a security against 
the greatest errors on subjects relating to the 
invisible world. Bayle and Chillingworth, two 
of the most skeptical of mankind, turned Ca- 
tholics from sincere conviction. Johnson, in- 
credulous on all other points, was a ready 
believer in miracles and apparitions. He 
would not believe in Ossian, but he believed 
in the second sight. He would not believe in 
the earthquake of Lisbon, but he believed in 
the Cock Lane Ghost. 

For these reasons we have ceased to wonder at 
any vagaries of superstition. We have seen men, 
not of mean intellect or neglected education, 
but qualified by their talents and acquirements 
to attain eminence either in active or speculative 
pursuits, well-read scholars, expert logicians, 
keen observers of life and manners, prophe- 
sying, interpreting, talking unknown tongues, 
working miraculous cures, coming down with 
messages from God to the Houses of Commons. 
We have seen an old woman, with no talents 
beyond the cunning of a fortune-teller, and 
with the education of a scullion, exalted into 
a prophetess, and surrounded by tens of thou- 
sands of devoted followers, many of whom 
were, in station and knowledge, immeasurably 
her superiors ; and all this in the nineteenth 
century, and all this in London. Yet why not? 
For of the dealings of God with man no more 
nas been revealed to the nineteenth century 



than to the first, or to London than to the wild- 
est parish in the Hebrides. It is true that, in 
those things which concern this life and this 
world, man constantly becomes wiser. But it 
is no less true that, as respects a higher power 
and a future state, man, in the language of 
Goethe's scoffing fiend, 

"bleibt stets von gleichem schlag, 
Und ist so wunderlich als wie am ersten tag." 

The history of Catholicism strikingly illus- 
trates these observations. During the last 
seven centuries the public mind of Europe has 
made constant progress in every department 
of secular knowledge. But in religion we can 
trace no constant progress. The ecclesiasti- 
cal history of that long period is the history 
of movement to and fro. Four times since the 
authority of the Church of Rome was esta- 
blished in Western Christendom has the hu- 
man intellect risen up against her yoke. Twice 
she remained completely victorious. Twice she 
came forth from the conflict bearing the marks 
of cruel wounds, but with the principle of life 
still strong within her. When we reflect on 
the tremendous assaults which she has sur- 
vived, we find it difficult to conceive in what 
way she is to perish. 

The first of these insurrections broke out in 
the region where the beautiful language of Oc 
was spoken. That country, singularly favour- 
ed by nature, was, in the twelfth century, the 
most flourishing and civilized part of Western 
Europe. It was in nowise a part of France. 
It had a distinct political existence, a distinct 
national character, distinct usages, and a dis- 
tinct speech. The soil was fruitful and well 
cultivated ; and amidst the cornfields and vine- 
yards arose many rich cities, each of which 
was a little republic ; and many stately castles, 
each of which contained a miniature of an im- 
perial court. It was there that the spirit of 
chivalry first laid aside its terrors, first took a 
humane and graceful form, first appeared a3 
the inseparable associate of art and literature, 
of courtesy and love. The other vernacular 
dialects which, since the fifth century, had 
sprung up in the ancient provinces of the Ro- 
man empire, were still rude and imperfect. 
The sweet Tuscan, the rich and energetic Eng- 
lish, were abandoned to artisans and shep- 
herds. No clerk had ever condescended to 
use such barbarous jargon for the teaching of 
science, for the recording of great events, or 
for the painting of life and manners. But th« 
language of Provence was already the lan- 
guage of the learned and polite, and was em- 
ployed by numerous writers, studious of all the 
arts of composition and versification. 

A literature rich in ballads, in war-songs, 
in satire, and, above all, in amatory poetry, 
amused the leisure of the knights and ladies 
whose fortified mansions adorned the banks 
of the Rhone and Garonne. With civilization 
had come freedom of thought. Use had taken 
away the horror with which misbelievers were 
elsewhere regarded. No Norman or Breton 
ever saw a Mussulman, except to give and re- 
ceive blows on some Syrian field of battle. But 
the people of the rich countries which lay on- 



404 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Ser the Pyrenees lived in habits of courteous 
and profitable intercourse with the Moorish 
kingdoms of Spain, and gave a hospitable wel- 
come to skilful teachers and mathematicians, 
who, in the schools of Cordova and Granada, 
had become versed in all the learning of the 
Arabians. The Greek, still preserving, in the 
midst of political degradation, the ready wit 
and the inquiring spirit of his fathers, still able 
to read the most perfect of human composi- 
tions, still speaking the most powerful and 
flexible of human languages, brought to the 
marts of Narbonne and Toulouse, together with 
the drugs and silks of remote climates, bold and 
subtle theories, long unknown to the ignorant 
and credulous West. The Paulician theology 
— a theology in which, as it should seem, many 
of the doctrines of the modern Calvinists were 
mingled with some doctrines derived from the 
ancient Manichees, — spread rapidly through 
Provence and Languedoc. The clergy of the 
Catholic Church were regarded with loathing 
and contempt. "Viler than a priest," — "I 
would as soon be a priest," — became prover- 
bial expressions. The Papacy lost all autho- 
rity with all classes, from the great feudal 
princes down to the cultivators of the soil. 

The danger to the hierarchy was indeed 
formidable. Only one transalpine nation had 
emerged from barbarism, and that nation had 
thrown off all respect for Home. Only one of 
the vernacular languages of Europe had yet 
been extensively employed for Ikerary pur- 
poses, and that language was a machine in 
the hands of heretics. The geographical po- 
sition of the sectaries made the danger pecu- 
liarly formidable. They occupied a central 
region communicating directly with France, 
with Italy, and with Spain. The provinces 
which were still untainted were separated 
from each other by this infected district. Un- 
der these circumstances, it seemed probable 
that a single generation would suffice to spread 
the reformed doctrine to Lisbon, to London, 
and to Naples. But this was not to be. Rome 
cried for help to the warriors of northern 
France. She appealed at once to their super- 
stition and to their cupidity. To the devout 
believers she promised pardons as ample as 
those with which she had rewarded the deliver- 
ers of the holy Sepulchre. To the rapacious 
and profligate she offered the plunder of fertile 
plains and wealthy cities. Unhappily, the in- 
genious and polished inhabitants of the Lan- 
guedocian provinces were far better qualified 
to enrich and embellish their country than to 
defend it. Eminent in the arts of peace, un- 
rivalled in the s" gay science," elevated above 
many vulgar superstitions, they wanted that 
iron courage, and that skill in martial exer- 
cises, which distinguished the chivalry of the 
region beyond the Loire, and were ill-fitted to 
face enemies, who, in every country from Ire- 
land to Palestine, had been victorious against 
tenfold odds. A war, distinguished even among 
wars of religion by its merciless atrocity, de- 
stroyed the Albigensian heresy ; and with that 
heresy the prosperity, the civilization, the lite- 
rature, the national existence, of what was once 
iUe most ooulent and enlightened part of the 



great European family. Rome, m the mean 
time, warned by that fearful danger from which 
the exterminating swords of her crusaders had 
narrowly saved her, proceeded to revise and 
to strengthen her whole system of polity. A< 
this period were instituted the order of Francis, 
the order of Dominic, the tribunal of the Inqm 
sition. The new spiritual police was every. 
where. No alley in a great city, no hamlet on 
a remote mountain, was unvisited by the beg- 
ging friar. The simple Catholic, who was 
content to be no wiser than his fathers, found, 
wherever he turned, a friendly voice to encou- 
rage him. The path of the heretic was beset 
by innumerable spies ; and the Church, lately 
in danger of utter subversion, now appeared 
to be impregnably fortified by the love, the 
reverence, and the terror of mankind. 

A century and a half passed away, and then 
came the second great rising up of the human 
intellect against the spiritual domination of 
Rome. During the two generations which fol- 
lowed the Albigensian crusade, the power of the 
Papacy had been at the height. Frederick II. 
— the ablest and most accomplished of the long 
line of German Cassars — had in vain exhaust- 
ed all the resources of military and political 
skill in the attempt to defend the rights of the 
civil power against the encroachments of the 
Church. The vengeance of the priesthood 
had pursued his house to the third generation. 
Manfred had perished on the field of battle ; 
Conradin on the scaffold. Then a turn took 
place. The secular authority, long unduly 
depressed, regained the ascendant with start- 
ling rapidity. The change is doubtless to be 
ascribed chiefly to the general disgust excited 
by the way in which the Church had abused 
its power and its success. 

But something must be attributed to the 
character and situation of individuals. The 
man who bore the chief part in effecting this 
revolution was Philip IV. of France, surnamed 
the Beautiful— a despot by position, a despot 
by temperament, stern, implacable, and un- 
scrupulous, equally prepared for violence and 
for chicanery, and surrounded by a devoted 
band of men of the sword, and of men of law. 
The fiercest and most high-minded of the Ro- 
man Pontiffs, while bestowing kingdoms, and 
citing great princes to his judgment-seat, was 
seized in his palace by armed men, and so 
foully outraged that he died mad with rage 
and terror. "Thus," sang the great Floren- 
tine poet, "Avas Christ in the person of his 
vicar, a second time seized by ruffians, a se- 
cond time mocked, a second time drenched 
with the vinegar and the gall."* The seat of 
the Papal court was carried beyond the Alps, 
and the Bishops of Rome became dependants 
of France. Then came the great schism of 
the West. Two Popes, each with a doubtful 
title, made all Europe ring with their mutual 
invectives and anathemas. Rome cried out 
against the corruptions of Avignon ; and Avig- 
non, with equal justice, recriminated on Rome. 
The plain Christian people, brought up in the 
belief that it was a sacred duty to be in com* 



* Purgatorio, xx. 87. 



RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES. 



405 



l munion with the Head of the Church, were 
unable to discover, amidst conflicting testimo- 
nies and conflicting arguments, to which of 
rhe two worthless priests who were cursing 
an' reviling each other, the headship of the 
Church rightfully belonged. It was nearly at 
this juncture that the voice of John Wicklifle 
began to make itself heard. The public mind 
of England was soon stirred to its inmost 
depths ; and the influence of the new doctrines 
was soon felt, even in the distant kingdom of 
Bohemia. In Bohemia, indeed, there had long 
been a predisposition to heresy. Merchants 
from the Lower Danube were often seen in the 
fairs of Prague ; and the Lower Danube was 
peculiarly the seat of the Paulician theology. 
The Church, torn by schism, and fiercely as- 
sailed at once in England and the German 
empire, was in a situation scarcely less peril- 
ous than at the crisis which preceded the Albi- 
gensian crusade. 

But this danger also passed by. The civil 
power gave its strenuous support to the 
Church; and the Church made some show 
of reforming itself. The council of Constance 
put an end to the schism. The whole Catholic 
world was again united under a single chief, 
and rules were laid down which seemed to 
make it improbable that the power of that 
chief would be grossly abused. The most dis- 
tinguished teachers of the new doctrine were 
put to death. The English government put 
down the Lollards with merciless rigour; and, 
in the next generation, no trace of the second 
great revolt against the Papacy could be found, 
except among the rude population of the 
mountains of Bohemia. 

Another century went by; and then began 
the third and the most memorable struggle for 
spiritual freedom. The times were changed. 
The great remains of Athenian and Roman 
genius were studied by thousands. The Church 
had no longer a monopoly of learning. The 
powers of the modern languages had at length 
been developed. The invention of printing 
had given new facilities to the intercourse of 
mind with mind. With such auspices com- 
menced the great Reformation. 

We will attempt to lay before our readers, 
in a short compass, what appears to us to be 
the real history of the contest, which began 
with the preaching of Luther against the in- 
dulgences, and which may, in one sense, be 
said to have been terminated, a hundred and 
thirty years later, by the treaty of Westphalia. 

In the northern parts of Europe, the victory 
of Protestantism was rapid and decisive. The 
dominion of the Papacy was felt by the nations 
of Teutonic blood as the dominion of Italians, 
of foreigners, of men alien in language, man- 
ners, and intellectual constitution. The large 
jurisdiction exercised by the spiritual tribu- 
nals of Rome seemed to be a degrading badge 
of servitude. The sums which, under a thou- 
sand pretexts, were exacted by a distant court, 
were regarded both as a humiliating and as a 
ruinous tribute. The character of that court 
excited the scorn and disgust of a grave, 
earnest, sincere, and devout people. The new 
the, >logy spread with a rapidity never known 



before. All ranks, all varieties of character 
joined the ranks of the innovators. Sove- 
reigns impatient to appropriate to themselves 
the prerogatives of the Pope — nobles desirous 
to share the plunder of abbeys — suitors exas- 
perated by the extortions of the Roman Camera 
— patriots impatient of a foreign rule — good 
men scandalized by the corruptions of the 
Church — bad men desirous of the license in- 
separable from great moral revolutions — wise 
men eager in the pursuit of truth — weak men 
allured by the glitter of novelty — all were 
found on one side. Alone, among the north- 
ern nations, the Irish adhered to the ancient 
faith ; and the cause of this seems to have 
been, that the national feeling which, in hap 
pier countries, was directed against Rome, wa? 
in Ireland directed against England. In fiftj 
years from the day in which Luther publicly 
renounced communion with the Church of 
Rome, and burned the bull of Leo before the 
gates of Wittenberg, Protestantism attained 
its highest ascendency — an ascendency which 
it soon lost, and which it never regained. 
Hundreds, who could well remember Brother 
Martin a devout Catholic, lived to see the revo- 
lution of which he was the chief author, victo 
rious in half the states of Europe. In England, 
Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Livonia, Prussia, 
Saxony, Hesse, Wiirtemberg, the Palatinate, in 
several cantons of Switzerland, in the Northern 
Netherlands, the Reformation had completely 
triumphed; and in all the other countries on 
this side of the Alps and the Pyrenees, it 
seemed on the point of triumphing. 

But while this mighty work was proceeding 
in the north of Europe, a revolution of a very 
different kind had taken place in the south. 
The temper of Italy and Spain was widely dif- 
ferent from that of Germany and England. As 
the national feeling of the Teutonic nations 
impelled them to throw off the Italian supre- 
macy, so the national feeling of the Italians 
impelled them to resist any change which might 
deprive their country of the honour and ad- 
vantage of being the seat of the government of 
the Universal Church. It was in Italy that the 
tributes were spent, of which foreign nations 
so bitterly complained. It was to adorn Italy 
that the traffic in indulgences had been carried 
to that scandalous excess which had roused 
the indignation of Luther. There was among 
the Italians both much piety and much im- 
piety ; but with very few exceptions, neither 
the piety nor the impiety took the turn of Pro- 
testantism. The religious Italians desired a 
reform of morals and discipline, but not a re- 
form of doctrine, and least of all a schism. 
The irreligious Italians simply disbelieved 
Christianity, without hating it. They looked at 
it as artists, or as statesmen ; and so looking 
at it, they liked it better in the established form 
than in any other. It was to them what the 
Pagan worship was to Trajan and Pliny. 
Neither the spirit of Savanarola, nor that of 
Machiavelli, had any thing in common with that 
of the religious or political Protestants of the 
north. 

Spain again was, with respect to the Cathoho 
Church, in a situation very different from that 



406 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



of the Teutonic nations. Italy was, in fact, a 
part of the empire of Charles V. ; and the 
court of Rome was, on many important occa- 
sions, his tool. He had not, therefore, like the 
distant princes of the n'orth, a strong selfish 
motive for attacking the Papacy. In fact, the 
very measures which provoked the Sovereign 
of England to renounce all connection with 
Rome, were dictated by the Sovereign of Spain. 
The feelings of the Spanish people concurred 
with the interest of the Spanish government. 
The attachment of the Castilian to the faith of 
his ancestors was peculiarly strong and ardent. 
With that faith were inseparably bound up the 
institutions, the independence, and the glory of 
kis country. Between the day when the last 
Gothic king was vanquished on the banks of 
the Xeres, and the day when Ferdinand and 
Isabella entered Granada in triumph, nearly 
eight hundred years had elapsed ; and during 
those years the Spanish nation had been en- 
gaged in a desperate struggle against misbe- 
lievers. The crusades had been merely an 
episode in the history of other nations. The 
existence of Spain had been one long crusade. 
After fighting Mussulmans in the Old World, 
she began to fight heathens in the New. It was 
under the authority of a Papal bull that her 
children steered into unknown seas. It was 
under the standard of the cross that they march- 
ed fearlessly into the heart of great kingdoms. 
It was with the cry of "Saint James for Spain!" 
that they charged armies which outnumbered 
them a hundredfold. And men said that the 
Saint had heard the call, and had himself in 
arms, on a gray war-horse, led the onset before 
which the worshippers of false gods had given 
way. After the battle, every excess of rapa- 
city or cruelty was sufficiently vindicated by 
the plea that the sufferers were unbaptized. 
Avarice stimulated zeal. Zeal consecrated 
avarice. Proselytes and gold mines were 
sought with equal ardour. In the very year in 
which the Saxons, maddened by the exactions 
of Rome, broke loose from her yoke, the Spa- 
niards, under the authority of Rome, made 
themselves masters of the empire and of the 
treasures of Montezuma." Thus Catholicism, 
which, in the public mind of Northern Europe, 
was associated with spoliation and oppression, 
was, in the public mind of Spain, associated 
with liberty, victory, dominion, wealth, and 
glory. 

It is not, therefore, strange that the effect of 
the great outbreak of Protestantism in one part 
of Christendom should have been to produce 
an equally violent outbreak of Catholic zeal in 
another. Two reformations were pushed on 
at once with equal energy and effect — a refor- 
mation of doctrine in the North — a reformation 
of manners and discipline in the South. In 
the course of a single generation, the whole 
spirit of the Church of Rome underwent a 
shange. From the halls of the Vatican to the 
most secluded hermitage of the Apennines, the 
great revival was everywhere felt and seen. 
All the institutions anciently devised for the 
propagation and defence of the faith, were fur- 
bished up and made efficient. New engines 
«f still more formidable power were construct- 



ed. Everywhere old religious communitiiJS 
were remodelled, and new religions cotnmuni 
ties called into existence. Within a year afte. 
the death of Leo, the order of Camaldoli was 
purified. The Capuchins restored the old 
Franciscan discipline — the midnight prayer 
and the life of silence. The Barnabites and 
the society of Somasca. devoted themselves to 
the relief and education of the poor. To the 
Theatine order a still higher interest belongs. 
Its great object was the same with that of our 
early Methodists — to supply the deficiencies 
of the parochial clergy. 

The Church of Rome, wiser than the Church 
of England, gave every countenance to the 
good work. The members of the new brother- 
hood preached to great multitudes in the streets 
and in the fields, prayed by the beds of the sick, 
and administered the last sacraments to th? 
dying. Foremost among them in zeal and de i 
votion was - Gian Pietro Caraffa, afterwards 
Pope Paul the Fourth. In the convent of the 
Theatines at Venice, under the eye of Caraffa, 
a Spanish gentleman took up his abode, tended 
the poor in the hospitals, went about in rags, 
starved himself almost to death, and often sal- 
lied into the streets, mounted on stones, and, 
waving his hat to invite the passers-by, began 
to preach in a. strange jargon of mingled 
Castilian and Tuscan. The Theatines were 
among the most zealous and rigid of men ; but 
to this enthusiastic neophyte their discipline 
seemed lax, and their movements sluggish ; for 
his own mind, naturally passionate and ima- 
ginative, had passed through a training which 
had given to all his peculiarities a morbid in- 
tensity and energy. In his early life he had 
been the very prototype of the hero of Cer- 
vantes. The single study of the young Hidalgo 
had been chivalrous romance ; and his exist- 
ence had been one gorgeous day-dream of prin- 
cesses rescued and infidels subdued. He had 
chosen a Dulcinea, " no countess, no duchess" 
— these are his own words — " but one of far 
higher station ;" and he flattered himself with 
the hope of laying at her feet the keys of Moor- 
ish castles and the jewelled turbans of Asiatic 
kings. In the midst of these visions of martial 
glory and prosperous love, a severe wound 
stretched him on a bed of sickness. His con 
stitution was shattered, and he was doomed tc 
be a cripple for life. The palm of strength, 
grace, and skill in knightly exercises, was no 
longer for him. He could no longer hope to 
strike down gigantic soldans, or to find favour 
in the sight of beautiful women. A new vision 
then arose in his mind, and mingled itself with 
his old delusions in a manner which, to most 
Englishmen, must seem singular ; but which 
those who know how close was the union be< 
tween religion and chivalry in Spain, will be 
at no loss to understand. He would still be a 
soldier — he would still be a knight-errant ; bu 
the soldier and knight-errant of the spouse of 
Christ. He would smite the Great Red Dragon 
He would be the champion of the Woman 
clothed with the Sun He would break tha 
charm under which false prophets held th« 
souls of men in bondage. His restless spirii 
led him to the Syrian deserts, and to the chape 



^.ANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES. 



407 



si tin; Holy Sepulchre. Thence he wandered 
back to the fartnest west, and astonished the 
convents of Opain and the schools of France by 
h'.6 penance and vigils. The same lively ima- 
gination which had been employed in picturing 
the tumult of unreal battles, and the charms 
of unreal queens, now peopled his solitude 
with saints and angels. • The Holy Virgin de- 
scended to commune with him. He saw the 
Saviour face to face with the eye of flesh. Even 
those mysteries of religion which, are the hard- 
est trial of faith, were in his case palpable to 
sight. It is difficult to relate without a pitying 
smile, that, in the sacrifice of the mass, he saw 
tran substantiation take place; and that, as he 
stood praying on the steps of St. Dominic, he 
saw the Trinity in Unity, and wept aloud with 
joy and wonder. Such was the celebrated 
Ignatius Loyola, who in the great Catholic re- 
action, bore the same share which Luther bore 
in the great Protestant movement. 

Dissatisfied with the system of the Theatines, 
the enthusiastic Spaniard turned his face to- 
wards Rome. Poor, obscure, without a patron, 
without recommendations, he entered the city 
where now two princely temples, rich with 
paintings and many-coloured marble, comme- 
morate his great services to the Church ; where 
his form stands sculptured in massive silver; 
where'his bones, enshrined amidst jewels, are 
placed beneath the altar of God. His activity 
and zeal bore down all opposition ; and under 
his rule the order of Jesuits began to exist, and 
grew rapidly to the full measure of its gigantic 
powers. With what vehemence, with what 
policy, with what exact discipline, with what 
dauntless courage, with what self-denial, with 
what forgetfulness of the dearest private ties, 
with what intense and stubborn devotion to a 
single end, with what unscrupulous laxity and 
versatility in the choice of means, the Jesuits 
fought the battles of their church, is written in 
every page of the annals of Europe during 
several generations. In the order of Jesus 
was concentrated the quintessence of the Catho- 
lic spirit ; and the history of the order of Jesus 
is the history of the great Catholic reaction. 
That order possessed itself at once of all the 
strongholds which command the public mind 
— of the pulpit, of the press, of the confessional, 
of the academies. Wherever the Jesuit preach- 
ed the church was too small for the audience. 
The name of Jesuit on a title-page secured the 
circulation of a book. It was in the ears of 
the Jesuit that the powerful, the noble, and the 
beautiful breathed the secret history of their 
lives. It was at the feet of the Jesuit that the 
youth of the higher and middle classes were 
brought up from the first rudiments to the 
courses of rhetoric and philosophy. Literature 
and science, lately associated with infidelity 
or with heresy, now became the allies of ortho- 
doxy. 

Dominant in the south of Europe, the great 
order scon went forth conquering and to con- 
quer. In spite of oceans and deserts, of hunger 
and pestilence, of spies and penal laws, of 
dungeons and racks, of gibbets and quartering- 
blocks, Jesuits were to be found under every 
disguise, and in every country — scholars, phy- 



sicians, merchants, serving-men; in the hostil \ 
court of Sweden, in the old manor-houses Oi 
Cheshire, among the hovels of Connaught 
arguing, instructing, consoling, stealing away 
the hearts of the young, animating the courage 
of the timid, holding up the crucifix before the 
eyes of the dying. 

Nor was it less their office to plot against the 
thrones and lives of apostate kings, to spread 
evil rumours, to raise tumults, to inflame civil 
wars, to arm the hand of the assassin. Inflexi« 
ble in nothing but in their fidelity to the Church., 
they were equally ready to appeal in her cause 
to the spirit of loyalty and to the spirit of freedom. 
Extreme doctrinesof obedience andextreme doc- 
trines of liberty — the right of rulers to misgovern 
the people, the right of every one of the people 
to plunge his knife in the heart of a bad ruler — 
were inculcated by.the same man according as 
he addressed himself to the subject of Philip 
or the subject of Elizabeth. Some described 
these men as the most rigid, others as the most 
indulgent of spiritual directors. And both de- 
scriptions were correct. The truly devout 
listened with awe to the high and saintly mo- 
rality of the Jesuit. The gay cavalier who had 
run his rival through the body, the frail beauty 
who had forgotten her marriage-vow, found in 
the Jesuit an easy well-bred man of the world, 
tolerant of the little irregularities of people of 
fashion. The confessor was strict or lax, 
according to the temper of the penitent. His 
first object was to drive no person out of the 
pale of the Church. Since there were bad 
people, it was better that they should be bad 
Catholics than bad Protestants. If a person 
was so unfortunate as to be a bravo, a libertine, 
or a gambler, that was no reason for making 
him a heretic too. 

The Old World was not wide enough for 
this strange activity. The Jesuits invaded all 
the countries which the great maritime disco- 
veries of the preceding age had laid open to 
European enterprise. In the depths of the 
Peruvian mines, at the marts of the African 
slave-caravans, on the shores of the Spice 
Islands, in the observatories of China, they 
were to be found. They made converts in 
regions which neither avarice nor curiosity 
had tempted any of their countrymen tc enter; 
and preached and disputed in tongues of which 
no other native of the West understood a word. 

The spirit which appeared so eminently in 
this order, animated the whole Catholic world. 
The court of Rome itself was purified. During 
the generation which preceded the Reforma* 
tion, that court had been a scandal to the 
Christian name. Its annals are black with 
treason, murder, and incest. Even its more 
respectable members were utterly unfit to be 
ministers of religion. They were men like 
Leo X.; men who, with the Latinity of th« 
Augustan age, had acquired its atheistical aiv 
scoffing spirit. They regarded these Christian 
mysteries of which they were stewards, just as 
the Augur Cicero and the Pontifex Maximus 
Caesar regarded the Sibylline books and the 
pecking of the sacred chickens. Among them* 
selves they spoke of the Incarnation, the 
Eucharist, and the Trinity, in the same tcne in 



408 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



which Cotta and Velleius talked of the oracle 
of Delphi, or of the voice of Faunus in the 
mountains. Their years glided by in a soft 
dream of sensual and intellectual voluptuous- 
ness. Choice cookery, delicious wines, lovely 
women, hounds, falcons, horses, newly-disco- 
vered manuscripts of the classics, sonnets and 
burlesque romances in the sweetest Tuscan — 
just as licentious as a fine sense of the grace- 
ful would permit ; plates from the hand of a 
Benvenuto, designs for palaces by Michel 
Angelo, frescoes by Raphael, busts, mosaics, 
and gems just dug up from among the ruins 
of ancient temples and villas ; — these things 
were the delight and even the serious business 
of their lives. Letters and the fine arts un- 
doubtedly owe much to this not inelegant sloth. 
But when the great stirring of the mine' of Europe 
began — when doctrine after doctrine was as- 
sailed — when nation after nation withdrew 
from communion with the successor of St. 
Peter, it was felt that the Church could not 
be safely confided to chiefs whose highest 
praise was, that they were good judges of Latin 
compositions, of paintings, and of statues, 
whose severest studies had a Pagan character, 
and who were suspected of laughing in secret 
at the sacraments which they administered, 
and of believing no more of the Gospel than of 
the Morgante Maggiore. Men of a very different 
class now rose to the direction of ecclesiastical 
affairs — men whose spirit resembled that of 
Dunstan and of Becket. The Roman Pontiffs 
exhibited in their own persons all the austerity 
of the early anchorites of Syria. Paul IV. 
brought to the Papal throne the same fervent 
zeal which had carried him into the Theatine 
convent. Pius V., under his gorgeous vest- 
ments, wore day and night the hair-shirt of a 
simple friar; walked barefoot in the streets at the 
head of processions; found, even in the midst 
of his most pressing avocations, time for pri- 
vate prayer ; often regretted that the public 
duties of his station were unfavourable to 
growth in holiness ; and edified his flock by in- 
numerable instances of humility, charity, and 
forgiveness of personal injuries ; while, at the 
same time, he upheld the authority of his see, 
and the unadulterated doctrines of his church, 
with all the stubbornness and vehemence of 
Hildebrand. Gregory XIII. exerted himself 
not only to imitate but to surpass Pius in the 
severe virtues of his sacred profession. As 
was the head, such were the members. The 
change in the spirit of the Catholic world may 
be traced in every walk of literature and of art. 
It will be at once perceived by every person 
who compares the poem of Tasso with that of 
Ariosto, or the monuments of Sixtus V. with 
those of Leo X. 

But it was not on moral influence alone that 
the Catholic Church relied. The civil sword 
in Spain and Italy was unsparingly employed 
in her support. The Inquisition was armed 
with npw powers and inspired with a new 
energy. If Protestantism, or the semblance of 
Protestantism, showed itself in any quarter, it 
was instantly met, not by petty, teasing perse- 
eution, but by persecution of that sort which 
bows down and crushes all but a very few se- 



lect spirits. Whoever was suspected of heresy 
whatever his rank, his learning, or his reputa* 
tion, was to purge himself to the satisfaction 
of a severe and vigilant tribunal, or to die by 
fire. Heretical books were sought out and 
destroyed with the same unsparing rigour. 
Works which were once in every house wert 
so effectually suppressed that no copy of them 
now is to be found in the most extensive libra* 
ries. One book in particular, entitled " Of the 
benefits of the death of Christ," had this fate. 
It was written in Tuscan, was many times re- 
printed, and was eagerly read in every part of 
Italy. But the Inquisitors detected in it the 
Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith 
alone. They proscribed it : and it is now as 
utterly lost as the second decade of Livy. 

Thus, while the Protestant Reformation pro- 
ceeded rapidly at one extremity of Europe, the 
Catholic revival went on as rapidly at the 
other. About half a century after the great 
separation, there were throughout the north, 
Protestant governments and Protestant nations. 
In the south were governments and nations 
actuated by the most intense zeal for the an- 
cient church. Between these two hostile 
regions lay, geographically as well as morally, 
a great debatable land. In France, Belgium, 
Southern Germany, Hungary, and Poland, the 
contest was still undecided. The governments 
of those countries had not renounced their 
connection with Rome ; but the Protestants 
were numerous, powerful, bold, and active. In 
France they formed a commonwealth within 
the realm, held fortresses, were able to bring 
great armies into the field, and had treated 
with their sovereign on terms of equality. In 
Poland, the king was still a Catholic ; but the 
Protestants had the upper hand in the Diet, 
filled the chief offices in the administration, and, 
in the large towns, took possession of the parish 
churches. " It appeared," says the Papal 
nuncio, "that in Poland, Protestantism would 
completely supersede Catholicism." In Ba- 
varia, the state of things was nearly the same. 
The Protestants had a majority in the Assem- 
bly of the States, and demanded from the duke 
concessions in favour of their religion, as the 
price of their subsidies. In Transylvania, the 
house of Austria was unable to prevent the 
Diet from confiscating, by one sweeting de- 
cree, the estates of the church. In Austri? 
Proper it was generally said that only one- 
thirteenth part of the population could bt 
counted on as good Catholics. In Belgium the 
adherents of the new opinions were, reckoned 
by hundreds of thousands. 

The history of the two succeeding genera- 
tions is the history of the great struggle be- 
tween Protestantism possessed of the north of 
Europe, and Catholicism possessed of the 
south, for the doubtful territory which lay be- 
tween. All the weapons of carnal and of spi- 
ritual warfare were employed. Both sides may 
boast of great talents and of great virtues 
Both have to blush for many follies and crimes. 
At first, the chances seemed to be decidedly in 
favour of Protestantism ; tat the victory re» 
mained with the Church of Rome. On every 
point she was successful. If we overleap 



RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 



409 



another half century, we find her victorious 
and dominant in France, Belgium, Bavaria, 
Bohemia, Austria, Poland, and Hungary. Nor 
has Protestantism, in the course of two hun- 
dred years, been able to reconquer any por- 
tion of what it then lost. 

It is, moreover, not to be dissembled that this 
wonderful triumph of the Papacy is to be 
chiefly attributed, not to the force of arms, but 
to a great reflux in public opinion. During the 
first half century after the commencement of 
the Reformation, the current of feeling, in the 
countries on this side of the Alps and of the 
Pyrenees, ran impetuously towards the new 
doctrines. Then the tide turned, and rushed 
as fiercely in the opposite direction. Neither 
during the one period, nor during the other, 
did much depend upon the event of battles or 
sieges. The Protestant movement was hardly 
checked for an instant by the defeat at Muhl- 
berg. The Catholic reaction went on at full 
speed in spite of the destruction of the Armada. 
It is difficult to say whether the violence of the 
first blow or of the recoil was the greater. 
Fifty years after the Lutheran separation, Ca- 
tholicism could scarcely maintain itself on 
the shores of the Mediterranean. A hundred 
years after the separation, Protestantism could 
scarcely maintain itself on the shores of the 
Baltic. The causes of this memorable turn in 
human affairs well deserve to be investigated. 

The contest between the two parties bore 
some resemblance to the fencing match in 
Shakspeare — "Laertes wounds Hamlet; then, 
in scuffling, they change rapiers, and Hamlet 
wounds Laertes." The war between Luther 
and Leo was a war between firm faith and un- 
belief, between zeal and apathy, between 
energy and indolence, between seriousness and 
frivolity, between a pure morality and vice. 
Very different was the war which degenerate 
Protestantism had to wage against regenerate 
Catholicism. To the debauchees, the poison- 
ers, the atheists, who had worn the tiara during 
the generation which preceded the Reforma- 
tion, had succeeded Popes, who, in religious 
fervour and severe sanctity of manners, might 
bear a comparison with Cyprian or Ambrose. 
The order of Jesuits alone could show many 
men not inferior in sincerity, constancy, cou- 
rage, and austerity of life, to the apostles of the 
Reformation. 

But while danger had thus called forth in 
the bosom of the Church of Rome many of the 
highest qualities of the Reformers, the Reform- 
ed Churches had contracted some of the cor- 
ruptions which had been justly censured in the 
Church of Rome. They had become lukewarm 
and worldly. Their great old leaders had been 
borne to the grave, and had left no successors. 
Among the Protestant princes there was little 
or no hearty Protestant feeling. Elizabeth 
herself was a Protestant rather from policy 
than from firm conviction. James I., in order 
to effect his favourite object of marrying his 
son into one of the great continental houses, 
was ready to make immense concessions to 
Rome, and even to admit a modified primacy 
in the Pope. Henry IV. twice abjured the re- 
formed doctrines from interested motives. The 



Elector of Saxony — the natural head of tha 
Protestant party in Germany— submitted to 
become, at the most important crisis of tha 
struggle, a tool in the hands of tne Papists. 
Among the Catholic sovereigns, on she other 
hand, we find a religious zeal often amounting 
to fanaticism. Philip II. was a Papist in a 
very different sense from that in which Eliza- 
beth was a Protestant. Maximilian of Bava 
ria, brought up under the teaching of the 
Jesuits, was a fervent missionary wielding the 
powers of a prince. The Emperor Ferdinand 
II. deliberately put his throne to hazard over 
and over again, rather than make the smallest 
concession to the spirit of religious innovation. 
Sigismund of Sweden lost a crown which he 
might have preserved if he would have re- 
nounced the Catholic faith. In short, every- 
where on the Protestant side we see languor, 
everywhere on the Catholic side we see ardour 
and devotion. 

Not only was there, at tms time, a much 
more intense zeal among the Catholics than 
among the Protestants ; but the whole zeal of 
the Catholics was directed against the Protes- 
tants, while almost the whole zeal of the Pro- 
testants was directed against each other. 
Within the Catholic Church there were no se- 
rious disputes on points of doctrine. The de- 
cisions of the Council of Trent were received ; 
and the Jansenian controversy nad not yet 
arisen. The whole force of Rome was, there- 
fore, effective for the purpose of carrying on 
the war against the Reformation. On the 
other hand, the force which ought to have 
fought the battle of the Reformation was ex- 
hausted in civil conflict. While Jesuit preach- 
ers, Jesuit confessors, Jesuit teachers of youth, 
overspread Europe, eager to expend ever/ 
faculty of their minds and every drop of their 
blood in the cause of their church, Protestant 
doctors were confuting, and Protestant rulers 
were punishing sectaries who were just aa 
good Protestants as themselves — 

" Cumque superba foret Babylon spolianda tiop»is, 
Bella geri piacuit nullos habitura triumphos." 

In the Palatinate, a Calvinistic prince per- 
secuted the Lutherans. In Saxony, a Lutheran 
persecuted the Calvinists. In Sweden every 
body who objected to any of the articles of the 
Confession of Augsburg was banished. In 
Scotland, Melville was disputing with other 
Protestants on questions of ecclesiastical go- 
vernment. In England, the jails were fiLed 
with men who, though zealous for the Refor- 
mation, did not exactly agree with the court or 
all points of discipline and doctrine. Some 
were in ward for denying the tenet of reproba- 
tion; some for not wearing surplices. The 
Irish people might at that time have been, in 
all probability, reclaimed from Popery, at the 
expense of half the zeal and activity which 
Whitgift employed in oppressing Puritans, and 
Martin Marprelate in reviling bishops. 

As the Catholics in zeal and in union had a 
great advantage over the Protestants, so had 
they also an innately superior organization 
In truth, Protestanism, for aggressive purposes, 
had no organization at all. The Reformed 



410 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Churches were mere national Churches. The 
Church of England existed for England alone. 
It was an institution as purely local as the 
Court of Common Pleas, and was utterly with- 
out any machinery for foreign operations. 
The Church of Scotland, in the same manner, 
existed for Scotland alone. The operations of 
the Catholic Church, on the other hand, took 
in the whole world. Nobody at Lambeth, or at 
Edinburgh, troubled himself about what was 
doing in Poland or Bavaria. But at Rome, Cra- 
cow and Munich were objects of as much in- 
terest as the purlieus of St. John Lateran. Our 
island, the head of the Protestant interest, did 
not send out a single missionary or a single 
instructor of youth to the scene of the great 
spiritual war. Not a single seminary was 
established here for the purpose of furnishing 
a supply of such persons to foreign countries. 
On the other hand, Germany, Hungary, and 
Poland were filled with able and active Ca- 
tholic emissaries of Spanish or Italian birth ; 
and colleges for the instruction of the northern 
youth were founded at Rome. The spiritual 
force of Protestantism was a mere local militia, 
which might be useful in case of an invasion, 
out could not be sent abroad, and could there- 
fore make no conquests. Rome had such a 
focal militia; but she had also a force dis- 
posable at a moment's notice for foreign ser- 
vice, however dangerous or disagreeable. If 
it was thought at head-quarters that a Jesuit 
at Palermo was qualified by his talents and 
character to withstand the Reformers in Li- 
thuania, the order was instantly given and 
instantly obeyed. In a month, the faithful 
servant of the Church was preaching, cate- 
chising, confessing, beyond the Niemen. 

It is impossible to deny that the polity of the 
Church of Rome is the very masterpiece of 
human wisdom. In truth, nothing but such a 
polity could, against such assaults, have borne 
up such doctrines. The experience of twelve 
hundred eventful years, the ingenuity and pa- 
tient care of forty generations of statesmen, 
have improved it to such perfection, that 
among the contrivances of political abilities it 
occupies the highest place. The stronger our 
conviction that reason and Scripture were de- 
cidedly on the side of Protestantism, the greater 
is the reluctant admiration with which we re- 
gard that system of tactics against which rea- 
son and Scripture were arrayed in vain. 

If we went at large into this most interesting 
subject, we should fill volumes. We will, 
therefore, at present advert to only one im- 
portant part of the policy of the Church of 
Rome. She thoroughly understands, what no 
other Church has ever understood, how to deal 
with enthusiasts. In some sects — particularly 
in infant sects — enthusiasm is suffered to be 
rampant. In other seeks — particularly in sects 
long established and richly endowed — it is re- 
garded with aversion. The Catholic Church 
neither submits to enthusiasm nor proscribes 
it, but uses it. She considers it as a great 
moving force which in itself, like the muscular 
powers of a fine horse, is neither good nor 
evil, but which may be so directed as to pro- 
duce great good or great evil; and she as- 



sumes the direction to herself. It would b* 
absurd to run down a horse like a wolf. It 
would be still more absurd to let him run wild, 
breaking fences and trampling down passen- 
gers. The rational course is to subjugate hia 
will, without impairing his vigour — to teach 
him to obey the rein, and then to urge him to 
full speed. When once he knows his master 
he is valuable in proportion to his strength and 
spirit. Just such has been the system of the 
Church of Rome with regard to enthusiasts. 
She knows that when religious feelings have 
obtained the complete empire of the mind, 
they impart a strange energy, that they raise 
men above the dominion of pain and pleasure, 
that obloquy becomes glory, that death itself is 
contemplated only as the beginning of a higher 
and happier life. She knows that a person in 
this state is no object of contempt. He may be 
vulgar, ignorant, visionary, extravagant; but 
he will do and suffer things which it is for her 
interest that somebody should do and suffer, 
yet from which calm and sober-minded men 
would shrink. She accordingly enlists him in 
her service, assigns to him some forlorn hope, 
in which intrepidity and impetuosity are more 
wanted than judgment and self-command, and 
sends him forth with her benedictions and her 
applause. 

In England it not unfrequently happens that 
a tinker or coal-heaver hears a sermon, or falls 
in with a tract, which alarms him about the 
state of his soul. If he be a man of excitable 
nerves and strong imagination, he thinks him- 
self given over to the Evil Power. He doubts 
whether he has not committed the unpardon- 
able sin. He imputes every wild fancy that 
springs up in his mind to the whisper of a 
fiend. His sleep is broken by dreams of the 
great judgment-seat, the open books, and the 
unquenchable fire. If, in order to escape from 
these vexing thoughts, he flies to amusement 
or to licentious indulgence, the delusive relief 
only makes his misery darker and more hope 
less. At length a turn takes place. He is re> 
conciled to his offended Maker. To borrow 
the fine imagery of one who had himself been 
thus tried, he emerges from the Valley of the 
Shadow of Death, from the dark land of gins 
and snares, of quagmires and precipices, of 
evil spirits and ravenous beasts. The sun- 
shine is on his path. He ascends the De- 
lectable Mountains, and catches from their 
summit a distant view of the shining city 
which is the end of his pilgrimage. Then 
arises in his mind a natural, and surely not a 
censurable desire, to impart to others the 
thoughts of which his own heart is full — to 
warn the careless, to comfort those who are 
troubled in spirit. The impulse which urges 
him to devote his whole life to the teaching of 
religion, is a strong passion in the guise of a 
duty. He exhorts his neighbours ; and if he 
be a man of strong parts, he often does so 
with great effect. He pleads as if he were 
pleading for his life, with tears and pathetic 
gestures, and burning words; and he soon 
finds with delight, not perhaps wholly unmixed 
with the alloy of human infirmity, that his rude 
eloquence rouses and melts hearers who sleep 



KANKi^S HISTORY OF THE POPES. 



411 



very composedly while the rector preaches on 
t^e apostolical succession. Zeal for God, love 
for his fellow-creatures, pleasure in the exer- 
cise of his newly discovered powers, impel 
him to become a preacher. He has no quarrel 
with the establishment, no objection to its for- 
mularies, its government, or its vestments. 
He would gladly be admitted among its hum- 
blest ministers. But, admitted or rejected, his 
vocation is determined. His orders have come 
down to him, not through a long and doubtful 
series of Arian and Papist bishops, but direct 
from on high. His commission is the same 
that on the Mountain of Ascension was given 
to the Eleven. Nor will he, for lack of human 
credentials, spare to deliver the glorious mes- 
sage with which he is charged by the true 
Head of the Church. For a man thus minded, 
there is within the pale of the establishment no 
place. He has been at no college ; he cannot 
construe a Greek author, nor write a Latin 
theme ; and he is told that, if he remains in the 
communion of the Church, he must do so as a 
hearer, and that, if he is resolved to be a 
teacher, he must begin by being a schismatic. 
His choice is soon made. He harangues on 
Tower Hill or in Smithfield. A congregation 
is formed. A license is obtained. A plain 
brick building, with a desk and benches, is run 
wp, and named Ebenezer or Bethel. In a few 
weeks the Church has lost forever a hundred 
families, not one of which entertained the least 
scruple about her articles, her liturgy, her go- 
verment, or her ceremonies. 

Far different is the policy of Rome. The 
ignorant enthusiast, whom the Anglican Church 
makes an enemy, and, whatever the learned 
and polite may think, a most dangerous enemy, 
the Catholic Church makes a champion. She 
bids him nurse his beard, covers him with a 
gown and hood of coarse dark stuff, ties a rope 
round his waist, and sends him forth to teach 
in her name. He costs her nothing. He takes 
not a ducat away from the revenues of her 
beneficed clergy. He lives by the alms of 
those who respect his spiritual character, and 
are grateful for his instructions. He Reaches, 
not exactly in the style of Massillon, but in a 
way which moves the passions of uneducated 
hearers and all his influence is employed to 
strengthen the Church of which he is a minis- 
ter. To that Church he becomes as strongly 
attached as any of the cardinals, whose scarlet 
carriages and liveries crowd the entrance of 
the palace on the Quirinal. In this way the 
Church of Rome unites in herself all the 
strength of establishment and all the strength 
of dissent. With the utmost pomp of a domi- 
nant hierarchy above, she has all the energy 
of the voluntary system below. It would be 
easy to mention very recent instances in which 
the hearts of hundreds of thousands, estranged 
.from her by the selfishness, sloth, and coward- 
ice of the beneficed clergy, have been brought 
back by the zeal of the begging friars. 

Even for female agency there is a place in 
her system. To devout women she assigns 
spiritual functions, dignities, and magistracies. 
Iq our country, if a noble lady is moved by 
tore than ordinary zeal for the propagation of 



religion, the chance is, that tnough she ma) 
disapprove of no one doctrine or ceremony ox 
the Established Church, she will end by giving 
her name to a new schism. If a pious and 
benevolent woman enters the cells of a prison, 
to pray with the most unhappy and degraded 
of her own sex, she does so without any au« 
thority from the Church. ' No line of action is 
traced out for her ; and it is well if the Ordi> 
nary does not complain of her intrusion, and 
if the Bishop does not shake his head at such 
irregular benevolence. At Rome, the Countess 
of Huntingdon would have a place in the ca 
lendar as St. Selina, and Mrs. Fry would be 
foundress and first Superior of the Blessed 
Order of Sisters of the Jails. 

Place Ignatius Loyola at Oxford. He is 
certain to become the head of a formidable se- 
cession. Place John Wesley at Rome. He is 
certain to be the first General of a new society 
devoted to the interests and honour of the 
Church. Place St. Theresa in London. Her 
restless enthusiasm ferments into madness, not 
untinctured with craft. She becomes the pro- 
phetess, the mother of the faithful, holds dispu- 
tations with the devil, issues sealed pardons to 
her adorers, and lies in of the Shiloh. Place 
Joanna Southcote at Rome. She founds an 
order of barefooted Carmelites, every one of 
whom is ready to suffer martyrdom for the 
Church ; — a solemn service is consecrated to 
her memory: — and her statue, placed over the 
holy water, strikes the eye of every stranger 
who enters St. Peter's. 

We have dwelt long on this subject, because 
we believe, that of the many causes to which 
the Church of Rome owed her safety and her 
triumph at the close of the sixteenth century, 
the chief was the profound policy with which 
she used the fanaticism of such persons as St 
Ignatius and St. Theresa. 

The Protestant party was now, indeed, van- 
quished and humbled. In France, so strong 
had been the Catholic reaction, that Henry IV. 
found it necessary to choose between his reli- 
gion and his crown. In spite of his clear here- 
ditary right, in spite of his eminent personal 
qualities, he saw that, unless he reconciled 
himself to the Church of Rome, he could not 
count on the fidelity even of those gallant 
gentlemen whose impetuous valour had turned 
the tide of battle at Ivry. In Belgium, Poland, 
and Southern Germany, Catholicism had ob- 
tained a complete ascendant. The resistance 
of Bohemia was put down. The Palatinate 
was conquered. Upper and Lower Saxony 
were overflowed by Catholic invaders. The 
King of Denmark stood forth as the Protector 
of the Reformed Churches ; he was defeated, 
driven out of the empire, and attacked in his 
own possessions* The armies of the house 
of Austria pressed on, subjugated Pomerania, 
and were stopped in their progress only by the 
ramparts of Stralsund. 

And now again the tide turned. Two viu 
lent outbreaks of religious feeling in opposite 
directions had given a character to the history 
of a whole century. Protestantism had at firsN 
driven back Catholicism to the Alps and the 
Pyrenees. Catholicism had rall'ed, and had 



4l« 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



driven back Protestantism even to the German 
Ocean. Then the great southern reaction be- 
gan to slacken, as the great northern movement 
had slackened before. The zeal of the Catho- 
'ics became cool; their union was dissolved. 
The paroxysm of religious excitement was 
over on both sides. The one party had de- 
generated as far from the spirit of Loyola as 
the other from the spirit of Luther. During 
three generations, religion had been the main- 
spring of politics. The revolutions and civil 
wars of France, Scotland, Holland, Sweden, 
the long struggle between Philip and Elizabeth, 
the bloody competition for the Bohemian crown, 
all originated in theological disputes. 

But a great change now took place. The 
contest which was raging in Germany lost its 
religious character. It was now, on the one side, 
less a contest for the spiritual ascendency of 
the Church of Rome than for the temporal as- 
cendency of the house of Austria. On the 
other, it was less a contest for the reformed 
doctrine than for national independence. Go- 
vernments began to form themselves into new 
combinations, in which community of political 
interest was far more regarded than communi- 
ty of religious belief. Even at Rome the pro- 
gress of the Catholic arms was observed with 
very mixed feelings. The Supreme Pontiff 
was a sovereign prince of the second rank, and 
was anxious about the balance of power, as 
well as about the propagation of truth. It was 
known that he dreaded the rise of a universal 
monarchy even more than he desired the pros- 
perity of the Universal Church. At length a 
great event announced to the world that the 
war of sects had ceased, and that the war of 
states had succeeded. A coalition, including 
Calvinists, Lutherans, and Catholics, was 
formed against the house of Austria. At the 
head of that coalition were the first statesman 
and first warrior of the age ; the former a 
prince of the Catholic Church, distinguished 
by the vigour and success with which he had 
put down the Huguenots — the latter aProtestant 
king, who owed his throne to the revolution 
caused by hatred of Popery. The alliance of 
Richelieu and Gustavus marks the time at 
which the great religious struggle terminated. 
The war which followed was a war for the 
equilibrium of Europe. When, at length, the 
peace of Westphalia was concluded, it appear- 
ed that the Church of Rome remained in full 
possession of a vast dominion, which in the 
middle of the preceding century she seemed 
to be on the point of losing. No part of Eu- 
rope remained Protestant, except that part 
which had become thoroughly Protestant be- 
fore the generation which heard Luther preach 
had passed away. 

Since that time there has -been no religious 
war between Catholics and Protestants as such. 
[n the time of Cromwell, Protestant England 
was united with Catholic France, then govern- 
ed, by a priest, against Catholic Spain. William 
the Tiiird, the eminently Protestant hero, was 
at the head of a coalition which included many 
Catholic powers, and which was secretly fa- 
voured even by Rome, against the Catholic 
fumis In the time of Anne, Protestant Eng- 



land and Protestant Holland joined with Cath> 
lie Savoy and Catholic Portugal, for the pur- 
pose of transferring the crown of Spain from 
one bigoted Catholic to another. 

The geographical frontier between the two 
religions has continued to run almost pre- 
cisely where it ran at the close of the Thirty 
Years' War ; nor has Protestantism given any 
proofs of that " expansive power" which has 
been ascribed to it. But the Protestant boasts, 
and most justly, that wealth, civilization, and 
intelligence have increased far more on the 
northern than on the southern side of the 
boundary ; that countries so little favoured by 
nature as Scotland and Prussia are now among 
the most flourishing and best governed portions 
of the world — while the marble palaces of 
Genoa are deserted — while banditti infest the 
beautiful shores of Campania — while the fertile 
sea-coast of the Pontifical State is abandoned 
to buffaloes and wild boars. It cannot be 
doubted, that since the sixteenth century, the 
Protestant nations — fair allowance being made 
for physical disadvantages — have made de- 
cidedly greater progress than their neighbours. 
The progress made by those nations in which 
Protestantism, though not finally successful, ye; 
maintained a long struggle, and left permanent; 
traces, has generally been considerable. But 
when we come to the Catholic Land, to th? 
part of Europe in which the first spark of re- 
formation was trodden out as soon as it appear- 
ed, and from which proceeded the impulse 
which drove Protestantism back, we find, at 
best, a very slow progress^ and on the whole a 
retrogression. Compare Denmark and Por« 
tugal. When Luther began to preach, the 
superiority of the Portuguese was unquestion- 
able. At present the superiority of the Danes 
is no less so. Compare Edinburgh and Flo- 
rence. Edinburgh has owed less to climate, 
to soil, and to the fostering care of rulers, than 
any capital, Protestant or Catholic. In all 
these respects, Florence has been singularly 
happy. Yet whoever knows what Florence 
and Edinburgh were in the generation pre- 
ceding *the Reformation, and what they are 
now, will acknowledge that some great cause 
has, during the last three centuries, operated 
to raise one part of the European family, and 
to depress the other. Compare the history of 
England and that of Spain during the last cen- 
tury. In arms, arts, sciences, letters, com- 
merce, agriculture, the contrast is most strik- 
ing. The distinction is not confined to this 
side of the Atlantic. The colonies planted by 
England in America have immeasurably out- 
grown in power those planted by Spain. Yet 
we have no reason to believe that, at the be- 
ginning of the sixteenth century, the Castilian 
was in any respect inferior to the Englishman. 
Our firm belief is, that the North owes its 
great civilization and prosperity chiefly to the 
moral effect of the Protestant Reformation ; 
and that the decay of the Southern countries 
of Europe is to be mainly ascribed to the great 
Catholic revival. 

About a hundred years after the final settle- 
ment of the boundary line between Protestant 
ism and Catholicism, began to appear tn« 






RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES. 



413 



signs of the fourth great peril of the Church 
M Rome. The storm which was now rising 
against her was of a vei^f different kind from 
(hose which had preceded it. Those who had 

formerly attacked lier had questioned only ;i 

part oi' her doctrines. A school was now 
growing up which rejected the whole. The 
Albigenses, the Lollards, the Lutherans, the 
Oalvinists, had a positive religious system, 
and were Strongly attached to it. The creed 
of the new sectaries was altogether negative. 
They look one of their premises from the 
Catholics, and one from the Protestants. 
Pn m the former they borrowed the principle, 
that Catholicism was the only pure and ge- 
nuine Christianity. Wil.li the latter they held 
that some parts of the Catholic system were 
contrary to reason. The conclusion was ob- 
vious. Two propositions, each of which sepa- 
rately is compatible with the' most exalted 
piety, formed, when held in conjunction, the 
groundwork of a system of irreligion. The 
(inch mo of Bossuet, that transubstantiation is 
affirmed in the Gospel, and the doctrine of 
Tillotson, that transubstantiation is an absurd- 
ity, when put together, produced by logical ne- 
cessity the inferences of Voltaire. 

Had the sect which was rising at Paris been 
a sect of mere scoffers, it is very improbable 
that it would have left deep traces of its exist- 
ence in the institutions and manners of Eu- 
rope. Mere negation — mere Epicurean infi- 
delity, as Lord BaCOn most justly observes — 
has never disturbed the peace of the world. It 
furnishes no motive for action. It inspires no 
enthusiasm. It has no missionaries, no cru- 
saders, no martyrs. If the Patriarch of the 
Holy Philosophical Church had contented 
himself with making jokes about Haul's asses 
and David's wives, and with criticising the 
poetry of K/.ekiel in the same narrow spirit in 

which he criticised that of Shakspeare, the 
Church would have bad little to fear. Hut it is 
due to him and to his compeers to say, that the 
real Becret of their strength lay in the truth 
which was mingled with their errors, and ill 
the generous enthusiasm which was hidden 
under their flippancy. They were men who, 
with all their faults, moral and intellectual, 
sincerely and earnestly desired the improve- 
ment 01 the condition of the human race — 

whose blood boiled at the sight of cruelty and 
injustice — who made manful war, with every 
faculty which they possessed, on what they 
considered as abuses — and who on many sig- 
nal occasions placed themselves gallantly be- 
tween the powerful and the oppressed. While 
they assailed Christianity with a rancour and 
an unfairness disgraceful to men who call 
themselves philosophers, they yet, had, in far 
greater measure than their opponents, that 
charity towards men of all classes and races 
which Christianity enjoins. Religious perse- 
cution, judicial torture, arbitrary imprison- 
ment, the unnecessary multiplication of Capital 
punishments, the delay and chicanery oi tri- 
bunals, the exactions of farmers of the revenue, 
slavery, the slave trade, were the constant, sub- 
jects of their lively satire and eloquent disqui- 
sitions. When an innocent man was broken 
27 



on the wheel at Toulouse — vhen a youth, 
guilty only of an indiscretion, was burned ai 
Abbeville — when a brave, officer, borne down 
by public injustice, was dragged, with a gag in 
his mouth, to die on the Place de Grove, a 

voie.e instantly went forth from the ba.nlcs of 

Lake Leman, which made itself heard from 
Moscow to Cadiz, and which sentenced the 
unjust judges to the contempt and detestation 
of all Europe. The really efficient weapons 
with which the philosophers assailed the evan- 
gelical faith were borrowed from the evangeli- 
cal morality. The ethical and dogmatica. 

parts of the Cuspid were unhappily turned 
against each other. On the one side was a 
church boasting of the purity of a. docftine de- 
rived from the apostle:;; but disgraced by the 
massacre of St. Bartholomew, by the murder 

Of the best of kings, by the war of l.ho Cevcn- 

nes, by the destruction of Port-Royal. On the 

other side was a sect laughing at the Scrip- 
tures, Shooting out the tongue at the sacra- 
ments, but ready to encoiniter principalities 

and powers in the cause of justice, mercy, ami 

toleration. 

Irreligion, accidentally associated with phi- 
lanthropy, triumphed for a time over religion 
accidentally associated with political and so- 
cial abuses. Every thing gave way to the 

Zeal and activity of the new reformers. In 
France, every man distinguished in letters 
was found in their ranks. Every year gave 
bulb in works in which the fundamental prin- 
ciples of the Church were attacked with argu- 
ment, invective, and ridicule. The Chimb 
made no defence, except by acts of power. 
Censures were pronounced — editions were 
seized — insults were olfereil to the remains ill 
infidel writers; but no Bossuet, no Pascal, 
came forth to encounter Voltaire. There ap- 
peared not a single defence, of the Catholic 

doctrine which produced any considerable ef- 
fect, Or which is now even remembered. A 

bloody ami unsparing persecution, like thai 
which put down the Albigenses, might have 
pui down the philosophers. But the time fir 

De MontfortS and Dominies had gone by. The 
punishments which the priests were still able 

to inflict were sufficient in irritate, bul nol suf- 
ficient to destroy. The war was between 
power on the one side, and wit on the other, 
and the power was under far more restraint 

than the wit. Orthodoxy soon became a badge 
of ignorance and stupidity. It was as neces- 
sary to the character of an accomplished man 
that he should despise the religion of his coun- 
try, as that he should know his letters. The 
new doctrines spread rapidly through ( 'hristen* 

dom. Paris was the capital of the whole con- 
tinent.. I'Yene.h was everywhere the language 
of polite circles. The literary glory of Itaiy 
and Spain had departed. That of Germany 
bad not yet dawned. 1. he teachers of France 
were the teachers of Europe. The Parisian 
opinions spread faSl among the educate;, 
classes beyond the Alps; nor could (he vigi- 
lance of the Inquisition prevent the contraband 
importation of the new heresy into Castile and 
Portugal. Governments — even arbitrary go- 
vernments — saw with pleasure the progress 



414 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



jf this philosophy. Numerous reforms, gene- 
rally laudable, sometimes hurried on without 
sufficient regard to time, to place, and to public 
feeling, showed the extent of its influence. 
The rulers of Prussia, of Russia, of Austria, 
and of many smaller states were supposed to 
be among the initiated. 

The Church of Rome was still, in outward 
show, as stately and splendid as ever ; but her 
foundation was undermined. No state had 
quitted her communion, or confiscated her re- 
venues; but the reverence of the people was 
everywhere departing from her. 

The first great warning stroke was the fall 
of that society which, in the conflict with Pro- 
testantism, had saved the Catholic Church 
from destruction. The order of Jesus had 
never recovered from the injury received in 
the struggle with Port-Royal. It was now still 
more rudely assailed by the philosophers. Its 
spirit was broken ; its reputation was tainted. 
Insulted by all the men of genius in Europe, 
condemned by the civil magistrate, feebly de- 
fended by the chiefs of the hierarchy, it fell — 
and great was the fall of it. 

The movement went on with increasing 
speed. The first generation of the new sect 
passed away. The doctrines of Voltaire were 
inherited and exaggerated by successors, who 
bore to him the same relation which the Ana- 
baptists bore to Luther, or the Fifth-Monarchy 
men to Pym. At length the Revolution came. 
Down went the old Church of France, with all 
its pomp and wealth. Some of its priests pur- 
chased a maintenance by separating them- 
selves from Rome, and by becoming the au- 
thors of a fresh schism. Some, rejoicing in 
ihe new license, flung away their sacred vest- 
ments, proclaimed that their whole life had 
been an imposture, insulted and persecuted 
the religion of which they had been ministers, 
and distinguished themselves even in the Ja- 
cobin Club and the Commune of Paris, by the 
excess of their impudence and ferocity. Others, 
more faithful to their principles, were butch- 
ered by scores without a trial, drowned, shot, 
hung on lamp-posts. Thousands fled from 
their country to take sanctuary under the shade 
of hostile altars. The churches were closed ; 
the bells were silent ; the shrines were plun- 
dered; the silver crucifixes were melted down. 
Buffoons, dressed in copes and surplices, came 
dancing the carmagnole even to the bar of the 
Convention. The bust of Marat was substi- 
tuted for the statues of the martyrs of Chris- 
tianity. A prostitute, seated in state in the 
chancel of Notre Dame, received the adoration 
of thousands, who exclaimed that at length, 
(or the first time, those ancient Gothic arches 
had resounded with the accents of truth. The 
new unbelief was as intolerant as the old su- 
perstition. To show reverence for religion 
was to 'ncur the suspicion of disaffection. It 
was not without imminent danger that the 
priest baptized the infant, joined the hands of 
Lovers, or listened to the confession of the 
dying The absurd worship of the Goddess of 
Reason was, indeed, of short duratiou • but the 
deism of Robespierre and Lepaux was not less 
nostile to the Catholic faith that the atheism of 
Clootz and Chaumette. 



Nor were the calamities of the Church cob 
fined to France. The revolutionary spirit, at> 
tacked by all Europe, beat all Europe back, 
became conqueror in its turn, and, not satisfied 
with the Belgian cities and the rich domains 
of the spiritual electors, went raging over the 
Rhine and through the passes of the Alps. 
Throughout the whole of the great war against 
Protestantism, Italy and Spain had been the 
base of the Catholic operations. Spain was 
now the obsequious vassal of the infidels. Italy 
was subjugated by them. To her ancient prin- 
cipalities succeeded the Cisalpine republic, and 
the Ligurian republic, and the Parthenopean 
republic. The shrine of Loretto was stripped 
of the treasures piled up by the devotion of six 
hundred years. The convents of Rome were 
pillaged. The tricoloured flag floated on the 
top of the castle of St. Angelo. The successor 
of St. Peter was carried away captive by the 
unbelievers. He died a pri soner in their h ands ; 
and even the honours of sepulture were long 
withheld from his remains* 

It is not strange that in the year 1799, even 
sagacious observers should have thought that, 
at length, the hour of the Church of Rome was 
come. An infidel power ascendant — the Pope 
dying in captivity — the most illustrious pre- 
lates of France living in a foreign country on 
Protestant alms — the noblest edifices which 
the munificence of former ages had consecrat- 
ed to the worship of God, turned into temples 
of victory, or into banqueting-houses for poli- 
tical societies, or into Theophilanthropic cha- 
pels — such signs might well be supposed to in- 
dicate the approaching end of that long domi- 
nation. 

But the end was not yet. Again doomed tc 
death, the milk-white hind was still fated not 
to die. Even before the funeral rites had been 
performed over the ashes of Pius the Sixth, a 
great reaction had commenced, which after the 
lapse of more than forty years appears to be 
still in progress. Anarchy had its day. A 
new order of things rose out of the confusion — 
new dynasties, new laws, new titles ; and 
amidst them emerged the ancient religion. 

The Arabs had a fable that the Great Pyra- 
mid was built by antediluvian kings, and alone, 
of all the works of men, bore the weight of the 
flood. Such as this was the fate of the Papacy 
It had been buried under the great inundation 
but its deep foundations had remained un- 
shaken ; and, when the waters abated, it ap- 
peared alone amidst the ruins of a world which 
had passed away. The republic of Holland 
was gone, and the empire of Germany, and the 
Great Council of Venice, and the old Helvetian 
League, and the house of Bourbon, and the 
Parliaments and aristocracy of France. Europe 
was full of young creations — a French empire, 
a kingdom of Italy, a Confederation of the 
Rhine. Nor had the late events affected only ter- 
ritorial limits and political institutions. The dis- 
tribution of property, the composition and spirit 
of society, had, through great part of Catholic 
Europe, undergone a complete change. But 
the unchangeable Church was still there. Some 
future historian, as able and temperate as Pro- 
fessor Ranke, will, we hope, trace the progress 
of the Catholic revival of the nineteenth cen- 



RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES. 



415 



mry. We feel that we are drawing too near 
our own time ; and that, if we go on, we shall 
be in danger of saying much which may be 
supposed to indicate, and which will certainly 
excite, angiy feelings. We will, therefore, make 
only one observation, which, in our opinion, is 
deserving of serious attention. 

During the eighteenth century, the influence 
of the Church of Rome was constantly on the 
decline. Unbelief made extensive conquests 
m all the Catholic countries of Europe, and in 
some countries obtained a complete ascend- 
ency. The Papacy was at length brought so 
low as to be an object of derision to infidels, 
and of pity rather than of hatred to Protestants. 
During the nineteenth century, this fallen 
Church has been gradually rising from her 
depressed state, and reconquering her old do- 
minion. No person who calmly reflects on 
what, within the last few years, has passed in 
Spain, in Italy, in South America, in Ireland, 
in the Netherlands, in Prussia, even in France, 
can doubt that her power over the hearts and 
minds of men is now greater than it was when 
the " Encyclopsedia" and the "Philosophical 
Dictionary" appeared. It is surely remarkable, 
that neither the moral revolution of the eight- 
eenth century, nor the moral counter-revolu- 
tion of the"* nineteenth, should, in any per- 
ceptible degree, have added to the domain of 
Protestantism. During the former period, what- 
ever was lost to Catholicism was lost also to 
Christianity ; during the latter, whatever was 
regained by Christianity in Catholic countries, 
was regained also by Catholicism. We should 
naturally have expected that many minds, on 
the way from superstition to infidelity, or on 
the way back from infidelity to superstition, 
would have stopped at an intermediate point. 
Between the doctrines taught in the schools of 



the Jesuits, and those which were maintained 
at the little supper parties of the Baron Hol« 
bach, there is a vast interval, in which the 
human mind, it should seem, might find for 
itself some resting-place more satisfactory than 
either of the two extremes. And at the time 
of the Reformation, millions found such a rest- 
ing-place. Whole nations then renounced 
Popery without ceasing to believe in a first 
cause, in a future life, or in the Divine authority 
of Christianity. In the last century, on the 
other hand, when a Catholic renounced his be- 
lief in the real presence, it was a thousand to 
one that he renounced his belief in the Gospej 
too ; and when the reaction took place, with 
belief in the Gospel came back belief in the 
real presence. 

We by no means venture to deduce from 
these phenomena- any general law: but we 
think it a most remarkable fact, that no Chris 
tian nation, which did not adopt the principles 
of the Reformation before the end of the six 
teenth century, should ever have adopted them 
Catholic communities have, since that time, 
become infidel and become Catholic again 
but none has become Protestant. 

Here we close this hasty sketch of one of the 
most important portions of the history of man- 
kind. Our readers will have great reason to 
feel obliged to us if we have interested them 
sufficiently to induce them to peruse Professor 
Ranke's book. We will only caution them 
against the French translation — a performance 
which, in our opinion, is just as discreditable 
: to the moral character of the person from whom 
it proceeds, as a false affidavit or a forged bil 
of exchange would have been; and advise 
them to study either the original, or the English 
version, in which the sense and spirit of the 
original are admirably preserved. 



416 



MAC AUL AY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



COWLEY AND MILTON/ 



"Tteferre sermones Deorura et 
Magna modis tenuare parvis." 

Horace. 



I have thought it good to set down in writing 
a memorable debate, wherein I was a listener, 
and two men of pregnant parts and great repu- 
tation discoursers ; hoping that my friends will 
not be displeased to have a record both of the 
strange times through which I have lived, and 
of the famous men with whom I have con- 
versed. It chanced in the warm and beautiful 
spring of the year 1665, a little before the sad- 
dest summer that ever London saw, that I went 
to the Bowling-Green at Piccadilly, whither at 
that time the best gentry made continual resort. 
There I met Mr. Cowley, who had lately left 
Barnelms. There was then a house preparing 
for him at Chertsey, and till it should be finished 
he had come up for a short time to London, that 
he might urge a suit to his Grace of Bucking- 
ham touching certain lands of her majesty's 
whereof he requested a lease. I had the ho- 
nour to be familiarly acquainted with that 
worthy gentleman and most excellent poet, 
whose death hath been deplored with as gene- 
ral a consent of all powers that delight in the 
woods, or in verse, or in love, as was of old 
rnat of Daphnis or of Gallus. 

After some talk, which it is not material to 
set down at large, concerning his suit and his 
vexations at the court, where indeed his ho- 
nesty did him more harm than his parts could 
do him good, I entreated him to dine with me 
at my lodgings in the Temple, which he most 
courteously promised. And that so eminent a 
guest might not lack a better entertainment 
than cooks or vintners can provide, I sent to 
the house of Mr. John Milton, in the Artillery 
Walk, to beg that he would also be my guest. 
For, though he had been secretary, first to the 
Council of State, and after that to the Protector, 
and Mr. Cowley had held the same post under 
Lord St. Albans in his banishment,! hoped, 
notwithstanding, that they would think them- 
selves rather united by their common art than 
divided by their different factions. And so in- 
deed it proved. For while we sate at table 
they talked freely of many men and things, as 
well ancient as modern, with much civility. 
Nay, Mr. Milton, who seldom tasted wine, both 
because of his singular temperance, and be- 
cause of his gout, did more than once pledge 
Mr. Cowley, who was indeed no hermit in diet. 
At last, being heated, Mr. Milton begged that I 
would open the windows. " Nay," said I, " if 
you desire fresh air and coolness, what should 
hinder us, as the evening is fair, from sailing 



* A Conversation between Mr. Abraham Cowley and Mr. 
John Milton, touching the Great Civil War. — Set down by 
a Gentleman of the Middle Temple. 



an hour on the river." To this they both cheer- 
fully consented, and forth we walked, Mr. Cow- 
ley and I leading Mr. Milton between us to the 
Temple Stairs. There we took a boat, and 
thence we rowed up the river. 

The wind was pleasant ; the evening fine ; 
the sky, the earth, and the water beautiful to 
look upon. But Mr. Cowley and I held our 
peace, and said nothing of the gay sights around 
us, lest we should too feelingly remind Mr. 
Milton of his calamity; whereof, however, he 
needed no monitor, for soon he said, sadly, 
"Ah, Mr. Cowley, you are a happy man. What 
would I now give for one more look at the sun, 
and the waters, and the gardens of this fair 
city!" 

"I know not," said Mr. Cowley, "whether 
we ought not rather to envy you for that which 
makes you to envy others ; and that especially 
in this place, where all eyes which are not 
closed in blindness ought to become fountains 
of tears. What can we look upon which is not 
a memorial of change and sorrow, of fair 
things vanished, and evil things done 1 When 
I see the gate of Whitehall, and the stately pil- 
lars of the Banqueting House, I cannot choose 
but think of what I have seen there in former 
days, masques, and pageants, and dances, and 
smiles, and the waving of graceful heads, and 
the bounding of delicate feet. And then I turn 
to thoughts of other things, which even to re- 
member makes me blush and weep ; — of the 
great black scaffold, and the axe and the block, 
which were placed before those very windows ; 
and the voice seems to sound in mine ears, the 
lawless and terrible voice which cried out that 
the head of a king was the head of a traitor. 
There stands Westminster Hall, which who 
can look upon and not tremble to think how 
time, and change, and death confound the 
counsels of the wise, and beat down the wea- 
pons of the mighty 1 How have I seen it sur- 
rounded with tens of thousands of petitioners 
crying for justice and privilege ! How have I 
heard it shake with fierce and proud words, 
which made the hearts of the people to burn 
within them ! Then it is blockaded by dra- 
goons and cleared by pikemen. And they who 
have conquered their master go forth trembling 
at the word of their servant. And yet a little 
while, and the usurper comes forth from it, in 
his robe of ermine, with the golden staff in one 
hand and the Bible in the other, amidst the 
roaring of the guns and the shouting of the 
people. And yet again a little while, and the 
doors are thronged with multitudes in ilack, 
and the hearse and the plumes come forth, and 
the tyrant is borne, in more than royal pomp. 



COWLEY AND MILTON. 



41V 



m a royal sepulchre. A few days more, and 
his head is fixed to rot on the pinnacles of that 
very hall where he sat on a throne in his life, 
and lay in state after his death. When I think 
on all these things, to look round me makes 
me sad at heart. True it is that God hath re- 
stored to us our old laws, and the rightful line 
of our kings. Yet, how I know not, but it 
seems to me that something is wanting, — that 
our court hath not the old gravity, nor our peo- 
ple the old loyalty. These evil times, like the 
great deluge, have overwhelmed and confused 
all earthly things. And, even as those waters, 
th mgh at last they abated, yet, as the learned 
write, destroyed all trace of the Garden of 
Eden, so that its place hath never yet been 
found, so- hath this opening of all the flood- 
gates of political evil effaced all marks of the 
ancient political paradise." 

"Sir, by your favour," said Mr. Milton, 
"though, from many circumstances both of 
body and fortune, I might plead fairer excuses 
for despondency than yourself, I yet look not 
so sadly either on the past or on the future. 
That a deluge hath passed over this our nation 
I deny not But I hold it not to be such a de- 
luge as that of which you speak, but rather a 
blessed flood, like those of the Nile, which in 
its overflow doth indeed wash away ancient 
landmarks, and confound boundaries, and 
sweep away dwellings, yea, doth give birth to 
many foul and dangerous reptiles. Yet hence 
is the fulness of the granary, the beauty of the 
garden, the nurture of all living things. 

"I remember well, Mr. Cowley, what you 
have said concerning these things in your Dis- 
course of the Government of Oliver Cromwell, 
which my friend Elwood read to me last year. 
Truly, for elegance and rhetoric, that essay is 
to be compared with the finest tractates of Iso- 
crates and Cicero. But neither that nor any 
other book, nor events which with other men 
have, more .than any book, weight and autho- 
rity, have altered my opinion that, of all the 
assemblies that ever were in this world, the 
best and the most useful was our Long Parlia- 
ment. I speak not this as wishing to provoke 
debate, which neither yet do I decline." 

Mr. Cowley was, as I could see, a little net- 
tled. Yet, as he was a man of a kind disposi- 
tion and a most refined courtesy, he put a force 
to himself, and answered, with more vehemence 
and quickness, indeed, than was his wont, yet 
not uncivilly. " Surely, Mr. Milton, you speak 
not as you think. I am indeed one of those 
who believe that God hath reserved to himself 
the censure of kings, and that their crimes and 
oppressions are not to be resisted by the hands 
of their subjects. Yet can I easily find excuse 
for the violence of such as are stung to mad- 
ness by grievous tyranny. But what shall we 
say for these men ? Which of their just de- 
mands was not granted ? Which even of their 
cruel and unreasonable requisitions, so as it 
were not inconsistent Avith all law and order, 
was refused 1 Had they not sent Strafford to 
the block and Laud to the Tower? Had they 
not destroyed the Courts of the High Commis- 
sion and the Star-Chamber ? Had they not re- 
versed the proceedings confirmed by the voices 
of the judges of England in the matter of ship- 



money? Had they not taken from the king his 
ancient and most lawful power touching the 
order of knighthood 1 Had they not provided 
that, after their dissolution, triennial parlia- 
ments should be holden, and that their own 
power should continue till of their great con« 
descension they should be pleased to resign it 
themselves? What more could they ask? 
Was it not enough that they had taken from 
their king all his oppressive powers, and many 
that were most salutary ? Was it not enough 
that they had filled his council-board with his 
enemies, and his prisons with his adherents ? 
Was it not enough that they had raised a furi- 
ous multitude to shout and swagger daily under 
the very windows of his royal palace? Was 
it not enough that they had taken from him 
the most blessed prerogative of princely mercy; 
that, complaining of intolerance themselves, 
they had denied all toleration to others; that 
they had urged against forms scruples childish 
as those of any formalist ; that they had per- 
secuted the least remnant of the Popish rites 
with the fiercest bitterness of the Popish spi- 
rit? Must they besides all this have full powei 
to command his armies and to massacre hi? 
friends? 

" For military command, it was never known 
in any monarchy, nay, in any well ordered 
republic, that it was committed to the debates 
of a large and unsettled assembly. For their 
other requisition, that he should give up to 
their vengeance all who had defended the 
rights of his crown, his honour must have 
been ruined if he had complied. Is it not 
therefore plain that they desired these things 
only in order that, by refusing, his majesty 
might give them a pretence for war ? 

"Men have often risen up against fraud, 
against cruelty, against rapine. But when be- 
fore was it known that concessions were met 
with importunities, graciousness with insults, 
the open palm of bounty with the clenched fist 
of malice ? Was it like trusty delegates of the 
Commons of England and faithful stewards of 
their liberty and their Avealth, to engage them 
for such causes in civil war, which, both to 
liberty and to wealth, is of all things the most 
hostile. Evil indeed must be the disease which 
is not more tolerable than such a medicine. 
Those who, even to save a nation from tyrants, 
excite it to civil war, do in general but minis- 
ter to it the same miserable kind of relief 
wherewith the wizards of Pharaoh mocked the 
Egyptian. We read that when Moses had 
turned their waters into blood, those impious 
magicians, intending not benefit to the thirst- 
ing people, but vain and emulous ostentation 
of their own art, did themselves also change 
into blood the water which the plague had 
spared. Such sad comfort do those who stir 
Up war minister to the oppressed. But here 
where was the oppression? What was the 
favour which had not been granted? What 
was the evil which had not been removed' 1 
What further could they desire?" 

" These questions," said Mr. Milton, austere 
ly, " have indeed often deceived the ignorant, 
but that Mr. Cowley should have been so be- 
guiled, I marvel. You ask what more the 
Parliament could desire ? I will answer you 



418 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



in one word, security. What are votes, and 
statutes, and resolutions ? They have no eyes 
to see, no hands to strike and avenge. They 
must have some safeguard from without. 
Many things, therefore, which in themselves 
were peradventure hurtful, was this Parlia- 
ment constrained to ask, lest otherwise good 
laws and precious rights should be without 
defence. Nor did they want a great and sig- 
nal example of this danger. I need not remind 
you that, many years before, the two houses 
had presented to the king the Petition of Right, 
wherein were set down all the most valuable 
privileges of the people of this realm. Did 
not Charles accept it 1 Did he not declare it 
to be law? Was it not as fully enacted as 
ever were any of those bills of the Long Par- 
liament concerning which you spoke? And 
were those privileges therefore enjoyed more 
fully by the people ? No : the king did from 
that time redouble his oppressions as if to 
avenge himself for the shame of having been 
compelled to renounce them. Then were our 
estates laid under shameful impositions, our 
houses ransacked, our bodies imprisoned. 
Then was the steel of the hangman blunted 
with mangling the ears of harmless men. 
Then our very minds were fettered, and the 
ircn entered into our souls. Then we were 
compelled to hide our hatred, our sorrow, and 
our scorn, to laugh with hidden faces at the 
mummery of Laud, to curse under our breath 
the tyranny of Wentworth. Of old time it was 
well and nobly said by one of our kings, that 
an Englishman ought to be free as his thoughts. 
Our prince reversed the maxim; he strove to 
make our thoughts as much slaves as our- 
selves. To sneer at a Romish pageant, to 
miscall a lord's crest, were crimes for which 
there was no mercy. These were all the fruits 
which we gathered from those excellent laws 
of the former Parliament, from these solemn 
promises of the king. Were we to be deceived 
again ? Were we again to give subsidies, and 
receive nothing but promises ? Were we again 
to make wholesome statutes, and then leave 
them to be broken daily and hourly, until the 
oppressor should have squandered another 
supply, and should be ready for another per- 
jury? You ask what they could desire which 
he had not already granted. Let me ask of 
you another question. What pledge could be 
given which he had not already violated ? 
From the first year of his reign, whenever he 
had need of the purses of his Commons to sup- 
port the revels of Buckingham or the proces- 
sions of Laud, he had assured them, that as he 
was a gentleman and a king, he would sacred- 
ly preserve their rights. He had pawned those 
solemn pledges, and pawned them again and 
again; but when had he redeemed them? 
'Upon my faith,' — 'Upon my sacred word,' — 
4 Upon the honour of a prince,' — came so easi- 
ly from his lips and dwelt so short a time on 
his mind, that they were as little to be trusted 
a? the 'By these hilts' of an Alsatian dicer. 

"Therefore it is that I praise this Parlia- 
ment for what else I might have condemned. 
If what he had granted had been granted 
graciously and readily, if what he had before 
promised had been faithfully observed, they 



could not be defended. It was because he had 
never yielded the worst abuse without a iong 
struggle, and seldom without a large bribe ; ij 
was because he had no sooner disentangled 
himself from his troubles than he forgot his 
promises ; and, more like a villanous huckster 
than a great king, kept both the prerogative 
and the large price which had been paid to 
him to forego it; it was because of these things 
that it was necessary and just to bind with 
forcible restraints one who could be bound 
neither by law nor honour. Nay, even while 
he was making those very concessions of 
which you speak, he betrayed his deadly 
hatred against the people and their friends. 
Not only did he, contrary *o all that ever was 
deemed lawful in England, order that members 
of the Commons House of Parliament should 
be impeached of high treason at the bar of the 
Lords ; thereby violating both the trial by jury 
and the privileges of the House ; but, not con- 
tent with breaking the law by his ministers, 
he went himself armed to assail it. In the 
birth-place and sanctuary of freedom, in the 
House itself, nay, in the very chair of the 
Speaker, placed for the protection of free 
speech and privilege, he sat, rolling his eyes 
round the benches, searching for those whose 
blood he desired, and singling out his opposers 
to the slaughter. This most foul outrage fails. 
Then again for the old arts. Then come 
gracious messages. Then come courteous 
speeches. Then is again mortgaged his own 
forfeited honour. He will never again violate 
the laws. He will respect their rights as if 
they were his own. He pledges the dignity of 
his crown ; that crown which had been com 
mitted to him for the weal of his people, and 
which he never named, but that he might Ihe 
more easily delude and oppress them. 

"The power of the sword, I grant you, was 
not one to be permanently possessed by parlia- 
ment. Neither did that parliament demand it 
as a permanent possession. They asked it 
only for temporary security. Nor can I see 
on what conditions they could safely make 
peace with that false and wicked king, save 
such as would deprive him of all power to in- 
jure. 

" For civil war, that it is an evil I dispute 
not. But that it is the greatest of evils, that 
I stoutly deny. It doth indeed appear to the 
misjudging to be a worse calamity than bad 
government, because its miseries are collected 
together within a short space and time, ami 
may easily at one view be taken in and per- 
ceived. But the misfortunes of nations ruled 
by tyrants, being distributed over many centu- 
ries, and many places, as they are of greater 
weight and number, so are they of less dis- 
play. When the devil of tyranny hath gone 
into the body politic he departs not but with 
struggles, and foaming, and great convulsions. 
Shall he, therefore, vex it forever, lest, in go- 
ing out, he for a moment tear and rend if 
Truly this argument touching the evils of war 
would better become my friend Elwood, or 
some other of the people called Quakers, than 
a courtier and a cavalier. It applies no more 
to this war than to all others, as well fsreign 
as domestic, and, in this war, no more to th« 



COWLEY AND MILTON. 



419 



nouses than to the king; nay not so much, 
since he by a little sincerity and moderation 
might have rendered that needless which 
their duty to God and man then enforced them 
to do." 

" Pardon me, Mr. Milton," said Mr. Cowley, 
* I grieve to hear you speak thus of that good 
king. Most unhappy indeed he was, in that he 
reigned at a time when the spirit of the then 
living generation was for freedom, and the pre- 
cedents of former ages for prerogative. His 
case was like to that of Christopher Columbus, 
when he sailed forth on an unknown ocean, 
and found that the compass whereby he shaped 
his course had shifted from the north pole 
whereto before it had constantly pointed. So 
it was with Charles. His compass varied, 
and therefore he could not tack aright. If he 
had been an absolute king he would, doubtless, 
like Titus Vespasian, have been called the de- 
light of the human race. If he had been a 
Doge of Venice, or a Stadtholder of Holland, 
he would never have outstepped the laws. But 
he lived when our government had neither 
clear definitions nor strong sanctions. Let, 
therefore, his faults be ascribed to the time. 
Of his virtues the praise is his own. 

" Never was there a more gracious prince, 
or a more proper gentleman. In every plea- 
sure he was temperate, in conversation mild 
and grave, in friendship constant, to his ser- 
vants liberal, to his queen faithful and loving, 
in battle brave, in sorrow and captivity re- 
solved, in death most Christian and forgiving. 

" For his oppressions, let us look at the for- 
mer history of this realm. James was never 
accounted a tyrant. Elizabeth is esteemed to 
have been the mother of her people. Were 
they less arbitrary ] Did they never lay hands 
on the purses of their subjects but by Act of 
Parliament ] Did they never confine insolent 
and disobedient men but in due course of law 1 
Was the court of Star-Chamber less active 1 
Were the ears of libellers more safe ] I pray 
you, let not King Charles be thus dealt with. 
It was enough that in his life he was tried for 
an alleged breach of laws which none had 
ever heard named till they were discovered for 
his destruction. Let not his fame be treated as 
was his sacred and anointed body. Let not 
his memory be tried by principles found out 
ex post facto. Let us not judge by the spirit of 
one generation a man whose disposition had 
been formed by the temper and fashion of an- 
other." 

"Nay, but conceive me, Mr. Cowley," said 
Mr. Milton, " inasmuch as, at the beginning of 
his reign, he imitated those who had governed 
before him, I blame him not. To expect that 
kings will, of their own free choice, abridge 
their prerogative, were argument of but slender 
wisdom. Whatever, therefore, lawless, unjust, 
or cruel, he either did or permitted during the 
first vears of his reign, I pass by. But for 
wha. was done after that he had solemnly 
given his consent to the Petition of Right, 
where shall we find defence ] Let it be sup- 
posed, which yet I concede not, that the tyranny 
of his father and of Queen Elizabeth had been 
no less rigorous than was his. But had his 
father, had that queen sworn, like him, to ab- 



stain from those rigours 1 Had they, like him, 
for good and valuable considerations, aliened 
their hurtful prerogatives] Surely not: for 
whatever excuse you can plead for him, he had 
wholly excluded himself. The borders of 
countries, we know, are mostly the seats ol 
perpetual wars and tumults. It was the same 
with the undefined frontiers, which of old se 
parated privilege and prerogative. They wen 
the debatable land of our polity. It was no 
marvel if, both on the one side and on the 
other, inroads were often made. But when 
treaties have been concluded, spaces mea- 
sured, lines drawn, landmarks set up, that 
which before might pass for innocent error or 
just reprisal, becomes robbery, perjury, deadly 
sin. He knew not, you say, which of his 
powers were founded on ancient law, and 
which only on vicious example. But had h< 
not read the Petition of Right] Had not pro 
clamation been made from his throne; Soil 
fait comme il est desire ? 

" For his private virtues they are beside the 
question. Remember you not," and Mr. Milton 
smiled, but somewhat sternly, "what Dr. Caiu? 
saith in the Merry Wives of Shakspeare 1 
' What shall the honest man do in my closet 1 
There is no honest man that shall come in my 
closet.' Even so say I. There is no good 
man who shall make us his slaves. If he break 
his word to his people, is it a sufficient defence 
that he keeps it to his companions 1 If he 
oppress and extort all day, shall he be held 
blameless because he prayeth at night and 
morning ] If he be insatiable in plunder and 
revenge, shall we pass it by because in meal 
and drink he is temperate ] If he have live* 1 
like a tyrant, shall he be forgotten because h 
hath died like a martyr"? 

" He was a man, as I think, who had suet 
a semblance of virtues as might make his vices 
most dangerous. He was not a tyrant after oui 
wonted English model. The second Richard, 
and the second and fourth Edwards, and the 
eighth Harry, were men profuse, gay, boister- 
ous ; lovers of women and of wine, of no out- 
ward sanctity or gravity. Charles was a ruler 
after the Italian fashion ; grave, demure, of a 
solemn carriage, and sober diet ; as constant 
at prayers as a priest, as heedless of oaths as 
an atheist." 

Mr. Cowley answered somewhat sharply : 
" I am sorry, sir, to hear you speak thus. I 
had hoped that the vehemence of spirit which 
was caused by these violent times had now 
abated. Yet, sure, Mr. Milton, whatever you 
may think of the character of King Charles, 
you will not still justify his murder." 

" Sir," said Mr. Milton, " I must have been 
of a hard and strange nature, if the vehemence 
which was imputed to me in my younger days 
had not been diminished by the afflictions 
wherewith it has pleased Almighty God to 
chasten mine age. I will not now defend all 
that I may heretofore have written. But this 
I say, that I perceive not wherefore a king 
should be exempted from all punishment. Is 
it just that where most is given least should be 
required] or politic, that where there is the 
greatest power to injure there should no dan 
ger to restrain ] But, you will say, there is n< 



420 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



such law. Such a law there is. There is the 
law of self-preservation written by God him- 
self on our hearts. There is the primal com- 
pact and bond of society, not graven on stone, 
nor sealed with wax, nor put down on parch- 
ment, nor set forth in any express form of 
words by men when of old they came together ; 
but implied in the very act that they came 
together, presupposed in all subsequent law, 
not to be repealed by any authority, not invali- 
dated by being omitted in any code; inasmuch 
as from thence are all codes and all authority. 

" Neither do I well see wherefore you cava- 
liers, and, indeed, many of us whom you mer- 
rily call Roundheads, distinguish between those 
who fought against King Charles, and special- 
ly after the second commission given to Sir 
Thomas Fairfax, and those who condemned 
him to death. Sure, if his person were invio- 
lable, it was as wicked to lift the sword against 
it at Naseby as the axe at Whitehall. If his 
life might justly be taken, why not in course 
of trial as well as by right of war 1 

" Thus much in general as touching the 
right. But for the execution of King Charles 
in particular, I will not now undertake to de- 
fend it. Death is inflicted, not that the culprit 
may die, but that the state may be thereby ad- 
vantaged. And, from all that I know, I think 
that the death of King Charles hath more hin- 
dered than advanced the liberties of England. 

" First, he left an heir. He was in captivity. 
The heir was in freedom. He was odious to 
the Scots. The heir was favoured by them. 
To kill the captive, therefore, whereby the 
heir, in the apprehension of all royalists, be- 
came forthwith king ; what was it in truth but 
to set their captive free, and to give him besides 
other great advantages 1 

" Next, it was a deed most odious to the peo- 
ple, and not only to your party, but to many 
among ourselves ; and as it is perilous for any 
government to outrage the public opinion, so 
most was it perilous for a government which 
had from that opinion alone its birth, its nur- 
ture, and its defence. 

" Yet, doth not this properly belong to our 
dispute ; nor can these faults be justly charged 
upon that most renowned Parliament. For, as 
you know, the high court of justice was not 
established until the House had been purged 
of such members as were adverse to the army, 
and brought wholly under the control of the 
chief officers." 

" And who," said Mr. Cowley, " levied the 
army 1 Who commissioned those officers 1 
Was not the fate of the Commons as justly 
deserved as was that of Diomedes, who was 
devoured by those horses whom he had him- 
seif taught to feed on the flesh and blood of 
men 1 How could they hope that others would 
respect laws which they themselves insulted; 
that swords which had been drawn against the 
prerogatives of the king would be put up at an 
ordinance of the Commons 1 It was believed 
of old, that there were some devils easily 
raised, but never to be laid ; insomuch, that if 
a magician called them up, he should be forced 
to find them always some employment ; for, 
Ihough they would do all his bidding, yet, if he 
eft them but for ere moment without some 



work of evil to perform, they would turn thelt 
claws against himself. Such a fiend is an 
army. They who evoke it cannot dismiss it 
They are at once its masters and its slaves. 
Let them not fail to find for it task after task 
of blood and rapine. Let them not leave it for 
a moment in repose, lest it tear them in pieces. 

"Thus was it with this famous assembly. 
They formed a force which they could neither 
govern nor resist. They made it powerful. 
They made it fanatical. As if military inso- 
lence were not of itself sufficiently dangerous, 
they heightened it with spiritual pride, — they 
encouraged their soldiers to rave from the 
tops of tubs against the men of Belial, till 
every trooper thought himself a prophet. They 
taught them to abuse popery, till every drum- 
mer fancied that he was as infallible as a 
pope. 

" Then it was that religion changed her na- 
ture. She was no longer the parent of arts 
and letters, of wholesome knowledge, of inno 
cent pleasures, of blessed household smiles. 
In their place came sour faces, whining voices, 
the chattering of fools, the yells of madmen. 
Then men fasted from meat and drink, who 
fasted not from bribes and blood. Then men 
frowned at stage-plays, who smiled at massa- 
cres. Then men preached against painted 
faces, who felt no remorse for their own most 
painted lives. Religion had been a pole-star 
to light and to guide. It was now more like to 
that ominous star in the book of the Apocalypse, 
which fell from heaven upon the fountains and 
rivers, and changed them into wormwood ; for 
even so did it descend from its high and ce- 
lestial dwelling-place to plague this earth and 
to turn into bitterness all that was sweet, and 
into poison all that was nourishing. 

"Therefore it was not strange that such 
things should follow. They who had closed 
the barriers of London against the king could 
not defend them against their own creatures. 
They who had so stoutly cried for privilege, 
when that prince, most unadvisedly no doubt, 
came among them to demand their members, 
durst not wag their fingers when Oliver filled 
their hall with soldiers, gave their mace to a 
corpora], put their keys in his pocket, and 
drove them forth with base terms, borrowed 
half from the conventicle and half from the 
ale-house. Then were we, like the trees of the 
forest in holy writ, given over to the rule of 
the bramble ; then from the basest of the shrubs 
came forth the fire which devoured the Cedars 
of Lebanon. We bowed down before a man of 
mean birth, of ungraceful demeanour, of stam- 
mering and most vulgar utterance, of scanda- 
lous and notorious hypocrisy. Our laws were 
made and unmade at his pleasure ; the consti- 
tution of our Parliaments changed by his writ 
and proclamation; our persons imprisoned •- 
our property plundered ; our lands and houses 
overrun with soldiers ; and the great charter 
itself was but argument for a scurrilous jest ; 
and for all this we may thank that Parliament; 
for never, unless they had so violently shaken 
the vessel, could such foul dregs have risen to 
the top." 

Then answered Mr. Milton: "What you 
have now said comprehends so great a number 



COWLEY AND MILTON. 



421 



of subjects, that it would require, not an even- 
ing's sail en the Thames, but rather a voyage 
to the Indies, accurately to treat of all ; yet, in 
as few words as I may, I will explain my sense 
of these matters. 

" First, as to the army. An army, as you 
have well set forth, is always a weapon dan- 
gerous to those who use it ; yet he who falls 
among thieves spares not to fire his musque- 
toon because he may be slain if it burst in his 
hand. Nor must states refrain from defending 
themselves, lest their defenders should at last 
turn against them. Nevertheless, against this 
danger statesmen should carefully provide; 
and, that they may do so, they should take es- 
pecial care that neither the officers nor the sol- 
diers do forget that they are also citizens. I 
do believe that the English army would have 
continued to obey the Parliament with all duty, 
but for one act, which, as it was in intention, 
in seeming, and in immediate effect, worthy to 
be compared with the most famous in history, 
so was it, in its final consequence, most inju- 
rious. I speak of that ordinance called the 
self-denying, and of the new model of the army. 
By those measures the Commons gave up the 
command of their forces into the hands of men 
who were not of themselves. Hence, doubtless, 
derived no small honour to that noble assem- 
bly, which sacrificed to the hope of public good 
the assurance of private advantage. And, as to 
the conduct of the war, the scheme prospered. 
Witness the battle of Naseby, and the memo- 
rable exploits of Fairfax in the west; but there- 
by the Parliament lost that hold on the soldiers 
and that power to control them, which they re- 
tained while every regiment was commanded 
by their own members. Politicians there be, 
who would wholly divide the legislative from 
the executive power. In the golden age this 
may have succeeded; in the millennium it 
may succeed again. But where great armies 
and great taxe-s are required, there the execu- 
tive government must always hold a great au- 
thority, which authority, that it may not oppress 
and destroy the legislature, must be in some 
manner blended with it. The leaders of fo- 
reign mercenaries have always been most 
dangerous to a country. The officers of native 
armies, deprived of the civil privileges of other 
men, are as much to be feared. This was the 
great error of that parliament, and though an 
error it were, it was an error generous, vir- 
tuous, and more to be deplored than censured. 
"Hence came the power of the army and its 
leaders, and especially of that most famous 
leader, whom both in our conversation to-day, 
and in that discourse whereon I before touched, 
you have, in my poor opinion, far too roughly 
handled. Wherefore you speak contemptibly 
of his parts I know not ; but I suspect that you 
are not free from the error common to studious 
and speculative men. Because Oliver was an 
ungraceful orator, and never said, either in 
public or private, any thing memorable, you 
will have it that he was of a mean capacity. 
Sure this is unjust. Many men have there been 
ignorant of letters, without wit, without elo- 
quence, who yet had the wisdom to devise, and 
the courage to perform that which they lacked 
language to explain. Such men often, in 



troubled times, nave worked out the deliver, 
ance of nations and their own greatness, not bj 
logic, not by rhetoric, but by wariness in sue 
cess, by calmness in danger, by fierce and 
stubborn resolution in all adversity. The 
hearts of men are their books ; events are their 
tutors ; great actions are their eloquence ; and 
such a one, in my judgment, was his late 
Highness, who, if none were to treat his name 
scornfully now, who shook not at the sound or 
it while he lived, would, by very few, be men 
tioned otherwise than with reverence. Hi? 
own deeds shall avouch him for a great states 
man, a great soldier, a true lover of his coun 
try, a merciful and generous conqueror. 

"For his faults, let us reflect that they who 
seem to lead are oftentimes most constrained 
to follow. They who will mix with men, and 
specially they who will govern them, must, in 
many things, obey them. They who will yield 
to no such conditions may be hermits, but 
cannot be generals and statesmen. If a man 
will walk straight forward without turning to 
the right or the left, he must walk in a desert, 
and not in Cheapside. Thus was he enforced 
to do many things which jumped not with his 
inclination nor made for his honour ; because 
the army, on which alone he could depend foi 
power and life, might not otherwise be con- 
tented. And I, for mine own part, marvel less 
that he sometimes was fain to indulge their 
violence than that he could so often restrain it 

" In that he dissolved the parliament, I praise 
him. It then was so diminished in numbers, 
as well by the death as by the exclusion of 
members, that it was no longer the same as- 
sembly ; and if at that time it had made itself 
perpetual, we should have been governed, not 
by an English House of Commons, but by a 
Venetian Council. 

" If in his following rule he overstepped the 
laws, I pity rather than condemn him. He 
may be compared to that Mceandius of Samos. 
of whom Herodotus saith, in his Thalia, thai 
wishing to be of all men the most just, he was 
not able ; for after the death of Polycrates ht 
offered freedom to the people, and not till cer- 
tain of them threatened to call him to a reckon 
ing for what he had formerly done, did he 
change his purpose, and make himself a. tyrant, 
lest he should be treated as a criminal. 

" Such was the case of Oliver. He gave to 
his country a form of government so free and 
admirable, that, in near six thousand years, 
human wisdom hath never devised any more 
excellent contrivance for human happiness. 
To himself he reserved so little power that it 
would scarcely have sufficed for his safety, and 
it is a marvel that it could suffice for his ambi- 
tion. When, after that, he found that the mem- 
bers of his Parliament disputed his right even 
to that small authority which he had kept, 
when he might have kept all, then indeed I 
own that he began to govern by the sword 
those who would not suffer him to govern i>y 
the law. 

" But for the rest, what sovereign was ever 
more princely in pardoning injuries, in con 
quering enemies, in extending the dominions 
and the renown of his people? What sea,, 
what shore did he not mark with imperishable 



422 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



memorials of his friendship or his vengeance ? 
The gold of Spain, the steel of Sweden, the ten 
thousand sails of Holland, availed nothing 
against him. While every foreign state trem- 
bled at our arms, we sat secure from all. as- 
sault. War, which often so strangely troubles 
both husbandry and commerce, never silenced 
the song of our reapers, or the sound of our 
looms. Justice was equally administered ; God 
was freely worshipped. 

" Now look at that which we have taken in 
exchange. With the restored king have come 
over to us vices of every sort, and most the 
basest and most shameful — lust, without love 
— servitude, without loyalty, — foulness of 
speech — diohonesty of dealing — grinning con- 
tempt of all things good and generous. The 
throne is surrounded by men whom the former 
Charles would have spurned from his footstool. 
The altar is served by slaves whose knees are 
supple to every being but God. Rhymers, 
whose books the hangman should burn, pan- 
ders, actors, and buffoons, these drink a health 
and throw a main with the king; these have 
stars on their breasts and gold sticks in their 
hands ; these shut out from his presence the 
best and bravest of those who bled for his 
house. Even so doth God visit those who 
know not how to value freedom. He gives 
them over to the tyranny which they have de- 
sired, u Tv4 7rxv>ri; i7rctv£uvrM fizriKHo;." 

"I will not," said Mr. Cowley, "dispute with 
you on this argument. But if it be as you say, 
how can you maintain that England hath been 
so greatly advantaged by the rebellion V 

"Understand me rightly, sir," said Mr. Mil- 
ton. " This nation is not given over to slavery 
and vice. We tasted, indeed, the fruits of 
liberty before they had well ripened. Their 
flavour was harsh and bitter, and we turned 
from them with loathing to the sweeter poisons 
of servitude. This is but for a time. England 
is sleeping on the lap of Dalilah, traitorously 
chained, but not yet shorn of strength. Let the 
cry be once heard — the Philistines be upon 
thee; and at once that sleep "will be broken, and 
those chains will be as flax in the fire. The 
great Parliament hath left behind it in our 
hearts and minds a hatred of tyrants, a just 
knowledge of our rights, a scorn of vain and 
deluding names ; and that the revellers of 
Whitehall shall surely find. The sun is dark- 
ened, but it is only for a moment : it is but an 
eclipse ; though aii birds of evil omen have 
begun to scream, and all ravenous beasts have 
gone forth to prey, thinking it to be midnight. 
Wo to them if they be abroad when the rays 
again shine forth. 

"The king hath judged ill. Had he been 
wise he would have remembered that he owed 
his restoration only to confusions which had 
wearied us out, and made us eager for repose. 
He would have known that the folly and per- 
fidy of a prince would restore to the good old 
cause many hearts which had been alienated 
thence by the turbulence of factions ; for, if I 
know aught of history, or of the heart of man, 
he will soon learn that the last champion of 
the people was not destroyed when he mur- 
dered Vane, nor seduced when he beguiled 
Fairfax." 



Mr. Cowley seemed to me not to take n uch 
amiss what Mr. Milton had said touching that 
thankless court, which had indeed but poorly 
requited his own good service. He only said, 
therefore, "Another rebellion! Alas ! alas 
Mr. Milton. If there be no choice but between 
despotism and anarchy, I prefer despotism." 

" Many men," said Mr. Milton, "have floridly 
and ingeniously compared anarchy and despot* 
ism ; but they who so amuse themselves do but 
look at separate parts of that which is truly 
one great whole. Each is the cause and the 
effect of the other; — the evils of either are the 
evils of both. Thus do states move on in the 
same eternal cycle, which, from the remotest 
point, brings them back again to the same sad 
starting-post: and till both those who govern 
and those who obey shall learn and mark this 
great truth, men can expect little through the 
future, as they have known little through the 
past, save vicissitude of extreme evils, alter- 
nately producing and produced. 

" When will rulers learn, that where liberty 
is not, security and order can never be ? We 
talk of absolute power, but all power hath 
limits, which, if not fixed by the moderation of 
the governors, will be fixed by the force of the 
governed. Sovereigns may send their opposers 
to dungeons ; they may clear out a senate- 
house with soldiers ; they may enlist armies 
of spies ; they may hang scores of the disaf- 
fected in chains at every cross-road ; but what 
power shall stand in that frightful time when 
rebellion hath become a less evil than endur- 
ance 1 Who shall dissolve that terrible tribu- 
nal, which, in the hearts of the oppressed, 
denounces against the oppressor the doom of 
its wild justice 1 Who shall repeal the law of 
self-defence 1 What arms or discipline shall 
resist the strength of famine and despair 1 How 
often were the ancient Caesars dragged from 
their golden palaces, stripped of their purple 
robes, mangled, stoned, defiled with filth, 
pierced with hooks, hurled into the Tiber! 
How often have the Eastern Sultans perished 
by the sabres of their own Janissaries, or the 
bow-strings of their own mutes ! For no power 
which is not limited by laws can ever be pro- 
tected by them. Small, therefore, is the wis- 
dom of those who would fly to servitude as if it 
were a refuge from commotion ; for anarchy 
is the sure consequence of tyranny. That go- 
vernments may be safe, nations must be free. 
Their passions must have an outlet provided, 
lest they make one. 

" When I was at Naples, I went with Signer 
Manso, a gentleman of excellent parts and 
breeding, who had been the intimate friend of 
that famous poet Torquato Tasso, to see the 
burning mountain Vesuvius. I wondered how 
the peasants could venture to dwell so fear 
lessly and cheerfully on its sides, when the 
lava was flowing from its summit, but Manso 
smiled, and told me that when the fire descends 
freely they retreat before it without haste or 
fear. They can tell how fast it will move, and 
how far ; and they know, moreover, that though 
it may work some little damage, it will soon 
cover the fields over which it hath passed with 
rich vineyards and sweet flowers. But when 
flame; are pent up in the mountain, then it is 



COWLEY AND MILTON 



423 



that they have reason to fear ; then it is that 
!he earth sinks and the sea swells ; then cities 
are swallowed up, and their place knowelh 
them no more. So it is in politics : where the 
people are most closely restrained, there it 
gives the greatest shocks to peace and order ; 
therefore would I say to all kings, let your de- 
magogues lead crowds, lest they lead armies ; 
let them bluster, lest they massacre ; a little 
turbulence is, as it were, the rainbow of the 
state ; it shows indeed that there is a passing 
shower, but it is a pledge that there shall be no 
deluge." 

"This is true," said Mr. Cowley: "yet these 
admonitions are not less needful to subjects 
than to sovereigns." 

" Surely," said Mr. Milton, " and, that I may 
end this long debate with a few words in which 
we shall both agree, I hold that as freedom is 
the only safeguard of governments, so are order 
and moderation generallynecessary to preserve 
freedom. Even the vainest opinions of men 
are not to be outraged by those who propose to 
themselves the happiness of men for their end, 
and who must work with the passions of men 
for their means. The blind reverence for 
things ancient is indeed so foolish that it might 
make a wise^man laugh, if it were not also 
sometimes so mischievous that it would rather 
make a good man weep. Yet, since it may 
not be wholly cured, it must be discreetly in- 
dulged, and therefore those who would amend 
ev'.l law* should consider rather how much it 



may be safe to spare, than how much it may 
be possible to change. Have you not heard 
that men who have been shut up for many 
years in dungeons shrink if they see the light, 
and fall down if their irons be struck off. And, 
so, when nations have long been in the house 
of bondage, the chains which have crippled 
them are necessary to support them, the dark- 
ness which hath weakened their sight is neces- 
sary to preserve it. Therefore release them 
not too rashly, lest they curse their freedom 
and pine for their prison. 

" I think, indeed, that the renowned Parlia- 
ment of which we have talked so much did 
show, until it became subject to the soldiers, a 
singular and admirable moderation, in such 
times scarcely to be hoped, and most worthy 
to be an example to all that shall come after. 
But on this argument I have said enough; and 
I will therefore only pray to Almighty God that 
those who shall, in future times, stand forth in 
defence of our liberties, as well civil as reli 
gious, may adorn the good cause by mercy, 
prudence, and soberness, to the glory of his 
name and the happiness and honour of the 
English people." 

And so ended that discourse ; and not long after 
we were set on shore again at the Temple Gar- 
dens, and there parted company : and the same 
evening I took notes of what had been said, 
which I have here more fully set down, from 
regard both to the fame of the men, and the 
importance of the subject-matter 



424 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ON MITEOBD'S HISTOM OE GEEECE. 



This is a book which enjoys a great and in- 
creasing popularity; but, while it has attracted 
a considerable share of the public attention, 
it has been little noticed by the critics. Mr. 
Mitford has almost succeeded in mounting, 
unperceived by those whose office it is to watch 
such aspirants, to a high place among histo- 
rians. He has taken a seat on the dais without 
being challenged by a single seneschal. To 
oppose the progress of his fame is now almost 
a hopeless enterprise. Had he been reviewed 
with candid severity, when he had published 
only his first volume, his work would either 
have deserved its reputation, or would never 
have obtained it. "Then," as Indra says of 
Kehama, " then was the time to strike." The 
time was neglected ; and the consequence is, 
that Mr. Mitford, like Kehama, has laid his 
victorious hand on the literary Amreeta, and 
seems about to taste the precious elixir of im- 
mortality. I shall venture to emulate the cou- 
rage of the honest Glendoveer — 

"When now 
He saw the Amreeta in Kehama's hand, 
An impulse that defied all self-command, 

In that extremity, 
Stung him, and he resolved to seize the cup 
And dare the Rajah's force in Seeva's sight. 
Forward he sprung to tempt the unequal fray." 

in plain words, I shall offer a few considera- 
tions, which may tend to reduce an overpraised 
writer to his proper level. 

The principal characteristic of this historian. 
the origin of his excellencies and his defects, 
is a love of singularity. He has no notion of 
going with a multitude to do either good or 
evil. An exploded opinion, or an unpopular 
person, has an irresistible charm for him. 
The same perverseness may be traced in his 
diction. His style would never have been ele- 
gant, but it might at least have been manly 
and perspicuous ; and nothing but the most 
elaborate care could possibly have made it so 
bad as it is. It is distinguished by harsh 
phrases, strange collocations, occasional sole- 
cisms, frequent obscurity, and, above all, by a 
peculiar oddity, which can no more be de- 
scribed than it can be overlooked. Nor is this 
all. Mr. Mitford piques himself on spelling 
better than any of his neighbours ; and this not 
only in ancient names, which he mangles in 
defiance both of custom and of reason, but in 
the most ordinary word: of the English lan- 
guage. It is,. in itself, a matter perfectly indif- 
ferent whether we call a foreigner by the name 
which he bears in his own language, or by that 
which corresponds to it in ours ; whether we 
say Lorenzo de Medici, or Lawrence de Medici, 
Jean Chauvin, or John Calvin. In such cases, 
established usage is considered as law by all 
writers except Mr. Mitford. If he were always 
consistent with himself, he might be excused 
?or sometimes disagreeing with his neighbours ; 
but he proceeds on no principle but that of 



being unlike the rest of the world. Ever) 
child has heard of Linnaeus, therefore Mr. Mit- 
ford calls him Linne ; Rousseau is known all 
over Europe as Jean Jacques, therefore Mr 
Mitford bestows on him the strange appellation 
of John James. 

Had Mr. Mitford undertaken a history of any 
other country than Greece, this propensity 
would have rendered his work useless and 
absurd. His occasional remarks on the affairs 
of ancient Rome and modern Europe are full 
of errors ; but he writes of times, with respect 
to which almost every other writer has been in 
the wrong, and, therefore, by resolutely deviat- 
ing from his predecessors, he is often in the 
right. 

Almost all the modern historians of Greece 
have shown the grossest ignorance of the most 
obvious phenomena of human nature. In their 
representations the generals and statesmen of 
antiquity are absolutely divested of all indi- 
viduality. They are personifications ; they 
are passions, talents, opinions, virtues, vices, 
but not men. Inconsistency is a thing of which 
these writers have no notion. That a man 
may have been liberal in his youth and ava- 
ricious in his age, cruel to one enemy and 
merciful to another, is to them utterly incon- 
ceivable. If the facts be undeniable, they sup- 
pose some strange and deep design, in order to 
explain what, as every one who has observed 
his own mind knows, needs no explanation at 
all. This is a mode of writing very accept- 
able to the multitude, who have always been ac- 
customed to make gods and demons out of men 
very little better or worse than themselves ; but it 
appears contemptible to all who have watched 
the changes of human character — to all who 
have observed the influence of time, of circum- 
stances, and of associates, on mankind — to all 
who have seen a hero in the gout, a democrat 
in the church, a pedant in love, or a philosopher 
in liquor. This practice of painting in nothing 
but black and white is unpardonable even in 
the drama. It is the great fault of Alfieri ; and 
how much it injures the effect of his composi- 
tions will be obvious to every one who will 
compare his Rosmunda with the Lady Macbeth 
of Shakspeare. The one is a wicked woman ; 
the other is a fiend. Her only feeling is hatred; 
all her words are curses. We are at once 
shocked and fatigued by the spectacle of such 
raving cruelty, excited by no provocation, re- 
peatedly changing its object, and constant in 
nothing but in its inextinguishable thirst foi 
blood. 

In history this error is far more disgraceful 
Indeed, there is no fault which so completely 
ruins a narrative in the opinion of a judicious 
reader. We know that the line of demarcation 
between good and bad men is so faintly marked 
as often to elude the most careful investigation 
of those who have the best opportunities fol 



MITFORD'S GREECE. 



425 



judging. Public men, above all, are surround- 
ed with so many temptations and difficulties, 
that some doubt must almost always hang over 
their real dispositions and intentions. The 
lives of Pym, Cromwell, Monk, Clarendon, 
Marlborough, Burnet, Walpole, are well known 
to us. We are acquainted with their actions, 
their speeches, their writings ; we have abun- 
dance of letters and well-authenticated anec- 
dotes relating to them: yet what candid man 
will venture very positively to say which of 
them were honest and which of them were dis- 
honest men. It appears easier to pronounce 
decidedly upon the great characters of antiqui- 
ty, not because we have greater means of dis- 
covering truth, but simply because we have 
less means of detecting error. The modern 
historians of Greece have forgotten this. Their 
heroes and villains are as consistent in all their 
sayings and doings as the cardinal virtues and 
the deadly sins in an allego "y. We should as 
soon expect a good action fiVm Giant Slay-good 
in Bunyan as from Dionysrws; and a crime of 
Epaminondas would seem as incongruous as 
a faux-pas of the grave and comely damsel, 
called Discretion, who answered the bell at the 
door cf the house Beautiful. 

This error was partly the cause and partly 
the effect of the high estimation in which the 
later ancienf writers have been held by modern 
scholars. Those French and English authors 
who have treated of the affairs of Greece have 
generally turned with contempt from the simple 
and natural narrations of Thucydides and 
Xenophon to the extravagant representations 
of Plutarch, Diodorus, Curtius, and other ro- 
mancers of the same class, — men who de-. 
scribed military operations without ever having 
handled a sword, and applied to the seditions 
of little republics speculations formed by ob- 
servation on an empire which covered half the 
known world. Of liberty they knew nothing. 
It was to them a great mystery, — a superhuman 
enjoyment. They ranted about liberty and 
patriotism, from the same cause which leads 
monks to talk more ardently than other men 
about love and women. A wise man values 
political liberty, because it secures the persons 
and the possessions of citizens ; because it tends 
to prevent the extravagance of rulers and the 
corruption of judges ; because it gives birth to 
useful sciences and elegant arts ; because it 
excites the industry and increases the comforts 
of all classes of society. These theorists ima- 
gined that it possessed something eternally and 
intrinsically good, distinct from the blessings 
which it generally produced. They considered 
it, not as a means, but as an end ; an end to be 
attained at any cost. Their favourite heroes 
are those who have sacrificed, for the mere 
name of freedom, the prosperity — the security 
— the justice — from which freedom derives its 
value. 

There is another remarkable characteristic 
of these writers, in which their modern wor- 
shippers have carefully imitated them, — a 
great fondness for good stories. The most es- 
tablished facts, dates, and characters are never 
suffered to come into competition with a splen- 
did saying or a romantic exploit. The early 
nistcrians have left us natural and simple de- 



scriptions of the great events which they wit« 
nessed, and the great men with whom they as- 
sociated. When we read the account which 
Plutarch and Rollin have given of the same 
period, we scarcely know our old acquaintance 
again ; we are utterly confounded by the melo- 
dramatic effect of the narration and the sublime 
coxcombry of the characters. 

These are the principal errors into which 
the predecessors of Mr. Mitford have fallen; 
and from most of these he is free. His faults 
are of a completely different description. 1 1 is 
to be hoped that the students of history way 
now be saved, like Dorax in Dryden's play, by 
swallowing two conflicting poisons, each of 
which may serve as an antidote to the other. 

The first and most important difference be 
tween. Mr. Mitford and those who have pre- 
ceded him, is in his narration. Here the ad- 
vantage lies, for the most part, on his side. 
His principle is to follow the contemporary 
historians, to look with doubt on all statements 
which are not in some degree confirmed by 
them, and absolutely to reject all which are 
contradicted by them. While he retains the 
guidance of some writer in whom he can place 
confidence, he goes on excellently. When he 
loses it, he falls to the level, or perhaps below 
the level of the writers whom he so much de- 
spises : he is as absurd as they, and very much 
duller. It is really amusing to observe how 
he proceeds with his narration, when he has 
no better authority than poor Diodorus. He 
is compelled to relate something; yet he be- 
lieves nothing. He accompanies every fact 
with a long statement of objections. His ac- 
count of the administration of Dionysius is in 
no sense a histcry. It ought to be entitled — 
" Historic doubts as to certain events alleged 
to have taken place in Sicily." 

This skepticism, however, like that of some 
great legal characters almost as skeptical as 
himself, vanishes whenever his political par- 
tialities interfere. He is a vehement admire? 
of tyranny and oligarchy, and considers no 
evidence as feeble which can be brought for- 
ward in favour of those forms of government. 
Democracy he hates with a perfect hatred, a 
hatred which, in the first volume of his history, 
appears only in his epistles and reflections, 
but which, in those parts where he has less 
reverence for his guides, and can venture to 
take his own way, completely distorts even his 
narration. 

In taking up these opinions, I have no doubt 
that Mr. Mitford was influenced by the same 
love of singularity which led him to spell 
island without an s, and to place two dots over 
the last letter of idea.- In truth, preceding 
historians have erred so monstrously on the 
other side, that even the worst parts of Mr. 
Mitford's book may be useful as a corrective. 
For a young gentleman who talks much about 
his country, tyrannicide, and Epaminondas, 
this work, diluted in a sufficient quantity ot 
Rollin and Barthelemi, may be a very useful 
remedy. 

The errors of both parties arise from an 
ignorance or a neglect of the fundamental 
principles of political science. The writers 
on one side imagine popular government to b 



426 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



always a blessing ; Mr. Mitford omits no op- 
portunity of assuring us that it is always a 
curse. The fact is, that a good government, 
like a good coat, is that which fits the body for 
which it is designed. A man who, upon ab- 
stract principles, pronounces a constitution to 
be good, without an exact knowledge of the 
people who are to be governed by it, judges as 
absurdly as a tailor who should measure the 
Belvidere Apollo for the clothes of all his cus- 
lomers. The demagogues who wished to see 
Portugal a republic, and the wise critics who 
revile the Virginians for not having instituted 
a peerage, appear equally ridiculous to all men 
of sense and candour. 

That is the best government which desires 
to make the people happy, and knows how to 
make them happy. Neither the inclination 
nor the knowledge will suffice alone, and it is 
difficult to find them together. 

Pure democracy, and pure democracy alone, 
satisfies the former condition of this great pro- 
blem. That the governors may be solicitous 
only for the interests of the governed, it is ne- 
cessary that the interests of the governors and 
the governed should be the same. This cannot 
be often the case where power is intrusted to 
one or to a few. The privileged part of the 
community will doubtless derive a certain de- 
gree of adva ntage from the general prosperity 
of tfce state ; but they will derive a greater from 
oppression and exaction. The king will desire 
a useless war for his glory, or a parc-aux-cerfs 
for his pleasure. The nobles will demand mo- 
nopolies as/l lettres-de-cachet. In proportion as 
the number of governors is increased the evil 
is diminished. There are fewer to contribute, 
and more to receive. The dividend which each 
can obtain of the public plunder becomes less 
and less tempting. But the interests of the 
subjects and the rulers never absolutely coin- 
cide till the subjects themselves become the 
rulers ; that is, till the government be either 
immediately or mediately democratical. 

But this is not enough. "Will without 
power," said the sagacious Casimir to Milor 
Beefington, "is like children playing at sol- 
diers." The people will always be desirous to 
promote their own interests ; but it may be 
doubted, whether, in any community, they were 
ever sufficiently educated to understand them. 
Even in this island, where the multitude have 
long been better informed than in any other 
part of Europe, the rights of the many have 
generally been asserted against themselves by 
the patriotism of the few. Free trade, one of 
the greatest blessings which a government can 
confer on a people, is in almost every country 
unpopular. It may be well doubted, whether 
a liberal policy with regard to our commercial 
relations, would find any support from a Par- 
liament elected by universal suffrage. The re- 
publicans on the other side of the Atlantic have 
recently adopted regulations, of which the con- 
sequences will, before long, show us, 

"How nations sink, by darling schemes oppressed, 
When vengeance listens to the fool's request." 

The people are to be governed for their own 
good ; and, that they may be governed for their 
own good, they must not be governed by their 
own ignorance. There are countries in which 



it would be as absurd to establish pop ular go 
vernments, as to abolish all restraints in a 
school, or to untie all the strait-waistcoats in a 
mad-house. 

Hence it may be concluded, that the happiest 
state of society is that in which supreme power 
resides in the whole body of a well-informed 
people. This is an imaginary, perhaps an un- 
attainable state of things. Yet, in some mea- 
sure, we may approximate to it ; and he alone 
deserves the name of a great statesman, whose 
principle it is to extend the power of the 
people in proportion to the extent of their 
knowledge, and. to give them every facility for 
obtaining such a degree of knowledge as may 
render it safe to trust them with absolute power. 
In the mean time, it is dangerous to praise or 
condemn constitutions in the abstract; since, 
from the despotism of St. Petersburgh to the 
democracy of Washington, there is scarcely a 
form of government which might not, at least 
in some hypothetical case, be the best possible. 

If, however, there be any form of government 
which in all ages and nations has always been, 
and must always be pernicious, it is certainly 
that which Mr. Mitford, on his usual principle 
of being wiser than all the rest of the world, 
has taken under his especial patronage — pure 
oligarchy. This is closely and indeed inse- 
parably connected with another of his eccentric 
tastes, a marked partiality for Lacedacmon, and 
a dislike of Athens. Mr. Mitford's book has, 
I suspect, rendered these sentiment;; in some 
degree popular; and I shall, therefore, examine 
them at some length. 

The shades in the Athenian character strike 
the eye more rapidly than those in the Lace- 
demonian ; not because they are darker, but 
because they are on a brighter ground. The 
law of ostracism is an instance of this. Nothing 
can be conceived more odious than the practice 
of punishing a citizen, simply and professedly, 
for his eminence ; — and nothing in the insti- 
tutions of Athens is more frequently or more 
justly censured. Lacedcemon was free from 
this. And why 1 ? Lacedsemon did not need it. 
Oligarchy is an ostracism of itself, — an ostra- 
cism not occasional, but permanent, — not du- 
bious, but certain. Her laws prevented the 
development of merit, instead of attacking its 
maturity. They did not cut down the plant in 
its high and palmy state, but cursed the soL 
with eternal sterility. In spite of the law of 
ostracism, Athens produced, within a hundred 
and fifty years, the greatest public men tha*. 
ever existed. Whom had Sparta to ostracize 1 
She produced, at most, four eminent men, Bra- 
sidas, Gylippus, Lysander, and Agesilaus. Of 
these, not one rose to distinction within her 
jurisdiction. It was only when they escaped 
from the region within which the influence of 
aristocracy withered every thing good and 
noble ; it was only when they ceased to be La- 
cedeemonians that they became great men. 
Brasidas, among the cities of Thrace, was 
strictly a democratical leader, the favourite 
minister and general of the people. The same 
may be said of Gylippus, at Syracuse. Lysan 
der, in the Hellespont, and Agesilaus, in Asia, 
were liberated for a time from the hateful re« 
straints imposed by the constitution of Lycur 



MITFORD'S GREECE. 



427 



jus. Both acquired fame abroad, and both re- 
turned to be watched and depressed at home. 
This is not peculiar to Sparta. Oligarchy, 
wherever it has existed, has always stunted 
the growth of genius. Thus it was at Rome, 
till about a century before the Christian era ; 
we read, of abundance of consuls and dictators 
who won battles and enjoyed triumphs, but we 
look in vain for a single man of the first order 
of intellect, — for a Pericles, a Demosthenes, or 
a Hannibal. The Gracchi formed a strong de- 
mocratical party; Marius revived it ; the foun- 
dations of the old aristocracy were shaken ; 
and. two generations fertile in really great men 
appeared. 

Venice is a still more remarkable instance : 
in her history we see nothing but the state ; 
aristocracy had destroyed every s^ed of genius 
and virtue. Her dominion was like herself, 
lofty and magnificent, but founded on filth and 
weeds. God forbid that there should ever again 
exist a powerful and civilized, state, which, 
after existing through thirteen hundred eventful 
years, shall not bequeath to mankind the me- 
mory of one great name or one generous action. 

Many writers, and Mr. Mitford among the 
number, have admired the stability of the Spar- 
tan institutions ; in fact, there is little to ad- 
mire, and less to approve. Oligarchy is the 
weakest and most stable of governments, and 
it is stable because it is weak. It has a sort 
of valetudinarian longevity ; it lives in the ba- 
lance of Sanctorius ; it takes no exercise, it 
exposes itself to no accident, it is seized with 
a hypochondriac alarm at every new sensation, 
it trembles at every breath, it lets blood for 
every inflammation, and thus, without ever en- 
joying a day of health or pleasure, drags on 
its existence to a doting and debilitated old 
age. 

The Spartans purchased for their govern- 
ment a prolongation of its existence, by the 
sacrifice of happiness at home and dignity 
abroad. They cringed to the powerful ; they 
trampled on the weak ; they massacred their 
Helots ; they betrayed their allies ; they con- 
trived to be a day too late for the battle of Ma- 
rathon ; they attempted to avoid the battle of 
Salamis ; they suffered the Athenians, to whom 
they owed their lives and liberties, to be a 
second time driven from their country by the 
Persians, that they might finish their own for- 
tifications on the Isthmus they attempted to 
take advantage of the distress to which exer- 
tions in their cause had reduced their preser- 
vers, in order to make them their slaves ; they 
strove to prevent those who had abandoned 
their walls to defend them, from rebuilding 
them to defend themselves ; they commenced 
the Peloponnesian war in violation of their en- 
gagements with Athens ; they abandoned it in 
vie Jation of their engagements with their allies ; 
they gave up to the sword whole cities, which 
had placed themselves under their protection ; 
they bartered for advantages confined to them- 
selves, the interest, the freedom, and the lives 
of those who had served them most faithfully; 
they took with equal complacency, and equal 
infamy, the stripes of Elis and the bribes of 
Persia ; they never showed either resentment 
or gratitude , they abstained from no injury, 



and they revenged none. Above a.l, they looked 
on a citizen who served aierc well as theii 
deadliest enemy. These aic the arts which 
protract the existence of governments. 

Nor were the domestic institutions of Lace 
dasmon less hateful or less contemptible than 
her foreign policy. A perpetual interference 
with every part of the system of human life, a 
constant struggle against nature and reason, 
characterized all her laws. To violate ever 
prejudices which have taken deej root in the 
minds of a people is scarcely expeciisnt; to 
think of extirpating natural appetites and pas- 
sions is frantic: the external symptoms may 
be occasionally repressed, but the feeling still 
exists, and, debarred from its natural objects, 
preys on the disordered mind and body of its 
victim. Thus it is in convents — thus it is 
among ascetic sects — thus it was among the 
Lacedaemonians. Hence arose that madness, 
or violence approaching to madness, which, in 
spite of every external restraint, often appeared 
among the most distinguished citizens of Sparta. 
Cleomenes terminated his career of raving 
cruelty, by cutting himself to pieces. Pausa- 
nias seems to have been absolutely insane : he 
formed a hopeless and profligate scheme ; he 
betrayed it by the ostentation of his behaviour 
and the imprudence of his measures ; and he 
alienated, by his insolence, all who might have 
served or protected him. Xenophon, a warm 
admirer of Lacedsemon, furnishes us with the 
strongest evidence to this effect. It is impos- 
sible not to observe the brutal and senseless 
fury which characterizes almost every Spartan 
with whom he was connected. Clearchus 
nearly lost his life by his cruelty. Chirisophus 
deprived his army of the services of a faithful 
guide by his unreasonable and ferocious se- 
verity. But it is needless to multiply instances 
Lycurgus, Mr. Mitford's favourite legislator, 
founded his whole system on a mistaken prin- 
ciple. He never considered that governments 
were made for men, and not men for govern- 
ments. Instead of adapting the constitution to 
the people, he distorted the minds of the people 
to suit the constitution, a scheme worthy of the 
Laputan Academy of Projectors. And this ap- 
pears to Mr. Mitford to constitute his peculiar 
title to admiration. Hear himself: " What to 
modern eyes most strikingly sets that extra- 
ordinary man above all other legislators is, that 
in so many circumstances, apparently oat of 
the reach of law, he controlled and formed to 
his own mind the wills and habits cf his peo- 
ple." I should suppose that this gentleman had 
the advantage receiving his education under 
the ferula of Dr. Pangloss ; for his metaphysics 
are clearly those of the castle of Thunder-ten- 
tronckh, " Remarquez bien que les nez out et6 
faits pour porter des lunettes, aussi avons lcus 
des lunettes. Les jambes sont visiblement in 
stitutees pour etre chaussees, et nous avons 
des chausses. Les cochons etant faits pour 
etre manges, nous mangeons du pore toutn 
i'annee." 

At Athens the laws did not constantly in- 
terfere with the tastes of the people. The 
children were not taken from their parents by 
that universal step-mother, the state. They 
were not starved into thieves, or tortured into 



428 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



bullies; there was no established table at 
which every one must dine, no established 
style in which every one must converse. An 
Athenian might eat whatever he could afford 
to buy, and talk as long as he could find peo- 
ple to listen. The government did not tell the 
people what opinions they were to hold, or 
what songs they were to sing. Freedom pro- 
duced excellence. Thus philosophy took its 
origin. Thus were produced those models of 
poetry, of oratory, and of the arts, which 
scarcely fall short of the standard of ideal ex- 
cellence. Nothing is more conducive to hap- 
piness than the free exercise of the mind, in 
pursuits congenial to it. This happiness, as- 
suredly, was enjoyed far more at Athens than 
at Sparta. The Athenians are acknowledged 
even by their enemies to have been distin- 
guished, in private life, by their courteous and 
amiable demeanour. Their levity, at least, 
was better than Spartan sullenness, and their 
impertinence, than Spartan insolence. Even 
in courage it may be questioned whether they 
were inferior to the Lacedoemonians. The 
great Athenian historian has reported a re- 
markable observation of the great Athenian 
minister. Pericles maintained that his coun- 
trymen, without submitting to the hardships 
of a Spartan education, rivalled all the achieve- 
ments of Spartan valour, and that therefore 
the pleasures and amusements which they en- 
joyed were to be considered as so much clear 
gain. The infantry of Athens was certainly 
not equal to that of Lacedsemon; but this 
seems to have been caused merely by want of 
practice: the attention of the Athenians was 
diverted from the discipline of the phalanx to 
that of the trireme. The Lacedemonians, in 
spite of all their boasted valour, were, from 
the same cause, timid and disorderly in naval 
action. 

But we are told that crimes of great enormity 
were perpetrated by the Athenian government 
and the democracies under its protection. It 
is true that Athens too often acted up to the 
full extent of the laws of war, in an age when 
those laws had not been mitigated by causes 
which have operated in later times. This ac- 
cusation is, in fact, common to Athens, to La- 
cedaemon, to all the states of Greece, and to all 
states similarly situated. Where communities 
are very large, the heavier evils of war are felt 
but by few. The ploughboy sings, the spin- 
ning-wheel turns round, the wedding-day is 
fixed, whether the last battle were lost or won. 
In little states it cannot be thus; every man 
feels in his own property and person the effect 
of a war. Every man is a soldier, and a sol- 
dier fighting for his nearest interests. His 
own trees have been cut down — his own corn 
has been burnt — his own house has been pil- 
laged — his own relations have been killed. 
How can he entertain towards the enemies of 
his country the same feelings with one who 
has suffered nothing from them, except per- 
haps the addition of a small sum to the taxes 
which he pays ] Men in such circumstances 
cannot be generous. They have too much at 
stake i It is when they are, if I may so express 
myself, playing for love, it is when war is a 
mere game at chess, it is when they are con- 



tending for a remote colony, a frontier town 
the honours of a flag, a salute or a title, that 
the/ can make fine speeches, and do good 
offices to their enemies. The Black Prince 
waited behind the chair of his captive; Villars 
interchanged repartees with Eugene ; George 
II. sent congratulations to Louis XV., during a 
war, upon occasion of his escape from the at- 
tempt of Damien; and these things are fine 
and generous, and very gratifying to the author 
of the Broad Stone of Honour, and all the other 
wise men who think, like him, that God made 
the world only for the use of gentlemen. But 
they spring in general from utter heartlessness 
No war ought ever to be undertaken but under 
circumstances which render all interchange of 
courtesy between the combatants impossible. 
It is a bad thing that men should hate each 
other, but it is far worse that they should con- 
tract the habit of cutting one another's throats 
without hatred. War is never lenient but 
where it is wanton; when men are compelled 
to fight in self-defence, they must hate and 
avenge ; this may be bad, but it is human na- 
ture, it is the clay as it came from the hand of 
the potter. 

It is true that among the dependencies of 
Athens, seditions assumed a character more 
ferocious than even in France, during the 
reign of terror — the accursed Saturnalia of an 
accursed bondage. It is true that in Athens 
itself, where such convulsions were scarcely 
known, the condition of the higher orders was 
disagreeable ; that they were compelled to 
contribute large sums for the service or the 
amusement of the public, and that they were 
sometimes harassed by vexatious informers. 
Whenever such cases occur, Mr. Mitford's 
skepticism vanishes. The "if," the "but," 
the " it is said," the " if we may believe," with 
which he qualifies every charge against a 
tyrant or an aristocracy, are at once abandon- 
ed. The blacker the story, the firmer is his 
belief; and he never fails to inveigh with 
hearty bitterness against democracy as the 
source of every species of crime. 

The Athenians, I believe, possessed more 
liberty than was good for them Yet I will 
venture to assert, that while the splendour, the 
intelligence, and the energy of that great peo- 
ple were peculiar to themselves, the crimes 
with which they are charged arose from 
causes which were common to them with 
every other state which then existed. The 
violence of faction in that age sprang frcm a 
cause which has always been fertile in every 
political and moral evil, domestic slavery. 

The effect of slavery is completely to dis- 
solve the connection which naturally exists 
between the higher and lower classes of free 
citizens. The rich spend their wealth in pur 
chasing and maintaining slaves. There is no 
demand for the labour of the poor ; the fable 
of Menenius ceases to be applicable ; the belly 
communicates no nutriment to the members ; 
there is an atrophy in the body politic. The 
two parties, therefore, proceed to extremities 
utterly unknown in countries where they have 
mutually need of each other. In Rome the 
oligarchy was too powerful to be subverted by 
force ; and neither the tribunes nor the popular 



MITFORD'S GREECE. 



4«9 



assemblies, tnough constitutionally omnipo- 
tent, could maintain a successful contest 
against men who possessed the whole property 
of the state. Hence the necessity for measures 
tending to unsettle the whole frame of society, 
and to take away every motive of industry; 
the abolition of debts, and the Agrarian laws 
— propositions absurdly condemned by men 
who do not consider the circumstances from 
which they sprung. They were the desperate 
remedies of a desperate disease. In Greece 
the oligarchal interest was not in general so 
deeply rooted as at Rome. The multitude, 
therefore, often redressed, by force, grievances 
which, at Rome, were commonly attacked un- 
der the forms of the constitution. They drove 
out or massacred the rich, and divided their 
property. If the superior union or military 
skill of the rich rendered them victorious, they 
took measures equally violent, disarmed all 
in whom they could not confide, often slaugh- 
tered great numbers, and occasionally ex- 
pelled the whole commonalty from the city, 
and remained, with their slaves, the sole in- 
habitants. 

From such calamities Athens and Lacedce- 
mon alone were almost completely free. At 
Athens, tn"e purses of the rich were laid under 
regular contribution for the support of the 
poor; and this, rightly considered, was as 
much a favour to the givers as to the re- 
ceivers, since no other measure could possibly 
have saved their houses from pillage, and 
their persons from violence. It is singular 
that Mr. Mitford should perpetually reprobate 
a policy which was the best that could be pur- 
sued in such a state of things, and which alone 
paved Athens from the frightful outrages which 
were perpetrated at Corcyra. 

Lacedaemon, cursed with a system of slave- 
ry more odious than has ever existed in any 
other country, avoided this evil by almost 
totally annihilating private property. Lycur- 
gus began by an Agrarian law. He abolished 
all professions except that of arms ; he made 
the whole of his community a standing army, 
every member of which had a common right 
to the services of a crowd of miserable bond- 
men ; he secured the state from sedition at the 
expense of the Helots. Of all the parts of his 
system this is the most creditable to his head, 
and the most disgraceful to his heart. 

These considerations, and many others of 
equal importance, Mr. Mitford has neglected ; 
but he has a yet heavier charge to answer. 
He has made not only illogical inferences, but 
false statements. While he never states, with- 
out qualifications and objections, the charges 
which the earliest and best historians have 
brought against his favourite tyrants, Pisistra- 
tus, Hippias, and Gelon, he transcribes, with- 
out any hesitation, the grossest abuse of the 
least authoritative writers against every de- 
mocracy and every demagogue. Such an ac- 
cusation should not be made without being 
supported ; and I will therefore select one out 
of many passages which will fully substantiate 
;he charge, and convict Mr. Mitford of wilful 
misrepresentation, or of negligence scarcely 
ess culpable. Mr. Mitford is speaking of one 
of the greatest men that ever lived, Demos- 
28 



thenes, and comparing him with his rival, 
JGschines. Let him speak for himself. 

" In earliest youth Demosthenes earned an 
opprobrious nickname by the effeminacy of 
his dress and manner." Does Mr. Mitford 
know that Demosthenes denied this charge, 
and explained the nickname in a perfectly dif- 
ferent manner 1* And if he knew it, shouli 
he not have stated it! He proceeds thus:— 
" On emerging from minority, by the Athenian 
law, at five-and-twenty, he earned another op- 
probious nickname by a prosecution of his 
guardians, wh'ch was considered as a dis- 
honorable attempt to extort money from them.''" 
In the first place, Demosthenes was not five- 
and-twenty years of age. Mr. Mitford mighi 
have learnt from so common a book as the 
Archasologia of Archbishop Potter, that, at 
twenty, Athenian citizens were freed from the 
control of their guardians, and began to ma 
nage their own property. The very speech of 
Demosthenes against his guardians proves 
most satisfactorily that he was under twenty. 
In his speech against Midias, he says, that 
when he undertook that prosecution he was 
quite a boy.f His youth might, therefore, ex- 
cuse the step, even if it had baen considered, 
as Mr. Mitford says, a dishonourable attempt 
to extort money. But who considered it as 
such? Not the judges, who condemned the 
guardians. The Athenian courts of justice 
were not the purest in the world ; but their de- 
cisions were at least as likely to be just as the 
abuse of a deadly enemy. Mr. Mitford refers 
for confirmation of his statement to ^Eschines 
and Plutarch. JSschines by no means bears 
him out, and Plutarch directly contradicts hiin. 
"Not long after," says Mr. Mitford, " he took 
blows publicly in the theatre (I preserve the 
orthography, if it can be so called, of this his- 
torian) from a petulant youth of rank named 
Meidias." Here are two disgraceful mistakes. 
In the first place, it was long after ; eight years 
at the very least, probably much more. In the 
next place, the petulant youth, of whom Mr. 
Mitford speaks, was fifty years old.* Really 
Mr. Mitford has less reason to censure the 
carelessness of his predecessors than to re- 
form his own. After this monstrous inaccu- 
racy with regard to facts, we may be able to 
judge what degree of credit ought to be given 
to the vague abuse of such a writer. " The 
cowardice of Demosthenes in the field after- 
wards became notorious." Demosthenes was 
a civil character; war was not his business. 
In his time the division between military and 
political offices was beginning to be strongly 
marked ; yet the recollection of the uays when 
every citizen was a soldier was still recent. 
In such states of society a certain degree of 
disrepute always attaches to sedentary men ; 
but that any leader of the Athenian democracy 
could have been, as Mr. Mitford says of De- 
mosthenes, a few lines before, remarkable for 



* See the speech of jEschines against Timarchus 

iWieipaicv)\\lov wv KOptibri. 

t Whoever will read the speech of Demosthenes 
against Midias will find the statements in the text con- 
firmed, and will have, moreover, the pleasure of be- 
coming acquainted with one of the finest composition.' 
in the world. 



430 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



" an extraordinary deficiency of personal cou- 
rage' is absolutely impossible. What merce- 
nary warrior of the time exposed his life to 
greater or more constant perils'? Was there 
a single soldier at Chceronea who had more 
cause to tremble for his safety than the orator, 
vho, in case of defeat, could scarcely hope for 
R ercy from the people whom he had misled, 
or the prince whom he had opposed] Were 
not the ordinary fluctuations of popular feeling 
enough *o deter any coward from engaging in 
political conflicts ? Isocrates, whom Mr. Mit- 
ford extols because he constantly employed all 
the flowers of his schoolboy rhetoric to deco- 
rate oligarchy and tyranny, avoided the judi- 
cial and political meetings of Athens from 
mere timidity, and seems to have hated de- 
mocracy only because he durst not look a 
popular assembly in the face. Demosthenes 
was a man of a feeble constitution ; his nerves 
were weak, but his spirit was high ; and the 
energy and enthusiasm of his feelings sup- 
ported him through life and in death. 

So much for Demosthenes. Now for the 
orator of aristocracy. I do not wish to abuse 
^Eschines. He may have been an honest 
man. He was certainly a great man; and I 
feel a reverence, of which Mr. Mitford seems 
to have no notion, for great men of every party. 
But when Mr. Mitford says, that the private 
character of iEschines was without stain, does 
he remember what ^Eschines has himself con- 
fessed in his speech against Timarchus? I 
can make allowances, as well as Mr. Mitford, 
for persons who lived under a different system 
of laws and morals ; but let them be made im- 
partially. If Demosthenes is to be attacked, 
on account of some childish improprieties, 
proved only by the assertion of an antagonist, 
what shall we say of those maturer vices 
which that antagonist has himself acknow- 
ledged! "Against the private character of 
^Eschines," says Mr. Mitford, "Demosthenes 
seems not to have had an insinuation to op- 
pose." Has Mr. Mitford ever read the speech 
of Demosthenes on the embassy? Or can he 
have forgotten, what was never forgotten by 
any one else who ever read it, the story which 
Demosthenes relates with such terrible energy 
of language concerning the drunken brutality 
of his rival ? True or false, here is something 
more than an insinuation ; and nothing can 
vindicate the historian who has overlooked it 
from the charge of negligence or of partiality. 
But .33schines denied the story. And did not 
Demosthenes also deny the story respecting 
his childish nickname, which Mr. Mitford has 
nevertheless told without any qualification'? 
But the judges, or some part of them, showed, 
by tneir clamour, their disbelief of the relation 
of Demosthenes. And did not the judges, who 
tried the cause between Demosthenes and his 
guardians indicate, in a much clearer manner, 
their approbation of the prosecution 1 ? But 
Demosthenes was a demagogue, and is to be 
slandered. jEschines was an aristocrat, and 
is t« be panegyrized. Is this a history, or a 
par ty -pamphlet? 

These passages, all selected from a single 
oage :1 Mr. Mitford's work, may give some 



notion to those readers who have not the 
means of comparing his statements with the 
original authorities, of his extreme partiality 
and carelessness. Indeed, whenever this his- 
torian mentions Demosthenes, he violates alt 
the laws of candour and even of decency ; he 
weighs no authorities , he makes no allow- 
ances ; he forgets the best-authenticated facts 
in the histofy of the times, and the mcst gene- 
rally recognised principles of human nature* 
The opposition of the great orator tc the policy 
of Philip, he represents as neither more nor 
less than deliberate villany. I hold almost the 
same opinion with Mr. Mitford respecting the 
character and the views of that great and ac- 
complished prince. But am I, therefore, to 
pronounce Demosthenes profligate and insin- 
cere ? Surely not ; do we not perpetually see 
men of the greatest talents and the purest inten- 
tions misled by national or factious prejudices? 
The most respectable people in England were, 
little more than forty years ago, in the habit 
of uttering the bitterest abuse against Wash- 
ington and Franklin. It is certainly to be re- 
gretted that men should err so grossly in their 
estimate of character. But no person who 
knows any thing of human nature will impute 
such errors to depravity. 

Mr. Mitford is not more consistent with him 
self than with reason. Though he is the ad- 
vocate of all oligarchies, he is also a warm 
admirer of all kings ; and of all citizens who 
raised themselves to that species of sovereign- 
ty which the Greeks denominated tyranny. If 
monarchy, as Mr. Mitford holds, be in itself a 
blessing, democracy must be a better form of 
government than aristocracy, which is always 
opposed to the supremacy, and even to the 
eminence of individuals. On the other hand, 
it is but one step that separates the demagogue 
and the sovereign. 

If this article had not extended itself to so 
great a length, I should offer a few observa- 
tions on some other peculiarities of this writer, 
— his general preference of the Barbarians to 
the Greeks, — his predilection for Persians, Car- 
thaginians, Thracians, for all nations, in short, 
except that great and enlightened nation of 
which he is the historian. But I will confine 
myself to a single topic. 

Mr. Mitford has remarked, with truth and 
spirit, that "any history perfectly written, but 
especially a Grecian history perfectly written, 
should be a political institute for all nations." 
It has not occurred to him that a Grecian his- 
tory, perfectly written, should also be a com- 
plete record of the rise and progress of poetry, 
philosophy, and the arts. Here his work is 
extremely deficient. Indeed, though it may 
seem a strange thing to say of a gentleman 
who has published so many quartos, Mr. Mit- 
ford seems to entertain a feeling, bordering on 
contempt, for literary and speculative pur- 
suits. The talents of action almost exclusively 
attract his notice, and he talks with very com- 
placent disdain of the "idle learned." Homer, 
indeed, he admires, but principally, I am 
afraid, because he is convinced that Homer 
could neither read nor write. He could no* 
avoid speaking of Socrates ; but he has been 



MITFORD'S GREECE. 



431 



rar more solicitous to trace his death to politi- 
cal causes, and to deduce from it consequences 
unfavourable to Athens and to popular go- 
vernment, than to throw light on the character 
and doctrines of the wonderful man, 

"From whose mouth issued forth 
Mellifluous streams that watered all the schools 
Of Academics, old and new, with those 
Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect 
Epicurean, and the Stoic severe." 

He does not seem to be aware that Demos- 
thenes was a great orator ; he represents him 
sometimes as an aspiring demagogue, some- 
times as an adroit negotiator, and always as a 
great rogue. But that in which the Athenian 
excelled all men of all ages, that irresistible 
eloquence, which, at the distance of more thar. 
two thousand years, stirs our blood and brings 
tears into our eyes, he passed by with a few 
phrases of commonplace commendation. The 
origin of the drama, the doctrines of the so- 
phists, the course of Athenian education, the 
state of the arts and sciences, the whole do- 
mestic system of the Greeks, he has almost 
completely neglected. Yet these things will 
appear, to a reflecting man, scarcely less 
worthy of attention than the taking of Sphac- 
teria, or 4he discipline of the targeteers of 
Iphicrates. 

This, indeed, is a deficiency by no means 
peculiar to Mr. Mitford. Most people seem to 
imagine that a detail of public occurences — 
the operation of sieges — the changes of admi- 
nistrations — the treaties — the conspiracies— the 
rebellions — is a complete history. Differences 
of definition are logically unimportant, but 
practically they sometimes produce the most 
momentous effects : thus it has been in the 
present case ; historians have, almost without 
exception, confined themselves to the public 
transactions of states, and have left to the 
negligent administration of writers of fiction 
a province at least equally extensive and 
valuable. 

All wise statesmen have agreed to consider 
the prosperity or adversity of nations as made 
up of the happiness or misery of individuals, 
and to reject as chimerical all notions of a 
public interest of the community, distinct from 
the interest of the component parts. It is there- 
fore strange that those whose offico it is to 
supply statesmen with examples and warnings, 
should omit, as too mean for the dignity of his- 
tory, circumstances which exert the most ex- 
tensive influence on the state of society. In 
general, the under current of human life flows 
6teadily on, unruffled by the storms which agi- 
tate the surface. The happiness of the many 
commonly depends on causes independent of 
victories or defeats, of revolutions or restora- 
tions, — causes which can be regulated by no 
laws, and which are recorded in no archives. 
These causes are the things which it is of 
main importance to us to know, not how the 
Lacedaemonian phalanx was broken at Leuc- 
tra — not whether Alexander died of poison or 
by disease. History, without these, is a shell 
without a kernel ; and such is almost all the 
history which is extant in the world. Paltry 
skirmishes and plots are reported with absurd 



and useless minutenes- but improvements 
the most essential to the comforts of human 
life extend themselves over the world, and in- 
troduce themselves into every cottage, before 
any annalist can condescend from the dignity 
of writing about generals and ambassadors, to 
f take the least notice of them. Thus the pro 
gress of the most salutary inventions and dis 
coveries is buried in impenetrable mystery 
mankind are deprived of a most useful species 
of knowledge, and their benefactors of their 
honest fame. In the mean time every child 
knows by heart the dates and adventures of a 
long line of barbarian kings. The history ol 
nations, in the sense in which I use the word, 
is often best studied in works not professedly 
historical. Thucydides, as far as he goes, is 
an excellent writer, yet he affords us far less 
knowledge of the most important particulars 
relating to Athens, than Plato or Aristophanes. 
The little treatise of Xenophon in Domestic 
Economy contains more historical information 
than all the seven books of his Hellanics. 
The same may be said of the Satires of Ho- 
race, of the Letters of Cicero, of the novels of 
Le Sage, of the memoirs of Marmontel. Many 
others might be mentioned, but these sufli 
ciently illustrate my meaning. 

I would hope that there may yet appear a 
writer who may despise the present narrow 
limits, and assert the rights of history over 
every part of her natural domain. Should 
such a writer engage in that enterprise, ir 
which I cannot but consider Mr. Mitford as 
having failed, he will record, indeed, all that 
is interesting and important in military and 
political transactions; but he will not think 
any thing too trivial for the gravity of history 
which is not too trivial to promote or diminish 
the happiness of man. He will portray in 
vivid colours the domestic society, the man- 
ners, the amusements, the conversation of the 
Greeks. He will not disdain to discuss the 
state of agriculture, of the mechanical arts, and 
of the conveniences of life.' The progress of 
painting, of sculpture, and of architecture, will 
form an important part of his plan. But above 
all, his attention will be given to the history of 
that splendid literature from which has sprung 
all the strength, the wisdom, the freedom, and 
the glory of the western world. 

Of the indifference which Mr. Mitford shows 
on this subject, I will not speak, for I cannot 
speak with fairness. It is a subject in which 
I love to forget the accuracy of a judge, in the 
veneration of a worshipper and the gratitude 
of a child. If we consider merely the subtlety 
of disquisition, the force of imagination, the 
perfect energy and elegance of expression, 
which characterize the great works of Athe- 
nian genius, we must pronounce them intrin 
sically most valuable ; but what shall we say 
when we reflect that from hence have sprung, 
directly or indirectly, all the noblest creations 
of the human intellect ; that from hence were 
the vast accomplishments and the brilliant 
fancy of Cicero, the withering fire of Juvenal ; 
the plastic imagination of Dante ; the humour 
of Cervantes ; the comprehension of Bacon 
the wit of Butler ; the supreme and universa. 



432 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



excellence of Shakspeare 1 All the triumphs 
of truth and genius over prejudice and power, 
in every country and in every age, have been 
the triumphs of Athens. Wherever a few- 
great minds have made a stand against vio- 
lence and fraud, in the cause of liberty and 
reason, there has been her spirit in the midst 
of them; inspiring, encouraging, consoling; — 
by the lonely lamp of Erasmus ; by the restless 
bed of Pascal ; in the tribune of Mirabeau ; in 
the cell of Galileo ; on the scaffold of Sidney. 
But who shall estimate her influence on pri- 
vate happiness] Who shall say how many 
thousands have been made wiser, happier, and 
better, by those pursuits in which she has 
taught mankind to engage ; to how many the 
studies which took their rise from her have 
been wealth in poverty, — liberty in bondage, — 
health in sickness, — society in solitude. Her 
power is indeed manifested at the bar; in the 
senate ; in the field of battle ; in the schools of 
philosophy. But these are not her glory. 
Wherever literature consoles sorrow, or as- 
suages pain, — wherever it brings gladness to 
eyes which fail with wakefulness and tears, 
and ache for the dark house and the long sleep, 
— there is exhibited, in its noblest form, the 
immortal influence of Athens. 

The dervise, in the Arabian tale, did not he- 
sitate to abandon to his comrade the camels 
with their load of jewels and gold, while he re 
tained the casket of that mysterious juice, 
which enabled him to behold at one glance all 



the hidden riches of the universe. Surely it ii 
no exaggeration to say, that no external advan ■ 
tage is to be compared with that purification 
of the intellectual eye, which gives us to con« 
template the infinite wealth of the mental 
world ; all the hoarded treasures of the pri- 
meval dynasties, all the shapeless ore of its 
yet unexplored mines. This is the gift of 
Athens to man. Her freedom and her power 
have for more than twenty centuries been an* 
nihilated; her people have degenerated into 
timid slaves; her language into a barbarous 
jargon ; her temples have been given up to the 
successive depredations of Romans, Turks, and 
Scotchmen ; but her intellectual empire is im 
perishable. And, when those who have rival- 
led her greatness shall have shared her fate : 
when civilization and knowledge shall have 
fixed their abode in distant continents ; when the 
sceptre shall have passed away from England ; 
when, perhaps, travellers from distant regions 
shall in vain labour to decipher on some 
mouldering pedestal the name of our proudest 
chief; shall hear savage hymns chanted to 
some misshapen idol over the ruined dome of 
our proudest temple: and shall see a single 
naked fisherman wash his nets in the river of 
the ten thousand masts, — her influence and her 
glory will still survive, — fresh in eternal youth, 
exempt from mutability and decay, immortal as 
the intellectual principle from which they de» 
rived their origin, and over which they exe* 
cise their control 



ATHENIAN ORATORS 



438 



ON THE ATHENIAN ORATORS. 



To the famous orators repair, 
Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence 
Wielded at will that fierce democratic, 
Shook the arsenal, and thundered over Greece 
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne. 

Milton. 



The celebrity of the great classical writers 
is confined within no limits, except those 
which separate civilized from savage man. 
Their works are the common property of every 
polished nation. They have furnished sub- 
jects for the painter, and models for the poet. 
In the minds of the educated classes through- 
out Europe, their names are indissolubly asso- 
ciated with the endearing recollections of 
childhood, — the old school-room, — the dog- 
eared grammar, — the first prize, — the tears so 
often shed and so quickly dried. So great is 
the veneration with which they are regarded, 
that even the editors and commentators, who 
perform the lowest menial offices to their me- 
mory, are considered, like the equerries and 
chamberlains of sovereign princes, as entitled 
co a high rank in the table of literary prece- 
dence. It is, therefore, somewhat singular that 
their productions should so rarely have been 
examined on just and philosophical principles 
of criticisin. 

The ancient writers themselves afford us but 
little assistance. When they particularize, 
they are commonly trivial : when they would 
generalize, they become indistinct. An excep- 
tion must, indeed, be made in favour of Aris- 
totle. Both in analysis and in combination, 
that great man was without a rival. No phi- 
losopher has ever possessed, in an equal de- 
gree, the talent either of separating established 
systems into their primary elements, or of con- 
necting detached phenomena in harmonious 
systems. He was the great fashioner of the 
intellectual chaos : he changed its darkness 
into light, and its discord into order. He 
brought to literary researches the same vigour 
and amplitude of mind, to which both physical 
and metaphysical science are so greatly in- 
debted. His fundamental principles of criti- 
cism are excellent. To cite only a single in- 
stance; — the doctrine which he established, 
that poetry is an imitative art, when justly un- 
derstood is to the critic what the compass is to 
the navigator. With it he may venture upon 
the most extensive excursions. Without it he 
must creep cautiously along the coast, or lose 
himself in a trackless expanse, and trust, at 
best, to the guidance of an occasional star. It 
is a discovery which changes a caprice into a 
science. 

The general propositions of Aristotle are 
valuable. But the merit of the superstructure 
bears no proportion to that of the foundation. 
This is partly to be ascribed to the character 
of the philosopher, who, though qualified to do 



all. that could be done by the resolving and 
combining powers of the understanding, seems 
not to have possessed much of sensibility or 
imagination. Partly, also, it may be attributed 
to the deficiency of materials. The great works 
of genius which then existed were not either 
sufficiently numerous or sufficiently varied to 
enable any man to form a perfect code of litera- 
ture. To require that a critic should conceive 
classes of composition which had never ex- 
isted, and then investigate their principles, 
would be as unreasonable as the 'demand of 
Nebuchadnezzar, who expected his magicians 
first to tell him his dream, and then to inter- 
pret it. 

With all his deficiencies Aristotle was the 
most enlightened and profound critic of anti- 
quity. Dionysius was far from possessing the 
same exquisite subtlety, or the same vast com- 
prehension. But he had access to a much 
greater number of specimens, and he had de- 
voted himself, as it appears, more exclusively 
to the study of elegant literature. His parti- 
cular judgments are of more value than his 
general principles. He is only the historian 
of literature. Aristotle is its philosopher. 

Quintilian applied to general literature the 
same principles by which he had been accus- 
tomed to judge of the declamations of his pu- 
pils. He looks for nothing but rhetoric, and 
rhetoric not of the highest order. He speaks 
coldly of the incomparable works of .<Escnylus. 
He admires, beyond expression, those inex- 
haustible mines of commonplaces, the plays of 
Euripides. He bestows a few vague words on 
the poetical character of Homer. He then 
proceeds to consider him merely as an ora- 
tor. An orator Homer doubtless was, and a 
great orator. But surely nothing is more re- 
markable, in his admirable works, than an art 
with which his oratorical powers are made 
subservient to the purposes of poetry. Nor 
can I think Quintilian a great critic in his own. 
province. Just as are many of his remarks, 
beautiful as are many of his illustrations, we 
can perpetually detect in his thoughts that 
flavour which the soil of despotism generally 
communicates to all the fruits of genius. Elo- 
quence was, in his time, little more than a 
condiment which served to stimulate in a dei* 
pot the jaded appetite for panegyric, an amuse 
ment for the travelled nobles and the blue 
stocking matrons of Rome. It is, therefore, 
with him, rather a sport than a war : it is a 
contest of foils, not of swords. He appears u» 
think more of the grace of the attitude *han of 



13* 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



the direction and vigour of the thrust. It must 
be acknowledged, in justice to Quintilian, that 
this is an error to -which Cicero has too often 
given the sanction, both of his precept and his 
example. 

Longinus seems to have had great sensibi- 
lity but little discrimination. He gives us elo- 
quent sentences, but no principles. It was 
happily said that Montesquieu ought to have 
changed the name of his book from L'esprit des 
Lois to L'esprit sur les Lois. In the same man- 
ner the philosopher of Palmyra ought to have 
entitled his famous work, not " Longinus on 
the Sublime," but " The Sublimities of Longi- 
nus." The origin of the sublime is one of the 
most curious and interesting subjects of in- 
quiry that can occupy the attention of a critic. 
In our own country it has been discussed with 
great ability, and, I think, with very little suc- 
cess, by Burke and Dugald Stewart. Longinus 
dispenses himself from all investigations of 
this nature, by telling his friend Terentianus 
that he already knows every thing that can be 
said upon the question. It is to be regretted 
that Terentianus did not impart some of his 
knowledge to his instructor, for from Longi- 
nus a. e learn only that sublimity means height 
— or elevation.* This name, so commodiously 
vague, is applied indifferently to the noble 
prayer of Ajax in the Iliad, and to a passage 
of Plato about the human body, as full of con- 
ceits as an ode of Cowley. Having no fixed 
standard, Longinus is right only by accident. 
He is rather a fancier than a critic. 

Modern writers have been prevented by many 
causes from supplying the deficiencies of their 
classical predecessors. At the time of the re- 
vival of literature no man could, without great 
and painful labour, acquire an accurate and 
elegant knowledge of the ancient languages. 
And, unfortunately, those grammatical and 
philological studies, without which it was im- 
possible to understand the great works of 
Athenian and Roman genius, have a tendency 
to contract the views and deaden the sensibili- 
ty of those who follow them with extreme as- 
siduity. A powerful mind which has been long 
employed in such studies, may be compared 
to the gigantic spirit in the Arabian tale, who 
was persuaded to contract himself to small 
dimensions in order to enter within the en- 
chanted vessel, and, when his prison had been 
closed upon him, found himself unable to es- 
cape from the narrow boundaries to the mea- 
sure of which he had reduced his stature. 
When the means have long been the objects 
of application, they are naturally substituted 
for the end. It was said by Eugene of Savoy, 
that the greatest generals have commonly been 
those who have been at once raised to com- 
mand, and introduced to the great operations 
of war without being employed in the petty 
calculations and manoeuvres which employ the 
time of an inferior officer. In literature the 
principle is equally sound. The great tactics 
of criticism will, in general, be best understood 
by those who have not had much practice in 
drilling syllables and particles. 

I remember to have observed among the 



• 'AKfOTtjS Kai t\oxn tis \oyuv eon ra vil/r). 



French Anas a ludicrous instance of this. A 
scholar, doubtless of great learning, recom 
mends the study of some long Latin treatise, 
of which I now frrget the name, on the reli 
gion, manners, government and language of 
the early Greeks. " For there," says he, " you 
will learn every thing of importance that is 
contained in the Iliad and Odyssey, without the 
trouble of reading two such tedious books.' - ' 
Alas ! it had not occurred to the poor gentle 
man that all the knowledge to which he had 
attached so much value was useful only as it 
illustrated the great poems which he despised, 
and would be as worthless for any other pur- 
pose as the mythology of Caffraria or the vo- 
cabulary of Otaheite. 

Of those scholars who have disdained tc 
confine themselves to verbal criticism, few 
have been successful. The ancient languages 
have, generally, a magical influence on theii 
faculties. They were " fools called into a cir- 
cle by Greek invocations." The Iliad and 
yEneid were to them not books, but curiosities, 
or rather relics. They no more admired those 
works for their merits, than a good Catholic 
venerates the house of the Virgin at Loretto 
for its architecture. Whatever was classical 
was good. Homer was a great poet, and so was 
Callimachus. The epistles of Cicero were fine, 
and so were those of Phalaris. Even with re- 
spect to questions of evidence, they fell into the 
same error. The authority of all narrations, 
written in Greek or Latin, was the same with 
them. It never crossed their minds that the 
lapse of five hundred years, or the distance of 
five hundred leagues, could affect the accuracy 
of a narration, — that Livy could be a less vera- 
cious historian than Polybius, — or that Plu- 
tarch could know less about the friends of Xe- 
nophon than Xenophon himself. Deceived by 
the distance of time, they seem to consider all 
the classics as contemporaries ; just as I have 
knoAvn people in England, deceived by the dis- 
tance of place, take it for granted that all per- 
sons who live in India are neighbours, and ask 
an inhabitant of Bombay about the health of an 
acquaintance at Calcutta. It is to be hoped 
that no barbarian deluge will ever again pass 
over Europe. But should such a calamity hap- 
pen, it seems not improbable that some future 
Rollin or Gillies will compile a history of Eng- 
land from Miss Porter's Scottish Chiefs, Miss 
Lee's Recess, and Sir Nathaniel Wraxall's Me- 
moirs. 

It is surely time that aneient literature 
should be examined in a different manner, 
without pedantical prepossessions, but with a 
just allowance, at the same time, for the differ- 
ence of circumstances and manners. I am far 
from pretending to the knowledge or ability 
which such a task would require. All that I 
mean to offer is a collection of desultory re- 
marks upon a most interesting portion of Greek 
literature. 

It may be doubted whether any compositions 
which have ever been produced in the world 
are equally perfect in their kind with the great 
Athenian orations. Genius is subject to the 
same laws which regulate the production of 
cotton and molasses. The supply adjusts itseli 
to the demand. The Quantity may te dimt 



ATHENIAN ORATORS. 



4,36 



sished by restrictions and multiplied by boun- 
ties. The singular excellence to which elo- 
quence attained at Athens is to be mainly at- 
tributed to the influence which it exerted there. 
In turbulent times, under a constitution purely 
democratic, among a people educated exactly 
to that point at which men are most suscepti- 
ble of strong and sudden impressions, acute, 
but not sound reasoners, warm in their feel- 
ings, unfixed in their principles, and passionate 
admirers of fine composition, oratory received 
such encouragement as it has never since ob- 
tained. 

The taste and knowledge of the Athenian 
people was a favourite object of the contemptu- 
ous derision of Samuel Johnson ; a man who 
knew nothing of Greek literature beyond the 
common school-books, and who seems to have 
brought to what he* had read scarcely more 
than the discernment of a common schoolboy. 
He used to assert, with that arrogant absurdity 
which, in spite of his great abilities and vir- 
tues, renders him perhaps the most ridiculous 
character in literary history, that Demosthenes 
spoke to a people of brutes, — to a barbarous 
people, — that there could have been no civi- 
lization before the invention of printing. John- 
son was a keen but a very narrow-minded ob 
server of mankind. He perpetually confound- 
ed their general nature with their particular 
circumstances. He knew London intimately. 
The sagacity of his remarks on its society is 
perfectly astonishing. But Fleet Street was 
ihe world to him. He saw that Londoners who 
did not read were profoundly ignorant, and he 
inferred that a Greek who had few or no books 
must have been as uninformed as one of Mr. 
Thrale's draymen. 

There seems to be, on the contrary, every 
reason to believe that in general intelligence 
the Athenian populace far surpassed the lower 
orders of any commnnity that has ever existed, 
"i must be considered that to be a citizen was 
to be a legislator — a soldier — a judge — one up- 
on whose voice might depend the fate of the 
wealthiest tributary state, of the most eminent 
public man. The lowest offices, both of agri- 
culture and of trade, were in common per- 
formed by slaves. The commonwealth sup- 
plied its meanest members with the support 
of life, the opportunity of leisure, and the 
means of amusement. Books were, indeed, 
t'ew, but they were excellent, and they were 
accurately known. It is not by turning over 
libraries, but by repeatedly perusing and in- 
tently contemplating a few great models, that 
the mind is best disciplined. A man of letters 
must now read much that he soon forgets, and 
much from which he learns nothing worthy to 
be remembered. The best works employ, in 
general, but a small portion of his time. De- 
mosthenes is said to have transcribed, six 
times, the History of Thucydides. If he had 
been a young politician of the present age, he 
might in the same space of time have skimmed 
innumerable newspapers and pamphlets. I do 
not condemn that desultory mode of study 
which the state of things in our day renders a 
matter of necessity. But I may be allowed to 
doubt whether the changes on which the ad- 
mirers of modern institutions delight to dwell 



have improved our condition as much in realitj 
as in appearance. Rumford, it is said, pro. 
posed to the Elector of Bavaria a scheme foi 
feeding his soldiers at a much cheaper rate 
than formerly. His plan was simply to com 
pel them to masticate their food thoroughly. 
A small quantity thus eaten would, according 
to that famous projector, afford more suste- 
nance than a large meal hastily devoured. 1 
do not know how Rumford's proposition was 
received ; but to the mind, I believe, it will be 
found more nutritious to digest a page than tc 
devour a volume. 

Books, however, were the least part of tht 
education of an Athenian citizen. Let us, for 
a moment, transport ourselves, in thought, to 
that glorious city. Let us imagine that we are 
entering its gates, in the time of its power and 
glory. A crowd is assembled round a portico. 
All are gazing with delight at the entablature, 
for Phidias is putting up the frieze. We turn 
into another street; a rhapsodist is reciting 
there; men, women, children, are thronging 
round him; the tears are running down their 
cheeks ; their eyes are fixed ; their very breath 
is still ; for he is telling how Priam fell at the 
feet of Achilles, and kissed those hands, — the 
terrible, — the murderous, — which had slain so 
many of his sons.* We enter the public 
place ; there is i ring of youths, all leaning for- 
ward, with sparkling eyes, and gestures of ex- 
pectation. Socrates is pitted against the fa- 
mous Atheist, from Ionia, and has just brought 
him to a contradiction in terms. But we are 
interrupted. The herald is crying^" Room 
for the Prytanes." The general assembly is 
to meet. The people are swarming in on every 
side. Proclamation is made — "Who wishes to 
speak." There is a shout, and a clapping of 
hands : Pericles is mounting the stand. Then 
for a play of Sophocles ; and away to sup with 
Aspasia. I know of no modern university which 
has so excellent a system of education. 

Knowledge thus acquired, and opinions thus 
formed, were, indeed, likely to be, in some re- 
spects, defective. Propositions, which are 
advanced in discourse, generally result from a 
partial view of the question, and cannot be 
kept under examination long enough to be 
corrected. Men of great conversational pow- 
ers almost universally practise a sort of lively 
sophistry and exaggeration, which deceives, 
for the moment, both themselves and their 
auditors. Thus we see doctrines, which can- 
not bear a close inspection, triumph perpe- 
tually in drawing-rooms, in debating socie- 
ties, and even in legislative or judicial assem- 
blies. To the conversational education of the 
Athenians, I am inclined to attribute the great 
looseness of reasoning, which is remarkable in 
most of their scientific writings. Even the 
most illogical of modern writers would stand 
perfectly aghast at the puerile fallacies which 
seem to have deluded some of the greatest men 
of antiquity. Sir Thomas Lethbridge would 
stare at the political economy of Xenophon 
and the author of Soirees de Petersbourg would 
be ashamed of some of the metaphysical argu. 



Ssiva;, av6po<povovs t at ot irc\eaf uravov \>ta{ 



436 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANE 1/5 WRITINGS 



ments of Plato. But the very circumstances 
which retarded the growth of science, were 
peculiarly favourable to the cultivation of elo^ 
quence. From the early habit of taking a share 
in animated discussion, the intelligent student 
would derive that readiness of resource, that 
copiousness of language, and that knowledge 
of the temper and understanding of an audi- 
ence, which are far more valuable to an orator 
than the greatest logical powers. 

Horace has prettily compared poems to those 
paintings of which the effect varies as the 
spectator changes his stand. The same re- 
mark applies with at least equal justice to 
speeches. They must be read with the temper 
of those to whom they were addressed, or they 
must necessarily appear to offend against the 
laws of taste and reason; as the finest picture, 
seen in a light different from that for which it 
was designed, will appear fit only for a sign. 
This is perpetually forgctten by those who 
criticise oratory. Because they are reading at 
Leisure, pausing at every line, reconsidering 
every argument, they forget that the hearers 
were hurried from point to point too rapidly to 
detect the fallacies through which they were 
conducted ; that they had no time to disentan- 
gle sophisms, or to notice slight inaccuracies 
of expression ; that elaborate excellence, either 
of reasoning or of language, would have been 
absolutely thrown away. To recur to the ana- 
logy of the sister art, these connoisseurs ex- 
amine a panorama through a microscope, and 
[parrel with a scene-painter because he does 
not give to his work the exquisite finish of 
Gerard Dow. 

Oratory is to be estimated on principles dif- 
ferent from those which are applied to other 
productions. Truth is the object of philosophy 
and history. Truth is the object even of those 
works which are peculiarly called works of 
fiction, but which, in fact, bear the same rela- 
tion to history which algebra bears to arith- 
metic. The merit of poetry, in its wildest 
forms, still consists in its truth, — truth con- 
veyed to the understanding, not directly by the 
'.vords, but circuitously by means of imagina- 
tive associations, which serve as its con- 
ductors. The object of oratory " alone is not 
truth, but persuasion. The admiration of the 
multitude does not make Moore a greater poet 
than Coleridge, or Beattie a greater philoso- 
pher than Berkeley. But the criterion of elo- 
quence is different. A speaker, who exhausts 
the whole philosophy of a question, who dis- 
plays every grace of style, yet produces no 
effect on his audience, may be a great essayist, 
a great statesman, a great master of composi- 
tion, but he is not an orator. If he miss the 
mark, it makes no difference whether he have 
taken aim too high or too low. 

The effect of the great freedom of the press 
in England has been, in a great measure, to 
destroy this distinction, and to leave among us 
little of what I call Oratory Proper. Our le- 
gislators, our candidates, on great occasions 
even our advocates, address themselves less 
to the audience than to the reporters. They 
think less of the few hearers than of the innu- 
merable readers. At Athens, the case was 
Afferent • there the only object of the speaker 



was immediate convictian and persuasion 
He, therefore, who would justly appreciate th« 
merit of the Grecian orators, should place him* 
self, as nearly as possible, in the situation of 
their auditors : he should divest himself of his 
modern feelings and acquirements, and make 
the prejudices and interests of the Athenian 
citizens his own. He who studies their works 
in this spirit will find that many of those things 
which, to an English reader, appear to be 
blemishes, — the frequent violation of these 
excellent *ules of evidence, by which our 
courts of law are regulated, — the introduction 
of extraneous matter, — the reference to con- 
siderations of political expediency in judicial 
investigations, — the assertions, without proof, 
— the passionate entreaties, — the furious in- 
vectives, — are really proofs of the prudence 
and address of the speakers. He must not 
dwell maliciously on arguments or phrases, 
but acquiesce in his first impressions. It re- 
quires repeated perusal and reflection to de- 
cide rightly on any other portion of literature. 
But with respect to works of which the merit 
depends on their instantaneous effect, the most 
hasty judgment is likely to be best. 

The history of eloquence at Athens is re- 
markable. From a very early period great 
speakers had flourished there. Pisistratus and 
Themistocles are said to have owed much of 
their influence to their talents for debate. W^ 
learn, with more certainty, that Pericles was 
distinguished by extraordinary oratorical pow 
ers. The substance of some of his speeches i. 
transmitted to us by Thucydides, and that ex 
cellent writer has doubtless faithfully reported 
the general line of his arguments. But the 
manner, which in oratory is of at least as 
much consequence as the matter, was of no 
importance to his narration. It is evident thai 
he has not attempted to preserve it. Through 
out his work, every speech on every subject, 
whatever may have been the character or the 
dialect of the speaker, is in exactly the same 
form. The grave King of Sparta, the furious 
demagogue of Athens, the general encouraging 
his army, the captive supplicating for his life, 
all are represented as speakers in one unvaried 
style, — a style moreover wholly unfit for ora- 
torical purposes. His mode of reasoning is 
singularly elliptical, — in reality most consecu- 
tive, yet in appearance often incoherent. His 
meaning, in itself is sufficiently perplexing, is 
compressed into the fewest possible words. 
His great fondness for antithetical expression 
has not a little conduced to this effect. Every 
one must have observed how much more the 
sense is condensed in the verses of Pope and 
his imitators, who never ventured to continue 
the same clause from couplet to couplet, than 
in those of poets who allow themselves that 
license. Every artificial division, which is 
strongly marked, and which frequently recurs, 
has the same tendency. The natural and per- 
spicuous expression which spontaneously rises 
to the mind, will often refuse to accommodate 
itself to such a form. It is necessary either to 
expand it into weakness, or to compress it into 
almost impenetrable density. The latter is 
generally the choice of an able man, and wat 
assuredly the choice of Thucydides. 



ATHENIAN ORATORS. 



43? 



If is scarcely necessary to say that such 
speeches could never have been delivered. 
They are perhaps among the most difficult pas- 
sages in the Greek language, and would pro- 
bably have been scarcely more intelligible to 
an Athenian auditor than to a modern reader. 
Their obscurity was acknowledged by Cicero, 
who was as intimate with the literature and 
language of Greece as the most accomplished 
of its natives, and who seems to have held a 
respectable rank among the Greek authors. 
The difficulty to a modern reader lies, not in 
the words, but in the reasoning. A dictionary 
is of far less use in studying them, than a clear 
head and a close attention to the context. They 
are valuable to the scholar, as displaying, be- 
yond almost any other compositions, the powers 
of the finest languages : — they are valuable to 
the philosopher, as illustrating the morals and 
manners of a most interesting age ; — they 
abound in just thought and energetic expres- 
ion. But they do not enable us to form any 
accurate opinion on the merits of the early 
Greek orators. 

Though it cannot be doubted, that, before the 
Persian wars, Athens had produced eminent 
speakers, yet the period during which elo- 
quence moSt flourished among her citizens was 
by no means that of her greatest power and 
glory. It commenced at the close of the Pelo- 
ponnesian war. In fact, the steps by which 
Athenian oratory approached to its finished 
excellence, seem to have been almost contem- 
poraneous with those by which the Athenian 
character and the Athenian empire sunk to de- 
gradation. At the time when the little com- 
monwealth achieved those victories which 
twenty-five eventual centuries have left un- 
equalled, eloquence was in its infancy. The 
deliverers of Greece became its plunderers and 
oppressors. Unmeasured exaction, atrocious 
vengeance, the madness of the multitude, the 
tyranny of the great, filled the Cyclades with 
tears, and blood, and mourning. The sword 
unpeopled whole islands in a day. The plough 
passed over the ruins of famous cities. The 
imperial republic sent forth her children by 
thousands to pine in the quarries of Syracuse, 
or to feed the vultures of iEgospotami. She 
was at length reduced by famine and slaughter 
to humble herself before her enemies, and to 
purchase existence by the sacrifice of her em- 
pire and her laws. During these disastrous 
and gloomy years, oratory was advancing 
towards its highest excellence. And it was 
when the moral, the political, the military cha- 
racter of the people was most utterly degraded ; 
it was when the viceroy of a Macedonian so- 
. vereign gave law to Greece, that the courts of 
Athens witnessed the most splendid contest of 
eloquence that the world has ever known. 

The causes of this phenomenon it is not, I 
think, difficult to assign. The division of la- 
bour operates on the productions of the orator 
as it does on those of the mechanic. It wa„ 
remarked by the ancients, that the Pentathlete, 
who divided his attention between several exer- 
cises, though he could not vie with a boxer in 
tie use of a cestus, or with one who had con- 
fined his attention to running in the contest of 



the stadium, yet enjoyed far greater genera, 
vigour and health than either, it is the same 
with the mind. The superiority in technical 
skill is often more than compensated by the 
inferiority in general intelligence. And this is 
peculiarly the case in politics. States have 
always been best governed by men who have 
taken a wide view of public affairs, and who 
have rather a general acquaintance with many 
sciences than a perfect mastery of one. The 
union of the political and military departments 
in Greece contributed not a little to the splen- 
dour of its early history. After their separa- 
tion more skilful generals and greater speakers 
appeared; — but the breed of statesmen dwindled 
and became almost extinct. Themistocles or 
Pericles would have been no match for De- 
mosthenes in the assembly, or Iphicrates in the 
field. But surely they were incomparably 
better fitted than either for the supreme direc- 
tion of affairs. 

There is indeed a remarkable coincidence 
between the progress of the art of war, and 
that of the art of oratory, among the Greeks. 
They both advanced to perfection by contem- 
poraneous steps, and from similar causes. The 
early speakers, like the early warriors of Greece, 
were merely a militia. It was found, that in 
both employments, practice and discipline gave 
superiority.* Each pursuit, therefore, became 
first an art, and then a trade. In proportion as 
the professors of each became more expert in 
their particular craft, they became less respect- 
able in their general character. Their skill 
had been obtained at too great expense to be 
employed only from disinterested views. Thus 
the soldiers forgot that they were citizens, and 
the orators that they were statesmen. I know 
not to what Demosthenes and his famous con- 
temporaries can be so justly compared as to 
those mercenary troops, who, in their time, 
overran Greece ; or those who, from similar 
causes, were some centuries ago the scourge 
of the Italian republics, — perfectly acquainted 
"with every part of their profession, irresistible 
in the field, powerful to defend or to destroy, 
but defending without love, and destroying 
without hatred. We may despist "he charac- 



* It has often occurred to me, that to the circum- 
stances mentioned in the text, is to be referred one of 
the most remarkable events in Grecian history, I mean 
the silent but rapid downfall of the Lacedaemonian 
power. Soon after the termination of the Peloponnesian 
war, the strength of Lacedsemon began to decline. Its 
military discipline, its social institutions were the same. 
Agesilaus, during whose reign the change took place, 
was the ablest of its kings. Yet the Spartan armies 
were frequently defeated in pitched battles, — an oc- 
currence considered impossible in the earlier ages of 
Greece. They are allowed to have fought most bravely, 
yet they were no longer attended by the success to vv hitta 
they had formerly been accustomed. No solution of 
these circumstances is offered, as far as I know, by any 
ancient author. The real cause, I conceive, was this. 
The Lacedaemonians, alone among the Greeks, formed 
a permanent standing army. While the citizens of other 
commonwealths were engaged in agriculture and trade, 
they had no employment whatever but the study of 
military discipline. Hence, during the Persian and Pe- 
loponnesian wars, they had that advantage over their 
neighbours which regular troops always possess over 
militia. This advantage they lost when other states 
began, at a later period, to employ mercenary forces, 
who were probably as superior to them in the art of wsj 
as they had hitherto been to their antagonists. 



438 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ters of these political Condottieri, but it is im- 
possible to examine the system of their tactics 
without being amazed at its perfection. 

I had intended to proceed to this examination, 
and to consider separately the remains of Ly- 
sias, of jEschines, of Demosthenes, and of Iso- 
crates, who though, strictly speaking, he was 
rather a pamphleteer than an orator, deserves, 
on many accounts, a place in such a disquisi- 
tion. The length of my prolegomena and di- 
gressions compels me to postpone this part of 
the subject to another occasion. A magazine 
is certainly a delightful invention for a very 
idle or a very busy man. He is not compelled 
to complete his plan or to adhere to his subject. 



He may ramble as far as he is inclined, anc 
stop as soon as he is tired. No one takes the 
trouble to recollect his contradictory opiniona 
or his unredeemed pledges. He may be as 
superficial, as inconsistent, and as careless as 
he chooses. Magazines resemble those little 
angels, who, according to the pretty Rabinica. 
tradition, are generated every morning by the 
brook which rolls over the flowers of Paradise, 
— whose life is a song, — who warble till sunset, 
and then sink back without regret into nothing- 
ness. Such spirits have nothing to do with the 
detecting spear of Ithuriel or the victorious 
sword of Michael. It is enough for them to 
please and be forgotten. 



COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 



* 



[Edinburgh Review, January, 1841.] 



We have a kindness for Mr. Leigh Hunt. 
We form our judgment of him, indeed, only 
from events of universal notoriety — from his 
own works, and from the works of other wri- 
ters, who have generally abused him in the 
most rancorous manner. But, unless we are 
greatly mistaken, he is a very clever, a very 
honest, and a very good-natured man. We 
can clearly discern, together with many merits, 
v many serious faults, both in his writings and 
in his conduct. But we really think that there 
is hardly a man living whose merits have 
been so grudgingly allowed, and whose faults 
have been so cruelly expiated. 

In some respects, Mr. Leigh Hunt is excel- 
lently qualified for the task which he has now 
undertaken. His style, in spite of its manner- 
ism — nay, partly by reason of its mannerism 
— is well suited for light, garrulous, desultory 
ana, half critical, half biographical. We do 
not always agree with his literary judgments; 
but we find in him what is very rare in our 
time — the power of justly appreciating and 
heartily enjoying good things of very different 
kinds. He can adore Shakspeare and Spenser 
without denying poetical genius to the author 
of " Alexander's Feast ;" or fine observation, 
rich fancy, and exquisite humour to him who 
imagined " Will Honeycomb " and "Sir Roger 
de Coverley." He has paid particular atten- 
tion to the history of the English drama, from 
the age of Elizabeth down to our own time, 
and has every right to be heard with respect 
on that subject. 

The plays to which he now acts as intro- 
ducer are, with few exceptions, such as, in the 
opinion of many very respectable people, 
ought not to be reprinted. In this opinion we 
can by no means concur. We cannot wish 
that any work or class of works which has ex- 
ercised a great influence on the human mind, 



* The Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, 
Vanbruoh, and Farquhar. With Biographical and 
Critical Notices. By Leigh Hunt. 8vo. London. 1840. 



and which illustrates the character of an im- 
portant epoch in letters, politics, and morals, 
should disappear from the world. If we err in 
this matter, we err with the gravest men and 
bodies of men in the empire, and especially 
with the Church of England, and with the 
great schools of learning which are connected 
with her. The whole liberal education of our 
countrymen is conducted on the principle, that 
no book which is valuable, either by reason of 
the excellence of its style, or by reason of the 
light which it throws on the history, polity, 
and manners of nations, should be withheld 
from the student on account of its impurity. 
The Athenian Comedies, in which there are 
scarcely a hundred lines together without 
some passage of which Rochester would have 
been ashamed, have been reprinted at the Pitt 
Press and the Clarendon Press, under the di- 
rection of syndics and delegates appointed by 
the Universities ; and have been illustrated 
with notes by reverend, very reverend, and 
right reverend commentators. 

Every year the most distinguished young 
men in the kingdom are examined by bishops 
and professors of divinity in the Lysistrata of 
Aristophanes and the Sixth Satire of JuvenaL 
There is certainly something a little ludicrous 
in the idea of a conclave of venerable fathers 
of the church rewarding a lad for his intimate 
acquaintance with writings, compared with 
which the loosest tale in Prior is modest. 
But for our own part we have no doubt that g 
the great societies which direct the education 
of the English gentry have herein judged 
wisely. It is unquestionable that an extensive 
acquaintance with ancient literature enlarges 
and enriches the mind. It is unquestionable 
that a man whose mind has been thus en- 
larged and enriched, is Akely to be far more 
useful to the state and to the church, than one 
who is unskilled, or little skilled in classical 
learning. On the other hand, we find it diffi- 
cult to believe that, in a world so full of tempta- 
tion as this, any gentleman, vvhose life would 



COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 



439 



Have been virtuous if he had not read Aristo- 
phanes and Juvenal, will be made vicious by 
reading them. A man who, exposed to a.l the 
influences of such a state of society as that in 
which we live, is yet afraid of exposing himself 
to the influences of a few Greek or Latin verses, 
acts, we think, much like the felon who begged 
the sheriffs to let him have an umbrella held 
over his head from the door of Newgate to the 
gallows, because it was a drizzling morning, 
and he was apt to take cold. 

The virtue which the world wants is a 
healthful virtue, not a valetudinarian virtue — 
a virtue which can expose itself to the risks 
inseparable from all spirited exertion — not a 
virtue which keeps out of the common air for 
fear of infection, and eschews the common food 
as too stimulating. It would be indeed absurd 
to attempt to keep men from acquiring those 
qualifications which fit them to play their part 
in life with honour to themselves and advan- 
tage to their country, for the sake of preserving 
a delicacy which cannot be preserved — a deli- 
cacy which a walk from Westminster to the 
Temple is sufficient to destroy. 

But we should be justly chargeable with 
gross inconsistency, if, while we defend the 
policy which invites the youth of our country 
to study such writers as Theocritus and Catul- 
lus, we were to set up a cry against a new 
edition of the " Country Wife," or the " Way 
of the World." The immoral English writers 
of the seventeenth century are indeed much 
less excusable than those of Greece and Rome. 
But the worst English writings of the seven- 
teenth century are decent, compared with much 
that has been bequeathed to us by Greece and 
Rome. Plato, we have little doubt, was a much 
better man than Sir George Etherege. But Plato 
has written things at which Sir George Etherege 
would have shuddered. Buckhurst and Sed- 
ley, even in those wild orgies at the Cock in 
Bow Street, for which they were pelted by the 
rabble and fined by the Court of King's Bench, 
would never have dared to hold such discourse 
as passed between Socrates and Phoedrus on 
that fine summer day, under the plane-tree, 
while the fountain warbled at their feet, and 
the cicadas chirped overhead. If it be, as we 
think it is, desirable that an English gentle- 
man should be well informed touching the 
government and the manners of little common- 
wealths, which both in place and time are far 
removed from us — whose independence has 
been more than two thousand years extinguish- 
ed, whose language has not been spoken for 
ages, and whose ancient magnificence is attest- 
ed only by a few broken columns and friezes — 
much more must it be desirable that he should 
be intimately acquainted with the history of 
the public mind of his own country ; and with 
the causes, the nature, and the extent of those 
revolutions of opinion and feeling, which, 
during the .ast two centuries, have alternately 
raised and depressed the standard of our na- 
tional morality. And knowledge of this sort is 
to be very sparingly gleaned from parliament- 
ary debates, from state papers, and from the 
works of grave historians. It must either not 
be acquired at all, or it must be acquired by 
the perusal of the light literature which has at 



various periods been fashionable. We are 
therefore by no means disposed to condemn 
this publication, though we certainly cannot 
recommend the handsome volume* before us 
as an appropriate Christmas present for young 
ladies. 

We have said that we think the present pub- 
lication perfectly justifiable. But we can by 
no means agree with Mr. Leigh Hunt, who 
seems to hold that there is little or no ground 
for the charge of immorality so often brought 
against the literature ol the Restoration. We 
do not blame him for not bringing to the judg- 
ment-seat the merciless rigour of Lord Angelo'; 
but we really think that such flagitious and 
impudent offenders as those who are now at 
the bar, deserved at least the gentle rebuke of 
Escalus. Mr. Leigh Hunt treats the whole 
matter a little too much in the easy style of 
Lucio, and perhaps his exceeding lenity dis- 
poses us to b<5 somewhat too severe. 

And yet it is not easy to be too severe. For, 
in truth, this part of our literature is a disgrace 
to our language and our national character. 
It is clever, indeed, and very entertaining ; but 
it is, in the most emphatic sense of the words, 
"earthly, sensual, devilish." Its indecency, 
though perpetually such as is condemned, not 
less by the rules of good taste than by those of 
morality, is not, in our opinion, so disgraceful 
a fault as its singularly inhuman spirit. We 
have here Belial, not as when he inspired Ovid 
and Ariosto, " graceful and humane," but with 
the iron eye and cruel sneer of Mephistopheles 
We find ourselves in a world, in which the 
ladies are like very profligate, impudent and 
unfeeling men, and in which the men are too 
bad for any place but Pandemonium or Nor- 
folk Island. We are surrounded by foreheads 
of bronze, hearts like the nether millstone, and 
tongues set on fire of hell. 

Dryden defended or excused his own of- 
fences, and those of his contemporaries, by 
pleading the example of the earlier English 
dramatists: and Mr. Leigh Hunt seems to 
think that there is force in the plea. We al- 
together differ from this opinion. The crime 
charged is not mere coarseness of expression. 
The terms which are delicate in one age be- 
come gross in the next. The diction of the 
English version of the Pentateuch, is some- 
times such as Addison would not have ventur- 
ed to imitate; and Addison, the standard of 
purity in his own age, used many phrases 
which are now proscribed. Whether a thing 
shall be designated by a plain noun-substan- 
tive, or by a circumlocution, is mere matter of 
fashion. Morality is not at all interested in 
the question. But morality is deeply interested 
in this — that what is immoral shall not be pre- 
sented to the imagination of the young and 
susceptible in constant connection w'*h what 
is attractive. For every person who nes ob- 
served the operation of the law of association 



* Mr. Moxon, its publisher, is we!! entitled to com 
mendation and support for having, by a series of corres- 
ponding Reprints, (comprising the works of the eldel 
Dramatists,)— executed in a compendious but very come* 
ly form, and accompanied with useful prolegomena— pt» 
it in the power of any one desirous of such an acquis! 
tion to procure, at a comparatively small coat, the no 
blest Dramatic Library in the world. 



440 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



in his own mind, and in the minds of others, 
knows, that whatever is constantly presented 
to the imagination in connection with* what is 
attractive, will commonly itself become at- 
tractive. There is undoubtedly a great deal of 
indelicate writing in Fletcher and Massinger ; 
and more than might be wished even in Ben 
Jonson and Shakspeare, who are compara- 
tively pure. But it is impossible to trace in 
their plays any systematic attempt to associate 
vk with those things which men value most 
and desire most, and virtue with every thing 
ridiculous and degrading. And such a syste- 
matic attempt we find in the whole dramatic 
literature of the generation which followed the 
return of Charles the Second. We will take, 
aa an instance of what we mean, a single sub- 
ject of the highest importance to the happiness 
of mankind — conjugal fidelity. We can at 
present hardly call to mind a single English 
play, written before the Civil War, in which the 
character of a seducer of married women is 
represented in a favourable light. We re- 
member many plays in which such persons 
are baffled, exposed, covered with derision, and 
insulted by triumphant husbands. Such is the 
fate of Falstaff, with all his wit and knowledge 
of the world. Such is the fate of Brisac in 
Fletcher's "Elder Brother" — and of Ricardo 
and Ubaldo, in Massinger's " Picture." Some- 
times, as in the " Fatal Dowry," and " Love's 
Cruelty," the outraged honour of families is 
repaired by a bloody revenge. If now and 
then the lover is represented as an accom- 
plished man, and the husband as a person of 
weak or odious character, this only makes 
the triumph of female virtue the more signal ; 
as iii Jonson's Celia and. Mrs. Fitzdottrel, and 
in Fletcher's Maria. In general we will ven- 
ture to say, that the dramatists of the age of 
Elizabeth and James the First, either treat the 
breach of the marriage-vcw as a serious crime 
—or, -if they treat it as a matter for laughter, 
turn the laugh against the gallant. 

On the contrary, during the forty years 
which followed the Restoration, the whole body 
of the dramatists invariably represent adultery 
— we do not say as a peccadillo — we do not 
say as an error which the violence of passion 
may excuse — but as the calling of a fine gen- 
tleman — as a grace without which his cha- 
racter would be imperfect. It is as essential 
to his breeding and to his place in society that 
he should make love to the wives of his neigh- 
bours, as that he should know French, or that 
he should have a sword at his side. In all this 
there is no passion, and scarcely any thing 
that can be called preference. The hero in- 
trigues, just as he wears a wig; because, if 
he did not, he would be a queer fellow, a city 
prig, perhaps a Puritan. All the agreeable 
qualities are always given to the gallant. All 
Che contempt and aversion are the portion of 
the unfortunate husband. Take Dryden for 
example; and compare Woodall with Brain- 
sick, or Lorenzo with Gomez. Take Wycher- 
ley, and compare Horner with Pinchwife. 
Take Vanbrugh, and compare Constant with 
Sir John Brute. Take Farquhar, and com- 
pare Archer with Squire Sullen. Take Con- 
srove, and compare Belmour with Fondlewife, 



Careless with Sir Paul Plyant, or Scandal with 
Foresight. In all these cases, and in many 
more which might be named, the dramatist 
evidently does his best to make the person 
who commits the injury graceful, sensible and 
spirited ; and the person who suffers it a fool 
or a tyrant, or both. 

Mr. Charles Lamb, indeed, attempted to set 
up a defence for this way of writing. The dra- 
matists of the latter part of the seventeenth 
century are not, according to him, to be tried 
by the standard of morality which exists, and 
ought to exist in real life. Their world is a 
conventional world. Their heroes and he- 
roines belong, not to England, not to Christen- 
dom, but to an Utopia of gallantry, to a Fairy- 
land, where the Bible and Burns's Justice are 
unknown — where a prank, which on this earth 
would be rewarded with the pillory, is merely 
matter for a peal of elfish laughter. A real 
Horner, a real Careless would, it is admitted, 
be exceedingly bad men. But to predicate 
morality or immorality of the Horner of Wy- 
cherly, and the Careless of Congreve, is as 
absurd as it would be to arraign a sleeper for 
his dreams. They belong " to the regions of 
pure comedy, where no cold moral reigns — 
when we are amongst them we are amongst a 
chaotic people. We are not to judge them by 
our usages. No reverend institutions are in- 
sulted by their proceedings, for they have none 
among them. No peace of families is violated, 
for no family ties exist among them. There 
is neither right or wrong — gratitude or its op- 
posite — claim or duty — paternity or sonship." 

This is, we believe, a fair summary of Mr. 
Lamb's doctrine. We are sure that we do not 
wish to represent him unfairly. For we ad- 
mire his genius ; we love the kind nature 
which appears in all his writings : and we 
cherish his memory as much as if we had 
known him personally. But we must plainly 
say that his argument, though ingenious, is 
altogether sophistical. 

Of course we perfectly understand that it is 
possible for a writer to create a conventional 
world in which things forbidden by the Deca- 
logue and the Statute Book shall be lawful, 
and yet that the exhibition may be harmless, or 
even edifying. For example, we suppose that 
the most austere critics would not accuse Fe- 
nelon of impiety and immorality, on account 
of his Telemachus and his Dialogues of the 
Dead. In Telemachus and the Dialogues of 
the Dead, we have a false religion, and conse- 
quently a morality which is in some points 
incorrect. We have a right and a wrong, 
differing from the right and the wrong of real 
life. It is represented as the first duty of men 
to pay honour to Jove and Minerva. Philo- 
cles, who employes his leisure in making 
graven images of these deities, is extolled for 
his piety in a way which contrasts singularly 
with the expressions of Isaiah on the same 
subject. The dead are judged by Minos, and 
rewarded with lasting happiness for actions 
which Fenelon would have been the first to 
pronounce splendid sins. The same may be 
said of Mr. Southey's Mohammedan and Hin- 
doo heroes and heroines. In Thalaba, to speak 
in derogation of <he Arabian Imposter is bias- 



COMIt DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 



44i 



ohemy — to drink wine is a crime— to perform 
ablutions, and to pay honour to the holy cities, 
are works of merit. In the Curse of Kehama, 
Kailyal is commended for her devotion to the 
statue of Mariataly, the goddess of the poor. 
?lut certainly no person will accuse Mr. Southey 
<if having promoted or intended to promote 
tjther Islamism or Brahminism. 

It is easy to see why the conventional worlds 
of Fenelon and Mr. Southey are unobjectiona- 
ble. In the first place, they are utterly unlike 
the real world in which we live. The state of 
society, the laws even of the physical world, 
are so different from those with which we are 
familiar, that we cannot be shocked at finding 
the morality also very different. But in truth, 
the morality of these conventional worlds dif- 
fers from the morality of the real world, only 
in points where there is no danger that the 
real worlds will ever go wrong. The gene- 
rosity and docility of Telemachus, the forti- 
tude, the modesty, the filial tenderness of Kail- 
yal, are virtues of all ages and nations. And 
there was very little danger that the Dauphin 
would worship Minerva, or that an English 
damsel would dance with a bucket on her head 
before the statue of Mariataly. 

The casa»is widely different with what Mr. 
Charles Lamb calls the conventional world of 
Wycherley and Congreve. Here the costume, 
and manners, the topics of conversation, are 
those of the real town, and of the passing day. 
The hero is in all superficial accomplishments 
exactly the fine gentleman, whom every youth 
in the pit would gladly resemble. The heroine 
is the fine lady, whom every youth in the pit 
would gladly marry. The scene is laid in some 
place which is as well known to the audience 
as their own houses, in St. James's Park, or 
Hyde Park, or Westminster Hall. The lawyer 
bustles about with his bag, between the Com- 
mon Pleas and the Exchequer. The Peer calls 
for his carriage to go to the House of Lords on 
a private bill. A hundred little touches are 
employed to make the fictitious world appear 
like the actual world. And the immorality is 
of a sort which never can be out of date, and 
which all the force of religion, law, and public 
opinion united can but imperfectly restrain. 

In the name of art, as well as in the name 
of virtue, we protest against the principle that 
the world of pure comedy is one into which no 
moral enters. If comedy be an imitation, un- 
der whatever conventions, of real life, how is 
it possible that it can have no reference to the 
great rule which directs life, and to feelings 
which are called forth by every incident of 
life 1 If what Mr. Charles Lamb says were 
correct, the inference would be, that these dra- 
matists did not in the least understand the very 
first principles of their craft. Pure landscape 
painting into which no light or shade enters, 
pure portrait fainting into which no expres- 
sion enters, are phrases less at variance with 
sound criticism than pure comedy into which 
no moral enters. 

But it is not the fact, that the world of these 
dramatists is a world into which no moral 
enters. Morality constantly enters into that 
world, a sound morality, and an unsound 
morality; the sound morality to be insulted, 



derided, associated with every thing mean and 
hateful ; the unsound morality to be set off to 
every advantage, and inculcated by all me- 
thods direct and indirect. It is not the fact, 
that none of the inhabitants of this conven- 
tional world feel reverence for sacred institu- 
tions, and family ties. Fondlewife, Pinchwife, 
every person in short of narrow understand- 
ing and disgusting manners, expresses that 
reverence strongly. The heroes and heroines 
too, have a moral code of their OAvn, an ex- 
ceedingly bad one; but not, as Mr. Charles 
Lamb seems to think, a, code existing only in 
the imagination of dramatists. It is, on the 
contrary, a code actually received, and obeyed 
by great numbers of people. We need not go 
to Utopia or Fairiland to find them. They are 
near at hand. Every night some of them play 
at the "hells" in the Quadrant, and others pace 
the piazza in Covent-garden. Without flying 
to Nephelococcygia, or to the Court of Queen 
Mab, we can meet with sharpers, bullies, hard- 
hearted impudent debauchees, and women 
worthy cf such paramours. The morality of 
the " Country Wife" and the " Old Bachelor," 
is the morality, not, as Mr. Charles Lamb 
maintains, of an unreal world, but of a world 
which is a great deal too real. It is the mo- 
rality, not of a chaotic people, but of low 
town-rakes, and of those ladies whom the 
newspapers call "dashing Cyprians." And 
the question is simply, whether a man of 
genius, who constantly and systematically en- 
deavours to make this sort of character attrac- 
tive, by uniting it with beauty, grace, dignity, 
spirit, a high social position, popularity, litera- 
ture, wit, taste, knowledge of the world, brilliant 
success in every undertaking, does or does not 
make an ill use of his powers. We own that 
we are unable to understand how this question 
can be answered in any way but one. 

It must, indeed, be acknowledged, in justice 
to the writers of whom we have spoken thus 
severely, that they were, to a great extent, the 
creatures of their age. And if it be asked 
why that age encouraged immorality which no 
other age would have tolerated, we have no 
hesitation in answering that this great depra- 
vation of the national taste was the effect of 
the prevalence of Puritanism under the Com- 
monwealth. 

To punish public outrages on morals and 
religion is unquestionably within the compe- 
tence of rulers. But when a government, not 
content with requiring decency, requires sanc- 
tity, it oversteps the bounds which mark its 
functions. And it may be laid down as a uni- 
versal rule, that a government which attempts 
more than it ought will perform less. A law- 
giver who, in order to protect distressed bor- 
rowers, limits the rate of interest, either makes 
it impossible for the objects of his care to bor- 
row at all, or places them at the mercy of the 
worst class of usurers. A lawgiver who, 
from tenderness for labouring men, fixes the 
hours of their work and the amount of theii 
wages, is certain to make them far mor« 
Wretched than he found them. And so a go 
vernment which, not content with repressing 
scandalous excesses, demands from its sub- 
jects fervent and austere piety, will soon dis 



iU 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



cover that, while attempting to render an 
impossible service to the cause of virtue, it 
has in truth only promoted vice. 

For what are the means by which a govern- 
ment can effect its ends 1 Two only, rewards 
and punishments; — powerful means, indeed, 
for influencing the exterior act, but altogether 
impotent for the purpose of touching the heart. 
A public functionary who is told that he will 
be advanced if he is a devout Catholic, and 
turned out of his place if he is not, will proba- 
bly go to mass every morning, exclude meat 
from his table on Fridays, shrive himself regu- 
larly, and perhaps let his superiors know that 
he wears a hair shirt next to his skin. Under 
a Puritan government, a person who is apprized 
that piety is essential to thriving in the world, 
will be strict in the observance of the Sunday, 
or, as he will call it, Sabbath, and will avoid a 
theatre as if it were plague-stricken. Such a 
show of religion as this, the hope of gain and 
the fear of loss will produce, at a week's 
Eotice, in any abundance which a government 
may require. But under this show, sensuality, 
ambition, avarice, and hatred retain unimpaired 
power ; and the seeming convert has only added 
to the vices of a man of the world all the still 
darker vices which are engendered by the con- 
stant practice of dissimulation. The truth 
cannot be long concealed. The public dis- 
covers that the grave persons who are proposed 
to it as patterns, are more utterly destitute of 
moral principle and of moral sensibility than 
avowed libertines. It sees that these Pharisees 
are further removed from real goodness than 
publicans and harlots. And, as usual, it rushes 
to the extreme opposite to that which it quits. 
It considers a high religious profession as a 
sure mark of meanness and depravity. On 
the very first day on which the restraints of 
fear is taken away, and on which men can 
venture to say what they feel, a frightful peal 
of blasphemy and ribaldry proclaims that the 
short-sighted policy which aims at making a 
station of saints has made a nation of scoffers. 

It was thus in France about the beginning 
of the eighteenth century. Louis the Four- 
teenth in his old age became religious, and de- 
termined that his subjects should be religious 
too — shrugged his shoulders and knitted his 
brows if he observed at his levee or near his 
• dinner-table any gentleman who neglected the 
duties enjoined by the Church — and rewarded 
piety with blue ribands, invitations to Marli, 
governments, pensions, and regiments. Forth- 
with Versailles became, in every thing but 
dress, a convent. The pulpits and confession- 
als were surrounded by swords and embroidery. 
The marshals of France were much in prayer ; 
and there was hardly one among the dukes 
and peers who did not carry good little books 
in his pocket, fast during Lent, and communi- 
cate at Easter. Madame de Maintenon, who 
had a great share in the blessed work, boasted 
that uevotion had become quite the fashion. 
A fashion indeed it was ; and like a fashion 
't passed away. No sooner had the old king 
been carried to St. Denis, than the whole court 
unmasked. Every man hastened to indemnify 
Himself, by the excess of licentiousness and 
•mpudence, for years of mortification. The 



same persons who, a few months before, with 
meek voices and demure 1 toks, had consulted 
divines about the state of their souls, now sur- 
rounded the midnight table, where, amidst the 
bounding of champagne corks, a drunken 
prince, enthroned between Dubois and Madame 
de Parabere, hiccoughed out atheistical argu- 
ments and obscene jests. The early part of 
the reign of Louis the Fourteenth had been a 
time of license ; but the most dissolute m<;n of 
that generation would have blushed at the 
orgies of the Regency. 

It was the same with our fathers in the time 
of the Great Civil War. We are by no means 
unmindful of the great debt which mankind 
owes to the Puritans of that time, the deliverers 
of England, the founders of the great American 
Commonwealths. But in the day of their 
power they committed one great fault, which 
left deep and lasting traces in the national 
character and manners. They mistook the end 
and overrated the force of government. They 
determined not merely to protect religion and 
public morals from insult — an object for which 
the civil sword, in discreet hands, may be bene- 
ficially employed — but tc make the people 
committed to their rule truly devout. Yet if 
they had only reflected on events which they 
had themselves witnessed, and in which they 
had themselves borne a great part, they would 
have seen what was likely to be the result of 
their enterprise. They had lived under a go- 
vernment which, during a long course of 
years, did all that could be done, by lavish 
bounty and rigorous punishment, to enforce 
conformity to the doctrine and discipline of the 
Church of England. No person suspected of 
hostility to that church had the smallest chance 
of obtaining favour at the court of Charles. 
Avowed dissent was punished by imprison- 
ment, by ignominious exposure, by cruel mu- 
tilations, and by ruinous fines. And the event 
had been, that the Church had fallen, and had, 
in its fall, dragged down with it a monarchy 
which had stood six hundred years. The Puritan 
night have learned, if from nothing else, yet 
from his own recent victory, that governments 
which attempt things beyond their reach are 
likely not merely to fail, but to produce an 
effect directly the opposite of that which they 
contemplate as desirable. 

All this was overlooked. The saints were 
to inherit the earth. The theatres were closed. 
The fine arts were placed under absurd re- 
straints. Vices which had never before been 
even misdemeanours were made capital felo- 
nies. And it was solemnly resolved by Parlia- 
ment, " that no person should be employed bur 
such as the House shall be satisfied of his real 
godliness." The pious assembly had a Bible 
lying on the table for reference. If they had 
consulted it they might have learned that the 
wheat and the tares grow together inseparably, 
and must either be spared together, or rooted 
up together. To know whether a man was 
really godly was impossible. But it was easy 
to know whether he had a plain dress, lank 
hair, no starch in his linen, no gay furniture in 
his house ; whether he talked through his nose, 
and showed the whites of his eyes ; whether he 
named his children, Assurance, Tribulation . n* 



COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 



443 



Maher-shal&L-hash-baz — whether he avoided 
Spring Garden when in town, and abstained 
from hunting and hawking when in the coun- 
try — whether he expounded hard scriptures to 
his troop of dragoons, and talked in a com- 
mittee of ways and means about seeking the 
Lord. These were tests which could easily be 
applied. The misfortune was, that they were 
tests which proved nothing. Such as they 
were, they were employed by the dominant 
party. And the consequence was, that a crowd 
of impostors, in every walk of life, began to 
mimic and to caricature what were then re- 
garded as the outward signs of sanctity. The 
nation was not duped. The restraints of that 
gloomy time were such as would have been 
impatiently borne, if imposed by men who 
were universally believed to be saints. Those 
restraints became altogether insupportable 
when they were known to be kept up for the 
profit of hypocrites. It is quite certain that, 
even if the Royal Family had never returned 
— even if Richard Cromwell or Henry Crom- 
well had been at the head of the administration 
— there would have been a great relaxation of 
manners. Before the Revolution many signs 
indicated that a period of license was at hand. 
The Restoration crushed for a time the Puritan 
party, and placed supreme power in the hands 
of a libertine. The political counter-revolu- 
tion assisted the moral counter-revolution, and 
was in turn assisted by it. A period of wild 
and iesperate -dissoluteness followed. Even in 
remote manor-houses and hamlets the change 
was in some degree felt; but in London the 
outbreak of debauchery was appalling. And 
in London the places most deeply infected were 
the palace, the quarters inhabited by the aris- 
tocracy, and the Inns of Court. It was on the 
support of these parts of the town that the 
playhouses depended. The character of the 
drama became conformed 10 the character of 
its patrons. Thecomic poet was the mouthpiece 
of the most deeply corrupted part of a corrupted 
society. And in the plays before us, we find 
distilled and condensed, the essential spirit of 
the fashionable world during the Anti-puritan 
reaction- 

The Puritan had affected formality ; the 
comic poet laughed at decorum. The Puritan 
had frowned at innocent diversions ; the comic 
poet took under his patronage the most flagi- 
tious excesses. The Puritan had canted ; the 
comic poet blasphemed. The Puritan had 
made an affair of gallantry felony, without 
benefit of clergy ; the comic poet represented 
it as an honourable distinction. The Puritan 
spoke with disdain of the low standard of 
popular morality; his life was regulated by a 
far more rigid code ; his virtue was sustained 
by motives unknown to men of the world. 
Unhappily it had been amply proved in many 
cases, and might well be suspected in many 
more, that these high pretensions were un- 
founded. Accordingly, the fashionable circles, 
and the comic poets who were the spokesmen 
of those circles, took up the notion that all pro- 
fessions of piety and integrity were to be con- 
strued by the rule of contrary; that it might 
well be doubted whether there was such a 
thing as virtue in the world ; but that, at all 



events, a person who affected to be better than 
his neighbours was sure to be a knave. 

In the old drama there had been much that 
was reprehensible. But whoever compares 
even the least decorous plays of Fletcher with 
those contained in the volume before us, will 
see how much the profligacy which follows a 
period of overstrained austerity, goes beyond 
the profligacy which precedes such a period. 
The nation resembled the demoniac in the 
New Testament. The Puritans boasted that 
the unclean spirit was cast out. The house 
was empty, swept, and garnished, and for a 
time the expelled tenant wandered through dry 
places seeking rest and finding none. But 
the force of the exorcism was spent. The 
fiend returned to his abode ; and returned not 
alone. He took to him seven other spirits 
more wicked than himself. They entered in, 
and dwelt together: and the second possession 
was worse than the first. 

We will now, as far as our limits will per- 
mit, pass in review the writers to whom Mr 
Leigh Hunt has introduced us. Of the four, 
Wycheiiey stands, we think, last in literary 
merit, but first in order of time, and first, be- 
yond all doubt, in immorality. 

William Wtchehlet was born in 1640 
He was the son of a Shropshire gentleman of 
old family, and of what was then accounted a 
good estate. The property was estimated at 
600?. a year, a fortune which, among the for- 
tunes of that time, probably ranked as a for- 
tune of 2000Z. a year would rank in our days. 

William was an infant when the civil war 
broke out ; and, while he was still in his rudi 
ments, a Presbyterian hierarchy ?nd a republi 
can government were established on the ruins 
of the ancient church and throne. Old Mr. 
Wycherley was attached to the royal cause, 
and was not disposed to intrust the education 
of his heir to the solemn Puritans who n< w 
ruled the universities and public schools. Ac- 
cordingly, the young gentleman was sent at 
fifteen to France. He resided some time in 
the neighbourhood of the Duke of Montausioi, 
chief of one of the noblest races of Touraine. 
The duke's wife, a daughter of the house of 
Rambouillet, was a finished specimen of those 
talents and accomplishments for which her 
house was celebrated. The young foreigner 
was introduced to the splendid circle which 
surrounded the duchess, and there he appears 
to have learned some good and some evil. In 
a few years he returned to this country a fine 
gentleman and a Papist. His conversion, it 
may safely be affirmed, was the effect, not of 
any strong impression on his understanding 
or feelings, but partly of intercourse with an 
agreeable society in which the Church of 
Rome was the fashion; and partly of that 
aversion to Calvinistic austerities, which was 
then almost universal among young English- 
men of parts and spirit, and which, at on« 
time, seemed likely to make one half of them 
Catholics, and the other half Atheists. 

But the Restoration came. The universities 
were again in loyal hands ; and mire was rea- 
son tc hope that there would be again a na- 
tional church fit for a gentleman. Wycherley 
became a member of Queen's Colhge, Oxford. 



444 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



and abpred the errors of the Church of Rome. 
The somewhat equivocal glory of turning, for 
a short time, a very good-for-nothing Papist 
into a very good-for-nothing Protestant is as- 
cribed to Bishop Barlow. 

Wycherley left Oxford without taking a de- 
gree, and entered at the Temple, where he 
lived gayly for some years, observing the hu- 
mours of the town, enjoying its pleasures, and 
picking up just as much law as was necessary 
to make the character of a pettifogging attor- 
ney or a litigious client entertaining in a 
comedy. 

From an early age he had been in the habit 
of amusing himself by writing. Some wretch- 
ed lines of his on the Restoration are still ex- 
tant. Had he devoted himself to the making 
of verses, he would have been nearly as far 
below Tate and Blackmore as Tate and Black- 
more are below Dryden. His only chance for 
renown would have been, that he might have 
occupied a niche, in a satire, between Fleck- 
noe and Settle. There was, however, another 
kind of composition in which his talents and 
acquirements qualified him to succeed ; and to 
that he judiciously betook himself. 

In his old age he used to say, that he wrote 
" Love in a Wood" at nineteen, the " Gen- 
tleman Dancing-Master" at twenty-one, the 
" Plain Dealer" at twenty-five, and the "Coun- 
try Wife" at one or two-and-thirty. We are 
incredulous, we own, as to the truth of this 
story. Nothing that we know of Wycherley 
leads us to think him incapable of sacrificing 
truth to vanity. And his memory in the de- 
cline of his life played him such strange tricks, 
that we might question the correctness of his 
assertion, without throwing any imputation on 
his veracity. It is certain that none of his 
plays were acted till 1672, when he gave "Love 
in a Wood" to the public. It seems improba- 
ble that he should resolve on so important an 
occasion as that of a first appearance before 
the world, to run his chance with a feeble 
piece, written before his talents were ripe, be- 
fore his style was formed, before he had looked 
abroad into the world ; and this when he had 
actually in his desk two highly-finished plays, 
the fruit of his matured powers. When we 
look minutely at the pieces themselves, we 
find in every part of them reason to suspect 
the accuracy of Wycherley's statement. In 
the first scene of " Love in a Wood," to go no 
further, we find many passages which he 
could not have written when he was nineteen. 
There is an allusion to gentlemen's periwigs, 
which first came into fashion in 1663; an allu- 
sion to guineas, which were first struck in 
1663; an allusion to the vests which Charles 
ordered to be worn at court in 1666 ; an allu- 
sion to the fire of 1666; several allusions to 
political and ecclesiastical afFairs which must 
be assigned to times later than the year of the 
Restoration — to times when the government 
and the city were opposed to each other, and 
when the Presbyterian ministers had been 
driven from the parish churches to the con- 
venticles. But it is needless to dwell on par- 
ticular expressions. The whole air and spirit 
of the piece belong to a period subsequent to 
•hat mentioned by Wycherley. As to the 



"Plain Dealer," which is said to hare beea 
written when he was twenty-five, it contains 
one scene unquestionably written after 1675, 
several which are later than 1668, and scarce* 
ly a line which can have, been composed be« 
fore the end of 1666. 

Whatever may have been the age at which 
Wycherley composed his plays, it is certain 
that he did not bring them before the public 
till he was upwards of thirty. In 1672, "Love 
in a Wood" was acted with more success than 
it deserved, and this event produced a great 
change in the fortunes of the author. The 
Duchess of Cleveland cast her eyes upon him, 
and was pleased with his appearance. This 
abandoned woman, not content with her com- 
placent husband and her royal keeper, lavished ' 
her fondness on a crowd of paramours of all 
ranks, from dukes to rope-dancers. In the 
time of the commonwealth she commenced her 
career of gallantry, and terminated it under 
Anne, by marrying, when a great-grandmother 
that worthless fop, Beau Fielding. It is not 
strange that she should have regarded Wy- 
cherley with favour. His figure was com- 
manding, his countenance strikingly handsome, 
his look and deportment full of grace and dig 
nky. He had, as Pope said long after, " the 
true nobleman look," the look which seems to 
indicate superiority, and a not unbecoming 
consciousness of superiority. His hair, in- 
deed, as he says in one of his poems, was pre- 
maturely gray. But in that age of periwigs 
this misfortune was of little importance. The 
duchess admired him, and proceeded ;o make 
love to him after the fashion of the coarse- 
minded and shameless circle to which she be- 
longed. In the Ring, when the crowd of beau- 
ties and fine gentlemen was thickest, she put 
her head out of her coach- window, and bawled 
to him — " Sir, you are a rascal ; you are a vil- 
lain ;" and, if she be not belied, added another 
phrase of abuse which we will not quote, but 
of which we may say that it might most justly 
have been applied to her own children. Wy- 
cherley called on her grace the next day, and 
with great humility begged to know in what 
way he had been so unfortunate as to disoblige 
her. Thus began an intimacy from which the 
poet probably expected wealth and honours. 
Nor were such expectations unreasonable. A 
handsome young fellow about the court, known 
by the name of Jack Churchill, was about the 
same time so lucky as to become the object of a 
short-lived fancy of the duchess. She had pre- 
sented him with 4500?., the price, in all proba- 
bility, of some title or some pardon. The pru- 
dent youth had lent the money on high interest 
and on landed security, and this judicious in- 
vestment was the beginning of the most splen- 
did private fortune in Europe. Wycherley was 
not so lucky. The partiality with which the 
great lady regarded him was, indeed, the talk 
of the whole town ; and, sixty years later, old 
men who remembered those days told Voltaire 
that she often stole from the court to her lover's 
chambers in the Temple, disguised like a coun- 
try girl, with a straw hat on her head, pattens 
on her feet, and a basket in her hand. The 
poet was indeed too happy and proud to b« 
discreet. He dedicated to the duchess the play 



COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 



44ft 



which had led to their acquaintance, and in the 
dedication expressed himself in terms which 
could not but confirm the reports which had 
gone abroad. But at Whitehall such an affair 
was regarded in no serious light. The lady 
was not afraid to bring Wycherley to court, 
and to introduce him to a splendid society, 
with which, as far as appears, he had never 
before mixed. The easy king, who allowed to 
his mistresses the same liberty which he 
claimed for himself, was pleased with the con- 
versation and manners of his new rival. 

So high did Wycherley stand in the royal 
favour, that once, when he was confined by a 
fever to his lodgings in Bow-street, Charles, 
who, with all his faults, was certainly a man 
of a social and affable disposition, called on 
him, sat by his bed, advised him to try change 
of air, and gave him a handsome sum of mo- 
ney to defray the expense of the journey. 
Buckingham, then master of the horse, and 
one of that infamous ministry known by the 
name of the Cabal, had been one of the 
duchess's innumerable paramours. He at first 
showed some symptoms of jealousy, but soon, 
after his fashion, veered round from anger to 
fondness, and gave Wycherley a commission 
in his own" regiment, and a place in the royal 
household. 

It would be unjust to Wycherley's memory 
not to mention here the only good action, as 
far as we know, of his whole life. He is said 
to have made great exertions to obtain the pa- 
tronage of Buckingham for the illustrious au- 
thor of " Hudibras," who was now sinking into 
an obscure grave, neglected by a nation proud 
of his genius, and by a court which he had 
served too well. His grace consented to see 
poor Butler, and an appointment was made. 
But unhappily two pretty women passed by; 
the volatile duke ran after them ; the oppor- 
tunity was lost, and could never be regained. 

The second Dutch war, the most disgraceful 
war in the whole history of England, was now 
raging. It was not in that age considered as by 
any means necessary that a naval officer should 
receive a professional education. Young men 
of rank, who were hardly able to keep their 
feet in a breeze, served on board of the king's 
ships, sometimes with commissions and some- 
times as volunteers. Mulgrave, Dorset, Ro- 
chester, and many others, left the playhouses 
and the Mall for hammocks and salt pork; 
and, ignorant as they were of the rudiments 
of naval science, showed, at least on the day 
of battle, the courage which is seldom wanting 
in an Engli ;h gentleman. All good judges 
of maritime affairs complained that under this 
system the ships were grossly mismanaged, 
and that the tarpaulins contracted the vices, 
without acquiring the graces, of the court. But 
on this subject, as on every other, the govern- 
ment of Charles was deaf to all remonstrances 
where the interests or whims of favourites were 
concerned. Wycherley did not choose to be 
out of the fashion. He embarked, was present 
at a battle, and celebrated it on his return in a 
copy of verses too bad for the bellman."* 



• Mr. Leigh Hunt supposes that the battle at which 
Wycherley was present was that which the Duke of 
Vork sained over Opdam, in 1665. We believe that it 
29 



About the same time he brought on the stage 
his second piece, the "Gentleman Dancing 
Master." The biographer says nothing, as far 
as we remember, about the fate of this play. 
There is, however, reason to believe, that, 
though certainly far superior to " Love in a 
Wood," it was not equally successful. It was 
first tried at the west end of the town, and, as 
the poet confessed, "would scarce do there." Il 
was'then performed in Salisbury Court, but, as il 
should seem, with no better event. For, in the 
prologue to the " Country Wife," Wycherley 
described himself as "the late so baffled scrib- 
bler." 

In 1675, the "Country Wife" was performed 
with brilliant success, which, in a literary point 
of view, was not wholly unmerited. For, 
though one of the most profligate and heartless 
of human compositions, it is the elaborate pro- 
duction of a mind, not indeed rich, original, or 
imaginative, but ingenious, observant, quick to 
seize hints, and patient of the toil of polishing. 

The "Plain Dealer," equally immoral and 
equally well written, appeared in 1677. At 
first this piece pleased the people less than the 
critics ; but after a time its unquestionable 
merits, and the zealous support of Lord Dor- 
set, whose influence in literary and fashion- 
able society was unbounded, established it in 
the public favour. 

The fortune of Wycherley was now in the 
zenith, and began to decline. A long life was 
still before him. But it was destined to be 
filled with nothing but shame and wretched- 
ness, domestic dissensions, literary failures, 
and pecuniary embarrassments. 

The king, who was looking about for an ac- 
complished man to conduct the education of 
his natural son, the young Duke of Richmond, 
at length fixed on Wycherley. The poet, ex 
ulting in his good luck, went down to amuse 
himself at Tunbridge ; looked into a booksel- 
ler's shop on the Pantiles, and to his great de- 
light, heard a handsome woman ask for the 
"Plain Dealer," which had just been published. 
He made acquaintance with the lady, who 
proved to be the Countess of Drogheda, a gay 
young widow, with an ample jointure. She 
was charmed with his person and his wit ; and, 
after a short flirtation, agreed to become his 
wife. Wycherley seems to have been appre- 
hensive that this connexion might not suit 
well with the king's plan respecting the Duke 
of Richmond. He accordingly prevailed on 
the lady to consent to a private marriage. All 
came out. Charles thought the conduct of 

was one of the battles between Rupert and De Ruyter, 
in 1673. 

The point is of no importance; and there can scarcely 
be said to be any evidence either way. We offer, how 
ever, to Mr. Leigh Hunt's consideration three argu- 
ments — of no great weight certainly — yet such as ought, 
we think, to prevail in the absence of better. First, it 
is not very likely that a young Templar, quite unknown 
in the world — and Wycherley was such in 1665 — should 
have quitted his chambers to go to sea. On the other 
hand, it would have been in the regular course of things 
that, when a courtier and an equerry, he, should offer 
his services. Secondly, his verses appear to have been 
written after a drawn battle, like those of 1673, and not 
after a complete victory like that of 1665. Thirdly, in the 
epilogue to the "Gentleman Dancing-Master," written 
in 1673, he says that "all gentlemen must pack to sea;" 
an expression which makes it probable that he did n'>i 
himself mean to stay behind. 



446 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Wycherley both disrespectful and disinge- 
nuous. Other causes probably assisted to 
alienate the sovereign from the subject who 
uad been so highly favoured. Buckingham 
was now in opposition, and had been com- 
mitted to the Tower; not, as Mr. Leigh Hunt 
supposes, on a charge of treason, but by an 
order of the House of Lords for some expres- 
sions which he had used in debate. Wycherley 
wrote some bad lines in praise of his impri- 
soned patron, which, if they came to the 
knowledge of the king, would certainly have 
made his majesty very angry. The favour of 
the court was completely withdrawn from the 
poet. An amiable woman, with a large for- 
tune, might indeed have been an ample com- 
pensation for the loss. But Lady Drogheda 
was ill-tempered, imperious, and extravagantly 
jealous. She had herself been a maid of 
honour at Whitehall. She well knew in what 
estimation conjugal fidelity was held among 
the fine gentlemen there ; and watched her 
town husband as assiduously as Mr. Pinch- 
wife watched his country wife. The unfortu- 
nate wit was, indeed, allowed to meet his 
friends at a tavern opposite his own house. 
But on such occasions the windows were 
always open, in order that her ladyship, who 
was posted on the other side of the street, 
might be satisfied that no woman was of the 
party. 

The death of Lady Drogheda released the 
unfortunate poet from this distress ; but a se- 
ries of disasters, in rapid succession, broke 
down his health, his spirits, and his fortune. 
His wife meant to leave him a good property, 
and left him only a lawsuit. His father could 
not or would not assist him. He was at length 
thrown into the Fleet, and languished there 
during seven years, utterly forgotten, as it 
should seem, by the gay and lively circle of 
which he had been a distinguished ornament. 
In the extremity of his distress he implored 
the publisher who had been enriched by the 
sale of his works, to lend him twenty pounds, 
and was refused. His comedies, however, 
still kept possession of the stage, and drew 
great audiences, which troubled themselves 
little about the situation of the author. At 
length James the Second, who had now suc- 
ceeded to the throne, happened to go to the 
theatre on an evening when the "Plain Dealer" 
was acted. He was pleased by the perform- 
ance, and touched by the fate of the writer, 
whom he probably remembered as one of the 
gayest and handsomest of his brother's cour- 
tiers. The king determined to pay Wycher- 
ley's debts, and to settle on the unfortunate 
poet a pension of 200/. a year. This munifi- 
cence, on the part of a prince who was little 
in the habit of rewarding literary merit, and 
whose whole soul was devoted to the interests 
of his church, raises in us a surmise which 
Mr. Leigh Hunt will, we fear, pronounce v^ery 
uncharitable. We cannot help suspecting that 
it was at this time that Wycherley returned to 
the communion of the Church of Rome. That 
he did return to the communion of the Church 
of Rome is certain. The date of his re-con- 
version, as far as we know, has never bean 
mentioned by any biographer. We believe 



that, if we place it at this time, we do no ia 
justice to the character either of Wycherley o* 
James. 

Not long after, old Mr. Wycherley died ; and 
his son, now past the middle of life, came tc 
the family estate. Still, however, he was not 
at his ease. His embarrassments were great 
his property was strictly tied up ; and he was 
on very bad terms with the heir-at-law. He 
appears to have led, during a long course of 
years, that most wretched life, the life of an 
old boy about town. Expensive tastes with 
little money, and licentious appetites with de- 
clining vigour, were the just penance for his 
early irregularities. A severe illness had pro- 
duced a singular effect on his intellect. His 
memory played him pranks stranger than 
almost any that are to be found in the history 
of that strange faculty. It seemed to be at once 
preternaturaliy strong and preternaturally 
weak. If a book was read to him before he 
went to bed, he would wake the next morning 
with his mind full of the thoughts and expres- 
sions which he had heard over night; and he 
would write them down, without in the least 
suspecting that they were not his own. In his 
verses the same ideas, and even the same 
words came over and over again several times 
in a short composition. His fine person bore 
the marks of age, sickness, and sorrow ; and 
he mourned for his departed beauty with an 
effeminate regret. He could not look without 
a sigh at the portrait which Lely had painted 
of him when he was only twenty-eight ; and 
often murmured, Quantum mutatus ab illo. He 
was still nervously anxious about his literary 
reputation ; and, not content with the fame 
which he still possessed as a dramatist, was 
determined to be renowned as a satirist and 
an amatory poet. 

In 1704, after twenty-seven years of silence, 
he again appeared as an author. He put forth 
a large folio of miscellaneous verses, which, 
we believe, has never been reprinted. Some 
of these pieces had probably circulated through 
the town in manuscript ; for, before the volume 
appeared, the critics at the coffee-houses very 
confidently predicted that it would be utterly 
worthless; and were, in consequence, bitterly 
reviled by the poet in an ill-written, foolish, 
and egotistical preface. The book amply vin- 
dicated the most unfavourable prophecies that 
had been hazarded. The style and versifica 
tion are beneath criticism; the morals are 
those of Rochester. For Rochester, indeed, 
there was some excuse. When his offences 
against decorum were committed, he was a 
very young man, misled by a prevailing fash 
ion. Wycherley was sixty-four. He had long 
outlived the times when libertinism was re- 
garded as essential to the character of a wit 
and a gentleman. Most of the rising poets, 
like Addison, John Philips, and Rowe, were 
studious of decency. We can hardly conceive 
any thing more miserable than the figure which 
the ribald old man makes in the midst of so 
many sober and well-conducted youths. 

In the very year in which this bulky volume 
of obscene doggerel was published, Wycherley 
formed an acquaintance of a very singula! 
kind. A little, pale, crooked sickly, bright' 



COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 



44K 



eyed urchin, just turned of sixteen, had written 
some copies of verses, in which discerning 
judges could detect the promise of future emi- 
nence. There was, indeed, as yet nothing very 
striking or original in the conceptions of the 
young poet. But he was already skilled in the 
art of metrical composition. His diction and 
his music were not those of the great old mas- 
ters, but that which his ablest contemporaries 
were labouring to do, he already did best. His 
style was not richly poetical, but it was always 
neat, compact, and pointed. His verse wanted 
variety of pause, of swell, and of cadence; but 
it never grated on the ear by a harsh turn, or 
disappointed it by a feeble close. The youth 
was already free of the company of wits, and 
was greatly elated at being introduced to the 
author of the " Plain Dealer" and the " Country 
Wife." 

It is curious to trace the history of the inter- 
course which took place between Wycherley 
and Pope — between the representative of the 
age that was going out, and the representative 
of the age that was coming in — between the 
friend of Rochester and Buckingham, and the 
friend of Lyttleton and Mansfield. At first the 
boy was enchanted by the kindness and conde- 
scension 6T his new friend, haunted his door, 
and followed him about like a spaniel, from 
coffee-house to coffee-house. Letters full of 
affection, humility, and fulsome flattery, were 
interchanged between the friends. But the 
first ardour of affection could not last. Pope, 
though at no time scrupulously delicate in his 
writings, or fastidious as to the morals of his 
associates, was shocked by the indecency of a 
rake who, at seventy, was still the representa- 
tive of the monstrous profligacy of the Restora- 
tion. As he grew older, as his mind expanded 
and his fame rose, he appreciated both himself 
and Wycherley more justly. He felt a well- 
founded contempt for the old gentleman's 
verses, and was at no great pains to conceal 
his opinion. Wycherley, on the other hand, 
though blinded by self-love to the imperfections 
of what he called his poetry, could not but see 
that there was an immense difference between 
his young companion's rhymes and his own. 
He was divided between two feelings. He 
wished to have the assistance of so skilful a 
hand to polish his lines; and yet he shrank 
from the humiliation of being beholden for 
literary assistance to a lad who might have 
been his grandson. Pope was willing to give 
assistance, but was by no means disposed to 
give assistance and flattery too. He took the 
trouble to retouch whole reams of feeble, stum- 
bling verses, and inserted many vigorous lines, 
which the least skilful reader will distinguish 
in an instant. But he thought that by these 
services he acquired a right to express him- 
self in terms which would not, under ordinary 
circumstances, become a youth when address- 
ing a man of four times his age. In one letter 
he tells Wycherley that " the worst pieces are 
such as, to render them very good, would re- 
quire almost the entire new writing of them." 
In another h« gives the following account of 
his corrections: — "Though the whole be as 
short again as at first, there is not one thought 
mitted but what is a repetition of something 



in your first volume, or in this very paper and 
the versification throughout is, I believe, such 
as nobody can be shocked at. The repeated 
permission you give me of dealing freely with 
you, will, I hope, excuse what I have done; for, 
if I have not spared you when I thought seve- 
rity would do you a kindness, I have not man- 
gled you where I thought there was no absolute 
need of amputation." Wycherley continued 
to return thanks for all this hacking and hew- 
ing, which was, indeed, of inestimable service 
to his compositions. But by degrees his thanks 
began to sound very like reproaches. In pri- 
vate he is said to have described Pope as a 
person who could not cut out a suit, but who 
had some skill in turning old coats. In his 
letter to Pope, while he acknowledged that the 
versification of his poems had been greatly 
improved, he spoke of the Avhole art of versifi- 
cation with scorn, and sneered at those who 
preferred sound to sense. Pope revenged him- 
self for this outbreak of spleen by return of 
post. He had in his hands a volume of Wy- 
cherley's rhymes, and he wrote to say that this 
volume was so full of faults that he could not 
correct it without completely defacing the ma- 
nuscript. " I am," he sa'id, " equally afraid of 
sparing you, and of offending you by too impu- 
dent a correction." This was more than flesh 
and blood could bear : Wycherley reclaimed 
his papers, in a letter in which resentment 
shows itself plainly through the thin disguise 
of civility. Pope, glad to be rid of a trouble- 
some and inglorious task, sent back the depo- 
sit; and, byway of a parting courtesy, advised 
the old man to turn his poetry into prose, and 
assured him that the public would like his 
thoughts much better without his versification. 
Thus ended this memorable correspondence. 

Wycherley lived some years after the termi- 
nation of the strange friendship which we have 
described. The last scene of his life was 
perhaps, the most scandalous. Ten days before 
his death, at seventy-five, he married a young 
girl, merely in order to injure his nephew; an 
act which proves that neither years, nor adver- 
sity, nor what he called his philosophy, nor 
either of the religions which he had at different 
times professed, had taught him the rudiments 
of morality. He died in December, 1715, and 
lies in the vault under the church of St. Paul, 
in Covent-Garden. 

His bride soon after married a Captain 
Shrimpton, who thus became possessed of a 
large collection of manuscripts. These were 
sold to a bookseller. They were so full of 
erasures and interlineations that no printer 
could decipher them. It was necessary to call 
in the aid of a professed critic ; and Theobald, 
the editor of Shakspeare, and the hero of the 
first Dunciad, was employed to ascertain the 
true reading. In this way a volume of miscel- 
lanies in verse and prose was got up for the 
market. The collection derives all its value 
from the traces of Pope's hand, which are every 
where discernible. 

Of the moral character of Wycherley it can 
hardly be necessary for us to say more. His 
fame as a writer rests wholly on his comedies, 
and chiefly on the last two. Even as a comic 
writer, he was neither of the best school, no* 



448 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



highest in his school. He was in truth a worse 
Gongreve. His chief merit, like Congreve, 
lies in the style of his dialogue. But the wit 
which lights up the "Plain Dealer" and the 
" Country Wife" is pale and nickering, when 
compared with the gorgeous blaze which daz- 
zles us almost to blindness in "Love for Love" 
and the " Way of the World." Like Congreve 
— and, indeed, even more than Congreve — 
Wycherley is ready to sacrifice dramatic pro- 
priety to the liveliness of his dialogue. The 
poet speaks out of the mouths of all his dunces 
and coxcombs, and makes them describe them- 
selves with a good sense and acuteness which 
puts them on a level with the wits and heroes. 
We will give two instances, the first which oc- 
cur to us, from the " Country Wife." There 
are to be found in the world fools who find the 
society of old friends insipid, and who are 
always running after new companions. Such 
a character is a fair subject for comedy. But 
nothing can be more absurd than to introduce 
a man of this sort saying to his comrade — " I 
can deny you nothing; for though I have 
known thee a great while, never go if I do not 
love thee as well as a new acquaintance." That 
town wits, again, have always been rather a 
heartless class, is true. But none of them, we 
will answer for it, ever said to a young lady to 
whom he was making love — " We wits rail and 
make love often but to show our parts : as we 
have no affections, so we have no malice." 

Wycherley's plays are said to have been the 
produce of long and patient labour. The epi- 
thet of " slow" was early given to him by Ro- 
chester, and was frequently repeated. In truth, 
his mind, unless we are greatly mistaken, was 
aaturally a very meager soil, and was forced 
only by great labour and outlay to bear fruit, 
which, after all, was not of the highest flavour. 
He has scarcely more claim to originality than 
Terence. It is not too much to say, that there 
is hardly any thing of the least value in his 
plays, of which the hint is not to be found else- 
where. The best scenes in the "Gentleman 
Dancing-Master," were suggested by Calderon's 
Maestro de Danzar, not by any means one of the 
happiest comedies of the great Castilian poet. 
The "Country Wife" is borrowed from the 
Ecole des Maris and the Ecole des Femmes. The 
groundwork of the "Plain Dealer" is taken 
from the Misanthrope of Moliere. One whole 
scene is almost translated from the Critique de 
YEcole des Femmes; Fidelia is Shakspeare's 
"Viola stolen, and marred in the stealing ; and 
the Widow Blackacre, beyond comparison 
Wycherley's best comic character, is the 
Countess in Racine's Plaideurs, talking the 
jargon of English instead of that of French 
chicane. 

The only thing original about Wycherley — 
the only thing which he could furnish from his 
own mind in inexhaustible abundance — was 
profligacy. It is curious to observe how every 
thing that he touched, however pure and noble, 
took in an instant the colour of his own mind. 
Compare the Ecole des Femmes with the " Coun- 
try Wife." Agnes is a simple and amiable 
girl, whose heart is indeed full of love, but of 
love sanctioned by honour, morality, and rc- 
'igiun. Her natural talents are great. Thev 



have been hidden, and, as it might appear, d** 
stroyed by an education elaborately bad. But 
they are called forth into full energy by a virtu- 
ous passion. Her lover, while he adores he? 
beauty, is too honest, a man to abuse the con- 
fiding tenderness of a creature so charming 
and inexperienced. Wycherley takes this plot 
into his hands ; and forthwith this sweet and 
graceful courtship becomes a licentious in- 
trigue of the lowest and least sentimental kind, 
between an impudent London rake and the 
idiot wife of a country squire. We will not 
go into details. In truth, Wycherley's indecency 
is protected against the critics as a skunk is 
protected against the hunters. It is safe, be- 
cause it is too filthy to handle, and too noisom* 
even to approach. 

It is the same with the " Plain Dealer." How 
careful has . Shakspeare been in " Twelfth 
Night," to preserve the dignity and delicacy of 
Viola, under her disguise ! Even when wear- 
ing a page's doublet and hose, she is never 
mixed up with any transaction which the most 
fastidious mind could regard as leaving a stain 
on her. She is employed by the Duke on an 
embassy of love to Olivia ; but on an embassy 
of the most honourable kind. Wycherley bor- 
rows Viola — and Viola forthwith becomes a 
pander of the basest sort. But the character 
of Manly is the best illustration of our mean- 
ing. Moliere exhibited in his misanthrope a 
pure and noble mind, which had been sorely 
vexed by the sight of perfidy and malevolence, 
disguised under the forms of politeness.- As 
every extreme naturally generates its contrary, 
Alceste adopts a standard of good and evil di- 
rectly opposed to that of the society which sur- 
rounds him. Courtesy seems to him a vice ; 
and those stern virtues which are neglected by 
the fops and coquettes of Paris become too 
exclusively the objects of his veneration. He 
is often to blame ; he is often ridiculous ; but 
he is always a good man ; and the feeling which 
he inspires is regret that a person so estimable 
should be so unamiable. Wycherley borrowed 
Alceste, and turned him — we quote the words 
of so lenient a critic as Mr. Leigh Hunt — into 
" a ferocious sensualist, who believed himself 
as great a rascal as he thought everybody 
else." The surliness of Moliere's hero is x 
copied and caricatured. But the most nause- 
ous libertinism and the most dastardly fraud 
are substituted for the purity and integrity of 
the original. And, to make the whole com- 
plete, Wycherley does not seem to have been 
aware that he was not drawing the portrait of 
an eminently honest man. So depraved was 
his moral taste, that, while he firmly believed 
he was producing a picture of virtue too ex- 
alted for the commerce of this world, he was 
really delineating the greatest rascal that is to 
be found, even in his own writings. 

We pass a very severe censure on Wycher- 
ley, when we say that it is a relief to turn from 
him to Congreve. Congreve's writings, in- 
deed, are by no means pure, nor was he, as far 
as we are able to judge, a warm-hearted or 
high-minded man. Yet, in coming to him, we 
feel that the worst is over — that we are one re- 
move farther from the Restoration — that we are 
past the Nadir of national taste a/ d morality 



COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 



449 



Wiiliam Cojjgheve was born in 1670,* at 
Sardsey, in the neighbourhood of Leeds. His 
father, a younger son of a very ancient Staf- 
fordshire family, had distinguished himself 
among the Cavaliers in the Civil War, was set 
down after the Restoration for the Order of the 
Royal Oak, and subsequently settled in Ire- 
land, under the patronage of the Earl of Bur- 
lington. 

Congreve passed his childhood and youth 
in Ireland. He was sent to school at Kilkenny, 
and thence went to the University of Dublin. 
His learning does great honour to his instruct- 
ors. From his writings it appears, not only 
that he was well acquainted with Latin litera- 
ture, but that his knowledge of the Greek poets 
was such as was not, in his time, common even 
in a college. 

When he had completed his academical stu- 
dies, he was sent to London to study the law, 
and was entered of the Middle Temple. He 
troubled himself, however, very little about 
pleading or conveyancing; and gave himself 
up to literature and society. Two kinds of 
ambition early took possession of his mind, 
and often pulled it in opposite directions. He 
was conscious of great fertility of thought, and 
power of Ingenious combination. His lively 
conversation, his polished manners, and his 
highly respectable connections had obtained 
for him ready access to the best company. He 
longed to be a great writer. He longed to be a 
man of fashion. Either object was within his 
reach. But could he secure both 1 Was there 
not something vulgar in letters — something 
inconsistent with the easy apathetic graces of a 
man of the mode 1 Was it aristocratical to be 
confounded with creatures who lived in the 
cocklofts of Grub Street, to bargain with pub- 
lishers, to hurry printers' devils, to squabble 
with managers, to be applauded or hissed by 
pit, boxes, and galleries 1 Could he forego the 
renown of being the first wit of his age ? 
Could he attain that renown without sullying 
what he valued quite as much — his character 
for gentility] The history of his life is the 
history of a conflict between these two im- 
pulses. In his youth the desire of literary 
fame had the mastery ; but soon the meaner 
ambition overpowered the higher, and obtained 
supreme dominion over his mind. 

His first work, a novel of no great value, he 
published under the assumed name of " Cleo- 
phil." His second was the "Old Bachelor," 
acted in 1693, a play inferior indeed to his 
other comedies, but, in its own line, inferior to 
them alone. The plot is equally destitute of 
interest and of probability. The characters 
are either not distinguishable, or are distin- 
guished only by peculiarities of the most glar- 
ing kind. But the dialogue is resplendent with 
wit and eloquence — which indeed are so abun- 
dant that the fools come in for an ample share 
— and yet preserves a certain colloquial air, a 
certain indescribable ease, of which Wycher- 
ley had given no example, and which Sheridan 
in vain attempted to imitate. The author, 
divided between pride and shame — pride at 



* Mr. Leigh Hurt says 1669. But the Old Style has 
misled him 



having written a good play, and shame at 
having done an ungentlemanlike thing— pre 
tended that he had merely scribbled a few 
scenes for his own amusement, and affected to 
yield unwillingly to the importunities of those 
who pressed him to try his fortune on the 
stage. The "Old Bachelor" was seen in 
manuscript by Dryden; one of whose best 
qualities was a hearty and generous admira- 
tion for the talents of others. He declared that 
he had never seen such a first play ; and lent 
his services to bring it into a form fit for re- 
presentation. Nothing was wanting to the 
success of the piece. It was so cast as to bring 
into play all the comic talent, and to exhibit on 
the boards in one view all the beauty which 
Drury Lane Theatre, then the only theatre in 
London, could assemble. The result was a 
complete triumph ; and the author was grati- 
fied with rewards more substantial than the 
applauses of the pit. Montagu, then a Lord of 
the Treasury, immediately gave him a place, 
and, in a short time, added the reversion of 
another place of much greature value, which, 
however, did not become vacant till many 
years had elapsed. 

In 1694, Congreve brought out the " Double- 
Dealer," a comedy in which all the powers 
which had produced the " Old Bachelor" show 
themselves, matured by time and improved by 
exercise. But the audience was shocked by 
the characters of Maskwell and Lady Touch- 
wood. And, indeed, there is something strangely 
revolting in the way in which a group that 
seems to belong to the house of Laius or of 
Pelops, is introduced into the midst of the 
Brisks, Froths, Carelesses, and Plyants. Thus 
play was unfavourably received. Yet, if the 
praise of distinguished men could compensate 
an author for the disapprobation of the multi- 
tude, Congreve had no reason to repine. Dry- 
den, in one of the most ingenious, magnificent, 
and pathetic pieces that he ever wrote, extolled 
the author of the " Double-Dealer" in terms 
which now appear extravagantly hyperbolical. 
Till Congreve came forth— so ran this exqui- 
site flattery — the superiority of the poets who 
preceded the civil wars was acknowledged. 

"Theirs was the giant race before the flood." 

Since the return of the royal house, much art 
and ability had been exerted, but the old mas- 
ters had been still unrivalled. 

" Our builders were with want of genius curst, 
The second temple was not like the first.' 

At length a writer had arisen who, just emeig, 
ing from boyhood, had surpassed the authors 
of the " Knight of the Burning Pestie," and the 
" Silent Woman," and who had only one rival 
left to contend with. 

"Heaven, that but once was prodigal before, 
To Shakspeare gave as much, he could not givo bin. 
more." 

Some lines near the end of the poem are ssin 
gularly graceful and touching, and sank drejt 
into the heart of Congreve. 

"Already am I worn with cares and age, 
And just abandoning the ungrateful stage; 
But you, whom every Muse and Grace adorn. 
Whom I foresee to better fortune born, 



450 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Be kind to my remains ; and, oh, defend 
Against your judgment your departed friend ; 
Let not the insulting foe my fame pursue, 
But guard those laurels which descend to you." 

The crowd, as usual, gradually came over to 
rite opinion of the men of note ; and the "Dou- 
ble-Dealer" was before long quite as much 
admired, though perhaps- never so much liked 
as the " Old Bachelor." 

In 1695 appeared "Love for Love," superior 
both in wit and in scenic effect to either of the 
preceding plays. It was performed at a new 
theatre which Betterton and some other actors, 
disgusted by the treatment which they received 
in Drury Lane, just opened in a tennis-court 
near Lincoln's Inn. Scarcely any comedy 
within the memory of the oldest man had been 
equally successful. The actors were so elated 
that they gave Congreve a share in their 
theatre, and he promised, in return, to furnish 
them with a play every year, if his health 
would permit. Two years passed, however, 
before he produced the " Mourning Bride ;" a 
play which, paltry as it is when compared, we 
do not say with Lear or Macbeth, but with the 
best dramas of Massinger and Ford, stands 
very high among the tragedies of the age in 
which it was written. To find any thing so 
good we must go twelve years back to " Venice 
Preserved" or six years forward to the " Fair 
Penitent." The noble passage which Johnson, 
in writing and in conversation, extolled above 
any other in the English drama, has suffered 
greatly in the public estimation from the ex- 
travagance of his praise. Had he contented 
himself with saying that it was finer than any 
thing in the tragedies of Dryden, Otway, Lee, 
Kowe, Southern, Hughes, and Addison — than 
any thing, in short, that had been written for 
the stage since the time of Charles the First — 
he would not have been in the wrong. 

The success of the "Mourning Bride" was 
even greater than that of " Love for Love." 
Congreve was now allowed to be the first tra- 
gic, as well as the first comic dramatist of his 
time ; and all this at twenty-seven. We be- 
lieve that no English writer, except Lord Byron, 
has, at so early an age, stood so high in the 
estimation of his contemporaries. 

At this time took place an event which de- 
serves, in our opinion, a very different sort of 
notice from that which has been bestowed on 
it by Mr. Leigh Hunt. The nation had now 
nearly recovered from the demoralizing effect 
of the Puritan austerity. The gloomy follies 
of the reign of the Saints were but faintly re- 
membered. The evils produced by profane- 
ness and debauchery were recent and glaring. 
The court, since the Revolution, had ceased to 
patronise licentiousness. Mary was strictly 
pious ; and the vices of the cold, stern, and 
silent William, were not obtruded on the pub- 
lic eye. Discountenanced by the government, 
and falling in the favour of the people, the pro- 
fligacy of the Restoration still maintained its 
ground in some parts of society. Its strong- 
holds were the places where men of wit and 
fashion congregated, and above all, the thea- 
tres. At this conjuncture arose a great refor- 
mer, whom, widely as we differ from him in 



many important points, we can nevjr Kiention 
without respect. 

Jeremy Collier was a clergyman of the 
Church of England, bred at Cambridge. His 
talents and attainments were such as might 
have been expected to raise him to the highest 
honours of his profession. He had an exten- 
sive knowledge of books, and _ yet he had 
mingled with polite society, and is said tat to 
have wanted either grace or vivacity in con- 
versation. There were few branches of lite- 
rature to which he had not paid some attention. 
But ecclesiastical antiquity was his favourite 
study. In religious opinions he belonged to 
that section of the Church of England which 
lies furthest from Geneva and nearest to Rome. 
His notions touching Episcopal government, 
holy orders, the efficacy of the sacraments, the 
authority of the Fathers, the guilt of schism, 
the importance of vestments, ceremonies, and 
solemn days, differed little from those which 
are now held by Dr. Pusey and Mr. Newman. 
Towards the close of his life, indeed, Collier 
took some steps which brought him still nearer 
to Popery — mixed water with the wine in the 
Eucharist, made the sign of the cross in con- 
firmation, employed oil in the visitation of the 
sick, and offered up prayers for the dead. His 
politics were of a piece with his divinity. He 
was a Tory of the highest sort, such as in the 
cant of that age was called a Tantivy. Not 
even the tyranny of James, not even the per- 
secution of the bishops and the spoliation of 
the universities, could shake that steady loy- 
alty. While the Convention was sitting, Col- 
lier wrote with vehemence in defence of the 
fugitive king, and was in consequence arrested. 
But his dauntless spirit was not to be so tamed. 
He refused to take the oaths, renounced all his 
preferments, and, in a succession of pamphlets 
written with much violence and with some 
ability, attempted to excite the nation against 
its new masters. In 1692, he was again ar- 
rested on suspicion of having been concerned 
in a treasonable plot. So unbending were his 
principles that his friends could hardly per- 
suade him to let them bail him ; and he after- 
wards expressed his remorse for having been 
induced thus to acknowledge, by implication, 
the authority of a usurping government. He 
was soon in trouble again. Sir John Friend 
and Sir William Parkins were tried and con- 
victed of high treason for planning the murder 
of King William. Collier administered spi- 
ritual consolation to them, attended them to 
Tyburn, and just before their execution laid 
his hands on their heads, and by the authority 
which he derived from Christ, solemnly ab- 
solved them. This scene gave indescribable 
scandal. Tories joined with Whigs in blam- 
ing the conduct of the daring priest. There 
are, it was said, some acts which fall under the 
definition of treason into which a good man 
may, in troubled times, be led even by his vir- 
tues. It may be necessary for the protection 
of society to punish such a man. But even in 
punishing him we consider him as legally 
rather than morally guilty, and hope that his 
honest error, though it cannot be pardoned 
here, will not be counted to him for sin her* 



COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 



451 



after. But sueh was not the case of Collier's 
penitents. They were concerned in a plot for 
'waylaying and butchering, in an hour of secu- 
rity, one who, whether he we*e or were not 
their king, was at all events their fellow-crea- 
ture. Whether the Jacobite theory about the 
rights of governments, and the duties of sub- 
jects, were or were not well founded, assassi- 
nation must always be considered as a great 
crime. It is condemned even by the maxims 
of worldly honour and morality. Much more 
must it be an object of abhorrence to the pure 
Spouse of Christ. The Church cannot surely, 
without the saddest and most mournful fore- 
bodings, see one of her children who has been 
guilty of this great wickedness, pass into eter- 
nity without any sign of repentance. That 
these traitors had given any sign of repentance 
was not alleged. It might be that they had 
privately declared their contrition ; and, if so, 
the minister of religion might be justified in 
privately assuring them of the Divine forgive- 
ness. But a public remission ought to have 
been preceded by a public atonement. The 
regret of these men, if expressed at all, had 
been expressed in secret. The hands of Col- 
lier had been laid on them in the presence of 
thousands". The inference which his enemies 
drew from his conduct was, that he did not 
consider the conspiracy against the life of 
William as sinful. But this inference he very 
vehemently, and, we doubt not, very sincerely 
denied. 

The storm raged. The bishops put forth a 
solemn censure of the absolution. The At- 
torney-General brought the matter before the 
Court of King's Bench. Collier had now 
made up his mind not to give bail for his ap- 
pearance before any court which derived its 
authority from the usurper. He accordingly 
absconded, and was outlawed. He survived 
these events about thirty years. The prose- 
cution was not pressed, and he was soon suf- 
fered to resume his literary pursuits in quiet. 
At a later period, many attempts were made to 
shake his perverse integrity by offers of wealth 
and dignity, but in vain. When he died, to- 
wards the end of the reign of George I., he was 
still under the ban of the law. 

We shall not be suspected of "regarding 
either the politics or the theology of Collier 
with partiality; but we believe him to have 
been as honest and courageous a man as ever 
lived. We will go further, and say that, 
Jiough passionate and often wrong-headed, he 
was a singularly fair controversialist — candid, 
generous, too high-spirited to take mean ad- 
vantages even in the most exciting disputes, 
and pure from all taint of personal malevo- 
lence. It must also be admitted that his opi- 
nions on ecclesiastical and political affairs, 
though in themselves absurd and pernicious, 
eminently qualified him to be the reformer of 
our lighter literature. The libertinism of the 
press and of the stage, was, as we have said, 
the effect of the reaction against the Puritan 
strictness. Profligacy was, like the oak leaf 
on the twenty-ninth of May, the badge of a 
Cavalier and a High Churchman. Decency 
was associated with conventicles and calves' 
head. Grave prelates were too much disposed 



I to wink at the excesses of a body of zealous 
and able allies, who covered Roundheads and 
Presbyterians with ridicule. If a Whig raised 
his voice against the impiety and licentious- 
ness of the fashionable writers, his mouth was 
instantly stopped by the retort — You are one 
of those who groan at a light quotation from 
Scripture, and raise estates out of the plunder 
of the Church, — who shudder at a double eii- 
tendre, and chop off the heads of kings. A 
Baxter, a Burnet, even a Tillotson, would have 
done little to purify our literature. But when 
a man, fanatical in the cause of Episcopacy, 
and actually under outlawry for his attach- 
ment to hereditary right, came forward as the 
champion of decency, the battle was already 
half won. 

In 1698, Collier published his "Short View 
of the Profaneness and Immorality of the 
English Stage," a book which threw the whole 
literary world into commotion, but which is 
now much less read than it deserves. The 
faults of the work, indeed, are neither few nor 
small. The dissertations on the Greek and 
Latin Drama do not at all help the argument ; 
and, whatever may have been thought of them 
by the generation which fancied that Christ- 
church had refuted Bentley, are such as in 
the present day, a scholar of very humble pre- 
tensions may venture to pronounce boyish, or 
rather babyish. The censures are not suffi- 
ciently discriminating. The authors whom 
Collier accused had been guilty of such gross 
sins against decency, that he was certain to 
weaken, instead of strengthening his case, by 
introducing into his charge against them any 
matter about which there could be the smallest 
dispute. He was, however, so injudicious as 
to place among the outrageous offences, which 
he justly arraigned, some things which are 
really quite innocent; and some slight in- 
stances of levity, which, though not perhaps 
strictly correct, would easily be paralleled 
from the works of writers who had rendered 
great services to morality and religion. Thus 
he blames Congreve, the number and gravity 
of whose real transgressions made it quite 
unnecessary to tax him with any that were not 
real, for using the words "martyr" and "in- 
spiration" in a light sense; as if an archbishop 
might not say that a speech was inspired by 
claret, or that an alderman was a martyr to 
the gout. Sometimes, again, Collier does not 
sufficiently distinguish between the dramatist 
and the persons of the drama. Thus he 
blames Vanbrugh for putting into Lord Fop- 
pington's mouth some raillery on the Church 
service; though it is obvious that Vanbrugh 
could not better express reverence than by 
making Lord Foppington express contempt. 
There is also throughout the "Short View" 
too strong a display of professional feeling. 
Collier is not content with claiming for his 
order an immunity from insult and indiscri- 
minate scurrility; he will not allow that, in 
any case, any word or act of a divine can be 
a proper subject for ridicule. Nor does he. 
confine this benefit of clergy to the ministeis 
of the Established Church; he extends tfaa 
privilege to Catholic priests, and, what in h\sa 
is more surprising, to Dissenting preaehw* 



4bij 



MACAULAVS MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



This, however, is a mere trifle. Imauns, Brah- 
mins, priests of Jupiter, priests of Baal, are 
all to be held sacred. Dryden is blamed for 
making the Mufti in "Don Sebastian" talk 
nonsense. Lee is called to a seven: account 
for his incivility to Tiresias. But the most 
curious passage is that in which Collier re- 
sents some uncivil reflections thrown by Cas- 
sandra, in " Cleomenes," on the calf Apis and 
his hierophants. The words, "grass-eating, 
foddered god," — words which really are much 
;n the style of several passages in the Old 
Testament, give as much offence to this Chris- 
tian divine as they could have given to the 
priests at Memphis. 

But, when all these deductions have been 
made, great merit must be allowed to this 
work. There is hardly any book of that time 
from which it would be possible to select spe- 
cimens of writing so excellent and so various. 
To compare Collier with Pascal would indeed 
be absurd. Yet we hardly know where, ex- 
cept in the " Provincial Letters," we can find 
mirth so harmoniously and becomingly blend- 
ed with solemnity as in the " Short View." 
In truth, all the modes of ridicule, from broad 
fun to polished and antithetical sarcasm, were 
at Collier's command. On the other hand, he 
was complete master of the rhetoric of honest 
indignation. We scarcely know any volume 
which contains so many bursts of that pecu- 
liar eloquence Which comes from the heart, 
and goes to the heart. Indeed, the spirit of the 
book is truly heroic. In order fairly to appre- 
ciate it, we must remember the situation in 
which the writer stood. He was under the 
frown of power. His name was already a 
mark for the invectives of one half of the 
writers of the age ; when, in the case of good 
taste, good sense, and good morals, he gave 
battle to the other half. Strong as his political 
prejudices were, he seems on this occasion to 
have entirely laid them aside. He has for- 
gotten that he was a Jacobite, and remembers 
only that he is a citizen and a Christian. Some 
of his sharpest censures are directed against 
poetry which had been hailed with delight by 
the Tory party, and had inflicted a deep wound 
on the Whigs. It is really inspiriting to see 
how gallantly the solitary outlaw advances to 
attack enemies, formidable separately, and it 
might have been thought, irresistible when 
combined — distributes his swashing blows 
right and left among Wycherley, Congreve, 
and Vanbrugh — treads the wretched D'Urfey 
down in the dirt beneath his feet — and strikes 
with all his strength full at the towering crest 
of Dryden. 

The effect produced by the "Short View" 
was immense. The nation was on the side of 
Collier. But it could not be doubted that, in 
the great host which he had defied, some cham- 
pion would be found to lift the gauntlet. The 
general belief was, that Dryden would take the 
field; and aii the wits anticipated a sharp 
contest bstween two well-paired combatants. 
The great poet had been singled out in the 
most marked manner. It was well known that 
ne was deeply hurt, that much smaller provo- 
cations had formerly roused him to violent 
teBei)«xient, p.nd that there was no literary- 



weapon, offensive or defensive, of which he 
was not master. But his 'conscience smote 
him ; he stood abashed, like the fallen arch- 
angel at the rebuke of Zephon, 

"And felt how awful goodness is, and saw 
Virtue in her shape how lovely ; saw and pined 
His loss." 

At a later period he mentioned the "Saort 
View" in the preface to his "Fables." He 
complained, with some asperity, of the harsh- 
ness with which he had been treated, and 
urged some matters in mitigation. But on the 
whole, he frankly acknowledged that he had 
been justly reproved. " If," said he, " Mr. Col- 
lier be my enemy, let him triumph. If he be 
my friend, as I have given him no personal 
occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my 
repentance." 

It would have been wise in Congreve tc 
follow his master's example. He was pre- 
cisely in that situation in which it is madness 
to attempt a vindication ; for his guilt was so 
clear, that no address or eloquence could ob- 
tain an acquittal. On the other hand, there 
were, in his case, many extenuating circum- 
stances, which, if he had acknowledged his 
error, and promised amendment, would have 
procured his pardon. The most rigid censor 
could not but make great allowances for the. 
faults into which so young a man had been 
seduced by evil example, by the luxuriance of 
a vigorous fancy, and by the inebriating effect 
of popular applause. The esteem, as well as 
the admiration, of the public was still within 
the reach. He might easily have effaced all 
memory of his transgressions, and have shared 
with Addison the glory of showing that the 
most brilliant wit may be the ally of virtue. 
But in any case, prudence should have re- 
strained him from encountering Collier. The 
non-juror was a man thoroughly fitted by na- 
ture, education, and habit, for polemical dispute. 
Congreve's mind, though one of no common 
fertility and vigour, was of a different class. 
No man understood so well the art of polish- 
ing epigrams and repartees into the clearest 
effulgence, and setting them tastefully in easy 
and familiar dialogue. In this sort of jewellery 
he attained to a mastery unprecedented and 
inimitable. But he was altogether rude in the 
art of controversy, and he had a cause to de- 
fend which scarcely any art could have ren 
dered victorious. 

The event was such as might have been 
foreseen. Congreve's answer was a complete 
failure. He was angry, obscure, and dull. 
Even the Green Room and Wills' Coffee-House 
were compelled to acknowledge, that in wit 
the parson had a decided advantage over the 
poet. Not only was Congreve unable to make 
any show of a case where he was in the wrong, 
but he succeeded in putting himself completely 
in the wrong where he was in the right. Collier 
had taxed him with profaneness for calling a 
clergyman Mr. Prig, and for introducing a coach- 
man named Jehu, in allusion to the King of Israel, 
who was known at a distance by his furious 
driving. Had there been nothing worse in the 
"Old Bachelor" and "Double Dealer," Con- 
greve might pass for as pure a writer as Cow- 
per himself; who in poems revised by so 



COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 



453 



austere a censor as John Newton, calls a fox- 
hunting squire Nimrod, and gives to a chaplain 
the disrespectful name of Smug. Congreve 
might with good effect have appealed to the 
public whether it might not be fairly presumed 
that, when such frivolous charges were made, 
there were no very serious charges to make. 
Instead of doing this, he pretended that he 
meant no allusion to the Bible by the name of 
Jehu, and no reflection by the name of Prig. 
Strange that a man of such parts should, in 
order to defend himself against imputations 
which nobody could regard as important, tell 
untruths which it was certain that nobody 
would believe. 

One of the pleas which Congreve set up for 
himself and his brethren was, that, though they 
might be guilty of a little levity here and there, 
they were careful to inculcate a moral, packed 
close into two or three lines, at the end of every 
play. Had the fact been as he stated it, the 
defence would be worth very little. For no 
man acquainted with human nature could think 
that a sententious couplet would undo all the 
mischief that five profligate acts had done. 
"But it would have been wise in Congreve to 
have looked again at his own comedies before 
he used this argument. Collier did so; and 
found that the moral of the " Old Bachelor" — 
the grave apophthegm which is to be a set-off 
against all the libertinism of the piece — is con- 
tained in the following triplet : — 

** What rugged ways attend the noon of life ! 
Our sun declines, and with what anxious strife, 
What pain, we tug that galling load — a wife." 

" ' Love for Love," says Collier, " may have 
a somewhat better farewell, but it would do a 
man little service should he remember it to his 
dying day :" — 

"The miracle to-day is, that we find 
A lover true, not that a woman's kind." 

Collier's reply was severe and triumphant. 
One of his repartees we will quote, not as a 
favourable specimen of his manner, but be- 
cause it was called forth by Congreve's cha- 
racteristic affectation. The poet spoke of the 
"Old Bachelor" as a trifle to which he at- 
tached no value, and which had become public 
by a sort of accident. " I wrote it," he said, 
" to amuse myself in a slow recovery from a 
fit of sickness." — " What his disease was," re- 
plied Collier, " I am not to inquire : but it must 
be a very ill one to be worse than the remedy." 

All that Congreve gained by coming forward 
on this occasion was, that he completely de- 
prived himself of the excuse which he might 
with justice have pleaded for his early offences. 
" Why," asked Collier, " should the man laugh 
at the mischief of the boy, and make the dis- 
orders of his nonage his own, by an after ap- 
probation 1 " 

Congreve was not Collier's only opponent. 
Vanbrugh, Denis, and Settle took the field. 
And, from the passage in a contemporary sa- 
tire, we are inclined to think that among the 
answers to thr " Short View," was one written, 
or supposed to be written, by Wycherley. The 
victory remained with Collier. A great and 
rapid reform in all the departments of our 
lighter literature was the effect of his labours. 



A new race of wits and poets arose, who gen& 
rally treated with reverence the great ties which 
bind society together ; and whose very inde« 
cencies were decent when compared with those 
of the school which flourished during the las* 
forty years of the seventeenth century. 

This controversy probably prevented Con- 
greve from fulfilling the engagements into 
which he had entered with the actors. It was 
not till 1700 that he produced the " Way of the 
World," the most deeply meditated, and the 
most brilliantly written, of all his works. It 
wants, perhaps, the constant movement, the 
effervescence of animal spirits, which we find 
in "Love for Love." But the hysterical rants 
of Lady Wishfort, the meeting of Witwould 
and his brother, the country knight's courtship 
and his subsequent revel, and above all, the 
chase and surrender of Milamant, are superior 
to any thing that is to be found in the whole 
range of English comedy from the Civil War 
downwards. It is quite inexplicable to us that 
this play should have failed on the stage. Yet 
so it was ; and the author, already sore with 
the wounds which Collier had inflicted, was 
galled past endurance by this new stroke. He 
resolved never more to expose himself to the 
rudeness of a tasteless audience, and took leave 
of the theatre forever. 

He lived twenty-eight years longer, without 
adding to the high literary reputation which he 
had attained. He read much while he retained 
his eyesight, and how and then wrote a short 
essay, or an idle tale in verse ; but appears 
never to have planned any considerable work. 
The miscellaneous pieces which he published 
in 1710 are of little value, and have long been 
forgotten. 

The stock of fame which he had acquired by 
his comedies was sufficient, assisted by the 
graces of his manner and conversation, to se- 
cure for him a high place in the estimation of 
the world. During the winter, he lived among 
the most distinguished and agreeable people 
in London. His summers were passed at the 
splendid country-seats of ministers and peers 
Literary envy, and political faction, which in 
that age respected nothing else, respected his 
repose. He professed to be one of the party 
of which his patron Montagu, now Lord Halifax, 
was the head. But he had civil words and 
small good offices for men of every shade of 
opinion. And men of every shade of opinioli 
spoke well of him in return. 

His means were for a long time scanty. The 
place which he had in possession, barely en- 
abled him to live with comfort. And when 
the Tories came into power, some thought that 
he would lose even this moderate provision. 
But Harley, who was by no means disposed to 
adopt the exterminating policy of the October 
club, and who, with all his faults of under 
standing and temper, had a sincere kindness 
for men of genius, reassured the anxious poet 
by quoting very gracefully and happily th« 
lines of Virgil — 

"Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora Poem, 
Nee tarn aversus equos Tyria sol jungit ab urbe." 

The indulgence with which Congreve wa 
treated by the Tories was not purchased b» 



454 



MAC AUL AY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



any concession on his part which could justly 
offend the Whigs. It was his rare good-fortune 
to share the triumph of his friends without 
having shared their proscription. When the 
house of Hanover came to the throne, his for- 
tunes hegan to flourish. The reversion to 
which he had been nominated twenty years 
before, fell in. He was made a secretary to the 
island of Jamaica; and his whole income 
amounted to 1200/. a year — a fortune which, 
for a single man, was, in that age, not only 
easy, but splendid. He continued, however, 
to practise the frugality which he had learned 
when he could scarcely spare, as Swift tells 
us, a shilling to pay the chairman who carried 
him to Lord Halifax's. Though he had no- 
body to save for, he laid up. at least as much 
as he spent. 

The infirmities of age came early upon him. 
His habits had been intemperate ; he suffered 
much from gout ; and when confined to his 
chamber, had no longer the solace of literature. 
Blindness, the most cruel misfortune that can 
befall the lonely student, made his books use- 
less to him. He was thrown on society for all 
his amusement, and, in society, his good breed- 
ing and vivacity made him always welcome. 

By the rising men of letters he was consi- 
dered not as a rival, but as a classic. He had 
left their arena ; he never measured his 
strength with them ; and he was always loud 
in applause of their exertions. They could, 
therefore, entertain no jealousy of him ; and 
thought no more of detracting from his fame 
l han of carping at the great men who had been 
lying a hundred years in Poet's Corner. Even 
the inmates of Grub Street, even the heroes of 
the Dunciad, were for once just to living 
merit. There can be no stronger illustration 
of the estimation in which Congreve was held, 
than the fact that Pope's Iliad, a work which 
appeared with more splendid auspices than 
any other in our language, was dedicated to 
him. There was not a duke in the kingdom 
who would not have been proud of such a 
compliment. Dr. Johnson expresses great 
admiration for the independence of spirit 
which Pope showed on this occasion, and 
some surprise at his choice. "He passed over 
peers and statesmen to inscribe his 'Iliad' to 
Congreve, with a magnanimity of which the 
praise had been complete, had his friend's 
virtue been equal to his wit. Why he was 
chosen for so great an honour, it is not now 
possible to know." It is certainly impossible 
to know ; yet, we think, it is possible to guess. 
The translation of the "Iliad" had been zeal- 
ously befriended by men of all political opi- 
nions. The poet who at an early age had 
been raised to affluence by the emulous libe- 
rality of Whigs and Tories, could not with pro- 
priety inscribe to a chief of either party, a 
work whiah had been munificently patronised 
by both. It was necessary to find some person 
who was at once eminent and neutral. It was 
therefore necessary to pass over peers and 
statesmen. Congreve had a high name in 
Jotters. H? had a high name in aristocratic 
circles. He lived on terms of civility with 
cieu of all parties By a courtesy paid him 



neither the ministers nor the leaders of th; op- 
position could be offended. 

The singular affectation which had from the 
first been characteristic of Congreve, grew 
stronger and stronger as he advanced in life 
At last it became disagreeable to him to heat 
his own comedies praised. Voltaire, -whose 
soul was burned up by the raging desire for 
literary renown, was half puzzled, half dis- 
gusted by what he saw, during his visit to 
England, of this extraordinary whim. Con- 
greve disclaimed the character of a poet — de- 
clared that his plays were trifles produced in 
an idle hour, and begged that Voltaire would 
consider him merely as a gentleman. "If you 
had been merely a gentleman," said Voltaire, 
"I should not have come to see you." 

Congreve was not a man of warm affections. 
Domestic ties .he had none ; and in the tempo- 
rary connections which he formed with a suc- 
cession of beauties from the green-room, his 
heart does not appear to have been at all in- 
terested. Of all his attachments, that to Mrs. 
Bracegirdle lasted the longest, and was the 
most celebrated. This charming actress, who 
was, during many years, the idol of all Lon 
don; whose face caused the fatal broil in 
which Mountfort fell, and for which Lord Mo- 
hun was tried by the Peers ; and to whom the 
Earl of Scarsdale was said to have made 
honourable addresses, had conducted herself, 
in very trying circumstances, with extraordi- 
nary discretion. Congreve at length became 
her confidential friend. They constantly rode 
out together, and dined together. Some people 
said that she was his mistress, and others that 
she would soon be his wife. He was at last 
drawn away from her by the influence of a 
wealthier and haughtier beauty. Henrietta, 
daughter of the great Marlborough, and wife 
of the Earl of Godolphin, had, on her father's 
death, succeeded to his dukedom, and to the 
greater part of his immense property. Her 
husband was an insignificant man, of whom 
Lord Chesterfield said, that he came to the 
House of Peers only to sleep, and that he 
might as well sleep on the right as on the left 
of the woolsack. Between the duchess and 
Congreve sprung up a most eccentric friend- 
ship. He had a seat every day at her table, 
and assisted in the direction of her concerts. 
That malignant old hag, the Dowager Duchess 
Sarah, who had quarrelled with her daughter 
as she had quarrelled with everybody else, 
affected to suspect that there was something 
wrong. But the world in general appears tc 
have thought that a great lady might, withoul 
any imputation on her character, pay attention 
to a man of eminent genius, who was nearly 
sixty years old, who was still older in appear* 
ance and in constitution, who was confined tc 
his chair by gout, and was unable to read from 
blindness. 

In the summer of 1728, Congreve was or 
dered to try the Bath waters. During his ex 
cursion he was overturned in his chariot, and 
received some severe internal injury, from 
which he never recovered. He came back 
to London in a dangerous state, complained, 
constantly of a pain in his side, aDd con 



COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 



466 



Untied to sink, till, in the following January, 
he expired. 

He left 10,000/. saved out of the emolu- 
ments of his lucrative places. Johnson says 
that this money ought to have gone to the Con- 
greve family, which was then in great distress. 
Doctor Young and Mr. Leigh Hunt, two gen- 
tlemen who seldom agree with each other, but 
with whom, on this occasion, we are happy to 
agree, think that it ought to have gone to Mrs. 
Bracegirdle. Congreve bequeathed 200/. to 
Mrs. Bracegirdle, and an equal sum to a cer- 
tain Mrs. Jellat ; but the bulk of his accumu- 
lations went to the Duchess of Marlborough, 
in whose immense wealth such a legacy was 
as a drop in the bucket. It might have raised 
the fallen fortunes of a Staffordshire squire — 
it might have enabled a retired actress to en- 
joy every comfort, and, in her sense, every 
luxury — but it was not sufficient to defray the 
duchess's establishment for two months. 

The great lady buried her friend with a 
pomp seldom seen at the funerals of poets. 
The corpse lay in state under the ancient roof 
of the Jerusalem Chamber, and was interred 
in Westminster Abbey. The pall was borne 
by the Duke of Bridgewater, Lord Cobham, the 
Earl ofWilmington, who had been Speaker, 
and who was afterwards First Lord of the 
Treasury, and other men of high consideration. 
Her grace laid out her friend's bequest in a 
superb diamond necklace, which she wore in 
honour of him; and, if report is to be believed, 
showed her regard in ways much more extra- 
ordinary. It is said that she had a statue of 
him in ivory, which moved by clockwork, and 
was placed daily at her table ; that she had a 
wax doll made in imitation of him, and that the 
feet of this doll were regularly blistered and 
anointed by the doctors, as poor Congreve's 
feet had been when he suffered from the gout. 
A monument was erected to the poet in West- 
minster Abbey, with an inscription written by 
*he duchess ; and Lord Cobham honoured him 
with a cenotaphy, which seems to us (though 



that is a bold word) the ugliest and most absurd 
of the buildings at Stowe. 

We have said that Wycherjey was a worse 
Congreve. There was, indeed, a remarkable 
analogy between the writings and lives of these 
two men. Both were gentlemen liberally edu« 
cated. Both led town lives, and knew human 
nature only as it appears between Hyde Park 
and the Tower. Both were men of wit. Nei- 
ther had much imagination. Both at an early 
age produced lively and profligate comedies. 
Both retired from the field while still in early 
manhood, and owed to their youthful achieve* 
ments in literature the consideration which 
they enjoyed in later life. Both, after they had 
ceased to write for the stage, published volumes 
of miscellanies, which did little credit either to 
their talents or their morals. Both, during 
their declining years, hung loose upon society; 
and both, in their last moments, made eccentric 
and unjustifiable dispositions respecting their 
estates. 

But in every point Congreve maintained his 
superiority to Wycherley. Wycherley had wit; 
but the wit of Congreve far outshines that of 
every comic writer, except Sheridan, who has 
arisen within the last two centuries. Congreve 
had not, in a large measure, the poetical facul- 
ty, but, compared with Wycherley, he might be 
called a great poet. Wycherley had some 
knowledge of books, but Congreve was a man 
of real learning. Congreve's offences against 
decorum, though highly culpable, were not so 
gross as those of Wycherley; nor did Congreve, 
like Wycherley, exhibit to the world the deplo- 
rable spectacle of a licentious dotage. Con- 
greve died in the enjoyment of high considera- 
tion ; Wycherley forgotten or despised. Con- 
greve's will was absurd and capricious; bufl 
Wycherley's last actions appeared to have 
been prompted by obdurate malignity 

Here, at least for the present, we must stop. 
Vanbrugh and Farquhar are not men to b<s 
hastily dismissed, and we hav3 not left our* 
selves space to do them justice, 



466 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



THE LATE LOUD HOLLAND: 



[Edinburgh Review for July, 1841.] 



Manx reasons make it impossible for us to 
lay before our readers, at the present moment, 
a complete view of the character and public 
career of the late Lord Holland. But we feel 
that we have already deferred too long the duty 
of paying some tribute to his memory. We 
feel that it is more becoming to bring, without 
further delay, an offering/though intrinsically 
of little value, than to leave his tomb longer 
without some token of our reverence and love. 

We shall say very little of the book which 
lies on our table. And yet it is a book which, 
even if it had been the work of a less distin- 
guished man, or had appeared under circum- 
stances less interesting, would have well repaid 
an attentive perusal. It is valuable, both as a 
record of principles and as a model of compo- 
sition. We find in it all the great maxims 
which, during more than forty years, guided 
Lord Holland's public conduct, and the chief 
reasons on which those maxims rest, condensed 
into the smallest possible space, and set forth 
with admirable perspicuity, dignity, and preci- 
sion. To his opinions on Foreign Policy we, 
for the most part, cordially assent ; but, now 
and then, we are inclined to think them impru- 
dently generous. We could not have signed 
the protest against the detention of Napoleon. 
The protest respecting the course which Eng- 
land pursued at the Congress of Verona, though 
it contains much that is excellent, contains 
also positions which, we are inclined to think, 
Lord Holland would, at a later period, have 
admitted to be unsound. But to all his doc- 
trines on Constitutional Questions we give our 
hearty approbation ; and we firmly believe that 
no British government has ever deviated from 
that line of internal policy which he has traced, 
without detriment to the public. 

We will give, as a specimen of this little 
volume, a single passage, in which a chief 
article of the political creed of the Whigs is 
stated and explained with singular clearness, 
force, and brevity. Our readers will remember 
that, in 1825, the Catholic Association agitated 
for emancipation with most formidable effect. 
The Tories acted after their kind. Instead of 
removing the grievance, they tried to put down 
the agitation, and brought in a law, apparently 
sharp and stringent, but, in truth, utterly impo- 
tent, for restraining the right of petition. Lord 
Holland's protest on that occasion is excellent. 

"We are," says he, "well aware that the 
privileges of the people, the rights of free dis- 
cission, and the spirit and letter of our popular 
institutions, must render — and they are intend- 

* The Opinions of Lord Holland, as recorded in the 
Journals' of the Hjuse of Lords, from 1797 to 1841. Col- 
lided and edited by D. C. Moylan, of Lincoln's Inn, 
Sarrister-at-Law. «v© London. 1841. 



ed to render — the continuance of an ertensive 
grievance, and of the dissatisfaction consequent 
thereupon, dangerous to the tranquillity of ths 
country, and ultimately subversive of the au- 
thority of the state. Experience and theory 
alike forbid us to deny that effect of a free con- 
stitution ; a sense of justice and a love of liberty 
equally deter us from lamenting it. But we 
have always been taught to look for the reme- 
dy of such disorders in the redress of the griev- 
ances which justify them, and in the removal 
of the dissatisfaction from which they flow 
not in restraints on ancient privileges, not in 
inroads on the right of public discussion, nor 
in violations of the principles of a free govern- 
ment. If, therefore, the legal method of seek- 
ing redress, which has been resorted to by 
persons labouring under grievous disabilities, 
be fraught with immediate or remote danger to 
the state, we draw from that circumstance a 
conclusion long since foretold by great author- 
ity — namely, that the British constitution and 
large exclusions cannot subsist together ; that 
the constitution must destroy them, or they 
will destroy the constitution." 

It was not, however, of this little book, valua- 
ble and interesting as it is, but of the author, 
that we meant to speak ; and we will try to do 
so with calmness and impartiality. 

In order fully to appreciate the character of 
Lord Holland, it is necessary to go far back 
into the history of his family ; for he had in- 
herited something more than a coronet and an 
estate. To the house of which he was the 
head belongs one distinction, which we believe 
to be without a parallel in our annals. During 
more than a century, there has never been a 
time at which a Fox has not stood in a promi- 
nent station among public men. Scarcely had 
the checkered career of the first Lord Holland 
closed, when his son, Charles, rose to the head 
of the Opposition, and to the first rank among 
English debaters. And before Charles was 
borne to Westminster Abbey, a third Fox hah 
already become one of the most conspicuous 
politicians in the kingdom. 

It is impossible not to be struck by the strong 
family likeness which, in spite of diversities 
arising from education and position, appears 
in these three distinguished persons. In their 
faces and figures there was a resemblance, 
such as is common enough in novels, where 
one picture is good for ten generations, but 
such as in real life is seldom found. The ample 
person, the massy and thoughtful forehead, the 
large eyebrows, the full cheek and lip ; the ex- 
pression, so singularly compounded of sense, 
humour, courage, openness, a strong will and a 
sweet temper, were common to all. But the 
features of the founder of the house, as tha 



THE LATE LORD HOLLAND. 



45V 



pencil of Reynolds and the chisel of Nollekens 
have handed them down to us, were disagree- 
ably harsh and exaggerated. In his descend- 
ants, the aspect was preserved; but it was 
softened, till it became, in the late lord, the 
most gracious and interesting countenance that 
was ever lighted up by the mingled lustre of 
intelligence and benevolence. 

As it was with the faces of the men of this 
noble family, so was it with their minds. Na- 
ture had done much for them all. She had 
moulded them all of that clay of which she is 
most sparing. To all she had given strong 
reason and sharp wit ; a quick relish for every 
physical and intellectual enjoyment ; constitu- 
tional intrepidity, and that frankness by which 
constitutional intrepidity is generally accom- 
panied; spirits which nothing could depress; 
tempers easy, generous, and placable ; and that 
genial courtesy which has its seat in the heart, 
and of which artificial politeness is only a faint 
and cold imitation. Such a disposition is the 
richest inheritance that ever was entailed on 
any family. 

But training and situation greatly modified 
the fine qualities which nature lavished with 
such profusion on three generations of the 
house ofFox. The first Lord Holland was 
a needy political adventurer. He entered 
public life at a time when the standard of in- 
tegrity among statesmen was low. He started 
as the adherent of a minister who had in- 
deed many titles to respect; who possessed 
eminent talents both for administration and for 
debate; who understood the public interest 
weW, and who meant fairly by the country ; 
but who had seen so much perfidy and mean- 
ness, that he had become skeptical as to the 
existence of probity. Weary of the cant of 
patriotism, Walpole had learned to talk a cant 
of a different kind. Disgusted by that sort of 
hypocrisy which is at least a homage to virtue, 
he was too much in the habit of practising the 
less respectable hypocrisy which ostentatiously 
displays and sometimes even stimulates vice. 
To Walpole, Fox attached himself politically 
and personally, with the ardour which belonged 
to his temperament. And it is not to be denied, 
that in the school of Walpole he contracted 
faults which destroyed the value of his many 
great endowments. He raised himself, indeed, 
to the first consideration in the House of Com- 
mons ; he became a consummate master of the 
art of debate ; he attained honours and im- 
mense wealth — but the public esteem and con- 
fidence were withheld from him. His private 
friends, indeed, justly extolled his generosity 
and good-nature. They maintained, that in 
those parts of his conduct which they could 
least defend, there was nothing sordid; and 
that, if he was misled, he was misled by 
amiable feelings — by a desire to serve his 
friends, and by anxious tenderness for his 
children. But by the nation he was regarded 
as a man of insatiable rapacity and desperate 
ambition ; as a man ready to adopt, without 
scruple, the most immoral and the most un- 
constitutional measures; as a man perfectly 
fitted, by all his opinions and feelings, for the 
work of managing the Parliament by means of 
Hecret service-money, and of keeping down the 



people with the bayonet. Many of his contem- 
poraries had a morality quite as lax as his ; bu' 
very few among them had his talents, and none 
had his hardihood and energy. He could not, 
like Sandys and Doddington, find safety in con- 
tempt. He therefore became an object of such 
general aversion as no statesman since the fall 
of Strafford has incurred — of such genera, 
aversion as was probably never in any country 
incurred by a man of so kind and cordial a dis- 
position. A weak mind would have sunk under 
such a load of unpopularity. But that resolute 
spirit seemed to derive new firmness from the 
public hatred. The only effect which re- 
proaches appeared to produce on him, was to 
sour, in some degree, his naturally sweet tem- 
per. The last steps of his public life were 
marked, not only by that audacity which he had 
derived from nature — not only by that immo- 
rality which he had learned in the school of 
Walpole — but by a harshness which almost 
amounted to cruelty, and which had never been 
supposed to belong to his character. His se- 
verity increased the unpopularity from which 
it had sprung. The well-known lampoon of 
Gray may serve as a specimen of the feeling 
of the country. All the images are taken from 
shipwrecks, quicksands, and cormorants. Lord 
Holland is represented as complaining, that the 
cowardice of his accomplices had prevented 
him from putting down the free spirit of the 
city of London by sword and fire, and as pining 
for the time when birds of prey should make 
their nests in Westminster Abbey, and unclean 
beasts burrow in St. Paul's. 

Within a few months after the death of this 
remarkable man, his second son Charles ap 
peared at the head of the party opposed to the 
American War. Charles had inherited the 
bodily and mental constitution of his father, 
and had been much — far too much — under his 
father's influence. It was indeed impossible 
that a son of so affectionate and noble a spirit 
should not have been warmly attached to a 
parent who possessed many fine qualities, and 
who carried his indulgence and liberality to- 
wards his children even to a culpable extent. 
The young man saw that the person to whom 
he was bound by the strongest ties, was, in the 
highest degree, odious to the nation ; and the 
effect was what might have been expected 
from his strong passions and constitutional 
boldness. He cast in his lot with his father, and 
took, while still a boy, a deep part in the most 
unjustifiable and unpopular measures that had 
been adopted since the reign of James the 
Second. In the debates on the Middlesex 
election, he distinguished himself, not only by 
his precocious powers of eloquence, but by[the 
vehement and scornful manner in which" he 
bade defiance to public opinion. He was at 
that time regarded as a man likely to be ths 
most formidable champion of arbitrary govern- 
ment that had appeared since the Revolution 
— to be a Bute with far greater powers — a 
Mansfield with far greater courage. Happily 
his father's death liberated him early from the 
pernicious influence by which he had been 
misled. His mind expanded. His range 01' 
observation became wider. His genius broke 
through early prejudices. His natural bene 



458 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, 



volence and magnanimity had fair play. In a 
very short time he appeared in a situation 
worthy of his understanding and of his heart. 
From a family whose name was associated in 
the public mind with tyranny and corruption — 
from a party of which the theory and the prac- 
tice were equally servile — from the midst of 
tne Luttrells, the Dysons, the Barringtons — 
came forth the greatest parliamentary defender 
of civil and religious liberty. 

The late Lord Holland succeeded to the 
talents and to the fine natural dispositions of 
his house. But his situation was very differ- 
ent from that of the two eminent men of whom 
we have spoken. In some important respects 
it was better ; in some it was worse than theirs. 
He had one great advantage over them. He 
received a good political education. The first 
lord was educated by Sir Robert Walpole. Mr. 
Fox was educated by his father. The late lord 
was educated by Mr. Fox. The pernicious 
maxims early imbibed by the first Lord Hol- 
land, made his great talents useless, and worse 
than useless, to the state. The pernicious 
maxims early imbibed by Mr. Fox led him, at 
the commencement of his public life, into great 
faults, which, though afterwards nobly expiated, 
were never forgotten. To the very end of his 
career, small men, when they had nothing else 
to say in defence of their own tyranny, bigotry, 
and imbecility, could always raise a cheer by 
some paltry taunt about the election of Colonel 
Luttrell, the imprisonment of the Lord May- 
or, and other measures in which the great 
Whig leader had borne a part at the age of 
one or two-and-twenty. On Lord Holland no 
such slur could be thrown. Those who most 
dissent from his opinions must acknowledge, 
that a public life, more consistent, is not to be 
found in our annals. Every part of it is in 
perfect harmony with every other; and the 
whole is in perfect harmony with the great 
principles of toleration and civil freedom. 
This rare felicity is in a great measure to be 
attributed to the influence of Mr. Fox. Lord 
Holland, as was natural in a person of his ta- 
lents and expectations, began at a very early 
age to take the keenest interest in politics ; and 
Mr. Fox found the greatest pleasure in forming 
the mind of so hopeful a pupil. They corres- 
ponded largely on political subjects when the 
young lord was only sixteen ; and their friend- 
ship and mutual confidence continued to the 
day of that mournful separation at Chiswick. 
Under such training, such a man as Lord 
Holland was in no danger of falling into those 
faults which threw a dark shade over the whole 
career of his grandfather, and from which the 
youth of his uncle was not wholly free. 

On the other hand, the late Lord Holland, as 
compared with his grandfather and his uncle, 
laboured under one great disadvantage. They 
were members of the House of Commons. He 
became a peer while still an infant. When 
he entered public life, the House of Lords was 
a very small and a very decorous assembly. 
The minority to which he belonged was scarce- 
ly able to muster five or six votes on the most 
important nights, when eighty or ninety lords 
were present Debate had accordingly be- 



come a mere form, as it was in the Irish Hous< 
of Peers before the Union. This was a grea 
misfortune to a man like Lord Holland. It was 
not by occasionally addressing fifteen or twenty 
solemn and unfriendly auditors, that his grand- 
father and his uncle attained their unrivalled 
parliamentary skill. The former had learned 
his art in " the great Walpolean battles," on 
nights when Onslow was in the chair seven- 
teen hours without intermission; when the 
thick ranks on both sides kept unbroken order 
till long after the winter sun had risen upon 
them ; when the blind were led out by the hand 
into the lobby ; and the paralytic laid down in 
their bed-clothes on the benches. The pow- 
ers of Charles Fox were, from the first, exer- 
cised in conflicts not less exciting. The great 
talents of the late Lord Holland had no such 
advantage. This was the more unfortunate, 
because the peculiar species of eloquence, 
which belonged to him in common with his 
family, required much practice to develope it. 
With strong sense, and the greatest readiness 
of wit, a certain tendency to hesitation was 
hereditary in the line of Fox. This hesitation 
arose, not from the poverty, but from the wealth 
of their vocabulary. They paused, not from 
the difficulty of finding one expression, but 
from the difficulty of choosing between several. 
It was only by slow degrees, and constant ex- 
ercise, that the first Lord Holland and his son 
overcame the defect. Indeed, neither of them 
overcame it completely. 

In statement, the late Lord Holland was not 
successful ; his chief excellence lay in reply. 
He had the quick eye of his house for the un- 
sound parts of an argument, and a great felicity 
in exposing them. He was decidedly more 
distinguished in debate than any peer of his 
times who had not sat in the House of Com- 
mons. Nay, to find his equal among persons 
similarly situated, we must go back eighty 
years — to Earl Granville. For Mansfield, 
Thurlow, Loughborough, Grey, Grenville, 
Brougham, Plunkett, and other eminent men, 
living and dead, whom we will not stop to enu- 
merate, carried to the Upper House an elo- 
quence formed and matured in the Lower. 
The opinion of the most discerning judges was, 
that Lord Holland's oratorical performances, 
though sometimes most successful, afforded no 
fair measure of his oratorical powers ; and 
that, in an assembly of which the debates were 
frequent and animated, he would have attained 
a very high order of excellence. It was, in- 
deed, impossible to converse with him without 
seeing that he was born a debater. To him, as 
to his uncle, the exercise of the mind in dis- 
cussion was a positive pleasure. With the 
greatest good-nature and good-breeding, he 
was the very opposite to an assenter. The 
word "disputatious" is generally used as a 
word of reproach ; but we can express our 
meaning only by saying that Lord Holland was 
most courteously and pleasantly disputatious. 
In truth, his quickness in discovering and ap- 
prehending distinctions and analogies was 
such as a veteran judge might envy. The law- 
yers of the Duchy of Lancaster were astonish- 
ed to find in an unprofessional man so strong 



THE LATE LORD HOLLAND. 



459 



& relish for the esoteric parts of their science; 
and complained that as soon as they had split 
a hair, Lord Holland proceeded to split the 
filaments into filaments still finer. In a mind 
less happily constituted, there might have been 
a risk that this turn for subtilty would have 
produced serious evil. But in the heart and 
understanding of Lord Holland there was 
ample security against all such danger. He 
was not a man to be the dupe of his own inge- 
nuity. He puts his logic to its proper use ; 
and in him the dialectician was always subor- 
dinate to the statesman. 

His political life is written in the chronicles 
of his country. Perhaps, as we have already 
intimated, his opinions on two or three great 
questions of Foreign Policy were open to just 
objection. Yet even his errors, if he erred, 
were amiable and respectable. We are not 
sure that we do not love and admire him the 
more because he was now and then seduced 
from what we regard as a wise policy, by sym- 
pathy with the oppressed; by generosity to- 
wards the fallen; by a philanthropy so en- 
larged that it took in all nations ; by love of 
peace, which in him was second only to the 
love of freedom ; by the magnanimous credulity 
of a mind which was as incapable of suspect- 
ing as of devising mischief. 

To his views on questions of Domestic Po- 
licy, the voice of his countrymen does ample 
justice. They revere the memory of the man 
who was, during forty years, the constant pro- 
tector of all oppressed races, of all persecuted 
sects— of the man, whom neither the preju- 
dices nor the interests belonging to his station 
cou\ii seduce from the path of right — of the 
noble, who in every great crisis cast in his lot 
with the commons — of the planter, who made 
manful war on the slave-trade — of the land- 
owner, whose whole heart was in the struggle 
against the corn-laws. 

We have hitherto touched almost exclusive- 
ly on those parts of Lord Holland's character 
which were open to the observation of mil- 
lions. How shall we express the feelings with 
which his memory is cherished by those who 
were honoured with his friendship 1 Or in 
what language shall we speak of that house, 
once celebrated for its rare attractions to the 
furthest ends of the civilized world, and now 
silent and desolate as the grave 7 That house 
was, a hundred and twenty years ago, apostro- 
phized by a poet in tender and graceful lines, 
which have now acquired a new meaning not 
less sad than that which they originally bore : — 

" Thou hill, whose brow the antique structures grace, 
Rear'd by bold chiefs of Warwick's noble race, 
Why, once so loved, whene'er thy bower appears, 
O'er my dim eyeballs glance the sudden tears ? 
How sweet were onse thy prospects fresh and fair, 
Thy sloping walks, and unpolluted air! 
How sweet the glooms beneath thine aged trees, 
Thy noontide shadow, and thine evening breeze ! 
His image thy forsaken bowers restore; 
Thy walks and airy prospects charm no more ; 
No more the summer in thy glooms allay'd, 
Thine evening breezes, and thy noonday shade." 

Yet a few years, and the shades and struc- 
tures may follow their illustrious masters. 
The wonderful city which, ancient and gigan- 



tic as it is, still continues to grow as fast as a 
young town of logwood by a water-privilega 
in Michigan, may soon displace those turrets 
and gardens which are associated with so 
much that is interesting and noble — with the 
courtly magnificence of Rich — with the loves 
of Ormond — with the counsels of Cromwell — 
with the death of Addison. The time is coming 
when, perhaps, a few old men, the last survi- 
vors of our generation, will in vain seek; 
amidst new streets, and squares, and railway 
stations, for the site of that dwelling which 
was in their youth the favourite resort of wits 
and beauties — of painters and poets — of scho- 
lars, philosophers, and statesmen. They will 
then remember, with strange tenderness, many 
objects once familiar to them — the avenue and 
the terrace, the busts and the paintings ; the 
carving, the grotesque gilding, and the enig- 
matical mottoes. With peculiar fondness they 
will recall that venerable chamber, in which 
all the antique gravity of a college library was 
so singularly blended with all that female 
grace and wit could devise to embellish a 
drawing-room. They will recollect, not un- 
moved, those shelves loaded with the varied 
learning of many lands and many ages ; those 
portraits in which were preserved the features 
of the best and wisest Englishmen of two gene- 
rations. They will recollect how many men 
who have guided the politics of Europe — who 
have moved great assemblies by reason and 
eloquence — who have put life into bronze and 
canvass, or who have left to posterity things 
so written as it shall not willingly let them die 
— were there mixed with all that was loveliest 
and gayest in the society of the most splendid 
of capitals. They will remember the singular 
character which belonged to that circle, in 
which every talent and accomplishment, every 
art and science, had its place. They will re- 
member how the last debate was discussed in 
one corner, and the last comedy of Scribe in 
another ; while Wilkie gazed with modest ad- 
miration on Reynolds' Baretti ; while Mackin- 
tosh turned over Thomas Aquinas to verify a 
quotation; while Talleyrand related his con- 
versations with Barras at the Luxemburg, or 
his ride with Lannes over the field of Auster- 
litz. They will remember, above all, the grace 
— and the kindness, far more admirable than 
grace — with which the princely hospitality of 
that ancient mansion was dispensed. They 
will remember the venerable and benignant 
countenance and the cordial voice of him who 
bade them welcome. They will remember 
that temper which years of pain, of sickness, 
of lameness, of confinement, seemed only to 
make sweeter and sweeter; and that frank 
politeness, which at once relieved all the em- 
barrassment of the youngest and most timid 
writer or artist, who found himself for the first 
time among ambassadors and earls. They 
will remember that constant flow of conversa- 
tion, so natural, so animated, so various, so 
rich with observation and anecdote ; that wit 
which never gave a wound; that exquisite 
mimicry which ennobled, instead of degrading 
that goodness of heart which appeared in every 
look and accent, and gave additional value w 



4ti0 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



every talen , and acquirement. They will re- 
member, too, that he whose name they hold in 
reverence was not less distinguished by the in- 
flexible uprightness of his political conduct 
than by his loving disposition and his winning 
manners. They will remember that, in the 
last lines which he traced, he expressed his 



joy that ne had done nothing unworthy of the 
friend of Fox and Grey; and they will have 
reason to feel similar joy, if, in looking back 
on many troubled years, they cannot accuse 
themselves of having done any thing unworthy 
of men who were distinguished by the friend- 
ship of Lord Holland. 



WAKKEN HASTINGS; 

[Edinburgh Review, October, 1841.] 



This book seems to have been manufactured 
in pursuance of a contract, by which the re- 
presentatives of Warren Hastings, on the one 
part, bound themselves to furnish papers, and 
Mr. Gleig, on the other part, bound himself to 
furnish praise. It is but just to say that the 
covenants on both sides have been most faith- 
fully kept; and the result is before us in the 
form of three big bad volumes, full of un- 
digested correspondence and undiscerning 
panegyric. 

If it were worth while to examine this per- 
formance in detail, we could easily make a 
long article by merely pointing out inaccurate 
statements, inelegant expressions, and immoral 
doctrines. But it would be idle to waste criti- 
cism on a bookmaker; and, whatever credit 
Mr. Gleig may have justly earned by former 
works, it is as a bookmaker, and nothing more, 
that he now comes before us. More eminent 
men than Mr. Gleig have written nearly as ill 
as he, when they have stooped to similar 
drudgery. It would be unjust to estimate 
Goldsmith by the History of Greece, or Scott 
by the Life of Napoleon. Mr. Gleig is neither 
a Goldsmith nor a Scott ; but it would be un- 
just to deny that he is capable of something 
better than these memoirs. It would also, we 
hope and believe, be unjust to charge any 
Christian minister with the guilt of deliberate- 
ly maintaining some propositions which we 
find in this book. It is not too much to say, 
that Mr. Gleig has written several passages, 
which bear the same relation to the " Prince" 
of Machiavelli that the " Prince of Machiavelli 
bears to the "Whole Duty of Man," and which 
w.rald excite amazement in a den of robbers, 
or on board of a schooner of pirates. But we 
are willing to attribute these offences to haste, 
to thoughtlessness, and to that disease of the 
understanding which may be called the Furor 
Biographicus, and which is to writers of lives 
what the goitre is to an Alpine shepherd, or 
lirt-eating to a Negro slave. 

We are inclined to think that Ave shall best 
meet the wishes of our readers, if, instead of 
dwelling on the faults of this book, we attempt 
ir) give, in a way necessarily hasty and imper- 



* Memoirs of the Life of Warren Hastings,first Oovern- 
*r-Oeneral of Bengal. Compiled from Original Papers, 
by the Rev. G It. Gleig, M.A. 3 vols. 8vo. London. 
1641. 



feet, our own view of the life and character of 
Mr. Hastings. Our feeling towards him is not 
exactly that of the House of Commons which 
impeached him in 1787; neither is it that of 
the House of Commons which uncovered and 
stood up to receive him in 1813. He had 
great qualities, and he rendered great services 
to the state. But to represent him as a man 
of stainless virtue, is to make him ridiculous ; 
and from regard for his memory, if from no 
other feeling, his friends would have done well 
to lend no countenance to such puerile adula- 
tion. We believe that, if he were now living, 
he would have sufficient judgment and suffi- 
cient greatness of mind to wish to be shown 
as he was. He must have known that there 
were dark spots on his fame. He might also 
have felt with pride, that the splendour of his 
fame would bear many spots. He would have 
preferred, we are confident, even the severity 
of Mr. Mill to the puffing of Mr. Gleig. He 
would have wished posterity to have a like- 
ness of him, though an unfavourable likeness, 
rather than a daub at once insipid and unna- 
tural, resembling neither him nor anybody else. 
"Paint me as I am," said Oliver Cromwell, 
while sitting to young Lely. " If you leave 
out the scars and wrinkles, I will not pay you 
a shilling." Even in such, a trifle, the great 
Protector showed both his good sense and his 
magnanimity. He did not wish all that was 
characteristic in his countenance to be lost, in 
the vain attempt to give him the regular fea- 
tures and the smooth blooming cheeks of the 
curl-pated minions of James the First. He 
was content that his face should go fsrth 
marked with all the blemishes which had been 
put on it by time, by war, by sleepless nights, 
by anxiety, perhaps by remorse ; but with va- 
lour, policy, authority, and public care, written 
in all its princely lines. If men truly great 
knew their own interest, it is thus that they 
would wish their minds to be portrayed. • 

Warren Hastings sprang from an ancient 
and illustrious race. It has been affirmed that 
his pedigree can be traced back to the great 
Danish sea-king, whose sails were long the 
terror of both coasts of the British channel 
and who, after many fierce and doubtful strug- 
gles, yielded at last to the valour and genius 
of Alfred. But the undoubted splendour of 
the line of Hastings needs no illustration from, 
fable. One branch oi that line wore, in the 



WARREN HASTINGS. 



461 



fourteenth century, the coronet of Pembroke. 
From another branch sprang the renowned 
Chamberlain, the faithful adherent of the 
White Rose, whose fate has furnished so 
striking a theme both to poets and to histo- 
rians. His family received from the Tudors 
the earldom of Huntingdon ; which, after long 
dispossession, was regained in our time by 
a series of events scarcely paralleled in ro- 
mance. 

The lords of the manor of Daylesford, in 
Worcestershire, claimed to be considered as 
the heads of this distinguished family. The 
main stock, indeed, prospered less than some 
of the younger shoots. But the Daylesford 
family, though not ennobled, was wealthy and 
highly considered, till, about two hundred years 
ago, it was overwhelmed in the great ruin of 
the Civil War. The Hastings of that time was 
a zealous Cavalier. He raised money on his 
own lands, sent his plate to the mint at Oxford, 
joined the royal army, and, after spending 
half of his property in the cause of King 
Charles, wa*s glad to ransom himself by mak- 
ing over most of the remaining half to Speaker 
Lenthal. The old seat at Daylesford still re- 
mained in the family; but it could no longer 
be kept up ; and in the following generation 
it was sold to a merchant of London. 

Before the transfer took place, the last Hast- 
ings of Daylesford had presented his second 
son to the rectory of the parish in which the 
ancient residence of the family stood. The 
living was of little value; and the situation of 
the poor clergyman, after the sale of the estate, 
was deplorable. He was constantly engaged 
in lawsuits about his tithes with the new lord 
of the manor, and was at length utterly ruined. 
His eldest son, Howard, a well-conducted 
young man, obtained a place in the Customs. 
The second son, Pynaston, an idle, worthless 
boy, married before he was sixteen, lost his 
wife in two years, and went to the West Indies, 
where he died, leaving to the care of his un- 
fortunate father a little orphan, destined to 
strange and memorable vicissitudes of fortune. 

Warren, the son of Pynaston, was born on 
the 6th of December, 1732. His mother died 
a few days later, and he was left dependent 
on nis distressed grandfather. The child was 
early sent to the village school, where he 
learned his letters on the same bench with the 
sons of the peasantry. Nor did any thing in 
his garb or fare indicate that his life was to 
take a widely different course from that of the 
young rustics with whom he studied and 
played. But no cloud could overcast the 
dawn of so much genius and so much ambi- 
tion. The very ploughmen observed, and long 
remembered, how kindly little Warren took to 
his book. The daily sight of the lands which 
his ancestors had possessed, and which had 
passed into the hands of strangers, filled his 
young brain with wild fancies and projects. 
He loved to hear stories of the wealth and 
greatness of his progenitors — of their splendid 
housekeeping, their loyalty, and their valour. 
On one bright summer day, the boy, then just 
seven years old, lay on the bank of the rivulet 
which flows through the old domain of his 
bouse to join the Isis. There, as threescore 
30 



and ten years later he told the tale, rose in hii 
mind a scheme which, through all the turns 
of his eventful career, was never abandoned. 
He would recover the estate which had be- 
longed to his fathers. He would be Hastings 
of Daylesford. This purpose, formed in in 
fancy and poverty, grew stronger as his intel 
lect expanded and as his fortune rose. He 
pursued his plan with that calm but indomita- 
ble force of will, which was the most striking 
peculiarity of his character. When, under a 
tropical sun, he ruled fifty millions of Asiatics, 
his hopes, amidst all the cares of war, finance, 
and legislation, still pointed to Daylesford. 
And when his long public life, so sipgularly 
checkered with good and evil, with glory and 
obloquy, had at length closed forever, it was 
to Daylesford that he retired to die. 

When he was eight years old, his uncle, 
Howard, determined to take charge of him, 
and to give him a liberal education. The boy 
went up to London, and was sent to a school 
at Newington, where he was well taught but 
ill fed. He always attributed the smallness of 
his stature to the hard and scanty fare of his 
seminary. At ten he was removed to West- 
minster school, then flourishing under the care 
of Dr. Nichols. Vinny Bourne, as his pupils 
affectionately called him, was one of the mas- 
ters. Churchill, Colman, Lloyd, Cumberland, 
Cowper, were among the students. With 
Cowper, Hastings formed a friendship which 
neither the lapse of time, nor a wide dissimi- 
larity of opinions and pursuits, could wholly 
dissolve. It does not appear that they ever 
met after they had grown to manhood. But 
many years later, when the voices of a crowd 
of great orators were crying for vengeance on 
the oppressor of India, the shy and secluded 
poet could imagine to himself Hastings the 
Governor-General, only as the Hastings with 
whom he had rowed on the Thames and played 
in the cloister; and refused to believe that so 
good-tempered a fellow could have done any 
thing very wrong. His own life had been 
spent in praying, musing, and rhyming among 
the waterlilies of the Ouse. He had preserved 
in no common measure the innocence of child- 
hood. His spirit had indeed been severely 
tried, but not by temptations which impellec. 
him to any gross violation of the rules of so- 
cial morality. He had never been attacked 
by combinations of powerful and deadly ene- 
mies. He had never been compelled to make 
a choice between innocence and greatness, 
between crime and ruin. Firmly as he held 
in theory the doctrine of human depravity, his 
habits were such, that he was unable to conceive 
how far from the path of right, even kind and 
noble natures may be hurried by the rage of 
conflict and the lust of dominion. 

Hastings had another associate at West- 
minster, of whom we shall have occasion to 
make frequent mention — Elijah Impcy. We 
know little about their school days. But we 
think we may safely venture to guess that, 
whenever Hastings wished to play any trick 
more than usually naughty, he hired Impey 
with a tart or a ball to act as fag in the worst 
part of the prank. 

Warren was distinguished among his cole 



163 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



fades a-; an excellent swimmer, boatman, and 
scholar At fourteen he was first in the ex- 
amination for the foundation. His name in 
gilded letters on the walls of the dormitory, 
still attests his victory over many older com- 
petitors. He stayed two years longer at the 
school, and was looking forward to a student- 
ship at Christchurch, when an event happen- 
ed which changed the whole course of his life. 
Howard Hastings died, bequeathing his ne- 
phew to the care of a friend and distant relation, 
named Chiswick. This gentleman, though he 
did not absolutely refuse the charge, was de- 
sirous to rid himself of it as soon as possible. 
Dr. Nichols made strong remonstrances against 
the cruelty of interrupting the studies of a 
youth who seemed likely to be one of the first 
scholars of the age. He even offered to bear 
the expense of sending his favourite pupil to 
Oxford. But Mr. Cniswick was inflexible. 
He thought the years which had already been 
wasted on hexameters and pentameters quite 
sufficient. He had it in his power to obtain 
for the lad a writership in the service of the 
East India Company. Whether the young 
adventurer, when once shipped off, made a 
fortune, or died of a liver complaint, he equal- 
ly ceased to be a burden to anybody. Warren 
was accordingly removed from Westminster 
school, and placed for a few months at a com- 
mercial academy, to study arithmetic and 
book-keeping. In January, 1750, a few days 
after he had completed his seventeenth year, 
he sailed for Bengal, and arrived at his desti- 
nation in the October following. 

He was immediately placed at a desk in the 
Secretary's office at Calcutta, and laboured 
there during two years. Fort William was 
then a purely commercial settlement. In the 
south of India the encroaching policy of Du- 
pleix had transformed the servants of the 
English company, against their will, into 
diplomatists and generals. The war of the 
succession was raging in the Carnatic ; and 
the tide had been suddenly turned against the 
French by the genius of young Robert Clive. 
But in Bengal, the European settlers, at peace 
with the natives and with each other, were 
wholly occupied with Ledgers and Bills of 
lading. 

After two years passed in keeping accounts 
at Calcutta, Hastings was sent up the country 
to Cossimbazar, a town which lies on the 
Hoogly, about a mile from Moorshedabad, and 
which then bore to Moorshedabad a relation, if 
we may compare small things with great, such 
as the city of London bears to Westminster. 
Moorshedabad was the abode of the prince 
who, by an authority ostensibly derived from 
the Mogul, but really independent, ruled the 
three great provinces of Bengal, Orissa, and 
Bahar. At Moorshedabad were the court, the 
harem, and the public offices. Cossimbazar 
was a port and a place of trade, renowned for 
the quantity and excellence of the silks which 
were sold in its marts, and constantly receiving 
and sending forth fleets of richly laden barges. 
At this important point, the Company had 
established a small factory subordinate to that 
of Fort William. Here, during several years, 
Ha^tingj was employed in making bargains 



for stuffs with native brokers. While he wa* 
thus engaged, Surajah Dowlah succeeded to 
the government, and declared war against the 
English. The defenceless settlement of Cos« 
simbazar, lying close to the tyrant's capital, 
was instantly seized Hastings was s<snt a 
prisoner to Moorshedabad; but, in con%> 
quence of the humane intervention of the ser- 
vants of the Dutch Company, was treated with 
indulgence. Meanwhile the Nabob marched 
on Calcutta ; the governor and the command- 
ant fled ; the town and citadel were taken, and 
most of the English prisoners perished in the 
Blackhole. 

In these events originated the greatness of 
Warren Hastings. The fugitive governor and 
his companions had taken refuge on the dreary 
islet of Fulda, near the mouth of the Hoogly. 
They were naturally desirous to obtain full 
information respecting the proceedings of the 
Nabob ; and no person seemed so likely to 
furnish it as Hastings, who was a prisoner at 
large in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
court. He thus became a diplomatic agent, 
and soon established a high character of abili- 
ty and resolution. The treason which at a later 
period was fatal to Surajah Dowiah was al- 
ready in progress ; and Hastings was admitted 
to the deliberations of the conspirators. But 
the time for striking had not arrived. It was 
necessary to postpone the execution of the de- 
sign ; and Hastings, who was now in extreme 
peril, fled to Fulda. 

Soon after his arrival at Fulda, the expedi- 
tion from Madras, commanded by Clive, ap- 
peared in the Hoogley. Warren, young, intre- 
pid, and excited probably by the example of 
the commander of the forces, who, having like 
himself been a mercantile agent of the Com- 
pany, had been turned by public calamities 
into a soldier, determined to serve in the ranks. 
During the early operations of the war he car- 
ried a musket. But the quick eye of Clive 
soon perceived that the head of the young 
volunteer would be more useful than his arm. 
When, after the battle of Plassey, Meer Jaffier 
was proclaimed Nabob of Bengal, Hastings 
was appointed to reside at the court of the new 
prince as agent for the Company. 

He remained at Moorshedabad till the year 
1761, when he became member of Council, and 
was consequently forced to reside at Calcutta. 
This was during the interval between Clive's 
first and second administration — an interval 
which has left on the fame of the East India 
Company a stain not wholly effaced by many 
years of just and humane government. Mr. 
Vansittart, the Governor, was at the head of a 
new and anomalous empire. On the one side 
was a band of English functionaries, daring, 
intelligent, eager to be rich. On the other side 
was a great native population, helpless, timid, 
accustomed to crouch under oppression. To 
keep the stronger race from preying on the 
weaker was an undertaking which tasked to 
the utmost the talents and energy of Clive. 
Vansittart, with fair intentions, was a feeble 
and inefficient ruler. The master caste, as 
was natural, broke loose from all restraint, 
and then was seen what we believe to be the 
most frightful of all spectacles, the strength 



WARREN HASTINGS. 



403 



ol civilization without its mercy. To all other 
despotism there is a check; imperfect, indeed, 
and liable to gross abuse, but still sufficient 
to preserve society from the last extreme of 
misery. A time comes when the evils of sub- 
mission are obviously greater than those of re- 
sistance ; when fear itself bsgets a sort of cou- 
rage ; when a convulsive burst of popular rage 
and despair warns tyrants not to presume too 
far on the patience of mankind. But against 
misgovernment such as then afflicted Bengal 
it was impossible to struggle. The superior 
intelligence and energy of the dominant class 
made their power irresistible. A war of Ben- 
galees against Englishmen was like a war of 
sheep against wolves, of men agamst demons. 
The only protection which the conquered could 
find was in the moderation, the clemency, the 
enlarged policy of the conquerors. That pro- 
tection, at a later period, they found. But at 
first English power came among them unac- 
companied by English morality. There was 
an interval between the time at which they be- 
came our subjects and the time at which we 
began to jefiect that we were bound to dis- 
charge towards them the duty of rulers. Dur- 
ing that interval the business of a servant of 
the Company was simply to wring out of the 
ratives a hundred or two hundred thousand 
■founds as speedily as possible, that he might 
return home before his constitution had suf- 
fered from the heat, to marry a peer's daugh- 
ter, to buy rotten boroughs in Cornwall, and to 
give balls in St. James's Square. Of the con- 
duct of Hastings at this time little is known ; 
but the little that is known, and the circum- 
stance that little is known, must be considered 
es honourable to him. He could not protect 
the natives ; all that he could do was to ab- 
stain from plundering and oppressing them; 
and this he appears to have done. It is cer- 
tain that at this time he continued poor ; and 
it is equally certain that, by cruelty and dis- 
honesty, he might easily have become rich. It 
is certain that he was never charged with hav- 
ing borne a share in the abuses which then 
prevailed ; and it is almost equally certain that, 
if he had borne a share in those abuses, the 
able and bitter enemies who afterwards perse- 
cuted him would not have failed to discover 
and to proclaim his guilt. The keen, severe, 
and even malevolent scrutiny to which his 
whole public life was subjected — a scrutiny 
unparalleled, as we believe, in the history of 
mankind — is, in one respect, advantageous to 
his reputation. It brought many lamentable 
blemishes to light; but it entitles him to be 
considered pure from every blemish which has 
not been brought to light. 

The truth is, that the temptations to which 
so many English functionaries yielded in the 
time of Mr. Vansittart, were not temptations 
addressed to the ruling passions of Warren 
Hastings. He was not squeamish in pecu- 
niary transactions ; but he was neither sordid 
nor rapacious. He was far too enlightened a 
man to look on a great empire purely as a 
bucanier would look on a galleon. Had his 
heart been much worse than it was, his under- 
standing would have preserved him from that 
extremity of baseness. He was an unscrupu- 



lous, perhaps an unprincipled statesman ., but 
still he was a statesman, and not a freebooter. 
In 1764, Hastings returned to England. He 
had realized only a very moderate fortune, and 
that moderate fortune was soon reduced to no- 
thing, partly by his praiseworthy liberality and 
partly by his mismanagement. Towards his 
relations he appears to have acted very gene- 
rously. The greater part of his savings ho 
left in Bengal, hoping probably to obtain the 
high usury of India. But high usury and bad 
security generally go together ; and Hastings 
lost both interest and principal. 

He remained four years in England. Of his 
life at this time very little is known. But it 
has been asserted, and is highly probable, that 
liberal studies and the society of men of let- 
ters occupied a great part of his time. It is 
to be remembered to his honour, that in days 
when the languages of the East were regarded 
by other servants of the Company merely as 
the means of communicating with weavers 
and money-changers, his enlarged and accom- 
plished mind sought in Asiatic learning for 
new forms of intellectual enjoyment, and for 
new views of government and society. Per- 
haps, like most persons who have paid much 
attention to departments of knowledge which 
lie out of the common track, he was inclined 
to overrate the value of his favourite studies 
He conceived that the cultivation of Persian 
literature might with advantage be made a pari 
of the liberal education of an English gentle- 
man ; and he drew up a plan with that view. 
It is said that the University of Oxford, in 
which Oriental learning had never, since th« 
revival of letters, been wholly neglected, was 
to be the seat of the institution which he con- 
templated. An endowment was expected from 
the munificence of the Company, and profes- 
sors thoroughly competent to interpret Haiiz 
and Ferdusi were to be engaged in the East. 
Hastings called on Johnson with the hope, as 
it would seem, of interesting in his project a 
man who enjoyed the highest literary reputa- 
tion, and who was particularly connected with 
Oxford. The interview appears to have left 
on Johnson's mind a most favourable impres. 
sion of the talents and attainments of his 
visiter. Long after, when Hastings was ruling 
the immense population of British India, the 
old philosopher wrote to him, and referred in 
the most courtly terms, though with great dig- 
nity, to their short but agreeable intercourse. 

Hastings soon began to look again towards 
India. He had little to attach him to England , 
and his pecuniary embarrassments were great. 
He solicited his old masters the Directors for 
employment. They acceded to his request, 
with high compliments both to his abilities and 
to his integrity, and appointed him a member 
of Council at Madras. It would be unjust not 
to mention, that though forced to borrow money 
for his outfit, he did not withdraw any portion 
of the sum which he had appropriated tc the 
relief of his distressed relations. In the spring 
of 1769 he embarked on board of the " Duke o( 
Grafton," and commenced a voyage distin- 
guished by incidents which might furnish mat. 
ter for a novel. 

Among the passengers in the " Duke of Graf 



464 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ton," was a German by the name of Imhoff. 
He called himself a baron, but he was in dis- 
tressed circumstances ; and was going out to 
Madras as a portrait painter, in the hope of 
picking up some of the pagodas which were 
men lightly got and as lightly spent by the 
English in India. The baron was accompanied 
by his wife, a native, we have somewhere read, 
of Archangel. This young woman, who, born 
under the Arctic circle, was destined to play 
the part of a queen under the tropic of Cancer, 
had an agreeable person, a cultivated mind, 
and manners in the highest degree engaging. 
She despised her husband heartily, and, as the 
story which we have to tell sufficiently proves, 
not without reason. She was interested by the 
conversation and flattered by the attentions of 
Hastings. The situation was indeed perilous. 
No place is so propitious to the formation 
either of close friendships or of deadly enmi- 
ties as an Indiaman. There are very few 
people who do not find a voyage which lasts 
several months insupportably dull. Any thing 
is welcome which may break that long mono- 
tony — a sail, a shark, an albatross, a man over- 
board. Most passengers find some resource 
in eating twice as many meals as on land. But 
the great devices for killing the time are, 
quarrelling and flirting. The facilities for both 
these exciting pursuits are great. The inmates 
of the ship are thrown together far more than 
m any country-seat or boarding-house. None 
can escape from the rest except by imprison- 
ing himself in a cell in which he can hardly 
turn. All food, all exercise, is taken in com- 
pany. Ceremony is to a great extent banished. 
It is every day in the power of a mischievous 
person to inflict innumerable annoyances ; it is 
every day in the power of an amiable person 
to confer little services. It not seldom happens 
that serious distress and danger call forth in 
genuine beauty and deformity heroic virtues 
and abject vices, which, in the ordinary inter- 
course of good society, might remain during 
many years unknown even to intimate associ- 
ates. Under such circumstances met Warren 
Hastings and the Baroness Imhoff; two per- 
sons whose accomplishments would have 
attracted notice in any court of Europe. The 
gentleman had no domestic ties. The lady was 
tied to a husband for whom she had no regard, 
•and who had no regard for his own honour. 
An attachment sprang up, which was soon 
strengthened by events such as could hardly 
have occurred on land. Hastings fell ill. The 
baroness nursed him with womanly tender- 
ness, gave him his medicines with her own 
hand, and even sat up in his cabin while he 
slept. Long before the " Duke of Grafton" 
reached Madras, Hastings was in love. But 
his love was of a most characteristic descrip- 
tion. Like his hatred, like his ambition, like 
all his passions, it was strong, but not impetu- 
ous. It was calm, deep, earnest, patient of 
delay, unconquerable by time. Imhoff was 
called into council by his wife and his vafe's 
!over. It was arranged that the baroness 
should institute, a suit for a divorce in the 
courts of Franconia; that the baron should 
afford every facility to the proceeding; and 
ibat, during the years which might elapse 



before the sentence should be pronounced, they 
should continue to live together. It was also 
agreed that Hastings should bestow some very 
substantial marks of gratitude on the complai- 
sant husband ; and should, when the marriage 
was dissolved, make the lady his wife, and 
adopt the children whom she had alieady 
borne to Imhoff. 

We are not inclined to judge either Hastings 
or the baroness severely. There was undoubV 
edly much to extenuate their fault. But we 
can by no means concur with the Rev. Mr, 
Gleig, who carries his partiality to so injudi- 
cious an extreme, as to describe the conducl 
of Imhoff — conduct the baseness of which is 
the best excuse for the lovers — as " wise and 
judicious." . 

At Madras Hastings found the trade of the 
Company in a very disorganized state. Hia 
own tastes would have led him rather to poli- 
tical than to commercial pursuits; but he knew 
that the favour of his employers depended 
chiefly on their dividends, and their dividends 
depended chiefly on the investment. He there- 
fore, with great judgment, determined to apply 
his vigorous mind for a time to this depart- 
ment of business; which had been much neg- 
lected, since the servants of the Company had 
ceased to be clerks, and had become warriors 
and negotiators. 

In a very few months he effected an import- 
ant reform. The Directors notified to him 
their high approbation, and were go much 
pleased with his conduct, that they determined 
to place him at the head of the government of 
Bengal. Early in 1772 he quitted Fort St 
George for his new post. The Imhoffs, who 
were still man and wife, accompanied him, 
and lived at Calcutta " on the same wise and 
judicious plan" (we quote the words of Mr. 
Gleig) which they had already followed during 
more than two years. 

When Hastings took his seat at the head of 
the council board, Bengal was still governed 
according to the system which Clive had de- 
vised — a system which was, perhaps, skilfuJly 
contrived for the purpose of facilitating and 
concealing a great revolution, but which, when 
that revolution was complete and irrevocable, 
could produce nothing but inconvenience. 
There were two governments, the real and the 
ostensible. The supreme power belonged to 
the Company, and was in truth the most des- 
potic power that can be conceived. The only 
restraint on the English masters of the country 
was that which their own justice and humanity 
imposed on them. There was no 'constitu- 
tional check on their will, and resistance to 
them was utterly hopeless. 

But though thus absolute in reality, the 
English had not yet assumed the style of so- 
vereignty. They held their territories as vas- 
sals of the throne of Delhi ; they raised their 
revenues as collectors appointed by the im • 
perial commission; their public seal was in 
scribed with the imperial titles ; and their mini 
struck only the imperial coin. 

There was still a Nabob of Bengal, who stood 
to the English rulers of his country in the same 
relation in which Augustulus stood to Odoacer 
or the last Merovingian? to Charles Martet 



WARREN HASTINGS. 



1G6 



and Pepin. He lived at Moorshedabad, sur- 
rounded by princely magnificence. He was 
approached with the outward marks of reve- 
rence, and his name was used in public instru- 
ments ; but in the government of the country 
he had less real share than the youngest writer 
ir cadet in the Company's service. 

The English Council which represented the 
Company at Calcutta, was constituted on a 
very different plan from that which has since 
been adopted. At present the governor is, as 
to all executive measures, absolute. He can 
declare war, conclude peace, appoint public 
functionaries or remove them, in opposition to 
the unanimous sense of those who sit with 
him in council. They are, indeed, entitled to 
know all that is done, to discuss all that is 
done, to advise, to remonstrate, to send home 
protests. But it is with the governor that the 
supreme power resides, and on him that the 
whole responsibility rests. This system, which 
was introduced by Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dunclas 
in spite of the strenuous opposition of Mr. 
Burke, we conceive to be on the whole the 
best that wk ever devised for the government 
of a country where no materials can be found 
for a representative constitution. In the time 
of Hastings the governor had only one vote in 
Council, and, in case of an equal division, a 
casting vote. It therefore happened not un- 
frequently that he was overruled on the gravest 
queslions ; and it was possible that he might 
be wholly excluded, for years together, from 
fhe real direction of public affairs. 

The English functionaries at Fort William 
had as yet paid little or no attention to the in- 
ternal government of Bengal. The only branch 
of pa.iiics with which they much busied them- 
selves was negotiation with the native princes. 
The police, the administration of justice, the 
details of the collection of revenue, they almost 
entirely neglected. We may remark that the 
phraseology of the Company's servants still 
bears the traces of this state of things. To this 
day they always use the word " political" as 
synonymous with " diplomatic." We could 
name a gentleman still living, who was de- 
scribed by the highest authority as an inva- 
luable public servant, eminently fit to be at the 
head of the departments of finance, revenue, 
and justice, but unfortunately quite ignorant 
of all political business. 

The internal government of Bengal the Eng- 
lish rulers delegated to a great native minister, 
who was stationed at Moorshedabad. All mi- 
litary affairs, and, with the exception of what 
pertains to mere ceremonial, all foreign affairs, 
were withdrawn from his control; but the 
other departments of the administration were 
entirely confided to him. His own stipend 
amounted to near a hundred thousand pounds 
sterling a year. The civil list of the Nabobs, 
amounting to more than three hundred thousand 
pounds a year, passed through the minister's 
hands, and was, to a great extent, at his dis- 
posal. The collection of the revenue, the su- 
perintendence of the household of the prince, 
the administration of justice, the maintenance 
of order, were left to this high functionary; 
and for the exercise of his immense power he 



was responsible to none nut the British masters 
of the country. 

A situation so important, lucrative, and 
splendid, was naturally an object of ambition 
to the ablest and most powerful natives. Clive 
had found it difficult to decide between con- 
flicting pretensions. Two candidates stood out 
prominently from the crowd, each of them the 
representative of a race and of a religion. 

The one was Mohammed Reza Khan, a 
Mussulman of Persian extraction, able, active, 
religious after the fashion of his people, and 
highly esteemed by them. In England, he might 
perhaps have been regarded as a corrupt and 
greedy politician. But tried by the lower stand- 
ard of Indian morality, he might be considered 
as a man of integrity and honour. 

His competitor was a Hindoo Brahmin, whose 
name has, by a terrible and melancholy event, 
been inseparably associated with that of War- 
ren Hastings — the Maharajah Nuncomar. This 
man had played an important part in all the 
revolutions which, since the time of Surajah 
Dowlah, had taken place in Bengal. To the 
consideration which in that country belongs to 
high and pure caste, he added the weight which 
is derived from wealth, talents, and experience. 
Of his moral character it is difficult to give a 
notion to those who are acquainted with human 
nature only as it appears in our island. What 
the Italian is to the Englishman, what the Hin- 
doo is to the Italian, what the Bengalee is to 
other Hindoos, that was Nuncomar to other 
Bengalees. The physical organization of the 
Bengalee is feeble even to effeminacy. He 
lives in a constant vapour bath. His pursuits 
are sedentary, his limbs delicate, his move- 
ments languid. During many ages he has been 
trampled upon by men of bolder and more 
hardy breeds. Courage, independence, ve- 
racity, are qualities to which his constitution 
and his station are equally unfavourable. 
His mind bears a singular analogy to his body 
It is weak even to helplessness, for purposes 
of manly resistance ; but its suppleness and its 
tact move the children of sterner climates to 
admiration not unmingled with contempt. All 
those arts which are the natural defence of the 
weak, are more familiar with this subtle race 
than to the Ionian of the times of Juvenal, or 
to the Jew of the dark ages. What the horns 
are to the buffalo, what the paw is to the tiger, 
what the sting is to the bee, what beauty, ac- 
cording to the old Greek song, is to woman, 
deceit is to the Bengalee. Large promises, 
smooth excuses, elaborate tissues of circum- 
stantial falsehood, chicanery, perjury, forgery, 
are the weapons, offensive and defensive, of 
the people of the Lower Ganges. All those 
millions do not furnish one sepoy to the armies 
of the Company. But as usurers, as money- 
changers, as sharp legal practitioners, no class 
of human beings can bear a comparison with 
them. With all his softness, the Bengalee is 
by no means placable in his enmities, or prone 
to pity. The pertinacity with which he ad- 
heres to his purposes, yields only to the imme- 
diate pressure of fear. Nor does he lack a 
certain kind of courage which is often want< 
ins: in his masters. To inevitable evils he i* 



46G 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WBI1INGS. 



sometimes found to oppose a passive fortitude, 
such as the Stoics attributed to their ideal sage. 
A European warrior, who rushes on a battery 
of cannon with a loud hurrah, will shriek un- 
.ler the surgeon's knife, and fall into an agony 
of despair at the sentence of death. But the 
Bengalee would see his country overrun, his 
house laid in ashes, his children murdered or 
dishonoured, without having the spirit to strike 
one blow; he has yet been known to endure 
torture with the firmness of Mucius, and to 
mount the scaffold with the steady step and 
even pulse of Algernon Sydney. 

In Nuncomar, the national character was 
strongly and with exaggeration personified. 
The Company's servants had repeatedly de- 
lected him in the most criminal intrigues. On 
one occasion he brought, a false charge against 
another Hindoo, and tried to substantiate it b}^ 
producing forged documents. On another oc- 
casion it was discovered that, while professing 
the strongest attachment to the English, he 
was engaged in several conspiracies against 
them ; and in particular that he was the me- 
hum of a correspondence between the court 
f Delhi and the French authorities in the Car- 
.-atic. For these and similar practices, he had 
bsen long detained in confinement. But his 
talents and influence had not only procured 
his liberation, but had obtained for him a cer- 
tain degree of consideration even among the 
British rulers of his country. 

Olive was extremely unwilling to place a 
Mussulman at the head of the administration 
of Bengal. On the other hand, he could not 
zring himself to confer immense power on a 
man to whom every sort of villany had re- 
peatedly been brought home. Therefore, though 
the Nabob, over whom Nuncomar had by in- 
trigue acquired great influence, begged that the 
artful Hindoo might be intrusted with the go- 
vernment, Clive, after some hesitation, decided 
honestly and wisely in favour of Mohammed 
Keza Khan, who had held his high office seven 
years when Hastings became Governor. An 
infant son of Meer Jaffier was now Nabob ; and 
the guardianship of the young prince's person 
had been confined to the minister. 

Nuncomar, stimulated at once by cupidity 
and malice, had been constantly attempting to 
undermine his successful rival. This was not 
difficult. The revenues of Bengal, under the 
administration established by Clive, did not 
yield such a surplus as had been anticipated 
by the Company ; for, at that time, the most 
absurd notions were entertained in England 
respecting the wealth of India. Palaces of 
porphyry, hung with the richest brocade, heaps 
of pearls and diamonds, vaults from which pa- 
godas and gold mohurs were measured out by 
the bushel, filled the imagination even of men 
of business. Nobody seemed to be aware of 
what nevertheless was most undoubtedly the 
truth, that India was a much poorer country 
Aan countries which in Europe are reckoned 
poor — than Ireland, for example, than Portu- 
gal, or than Sweden. It was confidently be- 
lieved by Lords of the Treasury and Members 
for the City, that Bengal would not only defray 
its own charges, but would aflbrd an increased 



dividend to the proprietors of Indian stock. 
and large relief to the English finances. These 
absurd expectations were disappointed ; and 
the Directors, naturally enough, chose to attri- 
bute the disappointment rather to the misma- 
nagement of Mohammed Reza Khan, than to 
their own ignorance of the country intrusted 
to their care. They were confirmed in their 
error ty the agents of Nuncomar ; for Nunco- 
mar had agents even in Leadenhall Street 
Soon after Hastings reached Calcutta, he re- 
ceived a letter addressed by the Court of Di- 
rectors, not to the Council generally, but to 
himself in particular. He was directed to re- 
move Mohammed Reza Khan, to arrest him, 
together with all his family and all his parti- 
sans, and to institute a strict inquiry into the 
whole administration of the province. It was 
added, that the Governor would do well to 
avail himself of the assistance of Nuncomar 
in the investigation. The vices of Nuncomar 
were acknowledged. But even from his vice:, 
it was said, much advantage might at such a 
conjuncture be derived ; and, though he could 
not safely be trusted, it might still be proper 
to encourage him by hopes of reward. 

The Governor bore no good-will to Nunco- 
mar. Many years before, they had known 
each other at Moorshedabad ; and then a quar- 
rel had risen between them, which all the 
authority of their superiors could hardly com- 
pose. Widely as they differed in most points, 
they resembled each other in this, that both 
were men of unforgiving natures. To Mo- 
hammed Reza Khan, on the other hand, Hast- 
ings had no feelings of hostility. Nevertheless 
he proceeded to execute the instructions of the 
Company with an alacrity which he never 
showed, except when instructions were in per- 
fect conformity with his own views. He had, 
wisely as we think, determined to get rid of 
the system of double government in Bengal 
The orders of the Directors furnished him with 
the means of effecting his purpose, and dis- 
pensed him from the necessity of discussing 
the matter with his Council. He took his mea- 
sures with his usual vigour and dexterity. At 
midnight, the palace of Mohammed Reza 
Khan, at Moorshedabad, was surrounded by a 
battalion of sepoys. The minister was roused 
from his slumbers and informed that he was a 
prisoner. With the Mussulman gravity, he 
bent his head and submitted himself to the will 
of God. He fell not alone. A chief, named 
Schitab Roy, had been intrusted with the go- 
vernment of Bahar. His valour and his at- 
tachment to the English had more than once 
been signally proved. On that memorable 
day on which the people of Patna saw from 
their walls the whole army of the Mogul scat- 
tered by the little band of Captain Knox, the 
voice of the British conquerors assigned the 
palm of gallantry to the brave Asiatic. "1 
never," said Knox, when he introduced Schitat 
Roy, covered with blood and dust, to the Eng 
lish functionaries assembled in the factory— 
" I never saw a native fight so before." Schitab 
Roy was involved in the ruin of Mohammed 
Reza Khan, was deprived of his government, 
and was placed under arrest. The member* 



WARREN HASTINGS. 



467 



of the Council received no intimation of these 
measures till the prisoners were on their road 
to Calcutta. 

The inquiry into the conduct of the minister 
was postponed on different pretences. He was 
detained in an easy confinement during many 
months. In the mean time the great revolution 
which Hastings had planned was carried into 
effect. The office of minister was aholished. 
The internal administration was transferred to 
the -servants of the Company. A system — a 
very imperfect system it is true — of civil and 
criminal justice, under English superintend- 
ence, was established. The Nabob was no 
longer to have even an ostensible share in the 
government ; but he was still to receive a con- 
siderable annual allowance, and to be sur- 
rounded with the state of sovereignty. As he 
was an infant, it was necessary to provide 
guardians for his person and property. His 
person was intrusted to a lady of his father's 
harem, known by the name of the Munny Be- 
gum. The office of treasurer of the household 
was bestowed on a son of Nuncomar, named 
Goordas.- Nuncomar's services were wanted, 
yet he could not safely be trusted with power ; 
and Hastings thought it a master-stroke of 
policy to reward the able and unprincipled 
parent by promoting the inoffensive child. 

The revolution completed, the double go- 
vernment dissolved, the company installed in 
the full sovereignty of Bengal, Hastings had 
no motive to treat the late ministers with 
rigour. Their trial had been put off on 
various pleas till the new organization was 
complete. They were then brought before a 
committee, over which the Governor presided. 
Schitab Roy was speedily acquitted with 
honour. A formal apology was made to him 
for the restraint to which lie had been sub- 
jected. All the Eastern marks of respect were 
bestowed on him. He was clothed in a robe 
of honour, presented with jewels and with a 
richly harnessed elephant, and sent back in 
state to Patna. But his health had suffered 
from confinement; his high spirit had been 
cruelly wounded ; and soon after his liberation 
he died of a broken heart. 

The innocence of Mohammed Reza Khan 
was not so clearly established. But the Go- 
vernor was not disposed to deal harshly. After 
a long hearing, in which Nuncomar appeared 
as the accuser, and displayed both the art and 
the inveterate rancour which distinguished 
him, Hastings pronounced that the charges 
had not been made out, and ordered the fallen 
minister to be set at liberty. 

Nuncomar had proposed to destroy the Mus- 
sulman administration, and to rise on its ruins. 
Both his malevolence and his cupidity had 
been disappointed. Hastings had made him a 
tool — had used him for the purpose of accom- 
plishing the transfer of the government from 
Moorshedabad to Calcutta, from native to 
European hands. The rival, the enemy, so 
ong envied, so implacably persecuted, had 
Deen dismissed unhurt. The situation so long 
and ardently desired had been abolished. It 
was natural that the Governor should be from 
that time an object of the most intense hatred 
lo the vindictive Brahmin As vet, however. 



it was necessary to suppress such feelings 
The time was coming when that long ani 
mosity was to end in a desperate and deadlj 
struggle. 

In the mean time, Hastings was compelled 
to turn his attention to foreign affairs. The 
object of his diplomacy was at this time sim- 
ply to get money. The finances of his govern- 
ment were in an embarrassed state ; and this 
embarrassment he was determined to relieve 
by some means, fair or foul. The principle 
which directed all his dealings with his neigh- 
bours is fully expressed by the old motto c ' 
one of the great predatory families of Tevio 
dale — "Thou shalt want ere I want." H. 
seems to have laid it down, as a fundamental 
proposition which could not be disputed, that 
when he had not as many lacs of rupees as 
the public service required, he was to take 
them from anybody who had. One thing, in- 
deed, is to be said in excuse for him. The 
pressure applied to him by his employers at 
home was such as only the highest virtue 
could have withstood — such as left him no 
choice except to commit great wrongs, or to 
resign his high post, and with that post all his 
hopes of fortune and distinction. It is perfect- 
ly true, that the Directors never enjoined or 
applauded any crime. Far from it. Whoevei 
examines their letters at that time, will find 
there many just and humane sentiments, many 
excellent precepts; in short, an admirable cir 
cle of political ethics. But every exhortation 
is modified or nullified by a demand for money. 
" Govern leniently, and send more money ; 
practise strict justice and moderation towards 
neighbouring powers, and send more money;" 
this is in truth the sum of almost all the in- 
structions that Hastings ever received from 
home. Now, these instructions, being inter- 
preted, mean simply, " Be the father and the 
oppressor of the people ; be just and unjust, 
moderate and rapacious." The Directors dealt 
with India, as the church, in the good old 
times, dealt with a heretic. They delivered 
the victim over to the executioners, with an 
earnest request that all possible tenderness 
might be shown. We by no means accuse or 
suspect those who framed these despatches of 
hypocrisy. It is probable that, writing fifteen 
thousand miles from the place where their 
orders were to be carried into effect, they never 
perceived the gross inconsistency of which 
they were guilty. But the inconsistency was 
at once manifest to their lieutenant at Calcutta, 
who, with an empty treasury, with an unpaid 
army, with his own salary often in arrear, 
with deficient crops, with government tenants 
daily running away, was called upon to remit 
home another half million without fail. Hast- 
ings saw that it was absolutely necessary for 
him to disregard either the moral discourses or 
the pecuniary requisitions of his employers. 
Being forced to disobey them in something, he 
had to consider what kind of disobedience they 
would most readily pardon ; and he correctly 
judged that the safest course would be to neg 
lect the Sermons and to find the Rupees. 

A mind so fertile as his, and so little re 
strained by conscientious scruples, speedily 
discovered several modes of relieving th«« 



468 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, 



inancial embarrassments of the government. 
The allowance of the Nabob of Bengal was 
reduced at a stroke from 320.000Z. a year to 
half that sum. The Company had bound itself 
so pay nearly 300,000/. a year to the Great 
Mogul, as a mark of homage for the provinces 
which he had intrusted to their care ; and they 
nad ceded to him the districts of Corah and 
Allahabad. On the plea that the Mogul was 
not really independent, but merely a tool in the 
hands of others, Hastings determined to retract 
these concessions. He accordingly declared 
that the English would pay no more tribute, 
and sent troops to occupy Allahabad and Co- 
rah. The situation of these places was such, 
that there would be little advantage and great 
expense in retaining them. Hastings, Avho 
wanted money and not territory, determined to 
sell them. A purchaser was not wanting. 
The rich province of Oude had, in the general 
dissolution of the Mogul Empire, fallen to the 
share of the great Mussulman house by which 
it is still governed. About twenty years ago, 
this house, by the permission of the British 
government, assumed .the royal title, but, in 
the time of Warren Hastings, such an assump- 
tion would have been considered by the Mo- 
hammeuans of India as a monstrous impiety. 
The Prince of Oude, though he held the power, 
did not venture to use the style of sovereignty. 
To the appellation of Nabob or Viceroy, he 
added that of Vizier of the monarchy of Hin- 
dostan — just as in the last century the Electors 
of Saxony and Brandenburg, though independ- 
ent of the Emperor, and often in arms against 
him, were proud to style themselves his Grand 
Chamberlain and Grand Marshal. Sujah 
Dowlah, then nabob vizier, was on excellent 
terms with the English. He had a large trea- 
sure. Allahabad and Corah were so situated 
that they might be of use to him, and could be 
of none to the Company. The buyer and seller 
soon came to an understanding ; and the pro- 
vinces which had been torn from the Mogul 
were made over to the government of Oude for 
about half a million sterling. 

But there was another matter still more im- 
portant to be settled by the Vizier and the Go- 
vernor. The fate of a brave people was to 
be decided. It was decided in a manner 
which has left a lasting stain on the fame of 
Hastings and of England. 

The people of central Asia had always been 
to the inhabitants of India what the warriors 
of the German forests were to the subjects of 
the decaying monarchy of Rome. The dark, 
slender, and timid Hindoo shrank from a con- 
flict with the strong muscle and resolute spirit 
Of the fair race which dwelt beyond the passes. 
There is reason to believe that, at a period an- 
terior to the dawn of regular history, the peo- 
ple who spoke the rich and flexible Sanscrit 
came from regions lying far beyond the Hy- 
phasis and the Hystaspes, and imposed their 
yoke on the children of the soil. It is certain 
that, during the last ten centuries, a succession 
of invaders descended from the west on Hin- 
dostan ; nor was the course of conquest ever 
turned back towards the setting sun, till that 
wemorable campaign in which the cross of 



Saint George was planva on the walls oJ 

Ghizni. 

The Emperors of Hindostan themselves 
came from the other side of the great mcun 
tain ridge : and it had al« ays been their prac- 
tice to recruit their army from the hardy and 
valiant race from which their own illustrious 
house sprang. Among the military adven- 
turers who were allured to the Mogul stand- 
ards from the neighbourhood of Cabul and 
Candahar, were conspicuous several gallant 
bands, known by the name of the Rohillas. 
Their services had been rewarded with large 
tracts of land — fiefs of the spear, if we may 
use an expression drawn from an analogous 
state of things — in that fertile plain through 
which the Ramgunga flows from the snowy 
heights of Kumaon to join the Ganges. In the 
general confusion which followed the death of 
Aurungzebe, the warlike colony became vir- 
tually independent. The Rohillas were distin- 
guished from the other inhabitants of India by 
a peculiarly fair complexion. They were more 
honourably distinguished by valour in war 
and by skill in the arts of peace. While 
anarchy raged from Lahore to Cape Comorin, 
their little territory enjoyed the blessings of 
repose under the guardianship of courage. 
Agriculture and commerce flourished among 
them; nor were they negligent of rhetoric and 
poetry. Many persons now living have heard 
aged men talk with regret of the golden days 
when the Afghan princes ruled in the vale of 
Rohilcund. 

Sujah Dowlah had set his heart on adding 
this rich district to his own principality. 
Right, or show of right, he had absolutely 
none. His claim was in no respect better 
founded than that of Catherine to Poland, or 
that of the Bonaparte family to Spain. The 
Rohillas held their country by exactly the same 
title by which he held his ; and had governed 
their country far better than his had ever been 
governed. Nor were they a people whom it 
was perfectly safe to attack. Their land was 
indeed an open plain, destitute of natural de- 
fences ; but their veins were full of the high 
blood of Afghanistan. As soldiers, they had 
not the steadiness which is seldom found ex- 
cept in company with strict discipline; but 
their impetuous valour had been proved on 
many fields of battle. It was said that their 
chiefs, when united by common peril, could 
bring eighty thousand men into the field. Su 
jah Dowlah had himself seen them fight, and 
wisely shrank from a conflict with them, 
There was in India one army, and only one, 
against which even those proud Caucasian 
tribes could not stand. It had been abundantly 
proved that neither tenfold odds nor the mar- 
tial ardour of the boldest Asiatic nations, 
could avail aught against English science and 
resolution. Was it possible to induce the 
Governor of Bengal to let out tc hire the irre- 
sistible energies of the imperial people — the 
skill, against which the ablest chiefs of Hin- 
dostan were helpless as infants — the disci- 
pline, which had so often triumphed over the 
frantic struggles of fanaticism and despair- 
the unconquerable British courage which is 



WARREN HASTINGS. 



469 



never so sedate and stubborn as towards the 
close of a doubtful and murderous day 1 

This was what the Nabob Vizier asked, and 
what Hastings granted. A bargain was soon 
struck. Each of the negotiators had what the 
other wanted. Hastings was in need of funds 
to carry on the government of Bengal, and to 
send remittances to London; and Sujah Do w- 
lah had an ample revenue. Sujah Dowlah 
was bent on subjugating the Rohillas; and 
Hastings had at his disposal the only force by 
which the Rohillas could be subjugated. It 
was agreed that an English army should be 
lent to the Nabob Vizier, and that, for the loan, 
he should pay 400,000?. sterling, besides de- 
fraying all the charge of the troops while em- 
ployed in his service. 

" I really cannot see," says the Rev. Mr. 
Gleig, " upon what grounds, either of politi- 
cal or moral justice, this proposition deserves 
to be stigmatized as infamous." If we under- 
stand the meaning of words, it is infamous to 
commit a wicked action for hire, and it is 
wicked to engage in war without provocation. 
In this particular war, scarcely one aggravat- 
ing circumstance was wanting. The object 
of the Rohilla war was this — to deprive a large 
population, who had never done us the least 
harm, of a good government, and to place 
them, against their will, under an execrably 
bad one. Nay, even this is not all. England 
now descended far below the level even of 
those petty German princes, who, about the 
same time, sold us troops to fight the Ameri- 
cans. The hussar-mongers of Hesse and An- 
spach had at least the assurance that the ex- 
peditions on which their soldiers were to be 
employed, would be conducted in conformity 
with the humane rules of civilized warfare. 
Was the Rohilla war likely to be so conducted? 
Did the Governor stipulate that it should be so 
conducted] He well knew what Indian war- 
fare was. He well knew that the power which 
he covenanted to put into Sujah Dowlah's 
hands would, in all probability, be atrociously 
abused; and he required no guarantee, no 
promise that it should not be so abused. He 
did not even reserve to himself the right of 
withdrawing his aid in case of abuse, however 
gross. Mr. Gleig repeats Major Scott's absurd 
plea that Hastings was justified in letting out 
English troops to slaughter the Rohillas, be- 
cause the Rohillas were not of Indian race, but 
a colony from a distant country. What were 
the English themselves 1 Was it for them to 
proclaim a crusade for the expulsion of all 
intruders from the countries watered by the 
Ganges ] Did it lie in their mouths to contend 
that a foreign settler, who establishes an empire 
in India, is a caput lupinum? What would 
they have said if any other power had, on such 
a ground, attacked Madras or Calcutta, with- 
out the slightest provocation 1 Such a defence 
was wanting to make the infamy of the trans- 
action complete. The atrocity of the crime 
and the hypocrisy of the apology are worthy 
of each other. 

One of the three brigades of which the Ben- 
gal army consisted was sent under Colonel 
Champion to join Sujah Dowlah's forces. 
The Rohillas expostulated, entreated, offered a 



large ransom, but in vain. They then resolved 
to defend themselves to the last. A bloody 
battle was fought. " The enemy," says Co- 
lonel Champion, " gave proof of a good shar« 
of military knowledge ; and it is impossible to 
describe a more obstinate firmness of resolution 
than they displayed." The dastardly sovereign 
of Oude fled from the field. The English were 
left unsupported ; but their fire and their charge 
were irresistible. It was not, however, till the 
most distinguished chiefs had fallen, fighting 
bravely at the head of their troops, that the 
Rohilla ranks gave way. Then the Nabob 
Vizier and his rabble made their appearance, 
and hastened to plunder the camp of the valiant 
enemies, whom they had never dared to look 
in the face. The soldiers of the Company, 
trained in an exact discipline, kept unbroken 
order, while the tents were pillaged by these 
worthless allies. But many voices were heard 
to exclaim, " We have had all the fighting, and 
these rogues are to have all the profit." 

Then the horrors of Indian war were let 
loose on the fair valleys and cities of Rohil- 
cund. The whole country was in a blaze. 
More than a hundred thousand people fled 
from their homes to pestilential jungles, pre- 
ferring famine and fever, and the haunts of 
tigers, to the tyranny of him, to wh< m an Eng- 
lish and a Christian government had, for 
shameful lucre, sold their substance and their 
blood, and the honour of their wives and daugh- 
ters. Colonel Champion remonstrated with 
the Nabob Vizier, and sent strong representa- 
tions to Fort William ; but the Governor had 
made no conditions as to the mode in which the 
war was to be carried on. He had troubled 
himself about nothing but his forty lacs ; and, 
though he might disapprove of Sujah Dowlah's 
wanton barbarity, he did not think himself en- 
titled to interfere, except by offering advice. 
This delicacy excites the admiration of the 
reverend biographer. " Mr. Hastings," he says 
" could not himself dictate to the Nabob, no. 
permit the commander of the Company's troop,, 
to dictate how the war was to be carried on.' 
No, to be sure. Mr. Hastings had only to puj 
down by main force the brave struggles of in- 
nocent men fighting for their liberty. Their 
military resistance crushed, his duties ended; 
and he had then only to fold his arms and look 
on, while their villages were burned, their 
children butchered, and their women violated. 
Will Mr. Gleig seriously maintain this opi- 
nion] Is any rule more plain than this, that 
whoever voluntarily gives to another irresisti 
ble power over human beings, is bound to take 
order that such power shall not be barbarously 
abused] But we beg pardon of our readers 
for arguing a point so clear. 

We hasten to the end of this sad and dis 
graceful story. The war has ceased. The 
finest population in India was subjected to a 
greedy, cowardly, cruel tyrant. Commerce and 
agriculture languished. The rich province 
which had tempted the cupidity of Sujah Dow 
lab. became the most miserable part even of 
his miserable dominions. Yet is the injured 
nation not yet extinct. At long intervals 
gleams of its ancient spirit have flashed forth 
and even at this day, valour, and self-respec 4 



470 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEC US WRITINGS. 



and a chivalrous feeling, rare among Asiatics, 
and the bitter remembrance of the great crime 
of England, distinguish that noble Afghan 
race. To this day they are regarded as the 
best of all sepoys at the cold steel ; and it was 
recently remarked by one who had enjoyed 
great opportunities of observation, that the only 
natives of India to whom the word " gentle- 
men" can with perfect propriety be applied, 
are to be found among the Rohillas. 

Whatever we may think of the morality of 
Hastings, it cannot be denied that the financial 
results of his policy did honour to his talents. 
In less than two years after he assumed the 
government, he had, without imposing any ad- 
ditional hardens on the people subject to his 
authority, added about 450,000?. to the annual 
income of the Company, besides procuring 
about a million in ready money. He had also 
relieved the finances of Bengal from military 
expenditure, amounting to near 250,000Z. a 
yeai", and had thrown that charge on the Na- 
bob of Oude. There can be no doubt that this 
was a result which, if it had been obtained by 
honest means, would have entitled him to the 
warmest gratitude of his country ; and which, 
by whatever means obtained, proved that he 
possessed great talents for administration. 

In the mean time, Parliament had been en- 
gaged in long and grave discussions on Indian 
affairs. The ministry of Lord North, in the 
session of 1773, introduced a measure which 
made a considerable change in the constitution 
of the Indian government. This law, known 
by the name of the Regulating Act, provided 
that the presidency of Bengal should exercise 
a control over the other possessions of the 
Company; that the chief of that presidency 
should be styled Governor-General; that he 
should be assisted by four councillors ; and 
that a supreme court of judicature, consisting 
of a chief justice and three inferior judges, 
should be established at Calcutta. This court 
was made independent of the Governor-Gene- 
ral and Council, and was intrusted with a civil 
and criminal jurisdiction of immense and, at 
the same time, of undefined extent. 

The Governor-General and councillors were 
named in the act, and were to hold their situa- 
tions for five years. Hastings was to be the 
first Governor-General. One of the four new 
councillors, Mr. Barwell, an experienced ser- 
vant of the Company, was then in India. The 
other three, General Clavering, Mr. Monson, 
and Mr. Francis, were sent out from England. 
The ablest of the new councillors was, be- 
yond all doubt, Philip Francis. His acknow- 
ledged compositions prove that he possessed 
considerable eloquence and information. Se- 
veral years passed in the public offices had 
formed him to habits of business. His ene- 
mies have never denied that he had a fearless 
and manly spirit; and his friends, we are 
afraid, must acknowledge that his estimate of 
himself was extravagantly high, that his tem- 
per was irritable, that his deportment was often 
rude and petulant, and that his hatred was of 
intense bitterness and long duration. 

It is scarcely possible to mention this emi- 
nent man without, adverting for a moment to 
foe question which his name at once suggests 



to every mind. Was he the author of the Let 
ters of Junius 1 Our own firm belief is, that 
he was. The external evidence is, we think, 
such as would support a verdict in a civil, 
nay, in a criminal proceeding. The hand- 
writing of Junius is the very peculiar hand 
writing of Francis, slightly disguised. As to 
the position, pursuits, and connections of Ju- 
nius, the following are the most important facts 
which can be considered as clearly proved : 
first, that he was acquainted with the technical 
forms of the Secretary of State's office ; second- 
ly, that he was intimately acquainted with the 
business of the war-office; thirdly, that he, 
during the year 1770, attended debates in the 
House of Lords, and took notes of speeches, 
particularly of the speeches of Lord Chatham , 
fourthly, that he bitterly resented the appoint- 
ment of Mr. Chamier to the place of Deputy 
Secretary at War ; fifthly, that he was bound 
by some strong tie to the first Lord Holland. 
Now, Francis passed some years in the Secre- 
tary of State's office. He was subsequently 
chief clerk of the war-office. He repeatedly 
mentioned that he had himself, in 1770, heard 
speeches of Lord Chatham ; and some of those 
speeches were actually printed from his notes. 
He resigned his clerkship at the war-office from 
resentment at the appointment of Mr. Chamier. 
It was by Lord Holland that he was first intro- 
duced into the public service. Now here are 
five marks, all of which ought to be found in 
Junius. They are all five found in Francis. 
We do not believe that more than two of them 
can be found in any other person whatever. 
If this argument does not settle the question, 
there is an end of all reasoning on circumstan 
tial evidence. 

The internal evidence seems to us to pcint 
the same way. The style of Francis bears a 
strong resemblance to that of Junius ; nor are 
we disposed to admit, what is generally taken 
for granted, that the acknowledged composi- 
tions of Francis are very decidedly inferior to 
the anonymous letters. The argument from 
inferiority, at all events, is one which may be 
urged with at least equal force against every 
claimant that has ever been mentioned, with 
the single exception of Burke, who certainly 
was not Junius. And what conclusion, after 
all, can be drawn from mere inferiority ? 
Every writer must produce his best work; 
and the interval between his best work and 
his second best work may be very wide indeed. 
Nobody will say that the best letters of Junius 
are more decidedly superior to the acknow* 
ledged works of Francis, than three or four of 
Corneille's tragedies to the rest ; than three or 
four of Ben Jonson's comedies to the rest; 
than the Pilgrim's Progress to the other works 
of Bunyan ; than Don Quixote to the other 
works of Cervantes. Nay, it is certain that 
the Man in the Mask, whoever he may have 
been, was a most unequal writer. To go no 
further than the letters which bear the signa- 
ture of Junius ; — the letter to the king and the 
letters to Home Tooke have little in common, 
except the asperity; and asperity was an in« 
gredient seldom wanting either in the writings 
or in fh<» speeches of Francis. 
Indeed, one of the strongest reasons for be< 



WARREN HASTINGS. 



47 J 



ueving that Francis was Junius, is the moral 
resemblance between the two men. It is not 
difficult, from the letters which, under various 
signatures, are known to have been written by 
Junius, and from his dealings with Woodfall 
and others, to form a tolerably correct notion 
(.f his character. He was clearly a man not 
destitute of real patriotism and magnanimity — 
a man whose vices were not of a sordid kind. 
But he must also have been a man in the 
highest degree arrogant and insolent, a man 
prone to malevolence, and prone to the error 
of mistaking his malevolence for public virtue. 
"Doest thou well to be angry?" was the ques- 
tion asked in old time of the Hebrew prophet. 
And he answered, " I do well." This was evi- 
dently the temper of Junius ; and to this cause 
we attribute the savage cruelty which dis- 
graces several of his letters. No man is so 
merciless as he who, under a strong self-delu- 
sion, confounds his antipathies with his duties. 
It may be added, that Junius, though allied 
with the democratic party by common enmi- 
ties, was the very opposite of a democratic 
politician* While attacking individuals with 
a ferocity which perpetually violated all the 
laws of literary warfare, he regarded the most 
defective parts of old institutions with a re- 
spect amounting to pedantry ; — pleaded the 
cause of Old Sarum with fervour, and con- 
temptuously told the capitalists of Manchester 
and Leeds, that, if they wanted votes, they 
might buy land and become freeholders of 
Lancashire and Yorkshire. All this, we be- 
lieve, might stand, with scarcely any change, 
for a character of Philip Francis. 

It is not strange that the great anonymous 
writer should have been willing at that time 
to leave the country which had been so power- 
fully stirred by his eloquence. Every thing 
had gone against him. That parly which he 
clearly preferred to every other, the party of 
George Grenville, had been scattered by the 
death of its chief, and Lord Suffolk had led 
the greater part of it over to the ministerial 
benches. The ferment produced by the Mid- 
dlesex election had gone down. Every faction 
must have been alike an object of aversion to 
Junius^ His opinions on domestic affairs se- 
parated him from the Ministty, his opinions on 
colonial affairs from the Opposition. Under 
such circumstances he had thrown down his 
pen in misanthropic despair. His farewell 
letter to Woodfall bears date the 19th of Janu- 
ary, 1783. In that letter he declared that he 
must be an idiot to write again ; that he had 
meant well by the cause and the public ; that 
both were given up ; that there were not ten 
men who would act steadily together on any 
question. "But it is all alike," he added, "vile 
and contemptible. You have never flinched 
tha; I know of, and I shall always rejoice to 
hear of your prosperity." These were the last 
words of Junius. In a year from that time 
Philip Francis was on his voyage to Bengal. 

With the three new councillors came out 
'he judges of the Supreme Court. The Chief 
Justice was Sir Elijah Impey. He was an old 
acquaintance of Hastings, and it is probable 
that the Governor-General, if he had searched 
through all the Inns of Court, could not have 



found an equally serviceable tool. But th« 
members of Council were by no means in a» 
obsequious mood. Hastings greatly dislikec 
the new form of government, and had no very 
high opinion of his coadjutors. They had heard 
of this, and were disposed to be suspicious 
and punctilious. When men are in such a 
frame of mind, any trifle is sufficient to give 
occasion for dispute. The members of Couri- 
cil expected a salute of twenty-one guns fron? 
the batteries of Fort William. Hastings al- 
lowed them only seventeen. They landed in 
ill-humour. The first civilities were exchanged 
with cold reserve. On the morrow commenced 
that long quarrel which, after distracting Br> 
tish India, was renewed in England, and in 
which all the most eminent statesmen and ora- 
tors of the age took active part on one or the 
other side. 

Hastings was supported by Barwell. They 
had not always been friends. But the arrival 
of the new members of Council from England 
naturally had the effect of uniting the old ser- 
vants of the Company. Clavering, Monson, 
and Francis formed the majority. They in- 
stantly wrested the government out of the 
hands of Hastings ; condemned, certainly not 
without justice, his late dealings with the Na- 
bob Vizier; recalled the English agent from 
Oude, and sent thither a creature of their own • 
ordered the brigade which had conquered the 
unhappy Rohillas to return to the Company's 
territories, and instituted a severe inquiry into 
the conduct of the war. Next, in spite of the 
Governor-General's remonstrances, they pro- 
ceeded to exercise, in the most indiscreet man- 
ner, their new authority over the subordinate 
presidencies ; threw all the affairs of Bombay 
into confusion ; and interfered, with an incre- 
dible union of rashness and feebleness, in the 
intestine disputes of the Mahratta government. 
At the same time they fell on the internal ad- 
ministration of Bengal, and attacked the whole 
fiscal and judicial system — a system which was 
undoubtedly defective, but which it was very 
improbable that gentlemen fresh from England 
would be competent to amend. The effect of 
their reforms was, that all protection to life 
and property was withdrawn, and that gangs 
of robbers plundered and slaughtered with im- 
punity in the very suburbs of Calcutta. Has- 
tings continued to live in the Government- 
house, and to draw the salary of Governor- 
General. He continued even to take the lead 
at the council-board in the transaction of ordi- 
nary business ; for his opponents could not but 
feel that he knew much of which they were ig- 
norant, and that he decided, both surely and 
speedily, many questions which to them would 
have been hopelessly puzzling. But the higher 
powers of government and the most valuable 
patronage had been taken from him. 

The natives soon found this out.* They con- 
sidered him as a fallen man, and they acted 
after their kind. Some of our readers may 
have seen in India a cloud of crows pecking a 
sick vulture to death — no bad type of what 
happens in that country as oftet as fortune 
deserts one who has beer, great and dreaded. 
In an instant all the sycophants who had lately 
been ready to lie for him, to forge for hira te 



472 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



pander for him, to. poison for him, hasten to 
purchase the favour of his victorious enemies 
by accusing him. An Indian government has 
only to let it he understood that it wishes a 
particular man to be ruined, and in twenty- 
four hours it will be furnished with grave 
charges, supported by depositions so full and 
circumstantial, that any person unaccustomed 
to Asiatic mendacity would regard them as de- 
cisive. It is well if the signature of the des- 
tined victim is not counterfeited at the foot of 
some illegal compact, and if some treasonable 
paper is not slipped into a hiding-place in his 
house. Hastings was now regarded as help- 
less. The power to make or mar the fortune 
of every man in Bengal had passed, as it 
seemed, into the hands of his opponents. Im- 
mediately charges against the Governor-Gene- 
ral began to pour in. They were eagerly wel- 
comed by the majority, who, to do them justice, 
were men of too much honour knowingly to 
countenance false accusations, but who were 
not sufficiently acquainted with the East to be 
aware that, in that part of the world, a very 
little encouragement from power will call forth 
in a week more Oateses, and Bedloes, and Dan- 
gerfields than Westminster Hall sees in a cen- 
tury. 

It would have been strange indeed if, at such 
a juncture, Nuncomar had remained quiet. 
That bad man was stimulated at once by ma- 
lignity, by avarice, and by ambition. Now was 
the time to be avenged on his old enemy, to 
wreak a grudge of seventeen years, to establish 
himself in the favour of the majority of the 
Council, to become the greatest native of Ben- 
gal. From the time of the arrival of the new 
councillors, he had paid the most marked court 
to them, and had in consequence been exclud- 
ed, with all indignity, from the Government- 
house. He now put into the hands of Francis, 
with great ceremony, a paper containing seve- 
ral charges of the most serious description. 
By this document Hastings was accused of 
putting offices up to sale, and of receiving 
bribes for suffering offenders to escape. In 
particular, it was alleged that Mohammed Reza 
Khan had been dismissed with impunity, in 
consideration of a great sum paid to the Go- 
vernor-General. 

Francis read the paper in Council. A vio- 
lent altercation followed. Hastings complained 
in bitter terms of the way in which he was 
treated, spoke with contempt of Nuncomar and 
of Nuncomar' s accusation, and denied the right 
of the council to sit in judgment on the Go- 
vernor. At the next meeting of the Board, 
another communication from Nuncomar was 
produced. He requested that he might be per- 
mitted to attend the Council, and that he might 
be heard in support of his assertions. Another 
tempestuous debate took place. The Governor- 
General maintained that the council-room was 
not a proper place for such an investigation ; 
that from persons who were heated by daily 
conflict with him he could not expect the fair- 
ness of judges ; and that he could not, without 
betraying the dignity of his post, submit to be 
confronted with such a man as Nuncomar. 
The majority, however, resolved to go into the 
charges. Hastings rose, declared the sitting at 



an end, and left the room, followed by BarwelL 
The other members kept their seats, voted 
themselves a council, put Clavering in tha 
chair, and ordered Nuncomar to be called in 
Nuncomar not only adhered to the origina* 
charges, but, after the fashion of the East, pro 
duced a large supplement. He stated thai 
Hastings had received a great sum for appoint- 
ing Rajah Goordas treasurer of the Nabcb's 
household, and for committing the care of his 
highness's person to the Munny Begum. He 
put in a letter purporting to bear the seal of 
the Munny Begum, for the purpose of establish* 
ing the truth of his story. The seal, whether 
forged, as Hastings affirmed, or genuine, as we 
are rather inclined to believe, proved nothing. 
Nuncomar, as everybody knows who knows 
India, had only to tell the Munny Begum that 
such a letter would give pleasure to the major- 
ity of the Council, in order to procure her at- 
testation. The majority, however, voted that 
the charge was made out ; that Hastings had 
corruptly received between thirty and forty 
thousand pounds, and that he oughc to bs com- 
pellf.d to refund. 

Th-j general feeling among the English ir 
Bengal was strongly in favour of the Governor 
General. In talents for business, in knowledge 
of the country, in general courtesy of demean 
our, he was decidedly superior to his persecu 
tors. The servants of the Company were na 
rurally disposed to side with the most distin 
guished member of their own body against i 
War-office clerk, who, profoundly ignorant of 
the native languages and the native characters 
took on himself to regulate every departmenl 
of the administration. Hastings, however, in 
spite of the general sympathy of his countrymen, 
was in a most painful situation. There was still 
an appeal to higher authority in England. If 
that authority took part with his enemies, no- 
thing was left to him but to throw up his office. 
He accordingly placed his resignation in the 
hands of his agent in London, Colonel Mac- 
leane. But Macleane was instructed not to 
produce the resignation, unless it should be 
fully ascertained that the feeling at the India 
House was adverse to the Governor-General. 

The triumph of Nuncomar seemed to be 
complete. He held a daily levee, to which his 
countrymen resorted in crowds, and to which, 
on one occasion, the majority of the Council 
condescended to repair. His house was an 
office for the purpose of receiving charges 
against the Governor-General. It was said that, 
partly by threats and partly by wheedling, he 
had induced many of the wealthiest men of the 
province to send in complaints. But he was 
playing a desperate game. It was not safe to 
drive to despair a man of such resource and 
of such determination as Hastings. Nunco- 
mar, with all his acuteness, did not understand 
the nature of the institutions under which he 
lived. He saw that he had with him the ma- 
jority of the body which made treaties, gave 
places, raised taxes. The separation between 
political and judicial functions was a thing of 
which he had no conception. It had probably 
never occurred to him that there was in Bengal 
an authority perfectly independent of the Coun- 
cil — an authority which could protect one whom 



WARREN HASTINGS. 



473 



(he Council -wished lo destroy, and send to the 
gibbet one whom the Council wished to protect. 
Yet such was the fact. The Supreme Court 
was, within the sphere cf its own duties, alto- 
gether independent of t'.ie government. Hast- 
ings, with his usual sagacity, had seen how 
much advantage he might derive from possess- 
ing himself of this stronghold, and he had acted 
accordingly. The judges, especially the chief 
justice, were hostile to the majority of the 
Council. The time had now come for putting 
this formidable machinery in action. 

On a sudden, Calcutta was astounded by the 
news that Nuncomar had been taken up on a 
charge of felony, committed, and thrown into 
the common jail. The crime imputed to him 
was, that six years before he had forged a bond. 
The ostensible prosecutor was a native. But 
it was then and still is the opinion of every- 
body — idiots and biographers excepted — that 
Hastings was the real mover in the business. 

The rage of the majority rose to the highest 
point. They protested against the proceedings 
of the Supreme Court, and sent several urgent 
messengers to the judges, demanding that Nun- 
comar should be admitted to bail. The judges 
returned haughty and resolute answers. All 
that the Council could do, was to heap honours 
and emoluments on the family of Nuncomar ; 
and this they did. In the mean time the assizes 
commenced ; a true bill was found ; and Nun- 
comar was brought before Sir Elijah Impey 
and a jury, composed of Englishmen. A great 
quantity of contradictory swearing, and the 
necessity of having every word of the evidence 
interpreted, protracted the trial to a most unu- 
sual length. At last, a verdict of guilty was 
returned, and the Chief Justice pronounced 
sentence of death on the prisoner. Mr. Gleig is 
so strangely ignorant as to imagine that the 
judges had no further discretion in the case, 
and that the power of extending mercy to Nun- 
comar resided with the Council. He therefore 
throws on Francis, and Francis's party, the 
whole blame of what followed. We should 
nave thought that a gentleman who has pub- 
lished five or six bulky volumes on Indian 
affairs, might have taken the trouble to inform 
nimself as to the fundamental principles of the 
Indian government. The Supreme Court had, 
tinder the Regulating Act, the power to respite 
criminals till the pleasure of the crown should 
be known. The Council had, at that time, no 
power to interfere. 

That Impey ought to have respited Nunco- 
mar, we hold to be perfectly clear. Whether 
the whole proceeding was not illegal, is a ques- 
tion. But it is certain that, whatever may have 
been, according to technical rules of construc- 
tion, th3 affect of the statute under which the 
trial took place, it was most unjust to hang a 
Hindoo for forgery. The law which made 
forgery capital in England, was passed without 
the smallest reference to the state of society in 
India. It was unknown to the natives of India. 
It had never been put in execution among 
them — ceitainly not for want of delinquents. 
It was in the highest degree shocking to all 
their notions. They were not accustomed to 
the distinction which many circumstances, 
peculiar to our own state of society, have led 



us to make between forgery and other Kinds 
of cheating. The counterfeiting of a seal y> as, 
in their estimation, a common act of swindling; 
nor had it ever crossed their minds that it was 
to be punished as severely as gang-robbery or 
assassination. A just judge would, beyond all 
doubt, have reserved the case for the consider- 
ation of the sovereign. But Impey would not 
hear of mercy or delay. 

The excitement among all classes was great 
Francis, and Francis's few English adherents, 
described the Governor-General and the Chief 
Justice as the worst of murderers. Clavering, 
it was said, swore that, even at the foot of the 
gallows, Nuncomar should be rescued. The 
bulk of the European society, though strongly 
attached to the Governor-General, could not 
but feel compassion for a man, who, with all 
his crimes, had so long filled so large a space 
in their sight — who had been great and power- 
ful before the British empire in India began to 
exist — and to whom, in the old times, governors 
and members of Council, then mere commer 
cial factors, had paid court for protection. The 
feeling of the Hindoos was infinitely stronger. 
They were, indeed, not a people to strike one 
blow for their countryman. But his sentence 
filled them with sorrow and dismay. Tried 
even by their low standard of morality, he was 
a bad man. But, bad as he was, he was the 
head of their race and religion — a Brahmin of 
the Brahmins. He had inherited the purest 
and highest caste. He had practised, with the 
greatest punctuality, all those ceremonies' to 
which the superstitious Bengalees ascribed far 
more importance than to the correct discharge 
of the social duties. They felt, therefore, as a 
devout Catholic in the dark ages would have 
felt, at seeing a prelate of the highest dignity 
sent to the gallows by a secular tribunal. Ac- 
cording to their old national laws, a Brahmin 
could not be put to death for any crime what- 
ever. And the crime for which Nuncomar 
was about to die was regarded by them in 
much the same light in which the selling of an 
unsound horse, for a sound price, is regarded 
by a Yorkshire jockey. 

The Mohammedans alone appear to have 
seen with exultation the fate of the powerful 
Hindoo, who had attempted to rise by means 
of the ruin of Mohammed Reza Khan. The 
Mussulman historian of those times takes de- 
light in aggfavating the charge. He assures 
us, that in Nuncomar's house a casket was 
found containing counterfeits of the seals of all 
the richest men of the province. We have 
never fallen in with any other authority for 
this story, which, in itself, is by no means im- 
probable. 

The day drew near, and Nuncomar prepared 
himself to die, with that quiet fortitude with 
which the Bengalee, so effeminately timid in 
personal conflict, often encounters calamities 
for which there is no remedy. The sheriff, 
with the humanity which is seldom wanting in 
an English gentleman, visited the prisoner on 
the eve of the execution, and assured him that 
no indulgence, consistent with the law, should 
be refused him. Nuncomar expressed hia 
gratitude with great politeness and unaltered 
composure. Not a muscle of his face moved 



474 



MACAU" LAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Not a sigh broke from him. He put his finger 
to his forehead, and calmly said that fate would 
ftave its way, and that there was no resisting 
the pleasure of God. He sent his compliments 
to Francis, Clavering, and Monson, and charged 
them to protect Rajah Goordas, who was about 
to become the head of the Brahmins of Bengal. 
The sheriff withdrew, greatly agitated by what 
had passed, and Nuncomar sat composedly 
down to write notes and examine accounts. 

The next morning, before the sun was in 
his power, an immense concourse assembled 
round the place where the gallows had been 
set up. Grief and horror were on every face ; 
yet, to the last, the multitude could hardly be- 
lieve that the English really purposed to take 
the life of the great Brahmin. At length the 
mournful procession came through the crowd. 
Nuncomar sat up in his palanquin, and looked 
round him with unaltered serenity. He had 
just parted from those who were most nearly 
connected with him. Their cries and contor- 
tions had appalled the European ministers of 
justice, but had not produced the smallest 
effect on the iron stoicism of the prisoner. 
The only anxiety which he expressed was, that 
men of his own priestly caste might be in at- 
tendance to take charge of his corpse. He 
again desired to be remembered to his friends 
in the Council, mounted the scaffold with firm- 
ness, and gave the signal to the executioner. 
The moment that the drop fell, a howl of sor- 
row and despair rose from the innumerable 
spectators. Hundreds turned away their faces 
from the polluting sigh', fled with loud wait- 
ings towards the HoogVey, and plunged into its 
holy waters, as if to purify themselves from the 
guilt of having looked on such a crime. These 
feeling?; were not confined to Calcutta. The 
whole province was greatly excited ; and the 
population of Dacca, in particular, gave strong 
signs of grief and dismay. 

Of Impey's conduct, it is impossible to speak 
too severely. We have already said that, in 
our opinion, he acted unjustly in refusing to 
respite Nuncomar. No rational man can doubt 
that he took this course in order to gratify the 
Governor-General. If we had ever any doubts 
on that point, they would have been dispelled 
by a letter which Mr. Gleig has published. 
Hastings, three or four years later, described 
Impey as the man " to whose support he was 
at one time indebted for the safety of his for- 
tune, honour, and reputation." These strong 
Tords can refer only to the case of Nuncomar; 
and they must mean that Impey hanged Nun- 
comar in order to support Hastings. It is, 
therefore, our deliberate opinion, that Impey, 
sitting as a judge, put a man unjustly to death 
in order to serve a political purpose. 

But we look on the conduct of Hastings in a 
somewhat different light. He was struggling 
for fortune, honour, liberty — all that makes life 
valuable. He was ueset by rancorous and un- 
principled enemies. From his colleagues he 
could expect no justice. He cannot be blamed 
for wishing to crush his accusers. He was 
itiieed bound to use only legitimate means for 
that end. But it was not strange that he should 
have thought any means legitimate which were 
oronounced legitimate by the sages of the law 



— by men whose peculiar duty it was to deal 
justly between adversaries, and whose educa- 
tion might be supposed to have peculiarly quah 
fied them for the discharge of that duty. No- 
body demands from a party the unbending 
equity of a judge. The reason that judges are 
appointed is, that even good men cannot be 
trusted to decide causes in which they are 
themselves concerned. Not a day passes on 
which an honest prosecutor does not ask for 
what none but a dishonest tribunal would 
grant. It is too much to expect that any man, 
when his dearest interests are at stake, and his 
strongest passions excited, will, as against 
himself, be more just than the sworn dispensers 
of justice. To take an analogous case from 
the history of- our own island: Suppose the 
Lord Stafford, when in the Tower on suspicion 
of being concerned in the Popish plot, had 
been apprized that Titus Oates had done some- 
thing which might, by a questionable construc- 
tion, be brought under the head of felony. 
Should we severely blame Lord Stafford, in the 
supposed case, for causing a prosecution to be 
instituted, for furnishing funds, for using all 
his influence to intercept the mercy of the 
crown'? We think not. If a judge, indeed, 
from favour to the Catholic lord, were to 
strain the law in order to hang Oates, such a 
judge would richly deserve impeachment. But 
it does not appear to us that the Catholic lord, 
by bringing the case before the judge for deci- 
sion, would materially overstep the limits of a 
just self-defence. 

While, therefore, we have not the least doubt 
that this memorable execution is to be attri- 
buted to Hastings, we doubt whether it can 
with justice be reckoned among his crimes. 
That his conduct was dictated by a profound 
policy, is evident. He was in a minority in 
Council. It was possible that he might long 
be in a minority. He knew the native cha- 
racter well. He knew in what abundance ac- 
cusations are certain to flow in against the 
most innocent inhabitant of India who is 
under the frown of power. There was not in 
the whole black population of Bengal, a place- 
holder, a place-hunter, a government tenant, 
who did not think that he might better himsell 
by sending up a deposition against the Go- 
vernor-General. Under these circumstances, 
the persecuted statesman resolved to teach the 
whole crew of accusers and witnesses, that, 
though in a minority at the Council-board, he 
was still to be feared. The lesson which he 
gave them was indeed one not to be forgotten. 
The head of the combination which had been 
formed against him, the richest, the most 
powerful, the most artful of the Hindoos, dis- 
tinguished by the favour of those who then 
held the government, fenced round by the su- 
perstitious reverence of millions, was hanged 
in broad day before many thousand people. 
Every thing that could make the warning im 
pressive — dignity in the sufferer, solemnity in 
the proceeding — was found in this case. The 
helpless rage and vain struggles of the Council 
made the triumph more signal. From that 
moment the conviction of every native was, 
that it was safer to take the part of Hastings in 
a minority, than that of Francis in a majority 



WARRING HASTINGS. 



476 



and that he who was so venturous as to join 
in running down the Governor-General, might 
chance, in the phrase of the Eastern poet, to 
find a tiger, while beating the jungle for a deer. 
The voices of a thousand informers were si- 
lenced in an instant. From that time, what- 
ever difficulties Hastings might have to en- 
counter, he was never molested by accusations 
from natives oflndia. 

It is a remarkable circumstance, that one. of 
the letters of Hastings to Dr. Johnson, bears 
date a very few hours after the death of Nun- 
comar. While the whole settlement was in 
commotion, — while a mighty and ancient 
priesthood were weeping over the remains of 
their chief — the conqueror in that deadly grap- 
ple sat down, with characteristic self-posses- 
sion, to write about the Tour to the Hebrides, 
Jones's Persian Grammar, and the history, tra- 
ditions, arts, and natural productions oflndia! 

In the mean time, intelligence of the Rohilla 
war, and of the first disputes between Hastings 
and his colleagues, had reached London. The 
Directors took part with the majority, and sent 
out a letter, filled with severe reflections on the 
conduct of Hastings. They condemned, in 
strong but just terras, the iniquity of under- 
taking offensive wars merely for the sake of 
pecuniary advantages. But they utterly forgot 
that, if Hastings had by illicit means obtained 
pecuniary advantages, he had done so, not for 
his own benefit, but in order to meet their de- 
mands. To enjoin honesty, and to insist in 
having what could not be honestly got, was then 
the constant practice of the Company. As 
Lady Macbeth says of her husband, they " would 
not play false, and yet would wrongly win." 

The Regulating Act, by which Hastings had 
been appointed Governor-General for five years, 
empowered the Crown to remove him on an 
address from the Company. Lord North was 
desirous to procure such an address. The three 
members of Council who had been sent out 
from England, were men of his own choice. 
General Clavering, in particular, was sup- 
ported by a large parliamentary connection, 
such as no cabinet could be inclined to dis- 
oblige. The wish of the minister was to dis- 
place Hastings, and to put Clavering at the 
head of the government. In the Court of Di- 
rectors parties were very nearly balanced ; 
eleven voted against Hastings — ten for him. 
The Court of Proprietors was then convened. 
The great sale-room presented a singular ap- 
pearance. Letters had been sent by the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, exhorting all the sup- 
porters of government who held India stock to 
be in attendance. Lord Sandwich marshalled 
the friends of the administration with his usual 
dexterity and alertness. Fifty peers and privy- 
councillors, seldom seen so far eastward, were 
counted in the crowd. The debate lasted till 
midn'ght. The opponents of Hastings had a 
small superiority on the division ; but a ballot 
was demanded, and the result was, that the 
Governor-General triumphed by a majority of 
above a hundred over the combined efforts of 
the Directors and the cabinet. The ministers 
were greatly exasperated by this defeat. Even 
Lord North lost his temper — no ordinary Oc- 
currence with him — and threatened to convoke 



Parliament before Christmas, and to bring in 
a bill for depriving the Company of all political 
power, and for restricting it to its old business 
of trading in silks and teas. 

Colonel Macleane, who through all this con- 
flict, had zealously supported the cause of 
Hastings, now thought that his employer was 
in imminent danger of being turned out, brand- 
ed with parliamentary censure, perhaps prose* 
cuted. The opinion of the crown lawyers had 
already been taken, respecting some parts of 
the Governor-General's conduct It seemed to 
be high time to think of a secure and honour- 
able, retreat. Under these circumstances, Mac- 
leane thought himself justified in producing 
the resignation with which he had been in- 
trusted. The instrument was not in very ac- 
curate form ; but the Directors were too eager 
to be scrupulous. They accepted the resigna- 
tion, fixed on Mr. Wheler, one of their own 
body, to succeed Hastings, and sent out orders 
that General Clavering, as senior member of 
Council, should exercise the functions of Go- 
vernor-General till Mr. Wheler should arrive. 

But while these things were passing in Eng- 
land, a great change had taken place in Bengal. 
Monson was no more. Only four members of 
the government were left. Clavering and 
Francis were on the one side, Barwell and the 
Governor-General on the other ; and the Go- 
vernor-General had the casting vote. Hastings, 
who had been during two years destitute of all 
power and patronage, became at once absolute. 
He instantly proceeded to retaliate on his ad- 
versaries. Their measures were reversed; 
their creatures were displaced. A new valua- 
tion of the lands of Bengal, for the purposes of 
taxation, was ordered ; and it was provided 
that the whole inquiry should be conducted by 
the Governor-General, and that all the letters 
relating to it should run in his name. He be- 
gan, at the same time, to revolve vast plans of 
conquest and dominion ; plans which he lived 
to see realized, though not by himself. His 
project was to form subordinary alliances with 
the native princes, particularly with those" of 
Oude and Berar ; and thus to make Britain the 
paramount power in India. While he was me- 
ditating these great designs, arrived the intelli 
gence that he had ceased to be Governor 
General, that his resignation had been ac- 
cepted, that Mr. Wheler was coming out imme- 
diately, and that, till Mr. Wheler arrived, the 
chair was to be filled by Clavering. 

Had Monson been still alive, Hastings would 
probably have retired without a struggle ; but 
he has now the real master of British India, 
and he was not disposed to quit his high place. 
He asserted that he had never given any in- 
structions which could warrant the steps which 
had been taken. What his instructions had 
been, he owned he had forgotten. If he had 
kept a copy of them, he had mislaid it. But he 
was certain that he had repeatedly declared to 
the Directors that he would not resign. He 
could not see how the court, possessed of that 
declaration from himself, could receive his re- 
signation from the doubtful hands of an agent. If 
the resignation were invalid, all the proceedings 
which were founded on that resignation were 
null, and Hastings was still Governor-Genera) 



476 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



He afterwards affirmed that, though his 
agents had not acted in conformity with his in- 
structions, he would nevertheless have held 
himself bound by their acts, if Clavering had 
not attempted to seize the supreme power by 
violence. Whether this assertion were or were 
not true, it cannot be doubted that the impru- 
dence of Clavering gave Hastings an advan- 
tage. The General sent for the keys of the 
fort and the treasury, took possession of the re- 
cords, and held a Council at which Francis 
attended. Hastings took the chair in another 
apartment, and Barwell sat with him. Each of 
the two parties had a plausible show of right. 
There was no authority entitled to their obedi- 
v ence within fifteen thousand miles. It seemed 
that there remained no way of settling the dis- 
pute except an appeal to arms ; and from such 
an appeal Hastings, confident of his influence 
over his countrymen in India, was not inclined 
to shrink. He directed the officers of the garri- 
son of Fort William, and of all the neighbour- 
ing stations, to obey no orders but his. At the 
same time, with admirable judgment, he offered 
to submit the case to the Supreme Court, 
and to abide by its decision. By making 
this proposition he risked nothing ; yet it was a 
proposition which his opponents could hardly 
reject. Nobody could be treated as a criminal, 
for obeying what the judges had solemnly pro- 
nounced to be the lawful government. The 
boldest man would shrink from taking arms in 
defence of what the judges should pronounce 
to be usurpation. Clavering and Francis, 
after some delay, unwillingly consented to 
abide by the award of the court. The court 
pronounced that the resignation was invalid, 
and that therefore Hastings was still Governor- 
General under the Regulating Act; and the de- 
feated members of the Council, finding that the 
sense of the whole settlement was against 
them, acquiesced in the decision. 

About this time arrived the news that, after 
a. suit which had lasted several years, the 
Franeonian courts had decreed a divorce be- 
tween Imhoff and his wife. The Baron left 
Calcutta, carrying with him the means of buy- 
ing an estate in Saxony. The lady became 
Mrs. Hastings. The event was celebrated by 
great festivities , and all the most conspicuous 
persons at Calcutta, without distinction of par- 
ties, were invited to the Government-house. 
Clavering, as the Mohammedan chronicler 
tells the story, was sick in mind and body, and 
excused himself from joining the splendid 
assembly. But Hastings, whom, as it should 
seem, success in ambition and in love had put 
into high humour, would take no denial. He 
went himself to the General's house, and at 
length brought his vanquished rival in triumph 
to the gay circle which surrounded the bride. 
The exertion was too much for a frame broken 
fey mortification as well as by disease — Claver- 
ing died a few days later. 

Wheler, who came out expecting to be Go- 
vernor-General, and was forced to content him- 
self with a seat at the Council-board, generally 
voted with Francis. But the Governor-General, 
with Barwell's help and his own casting vote, 
was still the master. Some change took place 
aJt this time in the feeling; both of the Court of 



Directors and of the Ministers of the Crown. 
All designs against Hastings were dropped ; 
and when his original term of five years ex- 
pired, he was quietly reappointed. The truth 
is, that the fearful dangers to which the public 
interests in every quarter were now exposed, 
made both Lord North and the Company un 
willing to part with a Governor, whose talents, 
experience, and resolution, enmity itself was 
compelled to acknowledge. 

The crisis was indeed formidable. That 
great and victorious empire, on the throne of 
which George the Third had taken his seat 
eighteen years before, with brighter hopes than 
had attended the accession of any of the long 
line of English sovereigns, had, by the most 
senseless misgovernment, been brought to the 
verge of ruin. In America millions of English- 
men were at war with the country from which 
their blood, their language, their religion, anc 
their institutions were derived; and to which, 
but a short time before, they had been as 
strongly attached as the inhabitants of Norfolk 
and Leicestershire. ' The great powers of 
Europe, humbled to the dust by the vigour and 
genius which had guided the councils of 
George the Second, now rejoiced in the pros- 
pect of a signal revenge. The time was ap- 
proaching when our island, while struggling to 
keep down the United States of America, and 
pressed with a still nearer danger by the too 
just discontents of Ireland, was to be assailed 
by France, Spain, and Holland, and to be 
threatened by the armed neutrality of the Bal- 
tic; when even our maritime supremacy was 
to be in jeopardy ; when hostile fleets were to 
command the Straits of Calpe and the Mexican 
Sea ; when the British flag was to be scarcely 
able to protect the British Channel. Great as 
were the faults of Hastings, it was happy for 
our country that at that conjuncture, the most 
terrible through which she has ever passed, he 
was the ruler of her Indian dominions. 

An attack by sea on Bengal was little to be 
apprehended. The danger was, that the 
European enemies of England might form an 
alliance with some native power — might fur- 
nish that power with troops, arms, and ammu- 
nition — and might thus assail our possessions 
on the side of the land. It was chiefly from the 
Mahrattas that Hastings anticipated danger. 
The original seat of that singular people was 
the wild range of hills which run along the 
western coast of India. In the reign of Aurung- 
zebe,the inhabitants of those regions, led by 
the great Sevajee, began to descend on the pos- 
sessions of their wealthier and less warlike 
neighbours. The energy, ferocity, and cun- 
ning of the Mahrattas, soon made them the 
most conspicuous among the new powers 
which were generated by the corruption of the 
decaying monarchy. At first they were only 
robbers. They soon rose to the dignity of con- 
querors. Half the provinces of the empire 
were turned into Mahratta principalities. Free- 
booters, sprung from low castes, and accustom- 
ed to menial employments, became mighty 
Rajahs. The Bonslas, at the head of a band 
of plunderers, occupied the vast region of 
Berar. The Guicowar, which is, being inter- 
preted, the Herdsman, founded that dynasty 



WARREN HASTINGS 



477 



which still reigns in Guzerat. The houses of 
Scindia and Holkar waxed great in Malwa. 
One adventurous captain made his nest on the 
impregnable rock of Gooti. Another became 
the lord of the thousand villages which are 
scattered among the green rice-fields of Tan- 
jore. 

That was the time, throughout India, of 
double government. The form and the power 
where everywhere separated. The Mussulman 
Nabobs, who had become sovereign princes — 
the Vizier in Oude, and the Nizam at Hydra- 
bad— still called themselves the viceroys of the 
house of Tamerlane. In the same manner the 
Mahratta states, though really independent, 
pretended to be members of one empire; and 
acknowledged, by words and ceremonies, the 
supremacy of the heir of Sevajee — a roi faineant 
who chewed bang, and toyed with dancing 
girls, in a state-prison at Sattara — and of his 
Peshwa or mayor of the palace, a great heredi- 
tary magistrate, who kept a court with kingly 
state at Poonah, and whose authority was 
obeyed in the spacious provinces of Aurunga- 
bad and Bajapoor. 

Some months before war was declared in 
Europe, the government of Bengal was alarm- 
ed by the news that a French adventurer, who 
passed for a man of quality, had arrived at 
Poonah. It was said that he had been received 
there with great distinction — that he had de- 
livered to the Peshwa letters and presents from 
Louis the Sixteenth, — and that a treaty, hos- 
tile to England, had been concluded between 
France and the Mahrattas. 

Hastings immediately resolved to strike the 
first blow. The title of the Peshwa was not un- 
disputed. A portion of the Mahratta nation was 
favourable to a pretender. The Governor- 
General determined to espouse this pretender's 
interest, to move an army across the peninsula 
of India, and to form a close alliance with the 
chief of the house of Bonsla, who ruled Berar, 
and who, in power and dignity, was inferior to 
none of the Mahratta princes. 

The army had marched, and the negotiations 
with Berar were in progress, when a letter 
from the English consul at Cairo, brought the 
news that war had been proclaimed both in 
London and Paris. All the measures which 
the crisis required were adopted by Hastings 
without a moment of delay. The French fac- 
tories in Bengal were seized. Orders were 
sent to Madras that Pondicherry should instant- 
jy be occupied. Near Calcutta, works were 
thrown up, which were thought to render the 
approach of a hostile force impossible. A 
maritime establishment was formed for the de- 
fence of the river. Nine new battalions of 
sepoys were raised, and a corps of native artil- 
lery was formed out of the hardy Lascars of 
the Bay of Bengal. Having made these ar- 
rangements, the Governor-General with calm 
confidence pronounced his presidency secure 
from all attack, unless the Mahrattas should 
march against it in conjunction with the 
French. 

The expedition which Hastings had sent 

westward was not so speedily or completely 

successful as most of his undertakings. The 

commanding-officer procrastinated. The au- 

31 



thorities at Bombay bvundered. But the Go 
vernor-General persevered. A new command 
er repaired the errors cf his predecessor 
Several brilliant actions spread the militarj 
renown of the English through regions whf ra 
no European flag had ever been seen. It i3 
probable that, if a new and more formidable 
danger had not compelled Hastings to change 
his whole policy, his plans respecting the 
Mahratta empire would have been carried into 
complete effect. 

The authorities in England had wisely sent 
out to Bengal, as commander of the forces, and 
member of the Council, one of the most distin- 
guished soldiers of that time. Sir Eyre Coote 
had, many years before, been conspicuous 
among the founders of the British Empire in 
the East. At the council of war which pre- 
ceded the battle of Plassey, he earnestly re- 
commended, in opposition to the majority, that 
daring course which, after some hesitation, 
was adopted, and which was crowned with 
such splendid success. He subsequently com- 
manded in the south of India against the brave 
and unfortunate Lally, gained the decisive 
battle of Wandewash over the French and their 
native allies, took Pondicherry, and made the 
English power supreme in the Carnatic 
Since those great exploits near twenty years 
had elapsed. Coote had no longer the bodily 
activity which he had shown in earlier days ; 
nor was the vigour of his mind altogether un- 
impaired. He was capricious and fretful, and 
required much coaxing to keep him in good- 
humour. It must, we fear, be added, that the 
love of money had grown upon him, and that 
he thought more about his allowances, and less 
about his duties, than might have been expect- 
ed from so eminent a member of so noble a 
profession. Still he was perhaps the ablest 
officer that was then to be found in the British 
army. Among the native soldiers his name 
was great and his influence unrivalled. Nor 
is he yet forgotten by them. Now and then a 
white-bearded old sepoy may still be found, 
who loves to talk of Porto Novo and Pollilore. 
It is but a short time since one of those aged 
men came to present a memorial to an English 
officer, who holds one of the highest employ- 
ments in India; a print of Coote hung in the 
room ; the veteran recognised at once that face 
and figure which he had not seen for more than 
half a century, and, forgetting his salam to the 
living, halted, drew himself up, lifted his hand, 
and with solemn reverence paid his military 
obeisance to the dead. 

Coote did not, like Barwell, vote constantly 
with the Governor-General ; but he was by no 
means inclined to join in systematic opposi- 
tion and on most questions concurred with 
Hastings, who did his best, by assiduous court- 
ship, and by readily granting the most exorbi- 
tant allowances, to gratify the strongest pas- 
sions of the old soldier. 

It seemed likely at this time that a generaj 
reconciliation would put an end to the quarrels 
which had, during some years, weakened and 
disgraced the government of Bengal. The 
dangers of the empire might well induce men 
of patriotic feeling — and of patriotic feeJins,, 
neither Hastings nor Francis was destitute • 



478 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



to forget private enmities, and to co-operate 
neartily for the general good. Coote had 
never beon concerned in faction. Wheler was 
thoroughly tired of it. Barwell had made an 
ample fortune, and though he had promised 
that he would not leave Calcutta while Hast- 
ings wanted his help, was most desirous to re- 
turn to England, and exerted himself to pro- 
mote an arrangement which would 3&t him at 
liberty. A compact was made, by which 
Francis agreed to desist from opposition, and 
Hastings engaged that the friends of Francis 
should be admitted to a fair share of the ho- 
nours and emoluments of the service. During 
a few months after this treaty there was ap- 
parent harmony at the Council-board. 

Harmony, indeed, was never more neces- 
sary; for at this moment internal calamities, 
more formidable than war itself, menaced Ben- 
gal. The authors of the Regulating Act of 
1773 had established two independent powers, 
the one judicial, the other political; and, with 
a carelessness scandalously common in Eng- 
lish legislation, had omitted to define the limits 
of either. The judges took advantage of the 
indistinctness, and attempted to draw to them- 
selves supreme authority, not only within Cal- 
cutta, but through the whole of the great terri- 
tory subject to the presidency of Fort William. 
There are few Englishmen who will not admit 
that the English law, in spite of modern im- 
provements, is neither so cheap nor so speedy 
as might be wished. Still, it is a system which 
has grown up amongst us. In some points, it 
has been fashioned to suit our feelings ; in 
others, it has gradually fashioned our feelings 
to suit itself. Even to its worst evils we are 
accustomed; and therefore, though we may 
complain of them, they do not strike us with 
the horror and dismay which would be pro- 
duced by a new grievance of smaller severity. 
In India the case is widely different. English 
law, transplanted to that country, has all the 
vices from which we suffer here ; it has them 
all in a far higher degree ; and it has other 
vices, compared with which the worst vices 
from which we suffer are trifles. Dilatory 
here, it is far more dilatory in a land where 
the help of an interpreter is needed by every 
judge and by every advocate. Costly here, it 
is far more costly in a land into which the 
legal practitioners must be imported from an 
immense distance. All English labour in 
India, from the labour of the Governor-General 
and the Commander-in-Chief, down to that of 
a groom or a watchmaker, must be paid for at 
a higher rate than at home. No man will be 
banished, and banished to the torrid zone, for 
nothing. The rule holds good with respect to 
the legal profession. No English barrister 
wiM work, fifteen thousand miles from all his 
friends, wjth the thermometer at ninety-six in 
the shade, for the same emoluments which will 
content him in the Chambers that overlook the 
Thames. Accordingly, the fees in Calcutta 
ure about three times as great as the fees of 
Westminster Hall; and this, though the people 
of India are, beyond all comparison, poorer 
tian the people of England. Yet the delay and 
■ the expense, grievous as they are, form the 
smallest part of the evil which English law, 



imported without modifications into India 
could not fail to produce. The strongest feei 
ings of our nature, honour, religion, female 
modesty, rose up against the innovation. Ar 
rest on mesne process was the first step in most 
civil proceedings ; and to a native of rank r ar« 
rest was not merely a restraint, but a foul per- 
sonal indignity. Oaths were required in every 
stage of every suit; and the feeling of a quaker 
about an oath is hardly stronger than that of a 
respectable native. That the apartments of a 
woman of quality should be entered by strange 
men, or that her face should be seen by them, 
are, in the East, intolerable outrages — outrages 
which are more dreaded than death, and which 
can be expiated only by the shedding of blood. 
To these outrages the most distinguished fami- 
lies of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, were now 
exposed. Imagine what the state of our own 
country would be, if a jurisprudence were, on 
a sudden, introduced amongst us, which should 
be to us what our jurisprudence was to our 
Asiatic subjects. Imagine what the state of 
our own country would be, if it were enacted 
that any man, by merely swearing that a debt 
was due to him, should acquire a right to in- 
sult the persons of men of the most honourable 
and sacred callings, and of women of the most 
shrinking delicacy, to horsewhip a general 
officer, to put a bishop in the stocks, to treat 
ladies in the way which called forth the blow 
of Wat Tyler. Something like this was the 
effect of the attempt which the Supreme Court 
made to extend its jurisdiction over the whole 
of the Company's territory. 

A reign of terror began — of terror height- 
ened by mystery; for even that which was 
endured was less horrible than that which was 
anticipated. No man knew what was next to 
be expected from this strange tribunal. It 
came from beyond the black water, as the 
people of India, with mysterious horror, call 
the sea. It consisted of judges, not one of 
whom spoke the language, or was familiar 
with the usages, of the millions over whom 
they claimed boundless authority. Its records 
were kept in unknown characters; its sen- 
tences were pronounced in unknown sounds. 
It had already collected round itself an army 
of the worst part of the native population — in- 
formers, and false witnesses, and common bar- 
rators, and agents of chicane ; and, above all, 
a banditti of bailiffs' followers, compared with 
whom the retainers of the worst English 
spunging-houses, in the worst times, might be 
considered as upright and tender-hearted. 
Numbers of natives, highly considered among 
their countrymen, were seized, hurried up to 
Calcutta, flung into the common jail — not for 
any crime ever imputed — not for any debt that 
had been proved, but merely as a precaution 
till their cause should come to trial. There 
were instances in which men of the most 
venerable dignity, persecuted without a cause 
by extortioners, died of rage and shame in the 
gripe of the vile alguazils of Impey. The ha- 
rems of noble Mohammedans — sanctuaries 
respected in the East by governments which 
respected nothing else — were burst open by 
gangs of bailiffs. The Mussulmans, braver 
and less accustomed to submission than the 



WARREN HASTINGS. 



47» 



Hindoos, sometimes stood on their defence ; 
and there were instances in which they shed 
their blood in the doorway, while defending, 
sword in hand, the sacred apartments of their 
women. Nay, it seemed as if even the faint- 
hearted Bengalee, who had crouched at the 
feet of Surajah Dowlah, who had been mute 
during the administration of Vansittart, would 
at length find courage in despair- No Mah- 
ratta invasion had ever spread through the 
province such dismay as this inroad of Eng- 
lish lawyers. All the injustice of former op- 
pressors, Asiatic and European, appeared as 
a blessing when compared with the justice of 
the Supreme Court. 

Every class of the population, English and 
native, with the exception of the ravenous pet- 
tifoggers who fattened on the misery and ter- 
ror of an immense community, cried out loudly 
against this fearful oppression. But the judges 
were immovable. If a bailiff was resisted, 
they ordered the soldiers to be called out. If 
a servant of the Company, in conformity with 
the orders of the government, withstood the 
miserable catch-poles who, with Impey's writs 
in their hands, exceeded the insolence and 
rapacity of gang-robbers, he was flung into 
prison for a contempt. The lapse of sixty 
years — the virtue and wisdom of many emi- 
nent magistrates, who have during that time 
administered justice in the Supreme Court — 
have not effaced from the minds of the peo- 
ple of Bengal the recollection of those evil 
days. 

The members of the government were, on 
this subject, united as one man. Hastings had 
courted the judges ; he had found them useful 
instruments. But he was not disposed to make 
them his own masters, or the masters of India. 
His mind was large; his knowledge of the 
native character most accurate. He saw that 
the system pursued by the Supreme Court was 
degrading to the government, and ruinous to 
the people ; and resolved to oppose it man- 
fully. The consequence was, that the friend- 
ship — if that be the proper word for such a 
connection — which had existed between him 
and Impey, was for a time completely dis- 
solved. The government placed itself firmly 
between the tyrannical tribunal and the peo- 
ple. The Chief Justice proceeded to the wild- 
est excesses. The Governor-General and all 
the members of Council were served with 
summonses, calling on them to appear before 
the king's justices, and to answer for their 
public acts. This was too much. Hastings, 
with just scorn, refused to obey the call, set at 
liberty the persons wrongfully detained by the 
court, and took measures for resisting the out- 
rageous proceedings of the sheriff's officers, 
if necessary by the sword. But he had in 
view another device, which might prevent the 
necessity of an appeal to arms. He was sel- 
dom at a loss for an expedient; and he knew 
Impey well. The expedient, in this case, was 
a very simple one — neither more nor less than 
a bribe. Impey was, by act of Parliament, a 
judge, independent of the government of Ben- 
gal, and entitled to a salary of 8,000/. a year. 
Hastings proposed to make him also a judge 
in the Company's service, removable at the 



pleasure of the government of Bengal ! and to 
give him, in that capacity, about 8,000/. a year 
more. It was understood that, in consideration 
of this new salary, Impey would desist from 
urging the high pretensions of his court. If 
he did urge these pretensions, the government 
could, at a moment's notice, eject him from the 
new place which had been created for him. 
The bargain was struck, Bengal was saved, 
an appeal to force was averted ; and the Chiei 
Justice was rich, quiet, and infamous. 

Of Impey's conduct it is unnecessary to 
speak. It was of a piece with almost every 
part of his conduct that comes undegr the no- 
tice of history. No other such judge has dis- 
honoured the English ermine, since Jeffries 
drank himself to death in the Tower. But we 
cannot agree with those who have blamed 
Hastings for this transaction. The case stood 
thus. The negligent manner in which the 
Regulating Act had been framed, put it in the 
power of the Chief Justice to throw a great 
country into the most dreadful confusion. He 
was determined to use his power to the utmost, 
unless he was paid to be still ; and Hastings 
consented to pay him. The necessity was to 
be deplored. It is also to be deplored that 
pirates should be able to exact ransom, by 
threatening to make their captives walk the 
plank. But to ransom a captive from pirates 
has always been held a humane and Christian 
act; and it would be absurd to charge the 
payer of the ransom with corrupting the virtue 
of the corsair. This, we seriously think, is a 
not unfair illustration of the relative position 
of Impey, Hastings, and the people of India 
Whether it was right in Impey to demand or 
to accept a price for powers which, if they 
really belonged to him, he could not abdicate 
— which, if they did not belong to him, he 
ought never to have usurped — and which in 
neither case he could honestly sell — is one 
question. It is quite another question, whethei 
Hastings was not right to give any sum, how 
ever large, to any man, however worthless, 
rather than either surrender millions of hu 
man beings to pillage, or rescue them by 
civil war. 

Francis strongly opposed this arrangement 
It may, indeed, be suspected that personal 
aversion to Impey was as strong a motive with 
Francis as regard for the welfare of the pro- 
vince. To a mind burning with resentment, 
it might seem better to leave Bengal to the op 
pressors, than to redeem it by enriching them. 
It is not improbable', on the other hand, that 
Hastings may have been the more willing to 
resort to an expedient agreeable to the Chief 
Justice, because that high functionary had al- 
ready been so serviceable, and might, when 
existing dissensions were composed, be ser- 
viceable again. 

But it was not on this point aione that 
Francis was now opposed to Hastings. The 
peace between them proved to be only a shori 
and hollow truce, during which their mutual 
aversion was constantly becoming stronger 
At length an explosion took place. Hastings 
publicly charged Francis with having deceived 
him, and induced Barwell to quit the service 
by insincere promises. Then came a dispute 



430 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



such as frequently arises even between ho- 
nourable men, when they make important 
agreements by mere verbal communication. 
An impartial historian will probably be of opi- 
nion that they had misunderstood each other ; 
but their minds were so much imbiltered, that 
they imputed to each other nothing less than 
deliberate villany. "I do not," said Hastings, 
in a minute recorded in the Consultations of 
the Government- " I do not trust to Mr. 
Francis's promises of candour, convinced that 
he is incapable of it. I judge of his public 
conduct by his private, which I have found to 
be void of truth and honour." After the Coun- 
cil had risen, Francis put a challenge into the 
Governor-General's hand : it was instantly ac- 
cepted. They met, and fired. Francis was 
shot through the body. He was carried to a 
neighbouring house, where it appeared that 
the wound, though severe, was not mortal. 
Hastings inquired repeatedly after his enemy's 
health, and proposed to call on him ; but 
Francis coldly declined the visit. He had a 
proper sense, he said, of the Governor-Ge- 
neral's politeness, but must decline any private 
interview. They could meet only at the Coun- 
cil-board. 

In a very short time it was made signallv 
manifest to how great a danger the Governor- 
General had, on this occasion, exposed his 
country. A crisis arrived with which he, and 
be alone, was competent to deal. It is net too 
j»uch to say, that, if he had been taken from 
the head of affairs, the years 17S0 and 1781 
would have been as fatal to our power in Asia 
as to our power in America. 

The Mahrattas had been the chief objects 
of apprehension to Hastings. The measures 
which he had adopted for the purpose of break- 
ing their power, had at first been frustrated by 
the errors of those whom he was compelled to 
employ ; but his perseverance and ability 
seemed likely to be crowned with success, 
when a far more formidable danger showed it- 
self in a distant quarter. 

About thirty years before this time, a Moham- 
medan soldier had begun to distinguish him- 
self in the wars of Southern India. His edu- 
cation had been neglected ; his extraction was 
mean. His father had been a petty officer of 
revenue ; his grandfather a wandering Dervise. 
But though thus meanly descended — though 
ignorant even of the alphabet — the adventurer 
had no sooner been placed at the head of a 
body of troops, than he approved himself a 
man born for conquest and command. Among 
the crowd of chiefs who were struggling for a 
share of India, none could compare with him 
in the qualities of the captain and the states- 
man. He became a general — he became a 
prince. Out of the fragments of old princi- 
palities, which had gone to pieces in the ge- 
neral wreck, he formed for himself a great, 
compact, and vigorous empire. That empire 
he ruied with the ability, severity, and vigi- 
lance of Louis the Eleventh. Licentious in 
his pleasures, implacable in his revenge, he 
had yet enlargement of mind enough to per- 
eeive how much the prosperity of subjects adds 
to the strength of governments. He was an 
»pres«or but he had at least the mprit of pro- 



tecting his people against all oppression except 
his own. He was now in extreme old age; 
but his intellect was as clear, and his spirit as 
high, as in the prime of manhood. Such was 
the great Hyder Ali, the founder of the Mohan> 
medan kingdom of Mysore, and the most for- 
midable enemy with whom the English con- 
querors of India have ever had to contend. 

Had Hastings been Governor of Madras, 
Hyder would have been either made a frieno 
or vigorously encountered as an enemy. Un 
happily the English authorities in the south 
provoked their powerful neighbour's hostility, 
without being prepared to repel it. On a sud- 
den, an army of ninety thousand men, far su 
perior in discipline and efficiency to any other 
native force that could be found in India, came 
pouring through those wild passes, which, 
worn by mountain torrents, and dark with 
jungle, lead down from the table-land of My- 
sore to the plains of the Carnatic. This great 
army was accompanied by a hundred pieces 
of cannon; and its movements were guided 
by many French officers, trained in the best 
military schools of Europe. 

Hyder was everywhere triumphant. The 
sepoys in many British garrisons flung down 
their arms. Some forts were surrendered by 
treachery, and some by despair. In a few days 
the whole open country north of the Coleroon 
had submitted. The English inhabitants of 
Madras could already see by night from the 
top of Mount St. Thomas, the eastern sky red 
dened by a vast semicircle of blazing villages. 
The white villas, embosomed in little groves 
of tulip trees, to which our countrymen retire 
after the daily labours of government and of 
trade, when the cool evening breeze springs up 
from the bay, were now left without inhabit- 
ants; for bands of the fierce horsemen of 
Mysore had already been seen prowling near 
those gay verandas. Even the town was not 
thought secure, and the British merchants and 
public functionaries made haste to crowd them 
selves behind the cannon of Fort St. George. 

There were the means indeed of forming an 
army which might have defended the presi- 
dency, and even driven the invader back to 
his mountains. Sir Hector Munro was at the 
head of one considerable force; Baillie was 
advancing with another. United, they might 
have presented a formidable front even to such 
an enemy as Hyder. But the English com- 
manders, neglecting those fundamental rules 
Of the military art, of which the propriety is 
obvious even to men who have never received 
a military education, deferred their junction, 
and were separately attacked. Baillie's de- 
tachment was destroyed. Munro was forced 
to abandon his baggage, to fling his guns into 
the tanks, and to save himself by a retreat 
which might be called a flight. In three weeks 
from the commencement of the war, the Bri- 
tish empire in Southern India had been brought 
to the verge of ruin. Only a few fortified 
places remained to us. The glory of our arms 
had departed. It was known that a great 
French expedition might soon be expected on 
the coast of Coromandel. England, beset by 
enemies on every side, was in no condition Vs 
protect such remote dependencies. 



WARREN HASTINGS. 



481 



Then it was that the fertile genius and se- 
rene courage of Hastings achieved their most 
signal triumph. A swift ship, flying before the 
southwejt monsoon, brought the evil tidings 
in few days to Calcutta. In twenty-four hours 
the Governor-General had framed a complete 
plan of policy adapted to the altered state of 
affairs. The struggle with Hyder was a strug- 
gle for life and death. All minor objects must 
be sacrificed to the preservation of the Carna- 
tic. The disputes with the Mahrattas must be 
accommodated. A large military force and a 
supply of money must be instantly sent to Ma- 
dras. But even these measures would be in- 
sufficient unless the war, hitherto so grossly 
mismanaged, were placed under the direction 
of a vigorous mind. It was no time for trifling. 
Hastings determined to resort to an extreme 
exercise of power ; to suspend the incapable 
governor of Fort St. George, to send Sir Eyre 
Coote to oppose Hyder, and to intrust that dis- 
tinguished general with the whole administra- 
tion of the war. 

In spite of the sullen opposition of Francis, 
who had naw recovered from his wound and 
had returned to the Council, the Governor- 
General's wise and firm policy was approved 
by the majority of the board. The reinforce- 
ments were sent off with great expedition, and 
reached Madras before the French armament 
arrived in the Indian seas. Coote, broken by 
age and disease, was no longer the Coote of 
Wandewash ; but he was still a resolute and 
skilful commander The progress of Hyder 
was arrested, and in a few months the great 
victory of Porto Novo retrieved the honour of 
the English arms. 

In the mean time Francis had returned to 
England, and Hastings was now left perfectly 
unfettered. Wheler had gradually been relax- 
ing in his opposition, and, after the departure 
of his vehement and implacable colleague, co- 
operated heartily with the Governor-General, 
whose influence over his countrymen in India, 
always great, had, by the vigour and success 
of his recent measures, been considerably in- 
creased. 

But though the difficulties arising from fac- 
tions within the Council were at an end, an- 
other class of difficulties had become more 
pressing than ever. The financial embarrass- 
ment was extreme. Hastings had to find the 
means, not only of carrying on the government 
of Bengal, but of maintaining a most costly 
war against both Indian and European ene- 
mies in the Carnatic, and of making remit- 
tances to England. A few years before this 
time he had obtained relief by plundering the 
Mogul and enslaving the Rohillas, nor were 
the resources of his fruitful mind by any 
means exhausted. 

His first design was on Benares, a city which, 
an wealth, population, dignity, and sanctity, was 
among the foremost of Asia. It was commonly 
believed that half a million of human beings 
was crowded into that labyrinth of lofty alleys, 
rich with shrines, and minarets, and balconies, 
and carved oriels, to which the sacred apes 
clung by hundreds. The traveller could scarce- 
ly "make his way through the press of holy men- 
dicants and not less holy bulls. The broad 



and stately flights of steps which descended from 
these swarming haunts to the bathing-places 
along the Ganges were worn every day by the 
footsteps of an innumerable multitude of wor- 
shippers. The schools and temples drew 
crowds of pious Hindoos from every province 
where the Brahminical faith was known. Hun- 
dreds of devotees came thither every month to 
die — for it was believed that a peculiarly happy 
fate awaited the man who should pass from the 
sacred city into the sacred river. Nor was 
superstition the only motive which allured 
strangers to that great metropolis. Commerce 
had as many pilgrims as religion. All along 
the shores of the venerable stream lay great 
fleets of vessels laden with rich merchandise. 
From the looms of Benares went forth the 
most delicate silks that adorned the balls of 
St. James's and of the Petit Trianon; and in 
the bazaars the muslins of Bengal and the 
sabres of Oude were mingled with the jewels 
of Golconda and the shawls of Cashmere. This 
rich capital and the surrounding tract had long 
beenunderthe immediate rule of a Hindoo prince 
who rendered homage to the Mogul emperors. 
During the great anarchy of India the lords 
of Benares became independent of the court 
of Delhi, but were compelled to submit to the 
authority of the Nabob of Oude. Oppressed 
by this formidable neighbour, they invoked the 
protection of the English. The English pro- 
tection was given, and at length the Nabob 
Vizier, by a solemn treaty, ceded all his rights 
over Benares to the Company. From that time 
the Rajah was the vassal of the governmenl 
of Bengal, acknowledged its supremacy, and 
sent an annual tribute to Fort William. These 
duties Cheyte Sing, the reigning prince, had 
fulfilled with strict punctuality. 

Respecting the precise nature of the legal 
relation between the Company and the Rajah 
of Benares there has been much warm and 
acute controversy. On the one side it has 
been maintained that Cheyte Sing was merely 
a great subject, on whom the superior power 
had a right to call for aid in the necessities of 
the empire. On the other side it has been 
contended that he was an independent prince, 
that the only claim which the Company had 
upon him was for a fixed tribute, and that, 
while the fixed tribute was regularly paid, as 
it assuredly was, the English had no more 
right to exact any further contribution from 
him than to demand subsidies from Holland 
or Denmark. Nothing is easier than to find 
precedents and analogies in favour of either 
view. 

Our own impression is that neither view is 
correct. It was too much the habit of English 
politicians to take it for granted that there was 
in India a known and definite constitution by 
which questions of this kind were to be decided- 
The truth is, that during the interval which 
elapsed between the fall of the house of Ta- 
merlane and the establishment of the British 
ascendency, there was no constitution. The 
old order of things had passed away ; the new 
order of things was not yet formed. All was 
transition, confusion, obscurity. Everybody 
kept his head as he best might, and scrambled 
for whatever he could set. There have been 



483 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



similar seasons in Europe. The time of the 
dissolution of the Carlovingian empire is an 
instance. Who would think of seriously dis- 
cussing the question, what extent of pecuniary 
aid and of obedience Hugh Capet had a con- 
stitutional right to demand from the Duke of 
Brittany or the Duke of Normandy 1 The words 
"constitutional right" had, in that state of so- 
ciety, no meaning. If Hugh Capet laid hands 
on all the possessions of the Duke of Norman- 
dy, this might be unjust and immoral; but it 
would not be illegal in the sense in which the 
ordinances of Charles the Tenth were illegal 
If, on the other hand, the Duke of Normandy 
made war on Hugh Capet, this might be un- 
just and immoral ; but it would not be illegal 
in the sense in which the expedition of Prince 
Louis Bonaparte was illegal. 

Very similar to this was the state of India 
sixty years ago. Of the existing governments 
not a single one could lay claim to legitimacy, 
or plead any other title than recent occupation. 
There was scarcely a province in which the 
real sovereignty and the nominal sovereignty 
were not disjoined. Titles and forms were still 
retained, which implied that the heir of Ta- 
merlane was an absolute ruler, and that the 
Nabobs of the provinces were his lieutenants. 
In reality, he was a captive. The Nabobs were 
in some places independent princes. In other 
places, as in Bengal and the Carnatic, they 
had, like their master, become mere phantoms, 
and the Company was supreme. Among the 
Mahrattas again, the heir of Sevajee still kept 
the title of Rajah ; but he was a prisoner, and 
his prime minister, the Peshwa, had become 
the hereditary chief of the state. The Peshwa, 
_n his turn, was fast sinking into the same de- 
graded situation to which he had reduced the 
Rajah. It was, we believe, impossible to find, 
from the Himalayas to Mysore, a single go- 
vernment which was at once de facto and de jure 
— which possessed the physical means of mak- 
ing itself feared by its neighbours and subjects, 
and which had at the same time the authority 
derived from law and long prescription. 

Hastings clearly discerned, what was hidden 
trom most of his contemporaries, that such a 
state of things gave immense advantages to a 
ruler of great talents and few scruples. In 
nvery international question that could arise, 
lie had his option between the de facto ground 
and the dejure ground; and the probability was 
that one of those grounds would sustain any 
claim that it might be convenient for him to 
make, and enable him to resist any claim made 
by others. In every controversy, accordingly, 
he resorted to the plea which suited his imme- 
diate purpose, without troubling himself in the 
least about consistency; and thus he scarcely 
ever failed to find what, to persons of short 
memories and scanty information, seemed to 
be a justification for what he wanted to do. 
Sometimes the Nabob of Bengal is a shadow, 
sometimes a monarch ; sometimes the Vizier 
is a mere deputy, sometimes an independent 
potentate. If it is expedient for the Company 
to show some legal title to the revenues of 
Bengal, the grant under the seal of the Mogul 
is brought forward as an instrument of the 
Highest authority. When the Mogul asks for 



the rents which were reserved to him by that 
very grant, he is told that he is a mere pa- 
geant ; that the English power rests on a very 
different foundation from a charter given by 
him ; that he is welcome to play at royalty a* 
long as he likes, but that he must expect no 
tribute from the real masters of India. 

It is true, that it was in the power of others, 
as well as of Hastings, to practise this leger- 
demain; but in the controversies of govern- 
ments, sophistry is of little use unless it be 
backed by power. There is a principle which 
Hastings was fond of asserting in the strongest 
terms, and on which he acted with undeviating 
steadiness. It is a principle which, we must 
own, can hardly be disputed in the present 
state of public law. It is this — that where an 
ambiguous question arises between two go- 
vernments, there is, if they cannot agret, no 
appeal except to force, and that the opinion of 
the strongest must prevail. Almost every 
question was ambiguous in India. The Eng- 
lish government was the strongest in India. 
The consequences are obvious. The English 
government might do exactly what it chose. 

The English government now chose to wring 
money out of Cheyte Sing. It had formerly 
been convenient to treat him as a sovereign 
prince; it was now convenient to treat him as 
a subject. Dexterity inferior to that of Hast- 
ings could easily find, in that general chaos of 
laws and customs, arguments for either course. 
Hastings wanted a great supply. It was known 
that Cheyte Sing had a large revenue, and it 
was suspected that he had accumulated a 
treasure. Nor was he a favourite at Calcutta. 
He had, when the Governor-General was in 
great difficulties, courted the favour of Francis 
and Clavering. Hastings, who, less we believe 
from evil passions than from policy, seldom 
left an injury unpunished, was not sorry that 
the fate of Cheyte Sing should teach neigh- 
bouring princes the same lessons which the 
fate of Nuncomar had already impressed on 
the inhabitants of Bengal. 

In 1778, on the first breaking out of the war 
with France, Cheyte Sing was called upon to 
pay, in addition to his fixed tribute, an extra- 
ordinary contribution of 50,000Z. In 1779, an 
equal sum was exacted. In 1780, the demand 
was renewed. Cheyte Sing, in the hope of ob- 
taining some indulgence, secretly offered the 
Governor-General a bribe of 20,000Z. Hastings 
took the money ; and his enemies have main- 
tained that he took it intending to keep it. He 
certainly concealed the transaction, for a time, 
both from the Council in Bengal and from the 
Directors at home; nor did he ever give any 
satisfactory reason for the concealment. Public 
spirit or the fear of detection, however, deter- 
mined him to withstand the temptation. He 
paid over the bribe to the Company's treasury, 
and insisted that the Rajah should instantly 
comply with the demands of the English go- 
vernment. The Rajah, after the fashion of his 
countrymen, shuffled, solicited, and pleaded 
poverty. The grasp of Hastings was not to be 
so eluded. He added another 10,OOOZ. as a 
fine for delay, and sent troops to exact the 
money. 

The money was paid. But this was not 



WARREN HASTINGS 



4S3 



enough* The .ate events in the south of India 
had increased the financial embarrassments 
of the Company. Hastings was determined to 
plunder Cheyte Sing, and, for that end, to fasten 
a quarrel on him. Accordingly, the Rajah was 
now required to keep a body of cavalry for the 
service of the British government. He objected 
and evaded. This was exactly what the Go- 
vernor-General wanted. He had now a pretext 
for treating the wealthiest of his vassals as a 
criminal. "I resolved," these are the words 
of Hastings himself, "to draw from his guilt 
the means of relief to the Company's distresses, 
— to make him pay largely for his pardon, or 
to exact a severe vengeance for past delin- 
quency." The plan was simply this — to de- 
mand larger and larger contributions, till the 
Rajah should be driven to remonstrate, then to 
call his remonstrance a crime, and to punish 
him by confiscating all his possessions. 

Cheyte Sing was In the greatest dismay. He 
offered 200,000Z. to propitiate the British go- 
vernment. But Hastings replied, that nothing 
less than half a million would be accepted. 
Nay, he began to think of selling Benares to 
Oude, as he had formerly sold Allahabad and 
Rohilcund. The matter was one which could 
not be well managed at a distance ; and Hast- 
ings resolved to visit Benares. 

Cheyte Sing received his liege lord with 
every mark of reverence; came near sixty 
miles, with his guards, to me' t and escort the 
illustrious visitor; and expressed his deep 
concern at the displeasure of the English. He 
even took off his turban, and laid it in the lap 
of Hastings — a gesture which in India marks 
the most profound submission and devotion. 
Hastings behaved with cold and repulsive se- 
verity. Having arrived at Benares, he sent to 
the Rajah a paper containing the demands of 
the government of Bengal. The Rajah, in 
reply, attempted to clear himself from the ac- 
cusations brought against him. Hastings, who 
wanted money and not excuses, was not to be 
put off by the ordinary artifices of eastern ne- 
gotiation. He instantly ordered the Rajah to 
be arrested, and placed under the custody of 
two companies of sepoys. 

In taking these strong measures, Hastings 
scarcely showed his usual judgment It is 
probable that, having had little opportunity of 
personally observing any part of the popula- 
tion of India, except the Bengalees, he was not 
fully aware of the difference between their 
character and that of the tribes which inhabit 
the upper provinces. He was now in a land 
far more favourable to the vigour of the hu- 
man frame than the Delta of the Ganges ; in 
a land fruitful of soldiers, who have been 
found worthy to follow English battalions to 
the charge, and into the breach. The Rajah 
was popular among his subjects. His admi- 
nistration had been mild ; and the prosperity 
of the district which he governed presented a 
striking contrast to the depressed state of Ba- 
har, under our rule — a still more striking con- 
trast to the misery of the provinces which 
were cursed by the tyranny of the Nabob 
Vizier. The national and religious prejudices 
with which the English were regarded through- 
out India, were peculiarly intense in the me- 



tropolis of the Brahminical superstition. It * 
can therefore scarcely be doubted that the 
Governor-General, before he outraged the dig- 
nity of Cheyte Sing by an arrest, ought to have 
assembled a force capable of bearing down al- 
opposition. This had not been done. Tht 
handful of sepoys who attended Hastings 
would probably have been sufficient to over- 
awe Moorshedabad, or the Black town of Cal- 
cutta. But they were unequal to a conflict 
with the hardy rabble of Benares. The streets- 
surrounding "the palace were filled by an im 
mense multitude ; of whom a large proportion, 
as is usual in upper India, wore arms. The 
tumult became a fight, and the fight a massa- 
cre. The English officers defended themselves 
with desperate courage against overwhelming 
numbers, and fell, as became them, sword in 
hand. The sepoys were butchered. The gate? 
were forced. -The captive prince, neglected 
by his jailers during the confusion, discovered 
an outlet which opened on the precipitous bant 
of the Ganges, let himself down to the water 
by a string made of the turbans of his attend- 
ants, found a boat, and escaped to the opposite 
shore. 

If Hastings had, by indiscreet violence, 
brought himself into a difficult and perilous 
situation, it is only just to acknowledge, that 
he extricated himself with even more than his 
usual ability and presence of mind. He had 
only fifty men with him. The building in 
which he had taken up his residence was on 
every side blockaded by the insurgents. But 
his fortitude remained unshaken. The Rajah 
from the other side of the river sent apolo- 
gies and liberal offers. They were not even 
answered. Some subtle and enterprising men 
were found who undertook to pass through thr 
throng of enemies, and to convey the intelli- 
gence of the late events to the English canton- 
ments. It is the fashion of the natives of Indifi 
to wear large ear-rings of gold. When the) 
travel, the rings are laid aside lest they should 
tempt some gang of robbers ; and, in place of 
the ring, a quill or a roll of paper is inserted 
in the orifice to prevent it from closing. Hast- 
ings placed in the cars of his messengers let- 
ters rolled up in the smallest compass. Some 
of these letters were addressed to the com- 
manders of the English troops. One was 
written to assure his wife of his safety. One 
was to the envoy whom he had sent to nego- 
tiate with the Mahrattas. Instructions for the 
negotiation were needed; and the Governor- 
General framed them in that situation of ex- 
treme danger, with as much composure as if 
he had been writing in his palace at Calcutta. 

Things, however, were not yet at the worst. 
An English officer of more spirit than judg 
ment, eager to distinguish himself, made a 
premature attack on the insurgents beyond 
the river. His troops were entangled in nar- 
row streets, and assailed by a furious popula- 
tion. He fell, with many of his men ; and the 
survivors were forced to retire. 

This event produced the effect which ha*, 
never failed to follow every check, howeve* 
slight, sustained in India by the English arms. 
For hundreds of miles round, the whole coun 
try was in commotion. The entire population 



484 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



of the district of Benares took arms. The 
fields were abandoned by the husbandmen, 
who thronged to defend their prince. The in- 
fection spread to Oude. The oppressed people 
of that province rose up against the Nabob 
Vizier, refused to pay their imposts, and put 
the revenue officers to flight. Even Bahar 
was ripe for revolt, The hopes of Cheyte 
Sing began to rise. Instead of imploring mer- 
cy in the humble style of a vassal, he began to 
talk the language of a conqueror, and threat- 
ened, it was said, to sweep the white usurpers 
out of the land. But the English troops were 
now assembling fast. The officers, and even 
the private men, regarded the Governor-Gene- 
ral with enthusiastic attachment, and flew to 
his aid with an alacrity which, as he boasted, 
had never been shown on any other occasion. 
Major Popham, a brave and _skilful soldier, 
who had highly distinguished himself in the 
Mahratta war, and in whom the Governor- 
General reposed the greatest confidence, took 
the command. The tumultuary army of the 
Rajah was put to rout. His fastnesses were 
stormed. In a few hours, above thirty thou- 
sand men left his standard, and returned to their 
Ordinary avocations. The unhappy prince fled 
from his country forever. His fair domain was 
added to the British dominions. One of his 
relations indeed was appointed Rajah; but the 
Rajah of Benares was henceforth to be, like 
the Nabob of Bengal, a mere pensioner. 

By this revolution, an addition of 200,000?. 
a year was made to the revenues of the Com- 
pany. But the immediate relief was not as 
grea; as had been expected. The treasure 
laid up by Cheyte Sing had been popularly es- 
timated at a million sterling. It turned out to 
be about a fourth part of that sum, and, such 
as it was, it was seized and divided as prize- 
money by the army. 

Disappointed in his expectations from Be- 
nares, Hastings was more violent than he 
would otherwise have been, in his dealings 
with Oude. Sujah Dowlah had long been dead. 
His son and successor, Asaph-ul-DoAvlah, was 
one of the weakest and most vicious even of 
eastern princes. His life was divided between 
torpid repose and the most odious forms of 
sensuality. In his court there was boundless 
waste; throughout his dominions, wretched- 
ness and disorder. He had been, under the 
skilful management of the English govern- 
ment, gradually sinking from the rank of an 
independent prince to that of a vassal of the 
Company. It was only by the help of a Bri- 
tish brigade that he could be secure from the 
aggressions of neighbours who despised his 
weakness, and from the vengeance of subjects 
who detested his tyranny. A brigade was fur- 
dished ; and he engaged to defray the charge 
if paying and maintaining it. From that time 
his independence was at an end. Hastings 
was not a man to lose the advantage which he 
had thus gained. The Nabob soon began to 
complain of the burden which he had under- 
taken to bear. His revenues, he said, were 
falling off"; his servants were unpaid; he 
could no longer support the expense of the 
arrangement which he had sanctioned. Hast- 
ings would not listen to these representations. 



The Vizier, he said, had invited th i Govern 
ment of Bengal to send him troops, and had 
promised to pay for them. The troops had 
been sent. How long the troops were to re- 
main in Oude, was a matter not settled by the 
treaty. It remained, therefore, to be settled 
between the contracting parties. But the con- 
tracting parties differed. Who then must de- 
cide 1 The strongest. 

Hastings also argued, that if the English 
force was withdrawn, Oude would certainly 
become a prey to anarchy, and would proba- 
bly be overrun by a Mahratta army. That 
the finances of Oude were embarrassed, he ad- 
mitted. But he contended, not without reason, 
that the embarrassment was to be attributed to 
the incapacity and vices of Asaph-ul-Dowlah 
himself, and that, if less were spent on the 
troops, the only effect would be that more 
would be squandered on worthless favourites. 

Hastings had intended, after settling the 
affairs of Benares, to visit Lucknow, and there 
to confer with Asaph-ul-Dowlah. But the ob- 
sequious courtesy of the Nabob Vizier pre- 
vented that visit. With a small train he has- 
tened to meet the Governor-General. An 
interview took place in the fortress which, 
from the crest of the precipitous rock of Chu- 
nar, looks down on the waters of the Ganges. 

At first sight it might appear impossible that 
the negotiation should come to an amicable 
close. Hastings wanted an extraordinary sup- 
ply of money. Asaph-ul-Dowlah wanted to 
obtain a remission of what he already owed. 
Such a difference seemed to admit of no com- 
promise. There was, however, one course 
satisfactory to both sides, one course by which 
it was possible to relieve the finances both of 
Oude and of Bengal; and that course was 
adopted. It was simply this — that the Go- 
vernor-General and the Nabob Vizier should 
join to rob a third party ; and the third party 
whom they determined to rob was the parent 
of one of the robbers. 

The mother of the late Nabob, and his wife, 
who was the mother of the present Nabob, 
were known as the Begums or Princesses of 
Oude. They had possessed great influence 
over Sujah Dowlah, and had, at his death, been 
left in possession of a splendid dotation. The 
domains of which they received the rents and 
administered the government were of wide ex- 
tent. The treasure hoarded by the late Nabob 
— a treasure which was probably estimated at 
nearly three millions sterling — was in their 
hands. They continued to occupy his favour- 
ite palace at Fyzabad, the Beautiful Dwelling; 
while Asaph-ul-Dowlah held his court in the 
stately Lucknow, which he had built for him- 
self on the shores of the Goomti, and had 
adorned with noble mosques and colleges. 

Asaph-ul-Dowlah had already extorted con 
siderable sums from his mother. She had at 
length appealed to the English ; and the Eng- 
lish had interfered. A solemn compact had 
been made, by which she consented to give 
her son some pecuniary assistance, and he in 
his turn promised never to commit any further 
invasion of her rights. This compact was 
formally guarantied by the government of 
Bengal But times had changed : monev was 



WARREN HASTINGS. 



485 



van ted; and the power which had given the 
guarantpe was not ashamed to instigate the 
spoiler. 

It was necessary to find some pretext for a 
confiscation, inconsistent not merely with 
plighted faith— not merely with the ordinary 
rules of humanity and justice— but with that 
great law of filial piety, which, even in the 
wildest tribes of savages— even in those more 
degraded communities which wither under the 
influence of a corrupt half-civilization — retains 
a certain authority over the human mind. A 
pretext was the last thing that Hastings was 
likely to want. The insurrection at Benares 
had produced disturbances in Oude. These 
disturbances it was convenient to impute to 
the princesses. Evidence for the imputation 
there was scarcely any; unless reports wan- 
dering from one mouth to another, and gaining 
something by every transmission, may be call- 
ed evidence. The accused were furnished 
with no charge ; they were permitted to make 
no defence; for the Governor-General wisely 
considered that if he tried them he might not 
be able to find a ground for plundering them. 
It was agreed between him and the Nabob Vi- 
zier, that the noble ladies should, by a sweep- 
ing measure of confiscation, be stripped of 
their domains and treasures for the benefit of 
the Company ; and that the sums thus obtained 
should be accepted by the government of Ben- 
gal in satisfaction of its claims on the govern- 
ment of Oude. 

While Asaph-ul-Dowlah was at Chunar, he 
was completely subjugated by the clear and 
commanding intellect of the English states- 
man. But when they had separated, he began 
to reflect with uneasines? on the engagements 
into which he had entered. His mother and 
grandmother protested and implored. His 
heart, deeply corrupted by absolute power and 
licentious pleasures, yet not naturally unfeel- 
ing, failed him in this crisis. Even the Eng- 
lish resident at Lucknow, though hitherto 
devoted to Hastings, shrank from extreme 
measures. But the Governor-General was 
inexorable. He wrote to the resident in terms 
of the greatest severity, and declared that, if 
the spoliation which had been agreed upon 
were not instantly carried into effect, he would 
himself go to Lucknow, and do that from which 
feebler minds recoiled with dismay. The re- 
sident, thus menaced, waited on his highness, 
and insisted that the treaty of Chunar should 
be carried into full and immediate effect. 
Asaph-ul-Dowlah yielded — making at the same 
time a solemn protestation that he yielded to 
compulsion. The lands were resumed ; but 
.he treasure was not so easily obtained. It 
«ras necessary to use force. A body of the 
Company's troops marched to Fyzabad, and 
forced the gates of the palace. The prin- 
cesses were confined to their own apartments. 
But still they refused to submit. Some more 
stringent mode of coercion was to be found. 
A mode was found, of which, even at this dis- 
tance of time, we cannot speak without shame 
and sorrow. 

There were at Fyzabad two ancient men be- 
longing to that unhappy class which a prac- 
tice of immemorial antiquity in the East has 



excluded from the pleasures of tOVft and from 
the hope of posterity. It has always beer, held 
in Asiatic courts, that beings thus estranged 
from sympathy with their kind are those whom 
princes may most safely trust. Sujah Dowlah 
had been of this opinion. He had given his 
entire confidence to the two eunuchs : and after 
his death they remained at the head of the 
household of his widow. 

These men were, by the orders of the Bri 
tish government, seized, imprisoned, ironed 
starved almost to death, in order to extort mo 
ney from the princesses. After they had been 
two months in confinement, their health gave 
way. They implored permission to take a lit- 
tle exercise in the garden of their prison. The 
officer who was in charge of them stated, that 
if they were allowed this indulgence, there 
was not the smallest chance of their escaping, 
and that their irons really added nothing to the 
security of the custody in which they were 
kept. He did not understand the plan of hh; 
superiors. Their object in these inflictions 
was not security, but torture ; and all mitiga 
tion was refused. Yet this was not the worst. 
It was resolved by an English government that 
these two infirm old men should be delivered 
to the tormentors. For that purpose they were 
removed to Lucknow. What horrors their 
dungeon there witnessed can only be guessed. 
But there remains on the records of Parliament 
this .letter, written by a British resident to a 
British soldier: — 

"Sir, the Nabob having determined to inflic* 
corporal punishment upon the prisoners under 
your guard, this is to desire that his officers,, 
when they shall come, may have free access 
to the prisoners, and be permitted to do with 
them as they shall see proper." 

While these barbarities were perpetrated a» 
Lucknow, the princesses were still under du 
resse at Fyzabad. Food was allowed to entej 
their apartments only in such scanty quanti- 
ties, that their female attendants were in dan- 
ger of perishing with hunger. Month after 
month this cruelty continued, till at length, 
after twelve hundred thousand pounds had 
been wrung out of the princesses, Hastings 
began to think that he had really got to the 
bottom of their revenue, and that no rigour 
could extort more. Then at length the wretch 
ed men who were detained at Lucknow regain- 
ed their liberty. When their irons were 
knocked off, and the doors of their prison 
opened, their quivering lips, the tears which 
ran down their cheeks, and the thanksgivings 
wh'ch they poured forth to the common Father 
of Mussulmans and Christians, melted even 
the stout hearts of the English warriors who 
stood by. 

There is a man to whom the conduct o* 
Hastings, through the whole of these proceed- 
ings, appears not only excusable but laudable 
There is a man who tells us, " that he must 
really be pardoned if he ventures to charac- 
terize as something pre-eminently ridiculous 
and wicked, the sensibility which would balance 
against the preservation of British India a little 
personal suffering, which was applied only so 
long as the sufferers refused to deliver up a 
portion of that wealth, the whole of which theii 



486 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



awn and their mistresses' treason had forfeit- 
ed." We cannot, we must own, envy the 
reverend biographer, either his singular notion 
of what constitutes pre-eminent wickedness, 
cr his equally singular perception of the pre- 
eminently ridiculous. Is this the generosity 
of an English soldier 1 Is this the charity of a 
Christian priest 1 Could neither of Mr. Gleig's 
professions teach him the very rudiments of 
morality'! Or is morality a thing which may 
be well enough in sermons, but which has no- 
thing to do with biography 1 

But we must not forget to do justice to Sir 
Elijah Impey's conduct on this occasion. It 
was not indeed easy for him to intrude himself 
into a business so entirely alien from all his 
official duties. Bat there was something inex- 
pressibly alluring, we must suppose, in the 
peculiar rankness of the infamy which was 
then to be got at Lucknow. He hurried thither 
as fast as relays of palanquin-bearers could 
carry him. A crowd of people came before 
him with affidavits against the Begums, ready 
drawn in their hands. Those affidavits he did 
not read. The greater part, indeed, he could 
not read ; for they were in Persian and Hin- 
dostanee, and no interpreter was employed. 
He administered the oath to the deponents, 
with all possible expedition ; and asked not a 
single question, not even whether they had 
perused the statements to which they swore. 
This work performed, he got again into his 
palanquin, and posted back to Calcutta, to be in 
time for the Opening of term. The cause 
was one which, by his own confession, lay 
altogether out of his jurisdiction. Under the 
charter of justice, he had no more right to in- 
quire into crimes committed by natives in 
Oude, than the Lord President of the Court of 
Session of Scotland to hold an assize at Exeter. 
He had no right to try the Begums, nci did he 
pretend to try them. With what object, then, 
did he undertake so long a journey? • Evi- 
dently in order that he might give, in an irre- 
gular manner, that sanction which in a regular 
manner he could not give, to the crimes of those 
who had recently hired him ; and in order that 
a confused mass of testimony which he did not 
sift, which he did not even read, might acquire 
an authority not properly belonging to it, from 
the signature of the highest judicial functionary 
in India. 

The time was approaching, however, when 
he was to be stripped of that robe which has 
never, since the Revolution, been disgraced so 
foully as by him. The state of India had for 
some time occupied much of the attention of 
the British Parliament. Towards the close of 
the American war, two committees of the Com- 
mons sat on Eastern affairs. In the one Ed- 
mund Burke took the lead. The other was 
under the presidency of the able and versatile 
Henry Dundas, then Lord Advocate of Scot- 
land. Great as are the changes which, during 
the last sixty years, have taken place in our 
Asiatic dominions, the reports which those 
committees laid on the table of the House will 
still be found most interesting and instructive. 

There was as yet no connection between the 
L'ompany and either of the great parties in the 
state. The ministers had no motive to defend 



Indian abuses. On the contrary, it waj foi 
their interest to show, if possible, that the go 
vernment and patronage of our Oriental em 
pire might, with advantage, be transferred to 
themselves. The votes, therefore, which, in 
consequence of the reports made by the two 
committees, were passed by the Commons, 
breathed the spirit of stern and indignant jus* 
tice. The severest epithets were applied to 
several of the measures of Hastings, especially 
to the Rohilla war; and it was resolved, on the 
motion of Mr. Dundas, that the Company ought 
to recall a Governor-General who had brought 
such calamities on the Indian people, and such 
dishonour on the British name. An act wa? 
passed for limiting the jurisdiction of the Su« 
preme Court.' The bargain which Hastings 
had made with the Chief Justice was con- 
demned in the strongest terms ; and an address 
was presented to the king, praying that Impey 
might be ordered home to answer for his mis- 
deeds. 

Impey was recalled by a letter from the Se- 
cretary of State. But the proprietors of India 
stock resolutely refused to dismiss Hastings 
from their service; and passed a resolution 
affirming, what was undeniably true, that they 
were intrusted by law with the right of naming 
and removing their Governor-General ; and 
that they were not bound to obey the directions 
of a single branch of the legislature with re- 
spect to such a nomination or removal. 

Thus supported by his employers, Hastings 
remained at the head of the government of 
Bengal till the spring of 1785. His administra- 
tion, so eventful and stormy, closed in almost 
perfect quiet. In the Council there was no 
regular opposition to his measures. Peace 
was restored to India. The Mahratta war had 
ceased. Hyder was no more. A treaty had 
been concluded with his son, Tippoo ; and tht 
Carnatic had been evacuated by the armies of 
Mysore. Since the termination of the Ameri- 
can war, England had no European enemy or 
rival in the Eastern seas. 

On a general review of the long administra- 
tion of Hastings, it is impossible to deny that 
against the great crimes by which it is ble- 
mished, we have to set off great public ser- 
vices. England had passed through a perilous 
crisis. She still, indeed, maintained her place 
in the foremost rank of European powers ; and 
the manner in which she had defended herself 
against fearful odds had inspired surrounding 
nations with a high opinion both of her spirit 
and of her strength. Nevertheless, in every 
part of the world, except one, she had been a 
loser. Not only had she been compelled to 
acknowledge the independence of thirteen co- 
lonies peopled by her children, and to concili- 
ate the Irish by giving up the right of legislat- 
ing for them ; but, in the Mediterranean, in the 
Gulf of Mexico, on the coast of Africa, on the 
continent of America, she had been compelled 
to cede the fruits of her victories in former 
wars. Spain regained Minorca and Florida ; 
France regained Senegal, Goree, and several 
West India islands. The only quarter of the 
world in which Britain had lost nothing, was 
the quarter in which her intercts had been 
committed to the care of Hastings. T n spite oT 



WARREN HASTINGS. 



487 



the utmost exertions both of European and 
Asiatic enemies, the power of our country in 
the East had been greatly augmented. Benares 
was subjected; the Nabob Vizier reduced to 
vassalage. That our influence had been thus 
extended, nay, that Fort William and Fort St. 
George had not been occupied by hostile 
armies, was owing, if we may trust the gene- 
ral voice of the English in India, to the skill 
Jind resolution of Hastings. 

His internal administration, with all its 
blemishes, gives him a title to be considered 
as one of the most remarkable men in our his- 
tory. He dissolved the double government. 
He transferred the direction of affairs to Eng- 
lish hands. Out of a frightful anarchy, he 
educed at least a rude and imperfect order. 
The whole organization by which justice was 
dispensed, revenue collected, peace maintain- 
ed, throughout a territory not inferior in popu- 
lation to the dominions of Louis the Sixteenth, 
or of the Emperor Joseph, was created and 
superintended by him. He boasted that every 
public office, without exception, which existed 
when he left Bengal was his work. It is quite 
true that this system, after all the improve- 
ments suggested by the experience of sixty 
years, still needs improvement ; and that it was 
at first far more defective than it now is. But 
whoever seriously considers what it is to con- 
struct from the beginning the whole of a ma- 
chine so vast and complex as a government, 
will allow that what Hastings effected deserves 
high admiration. To compare the most cele- 
brated European ministers to him, seems to us 
as unjust as it would be to compare the best 
baker in London with Robinson Crusoe ; who, 
before he could bake a single loaf, had to make 
his plough and his harrow, his fences and his 
scarecrows, his sickle and his flail, his mill and 
his oven. 

The just fame of Hastings rises still higher, 
when Ave reflect that he was not bred a states- 
man ; that he was sent from school t0 a count- 
ing-house ; and that he was employed during 
the prime of his manhood as a commercial 
agent far from all intellectual society. 

Nor must we forget that all, or almost all, to 
whom, when placed at the head of affairs, he 
could apply for assistance, were persons who 
owed as little as himself, or less than himself, 
to education. A minister in Europe finds him- 
self, on the first day on which he commences 
his functions, surrounded by experienced pub- 
lic servants, the depositaries of official tradi- 
tions. Hastings had no such help. His own 
reflection, his own energy, were to supply the 
place of all Downing street and Somerset 
house. Having had no facilities for learning, he 
was forced to teach. He had first to form him- 
self, and then to form his instruments ; and this 
not in a single department, but in all the de- 
partments of the administration. 

It must be added that, while engaged in this 
most arduous task, he was constantly tram- 
melled by orders from home, and frequently 
borne down by a majority in Council. The 
preservation of an empire from a formidable 
combination of foreign enemies, the construc- 
tion of a government in all its parts, were 
accomplished by him; while every ship brought 



out bales of censure from nis employers, and 
while the records of every consultation were 
filled with acrimonious minutes by his col- 
leagues. We believe that there never was a 
public . man whose temper was so severely 
tried ; — not Marlborough, when thwarted by the 
Dutch Deputies ;^-not Wellington, when he had 
to deal at once with the Portuguese Regency, 
the Spanish Juntas, and Mr. Percival. But the 
temper of Hastings was equal to almost any 
trial. It was not sweet, but it was calm. Quick 
and vigorous as his intellect was, the patience 
with which he endured the most cruel vexations 
till a remedy could be found, resembled the pa- 
tience of stupidity. He seems to have been 
capable of resentment, bitter and long en- 
during; yet his resentment so seldom hurried 
him into any blunder, that it may be doubted 
whether what appeared to be revenge was 
any thing but policy. 

The effect of his singular equanimity was, 
that he always had the full command of all the 
resomces of one of the most fertile minds that 
ever existed. Accordingly, no complication of 
perils and embarrassments could perplex him. 
For every difficulty he had a contrivance ready ; 
and, whatever may be thought of the justice 
and humanity of some of his contrivances, ii 
is certain that they seldom failed to serve the 
purpose for which were designed. 

Together with this extraordinaiy talent foi 
devising expedients, Hastings possessed, in a 
very high degree, another talent scarcely less 
necessary to a man in his situation; — we mean 
the talent for conducting political controversy. 
It is as necessaiy to an English statesman in 
the East that he should be able to write, as it is 
to a minister in this country that he should be 
able to speak. It is chiefly by the oratory of a 
public man here that the nation judges of his 
powers. It is from the letters and reports of a 
public man in India that the dispensers of pa- 
tronage form their "estimate of him. In each 
case, the talent which receives peculiar en- 
couragement is developed, perhaps at the ex- 
pense of the other powers. In this country, 
we sometimes hear men speak above their 
abilities. It is not very unusual to find gentle- 
men in the Indian service who write above 
their abilities. The English politician is a 
little too much of a debater ; the Indian politi- 
cian a little too much of an essayist. 

Of the numerous servants of the Company 
who have distinguished themselves as framers 
of Minutes and Despatches, Hastings stands at 
the head. He was indeed the person who gave 
to the official writing of the Indian governments 
the character which it still retains. He was 
matched against no common antagonist. But 
even Francis was forced to acknowledge, with 
sullen and resentful candour, that there was 
no contending against the pen of Hastings 
And, in truth, the Governor-General's power 
of making out a case — of perplexing what it 
was inconvenient that people should under* 
stand — and of setting in the clearest point of 
view whatever would bear the light, was <n 
comparable. His style must be praised with 
some reservation. It was in general forcible, 
pure, and polished; but it was sometimes, 
though not often, turgid, and, on one or ♦wo occa 



488 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



fions, even bombastic. Perhaps the fondness 
of Hastings for Persian literature may have 
tended to corrupt his taste. 

And, since we have referred to his literary 
tastes, it would be most unjust not to praise the 
judicious encouragement which, as a ruler, he 
gave to liberal studies and curious researches. 
His patronage was extended, with prudent 
generosity, to voyages, travels, experiments, 
publications. He did little, it is true, towards 
introducing into India the learning of the 
West. To make the young natives of Bengal 
familiar with Mil ton and Adam Smith — to sub- 
stitute the geography, astronomy, and surgery 
of Europe for the dotages of the Brahminical 
superstition, or for the imperfect science of 
ancient Greece transfused through Arabian ex- 
positions — this was a scheme reserved to 
crown the beneficent administration of a far 
more virtuous ruler. Still, it is impossible to 
refuse high commendation to a man, who, 
taken from a ledger to govern an empire, over- 
whelmed by public business, surrounded by 
men as busy as himself, and separated by 
thousands of leagues from almost all literary 
society, gave, both by his example and by his 
munificence, a great impulse to learning. In 
Persian and Arabic literature he was deeply 
skilled. With the Sanscrit he was not himself 
acquainted ; but those who first brought that 
language to the knowledge of European stu- 
dents owed much to his encouragement. It 
was under his protection that the Asiatic So- 
ciety commenced its honourable»career. That 
distinguished body selected him to be its first 
president; but, with excellent taste and feel- 
ing, he declined the honour in favour of Sir 
William Jones. But the chief advantage which 
the students of Oriental letters derived from 
his patronage remains to be mentioned. The 
Pundits of Bengal had always looked with 
great jealousy on the attempts of foreigners to 
pry into those mysteries which were locked up 
in the sacred dialect. Their religion had been 
persecuted by the Mohammedans. What they 
knew of the spirit of the Portuguese govern- 
ment might warrant them in apprehending per- 
secution from Christians. That apprehension, 
the wisdom and moderation of Hastings re- 
moved. He was the first foreign ruler who 
succeeded in gaining the confidence of the he- 
reditary priests of India ; and who induced them 
to lay open to English scholars the secrets of 
the oldBrahminical theology and jurisprudence. 

It is, indeed, impossible to deny that, in the 
great art of inspiring large masses of human 
bein s *s with confidence and attachment, no 
ruler ever surpassed Hastings. If he had 
made himself popular with the English by 
giving up the Bengalees to extortion and op- 
pression, or if, on the other hand, he had 
conciliated the Bengalees and alienated the 
English, there would have been no cause for 
wonder. What is peculiar to him is, that, 
being the chief of a small band of strangers 
who exercised boundless power over a great 
indigenous population, he made himself be- 
oved both by the subject many and by the do- 
minant few. The affection felt for him by the 
civil service was singularly ardent and con- 
stant. Through all his disasters and perils, 



his brethren stood by him with steadfast loy 
alty. The army, at the same time, loved him 
as armies have seldom loved any but the 
greatest chiefs who have led them to victory. 
Even in his disputes with distinguished mili- 
tary men, he could always count on the sup- 
port of the military profession. While such 
was his empire over the hearts of his coun- 
trymen, he enjoyed among the natives a popu- 
larity, such as other governors have perhaps 
better merited, but such as no other governor 
has been able to attain. He spoke their ver- 
nacular dialects with facility and precision. 
He was intimately acquainted with their feel- 
ings and usages. On one or two occasions, 
for great ends, he deliberately acted in defi- 
ance of their opinions; but on such occasions 
he gained more in their respect than he lost in 
their love. In general, he carefully avoided 
all that could shock their national or religious 
prejudices. His administration was indeed in 
many respects faulty ; but the Bengalee stand- 
ard of good government was not high. Under 
the Nabobs, the hurricane of Mahratta cavalry 
had passed annually over the rich alluvial 
plain. But even the Mahratta shrank from a 
conflict with the mighty children of the sea , 
and the immense rice-harvests of the Lower 
Ganges were safely gathered in, under the pro- 
tection of the English sword. The first Eng- 
lish conquerors had been more rapacious and 
merciless even than the Mahrattas ; but that 
generation had passed away. Defective as 
was the police, heavy as were the public bur- 
dens, the oldest man in Bengal could probably 
not recollect a season of equal security and 
prosperity. For the first time within living 
memory, the province was placed under a go- 
vernment strong enough to prevent others from 
robbing, and not inclined to play the robber 
itself. These things inspired good-will. At 
the same time, the constant success of Hast- 
ings, and the manner in which he extricated 
himself from every difficulty, made him an 
object of superstitious admiration; and the 
more than regal splendour which he some- 
times displayed, dazzled a people who have 
much in common with children. Even now, 
after the lapse of more than fifty years, the 
natives of India still talk of him as the greatest 
of the English, and nurses sing children to 
sleep with a jingling ballad about the flee 
horses and richly-caparisoned elephants of Sa« 
hib Warren Hostein. 

The gravest offences of which Hastings wac- 
guilty did not affect his popularity with the 
people of Bengal; for those offences were 
committed against neighbouring states. Those 
offences, as our readers must have perceived, 
we are not disposed to vindicate ; yet, in order 
that the censure may be justly apportioned tc 
the transgression, it is fit that the motive of the 
criminal should be taken into consideration. 
The motive which prompted the worst act of 
Hastings was misdirected and ill-regulated 
public spirit. The rules of justice, the senti- 
ments of humanity, the plighted faith of treaties, 
were in his view as nothing, when opposed to 
the immediate interests of the state. This is 
no justification, according to the principleg 
either of morality, or of what we believe to be 



WARREN HASTINGS. 



439 



identical with morality; namely, far-sighted 
policy. Nevertheless, the common sense of 
mankind, which in questions of this sort sel- 
dom goes far wrong, will always recognise a 
distinction between crimes which originate in 
an inordinate zeal for the commonwealth, and 
crimes which originate in selfish cupidity. To 
the benefit of this distinction Hastings is fairly 
entitled. There is, we conceive, no reason to 
suspect that the Rohilla war, the revolution of 
Benares, or the spoliation of the Princesses of 
Oude added a rupee to his fortune. We will 
not affirm that, in all pecuniary dealings, he 
showed that punctilious integrity, that dread 
of the faintest appearance of evil, which is 
now the glory of the Indian civil service. But 
when the school in which he had been trained, 
and the temptations to which he was exposed, 
are considered, we are more inclined to praise 
him for his general uprightness with respect 
to money, than rigidly to blame him for a few 
transactions which would now be called inde- 
licate and irregular, but which even now 
would hardly be designated as corrupt. A ra- 
pacious man he certainly was not. Had he 
been so, he would infallibly have returned to 
his country the richest subject in Europe. We 
speak within compass, when we say that, with- 
out applying any extraordinary pressure, he 
might easily have obtained from the zemindars 
of the Company's provinces, and from neigh- 
oouring princes, in the course of thirteen 
years, more than three millions sterling, and 
might have outshone the splendour of Carlton 
House and of the Palais Royale. He brought 
home a fortune such as a Governor-General, 
fond of state, and careless of thrift, might 
easily, during so long a tenure of office, save 
out of his legal salary. Mrs. Hastings, we are 
afraid, was less scrupulous. It was generally 
believed that she accepted presents with great 
alacrity, and that she thus formed, without the 
connivance of her husband, a private hoard, 
amounting to several lacs of rupees. We are 
the more inclined to giv; credit to this story, 
because Mr. Gleig, who cannot but have heard 
it, does not, as far as we have observed, notice 
or contradict it. 

The influence of Mrs Hastings over her 
husband was indeed such, that she might 
easily have obtained much larger sums than 
she was ever accused of receiving. At length 
her health began to give way; and the Go- 
vernor-General, much against his will, was 
compelled to send her to England. He seems 
to have loved her with that love which is pecu- 
liar to men of strong minds — to men whose 
affection is not easily won or widely diffused. 
The talk of Calcutta ran for some time on the 
luxurious manner in which he fitted up the 
round house of an Indiaman for her accommo- 
dation — on the profusion of sandal-wood and 
carved ivory which adorned her cabin — and 
on Ihe thousands which had been expended in 
order to procure for her the society of an 
agreeable female companion during the voy- 
age. We remark here, that the letters of 
Hastings to his wife are exceedingly charac- 
teristic — tender, and full of indications of 
tsteem and confidence ; but at the same time, 
& little more ceremonious than is usual in so 



intimate a relation. The solemn courtesy 
with which he compliments "his elegant Ma- 
rian," reminds us now and then of the dig. 
nified air with which Sir Charles Grandison 
bowed over Miss Byron's hand in the cedar 
Parlour. 

After some months, Hastings prepared to 
fellow his wife to England. When it was an- 
nounced that he was about to quit his office, 
the feeling of the society which he had so long 
governed manifested itself by many signs. 
Addresses poured in from Europeans and 
Asiatics, from civil functionaries, soldiers, and 
traders. On the day on which he delivered 
up the keys of office, a crowd of friends and 
admirers formed a lane to the quay where he 
embarked. Several barges escorted him far 
down the river ; and some attached friends re- 
fused to quit him till the low coast of Bengal 
was fading from the view, and till the pilot 
was leaving the ship. 

Of his voyage little is known, except that he 
amused himself with books and with his pen ; 
and that among the compositions by which he 
beguiled the tediousness of that long leisure, 
was a pleasing imitation of Horace's Otiwm 
Divos rogat. This little poem Avas inscribed to 
his friend Mr. Shore, afterwards Lord Teign- 
mouth — a man of whose integrity, humanity, 
and honour, it is impossible to speak too high- 
ly; but who, Jike some other excellent mem- 
bers of the civil service, extended to the con- 
duct of Hastings an indulgence of which his 
own conduct never stood in need. 

The voyage was, for those times, very speedy. 
Hastings was little more than four months on 
the sea. In June, 1785, he landed at Ply- 
mouth, posted to London, appeared at court, 
paid his respects in Leadenhall Street, and 
then retired with his wife to Cheltenham. 

He was greatly pleased with his reception. 
The king treated him with marked distinction. 
The queen, who had already incurred much 
censure on account of the favour which, in 
spite of the ordinary severity of her virtue, she 
had shown to the "elegant Marian," was not 
less gracious to Hastings. The Directors re- 
ceived him in a solemn sitting; and their 
chairman read to him a vote of thanks which 
they had passed without one dissentient voice. 
"I find myself," said Hastings, in a letter writ- 
ten about a quarter of a year after his arrival 
in England, — "I find myself everywhere, and 
universally, treated with evidences, apparent 
even to my own observation, that I possess the 
good opinion of my country." 

The confident and exulting tone of his cor- 
respondence about this time is the more re- 
markable, because he had already received 
ample notice of the attack which was in pre- 
paration. Within a week after he landed at 
Plymouth, Burke gave notice in the House of 
Commons of a motion seriously affecting a 
gentleman lately returned from India. The 
session, however, was then so far advanced, 
that it was impossible to enter on so exten- 
sive and important a subject. 

Hastings, it is clear, was not sensible of the 
danger of his position. Indeea that sagacity, 
that judgment, that readiness in devising expe 
dients which had distinguished him in th 



490 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



East, seemed now to have forsaken him ; not 
that his abilities were at all impaired ; not that 
he was not still the same man who had tri- 
umphed over Francis and Nuncomar, who had 
made the Chief Justice and the Nabob Vizier 
his tools, who had deposed Cheyte Sing, and 
repelled Hyder Ali ; — but an oak, as Mr. Grat- 
tan finely said, should not be transplanted at 
fifty. A man who, having left England when a 
boy, returns to it after thirty or forty years pass- 
ed in India, will find, be his talents what they 
may, that he has much both to learn and to un- 
learn before he can take a place among Eng- 
lish statesmen. The working of a representa- 
tive system, the war of parties, the arts of de- 
bate, the influence of the press, are startling 
novelties to him. Surrounded on every side 
by new machines and new tactics, he is as 
much bewildered as Hannibal would have been 
at Waterloo, or Themistocles at Trafalgar. 
His very acuteness deludes him. His very 
vigour causes him to stumble. The more cor- 
rect his maxims, when applied to the state of 
society to which he is accustomed, the more 
certain they are to lead him astray. This was 
strikingly the case with Hastings. In India he 
had a bad hand; but he was master of the 
game, and he won every stake. In England 
he held excellent cards, if he had known how 
to play them; and it was chiefly by his own 
errors that he was brought to the verge of ruin. 
Of all his errors the most serious was per- 
haps the choice of a champion. Clive, in 
similar circumstances, had made a singularly 
happy selection. He put himself into the hands 
of Wedderburne, afterwards Lord Loughbo- 
rough, one of the few great advocates who 
have also been great ,in the House of Com- 
mons. To the defence of Clive, therefore, no- 
thing was wanting — neither learning nor know- 
ledge of the world, neither forensic acuteness 
nor that eloquence which charms political as- 
semblies. Hastings intrusted his interests to 
a very different person, a major in the Bengal 
army named Scott. This gentleman had been 
sent over from India some time before as the 
agent of the Governor-General. It was ru- 
moured that his services were rewarded with 
Oriental munificence ; and we believe that he 
received much more than Hastings could con- 
veniently spare. The Major obtained a seat 
in Parliament, and was there regarded as the 
crgan of his employer. It was evidently im- 
possible that a gentlemen so situated could 
speak with the authority which belongs to an 
independent position. Nor had the agent of 
Hastings the talents necessary for obtaining 
the ear of an assembly which, accustomed to 
listen to great orators, had naturally become 
fastidious. He was always on his legs; he 
was very tedious ; and he had only one topic, 
the merits and wrongs of Hastings. Every- 
body who knows the House of Commons will 
easily guess what followed. The Major was 
3oon considered the greatest bore of his time. 
His exertions were not confined to Parliament. 
There was hardly a day on which the newspa- 
pers did not contain some puff upon Hastings, 
signed Asiatkus or Bengalensis, but known to 
be written by the indefatigable Scott; and 
hardly a month in which some bulky pamphlet 



on the same subject, and from the same pea^ 
did not pass to the trunkmakers and the pastry 
cooks. As to this gentleman's capacity foi 
conducting a delicate question through Parlia- 
ment, our readers will want no evidence be- 
yond that which they will find in letters pre« 
served in these volumes. We will give a sin- 
gle specimen of his temper and judgment. He 
designated the greatest man then livirg as 
"that reptile Mr. Burke." 

In spite, however, of this unfortunate choice, 
the general aspect of affairs was favourable to 
Hastings. The king was on his side. The 
Company and its servants were zealous in his 
cause. Among public men he had many ar- 
dent friends. Such were Lord Mansfield, who 
had outlived the vigour of his body but not of 
his mind ; and Lord Lansdowne, who, though 
unconnected with any party, retained the im- 
portance which belongs to great talents and 
knowledge. The ministers were generally be- 
lieved to be favourable to the late Governor- 
General. They owed their power to the cla- 
mour which had been raised against Mr. Fox's 
East India bill. The authors of that bill, when 
accused of invading vested rights, and of set- 
ting up powers unknown to the constitution, 
had defended themselves by pointing to the 
crimes of Hastings, and by arguing that abuses 
so extraordinary justified extraordinary mea- 
sures. Those who, by opposing that bill, had 
raised themselves to the head of affairs, would 
naturally be inclined to extenuate the evils 
which had been made the plea for administer- 
ing so violent a remedy ; and such, in fact, was 
their general disposition. The Lord Chancel- 
lor Thurlow, in particular, whose great place 
and force of intellect gave him a weight in the 
government inferior only to that of Mr. Pitt, 
espoused the cause of Hastings with indeco- 
rous violence. Mr. Pitt, though he had cen- 
sured many parts of the India system, had 
studiously abstained from saying a word 
against the late chief of the Indian govern- 
ment. To Major Scott, indeed, the young mi- 
nister had in private extolled Hastings as a 
great, a wonderful man, who had the highest 
claims on the government. There was only 
one objection in granting all that so eminent a 
servant of the public could ask : — the resolu- 
tion of censure still remained on the journals 
of the House of Commons. That resolution 
was, indeed, unjust ; but, till it was rescinded, 
could the minister advise the king to bestow 
any mark of approbation on the person cen- 
sured] If Major Scott is to be trusted, Mr. 
Pitt declared that this was the only reason 
which prevented the government from confer- 
ring a peerage on the late Governor-General. 
Mr. Dundas was the only important member 
of the administration who was deeply commit- 
ted to a different view on the subject. He had 
moved the resolutions which created the diffi- 
culty ; but even from him little was to be ap- 
prehended. Since he presided over the com- 
mittee on Eastern affairs, great changes had 
taken place. He was surrounded by new al- 
lies ; he had fixed his hopes on new objects 
and whatever may have been his good quali- 
ties — and he had many — flattery itself nevei 
reckoned rigid consistency in the number. 



WARREN HASTINGS. 



4Ui 



From the Ministry, therefore, Hastings had 
every reason to expect support ; and the Minis- 
try was very powerful. The Opposition was 
loud and vehement against him. But the Op- 
position, though formidable from the wealth 
and influence of some of its members, and 
from the admirable talents and eloquence of 
others, was outnumbered in Parliament, and 
odious throughout the country. Nor, as far as 
we can judge, was the Opposition generally 
desirous to engage in so serious an under- 
taking as the impeachment of an Indian Go- 
vernor. Such an impeachment must last for 
years. It must impose on the chiefs of the 
party an immense load of labour. Yet it could 
scarcely, in any manner, affect the event of the 
great political game. The followers of the 
coalition were therefore more inclined to re- 
vile Hastings than to prosecute him. They 
lost no opportunity of coupling his name with 
tho names of the most hateful tyrants of whom 
history makes mention. The wits of Brookes's 
aimed their keenest sarcasms both at his pub- 
lic and at his domestic life. Some fine dia- 
monds which he had presented, as it was ru- 
moured, to the royal family, and a certain 
richly carved ivory bed which the queen had 
done him the honour to accept from him, were 
favourite subjects of ridicule. One lively poet 
proposed, that the great acts of the fair Marian's 
present husband should be immortalized by the 
pencil of his predecessor ; and that Imhoff 
should be employed to embellish the House of 
Commons with paintings of the bleeding Ro- 
hillas, of Nuncomar swinging, of Cheyte Sing 
letting himself down to the Ganges. Another, 
in an exquisitely humorous parody of Virgil's 
third eclogue, propounded the question — what 
that mineral could be of which the rays had 
power to make the most austere of princesses 
the friend of a wanton. A third described, 
with gay malevolence, the gorgeous appear- 
ance of Mrs. Hastings at St. James's, the ga- 
laxy of jewels, torn from Begums, which 
adorned her head-dress, her necklace gleam- 
ing with future votes, and the depending ques- 
tions th/t shone upon her ears. Satirical 
attacks ci" this -description, and perhaps a mo- 
ion for a vote of censure, would have satisfied 
the great body of the Opposition. But there 
were two men whose indignation was not to 
be so appeased, Philip Francis and Edmund 
Burke. 

Francis had recently entered the House of 
Commons, and had already established a cha- 
racter there for industry and talent. He la- 
boured indeed under one most unfortunate 
defect — want of fluency. But he occasionally 
expressed himself with a dignity and energy 
worthy of the greatest orators. Before he had 
been many days in Parliament, he incurred the 
bitter dislike of Pitt, who constantly treated 
him with as much asperity as the laws of de- 
bate would allow. Neither lapse of years nor 
change of scene had mitigated the enmities 
which Francis had brought back from the 
East. After his usual fashion, he mistook his 
malevolence for virtue ; nursed it, as preach- 
ers tell us that we ought to nurse our good dis- 
positions ; and paraded it, on all occasions, 
with Pharisaical ostentation. 



The zeal of Burke was still fiercer; but it 
was far purer. Men, unable to understand the 
elevation of his mind, have tried to find out 
some discreditable motive for the vehemence 
and pertinacity which he showed en this occa« 
sion. But they have altogether failed. The 
idle story that he had some private slight to 
revenge, has long been given up, even by the 
advocates of Hastings. Mr. Gleig supposes 
that Burke was actuated by party spirit, that 
he retained a bitter remembrance of the fall of 
the coalition, that he attributed that fall to the 
exertions of the East India interest, and that 
he considered Hastings as the head and the 
personification of that interest. This explana- 
tion seems to be sufficiently refuted by a re- 
ference to dates. The hostility of Burke to 
Hastings commenced long before the coalition; 
and lasted long after Burke had become a 
strenuous supporter of those by whom the coa- 
lition had been defeated. It began when Burke 
and Fox, closely allied together, were attack- 
ing the influence of the crown, and calling for 
peace with the American republic. It con- 
tinued till Burke, alienated from Fox, and 
loaded with the favours of the crown, died, 
preaching a crusade against the French repub- 
lic. It seems absurd to attribute to the events 
of 1784 an enmity which began in 1781, and 
which retained undiminished force long after 
persons far more deeply implicated than Hast- 
ings in the events of 1784 had been cordially 
forgiven. And why should we look for any 
other explanation of Burke's conduct than that 
which we find on the surface 1 The plain 
truth is, that Hastings had committed some 
great crimes, and that the thought of those 
crimes made the blood of Burke boil in his 
veins; for Burke was a man in whom com{ as- 
sion for suffering, and hatred of injustice and 
tyranny, were as strong as in Las Casas or 
Clarkson. And although in him, as in Las 
Casas and in Clarkson, these noble leelings 
were alloyed with the infirmity which belongs 
to human nature, he is, like them, entitled to 
this great praise, that he devoted years of in- 
tense labour to the service of a people with 
whom he had neither blood nor language, nei- 
ther religion nor manners in common ; and 
from whom no requital, no thanks, no applause 
could be expected. 

His knowledge of India was such as few, 
even of those Europeans who have passed 
many years in that country, have attained; 
and such as certainly was never attained by 
any public man who had not quitted Europe. 
He had studied the history, the laws, and the 
usages of the East with an industry, such as is 
seldom found united to so much genius and so 
much sensibility. Others have perhaps been 
equally laborious, and have collected an equal 
mass of materials; but the manner in which 
Burke brought his higher powers of intellect 
to work on statements of facts, and on tables 
of figures, was peculiar to himself. In every 
part of those huge bales of Indian information, 
which repelled almost all other readers, his 
mind, at once philosophical and poetical, founa 
something to instruct or to delight. His rea- 
son analyzed and digested those vast and 
shapeless masses ; his imagination animated 



492 



MAC AUL AY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



and coloured them. Out of darkness, and dul- 
ness, and confusion, he drew a rich abun- 
dance of ingenious theories and vivid pictures. 
He had, in the highest degree, that noble fa- 
culty, whereby man is able to live in the past 
and in the future, in the distant and in the un- 
real. India and its inhabitants were not to 
him, as to most Englishmen, mere names and 
abstractions, but a real country and a real peo- 
ple. The burning sun ; the strange vegetation 
of the palm and the cocoa trees ; the rice-field 
and the tank; the huge trees, older than the 
Mogul empire, under which the village crowds 
assemble ; the thatched roof of the peasant's 
hut, and the rich tracery of the mosque, where 
the imaum prayed with his face to Mecca ; the 
drums, and banners, and gaudy idols ; the de- 
votee swinging in the air ; the graceful maiden, 
with the pitcher on her head, descending the 
steps to the river-side; the black faces, the 
long beards, the yellow streaks of sect; the 
turbans and the flowing robes ; the spears and 
silver maces; the elephants with their cano- 
pies of state ; the gorgeous palanquin of the 
prince, and the close litter of the noble lady — 
all those things were to him as the objects 
amidst which his own life had been passed — 
as the objects which lay on the road between 
Beaconsfield and St. James's Street. All In- 
dia was present to the eye of his mind, from 
the halls where suitors laid gold and perfumes 
at the feet of sovereigns, to the wild moor 
where the gipsy-camp was pitched — from the 
bazars, humming like beehives with the crowd 
of buyers and sellers, to the jungle where the 
lonely courier shakes his bunch of iron rings 
to scare away the hyEenas. He had just as 
lively an idea of the insurrection at Benares as 
of Lord George Gordon's riots, and of the exe- 
cution of Nuncomar as of the execution of Dr. 
Dodd. Oppression in Bengal was to him the 
same thing as oppression in the streets of Lon- 
don. 

He saw that Hastings had been guilty of 
some most unjustifiable acts. All that followed 
was natural and necessary in a mind like 
Burke's. His imagination and his passions, 
once excited, hurried him beyond the bounds 
of justice and good sense. His reason, power- 
ful as it was, was reduced to be the slave of 
feelings which it should have controlled. His 
indignation, virtuous in its origin, acquired too 
mueh of the character of personal aversion. 
He could see no mitigating circumstance, no 
redeeming merit. His temper, which, though 
generous and affectionate, had always been 
irritable, had now been almost savage by 
bodily infirmities and mental vexations. Con- 
scious of great powers and great virtues, he 
found himself, in age and poverty, a mark for 
the hatred of a perfidious court and a deluded 
people. In Parliament his eloquence was out 
of date. A young generation which knew him 
not had filled the House. Whenever he rose 
to speak, his voice was drowned by the un- 
seemly interruptions of lads who were in 
their Cradles when his orations on the Stamp 
Act called forth the applause of the great Earl 
of Chatham. These things had produced on 
his proud and sensitive spirit an effect at which 
w cannot wonder. He could no longer dis- 



cuss any question with calmness, or make 
allowances for honest difference of opinion. 
Those who think that he was more violent and 
acrimonious in debates about India than on 
other occasions, are ill-informed respecting the 
last years of his life. In the discussions on 
the Commercial Treaty with the court of Ver- 
sailles, on the Regency, on the French Revo- 
lution, he showed even more virulence than in 
conducting the impeachment. Indeed, it may 
be remarked, that the very persons who repre- 
sented him as a mischievous maniac for con- 
demning in burning words the Rohilla war and 
the spoliation of the Begums, exalted him into 
an inspired prophet as soon as he began to de- 
claim, with greater vehemence, and not with 
greater reason, against the taking of the Bas- 
tile and the insults offered to Marie Antoinette. 
To us he appears to have been neither a ma- 
niac in the former case nor a prophet in the 
latter, but in both cases a great and good man 
led into extravagance by a tempestuous sensi- 
bility which domineered over all his faculties. 
It may be doubted whether the personal anti- 
pathy of Francis or the nobler indignation of 
Burke would have led their party to adopt ex- 
treme measures against Hastings, if his own 
conduct had been judicious. He should have 
felt that, great as his public services had been, 
he was not faultless ; and should have been 
content to make his escape, without aspiring 
to the honours of a triumph. He and his agent 
took a different view. They were impatient 
for the rewards which, as they conceived, were 
deferred only till Burke's attack should be over. 
They accordingly resolved tf force a decisive 
action with an enemy for whom, had they been 
wise, 'they would have made a bridge of gold. 
On the first day of the session of 17S6, Major 
Scott reminded Burke of the notice given in 
the preceding year, and asked Burke whether 
it was seriously intended to bring any charge 
against the late Governor-General. This chal- 
lenge left no coursf open to the Opposition ex- 
cept to come forward as accusers or to acknow- 
ledge themselves calumniators. The adminis- 
tration of Hastings had not been so blameless 
nor was the great party of Fox and North so 
feeble that it could be prudent to venture on 
so bold a defiance. The leaders of the Oppo- 
sition instantly returned the only answer which 
they could with honour return, and the whole 
party wa 1 irrevocably pledged to a prosecu- 
tion. 

Bur^e began his operations by applying for 
papers. Some of the documents for which he 
asked were refused by the ministers, who, in 
the debate, held language such as strongly con- 
firmed the prevailing opinion that they intend- 
ed to support Hastings. In April the charges 
were laid on the table. They had been drawn 
up by Burke with great ability, though in a 
form too much resembling that of a pamphlet. 
Hastings was furnished with a copy of the ac- 
cusation, and it was intimated to him that he 
might, if he thought fit, be heard in Ms own 
defence at the bar of the Commons 

Here, again, Hastings was pursued by the 
same fatality which had attended him ever 
since the day when he set foot on English 
ground. It seemed to be decreed that this man. 



WARREN HASTINGS. 



493 



so politic and so successful in the East, should 
commit nothing but blunders in Europe. Any 
judicious adviser would have told him that the 
best thing which he could do would be to make 
an eloquent, forcible, and affecting oration at 
the bar of the House ; but that, if he could not 
trust himself to speak, but found it necessary 
to read, he ought to be as concise as possible. 
Audiences accustomed to extemporaneous de- 
bating of the highest excellence are always 
impatient of long written compositions. Hast- 
ings, however, sat down as he would have 
done at the Government-house in Bengal, and 
prepared a paper of immense length. That 
paper, if recorded on the consultations of an 
Indian administration, would have been justly 
praised as a very able minute, but it was now 
out of place. It fell flat, as the best written 
defence must have fallen flat, on an assembly 
accustomed to the animated and strenuous con- 
flicts of Pitt and Fox. The members, as soon 
as their curiosity about the face and demeanour 
of so eminent a stranger was satisfied, walked 
away to dinner, and left Hastings to tell his 
story till midnight to the clerks and the ser- 
geant-at-arms. 

All preliminary steps having been duly taken, 
Burke, in the beginning of June, brought for- 
ward the charge relating to the Rohilla war. 
He acted discreetly in placing thi r accusation 
in the van ; for Dundas had moved, and the 
House had adopted a resolution, condemning, 
in the most severe terms, the policy followed 
by Hastings with regard to Rohilcund. Dun- 
das had little, or rather nothing, to say in de- 
fence of his own consistency; but he put a bold 
face on the matter, and opposed the motion. 
Among other things, he declared that, though 
he still thought the Rohilla war unjustifiable, 
he considered the services which Hastings had 
subsequently rendered to the state as sufficient 
to atone even for so great an offence. Pitt did 
not speak, but voted with Dundas, and Hast- 
ings was absolved by a hundred and nineteen 
votes against sixty-seven. 

Hastings was now confident of victory. It 
seemed, indeed, that he had reason to be so. 
The Rohilla war was, of all his measures, that 
which his accusers might with the greatest ad- 
vantage assail. It had been condemned by the 
Court of Directors. It had been condemned 
by the House of Commons. It had been con- 
demned by Mr. Dundas, who had since become 
the chief minister of the crown for Indian 
affairs. Yet Burke, having chosen the strong 
ground, had been completely defeated on it. 
That, having failed here, he should succeed on 
any point, was generally thought impossible. It 
was rumoured at the clubs and coffee-houses 
that one or perhaps two more charges would 
be brought forward ; that if, on those charges, 
the sense of the House of Commons should be 
against impeachment, the Opposition would let 
the matter drop ; that Hastings would be im- 
mediately raised to the peerage, decorated with 
the star of the Bath, sworn of the Privy Coun- 
cil, and invited to lend the assistance of his 
talents and experience to the India Board. 
Lord Thurlow, indeed, some months before, 
had spoken with contempt of the scruples 
which prevented Pitt from calling Hastings to 
32 



the House of Lords ; and had even said thai 
if the Chancellor of the Exchequer was afraid 
of the Commons, there was nothing to prevent 
the Keeper of the Great Seal from taking the 
royal pleasure about a patent of peerage. The 
very title was chosen. Hastings was to be 
Lord Daylesford. For, through all changes 
of scene and changes of fortune remained un- 
changed his attachment to the spot which had 
witnessed the greatness and the fall of his 
family, and which had borne so great a part 
in the first dreams of his young ambition. 

But in a very few days these fair prospects 
were overcast. On the 13th of June, Mr. Fox 
brought forward, with great ability and elo- 
quence, the charge respecting the treatment of 
Cheyte Sing. Francis followed on the same 
side. The friends of Hastings were in high 
spirits when Pitt rose. With his usual abun- 
dance and felicity of language, the minister 
gave his opinion on the case. He maintained 
that the Governor-General was justified in 
calling on the Rajah of Benares for pecuniary 
assistance, and in imposing a fine when that 
assistance was contumaciously withheld. He 
also thought that the conduct of the Governor- 
General,' during the insurrection, had been dis- 
tinguished by ability and presence of mind. 
He censured, with great bitterness, the conduct 
of Francis, both in India and in Parliament, as 
most dishonest and malignant. The necessary 
inference from Pitt's arguments seemed to be 
that Hastings ought to be honourably acquitted 
and both the friends and the opponents of the 
minister expected from him a declaration to 
that effect. To the astonishment of all parties, 
he concluded by saying, that though he thought 
it right in Hastings to fine Cheyte Sing for 
contumacy, yet the amount of the fine was too 
great for the occasion. On this ground, and 
on this ground alone, did Mr. Pitt, applauding 
every other part of the conduct of Hastings 
with regard to Benares, declare that he should 
vote in favour of Mr. Fox's motion. 

The House was thunderstruck, and it well 
might be so ; for the wrong done to Cheyte 
Sing, even had it been as flagitious as Fox and 
Francis contended, was a trifle when compared 
with the horrors which had been inflicted on 
Rohilcund. But if Mr. Pitt's view of the case 
of Cheyte Sing were correct, there was no 
ground at all for an impeachment, or even for 
a vote of censure. If the offence of Hastings 
was really no more than this, — that, having a 
right to impose a mulct, the amount of which 
mulct was not defined, but was left to be settled 
by his discretion, he had, not for his own ad- 
vantage, but for that of the state, demanded too 
much, — was this an offence which required a 
criminal proceeding of the highest solemnity — 
a criminal proceeding to which, during sixty 
years, no public functionary had been subject- 
ed! We can see, we think, in what way a 
man of sense and integrity might have been 
induced to take any course respecting Hastings, 
except the course which Mr. Pitt took. Such 
a man might have thought a great example 
necessary, for the preventing of injustice, and 
for the vindicating of the national honour , ami 
might, on that ground, have votid for impeach- 
ment both on the Rohilla charge an*i on !h< 



494 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Benares charge. Such a man might have 
thought that the offences of Hastings had been 
atoned for by great services, and might, on that 
ground, have voted against the impeachment 
on both charges. With great diffidence, we 
give it as our opinion, that the most correct 
course would, on the whole, have been to im- 
peach on the Rohilla charge, and to acquit on 
the Benares charge. Had the Benares charge 
appeared to us in the same light in which it 
appeared to Mr. Pitt, we should, without hesi- 
tation, have voted for acquittal on that charge. 
The one course which it is inconceivable that 
any man of a tenth part of Mr. Pitt's abilities 
can have honestly taken, was the course which 
he took. He acquitted Hastings on the Rohilla 
charge. He softened down the Benares charge 
till it became no charge at all, and then he 
pronounced that it contained matter for im- 
peachment. 

Nor must it be forgotten, that the principal 
reason assigned by the ministry for not im- 
peaching Hastings on account of the Rohilla 
war was, that the delinquencies of the early 
part of his administration had been atoned for 
by the excellence of the later part. Was it 
not most extraordinary, that men who had held 
this language could afterwards vote that the 
later part of his administration furnished mat- 
ter for no less than twenty articles of impeach- 
ment 1 They first contended that the conduct 
of Hastings in 1780 and 1781 was so highly 
meritorious, that, like works of supererogation 
in the Catholic theology, it ought to be effica- 
cious for the cancelling of former offences ; and 
they then prosecuted him for his conduct in 
1780 and 1781. 

The general astonishment was the greater, 
because, only twenty-four hours before, the 
members on whom the Ministry could depend 
aad received the usual notes from the treasury, 
begging them to be in their places and to vote 
against Mr. Fox's motion. It was asserted by 
Mr. Hastings, that early on the morning of the 
very day on which the debate took place, Dun- 
das called on Pitt, woke him, and was closeted 
with him many hours. The result of this con- 
ference was a determination to give up the late 
Governor-General to the vengeance of the Op- 
position. It was impossible even for the most 
powerful minister to carry all his followers 
with him in so strange a course. Several per- 
sons high in office, the Attorney-General, Mr. 
Srenville, and Lord Mulgrave voted against 
Mr. Pitt. But the devoted adherents who stood 
by the head of the government without asking 
questions, were sufficiently numerous to turn 
the scale. A hundred and nineteen members 
voted for Mr. Fox's motion; seventy-nine 
against it. Dundas silently followed Pitt. 

That good and great man, the late William 
Wilbcnbrce, often related the events of this 
temarkable night. He described the amaze- 
ment of the House, and the bitter reflections 
which were muttered against the prime minis- 
ter by some of the habitual supporters of go- 
vernment. Pitt himself appeared to feel that 
ttis conduct required some explanation. He 
left the treasury-bench, sat for some time by 
Mr. Wilberforce, and very earnestly declared 
that he had found it impossible, as a man of 



conscience, to stand any longer by Has lings. 
The business, he said, was too bad. Mr. Wit 
berforce, we are bound to add, fully believed 
that his friend was sincere, and that the suspi 
cions to which this mysterious affair gave rise 
were altogether unfounded. 

Those suspicions, indeed, were such as it is 
painful to mention. The friends of Hastings, 
most of whom, it is to be observed, generally 
supported the administration, affirmed that th 
motive of Pitt and Dundas was jealous} 
Hastings was personally a favourite with the 
king. He was the idol of the East India Com- 
pany and of its servants. If he were absolved 
by the Commons, seated among the Lords, ad- 
mitted to the Board of Control, closely allied' 
with the strong-minded and imperious Thurlow, 
was it not almost certain that he would soon 
draw to himself the entire management of 
Eastern affairs 1 Was it not possible that he 
might become a formidable rival in the cabi- 
net! It had probably got abroad that very 
singular communications had taken place be- 
tween Thurlow and Major Scott ; and that, if 
the first Lord of the Treasury was afraid to 
recommend Hastings for a peerage, the Chan- 
cellor was ready to take the responsibility of 
that step on himself. Of all ministers, Pitt was 
the least likely to submit with patience to such 
an encroachment on his functions. If the 
Commons impeached Hastings, all danger was 
at an end. The proceeding, however it might 
terminate, would probably last some years. In 
the mean time, the accused person would be 
excluded from honours and public employ- 
ments, and could scarcely venture even to pay 
his duty at court. Such were the motives at- 
tributed, by a great part of the public, to the 
young minister, whose ruling passion was ge- 
nerally believed to be avarice of power. 

The prorogation soon interrupted the dis- 
cussions respecting Hastings. In the following 
year those, discussions were resumed. The 
charge touching the spoliation of the Begums 
was brought forward by Sheridan, in a speech 
which was so imperfectly reported that it may 
be said to be wholly lost; but which was, 
without doubt, the most elaborately brilliant of 
all the productions of his ingenious mind. The 
impression which it produced was such as has 
never been equalled. He sat down, not merely 
amidst cheering, but amidst the loud clapping 
of hands, in which the Lords below the bar, 
and the strangers in the gallery, joined. The 
excitement of the House was such that no other 
speaker could obtain a hearing, and the. de. 
bate was adjourned. The impression made 
by this remarkable display of eloquence on 
severe and experienced critics, whose discern- 
ment may be supposed to have been quickened 
by emulation, was deep and permanent. Mr. 
Windham, twenty years later, said that the 
speech deserved all its fame, and was, in spite 
of some faults ot taste, such as were seldom 
wanting either in the literary or in the parlia- 
mentary performances of Sheridan, the greatest 
that had been delivered within the memory of 
man. Mr. Fox, about the same time, being asked 
by the late Lord Holland what was the best 
speech ever made ;n the House of Commons 
assigned the first place, without hesitation, to 



WARREN HASTINGS. 



495 



the great oration of Sheridan on the Oude 
charge. 

When the debate was resumed, the tide ran 
so strongly against the accused, that his friends 
were coughed and scraped down. Pitt declared 
himself for Sheridan's motion; and the question 
was carried by a hundred and seventy-five 
votes against sixty-eight. 

The Opposition, flushed with victory, and 
strongly supported by the public sympathy, 
proceeded to bring forward a succession of 
charges relating chiefly to pecuniary trans- 
actions. The friends of Hastings were dis- 
couraged, and, having now no hope of being 
able to avert an impeachment, were not very 
strenuous in their exertions. At length the 
House, having agreed to twenty articles of 
charge, directed Burke to go before the Lords, 
and to impeach the late Governor-General of 
High Crimes and Misdemeanours. Hastings 
was at the same time arrested by the sergeant- 
at-arms, and carried to the bar of the Peers. 

The session was now within ten days of its 
close. It was, therefore, impossible that any 
progress could be made in the trial till the next 
year. Hastings was admitted to bail ; and 
further proceedings were postponed till the 
Houses should reassemble. 

When Parliament met in the following win- 
ter, the Commons proceeded to elect a com- 
mittee for managing the impeachment. Burke 
stood at the head, and with him were asso- 
ciated most of the leading members of the 
Opposition. But when the name of Francis 
was read, a fierce contention arose. It was 
said that Francis and Hastings were noto- 
riously on bad terms ; that they had been at 
feud during many years ; that on one occasion 
their mutual aversion had impelled them to 
seek each other's lives ; and that it would be 
improper and indelicate to select a private 
enemy to be a public accuser. It was urged 
on the other side with great force, particularly 
by Mr. Windham, that impartiality, though the 
first duty of a judge, had never been reckoned 
among the qualities of an advocate ; that in 
the ordinary administration of criminal justice 
in England, the aggrieved party, the very last 
person who ought to be admitted into the jury- 
box, is the prosecutor ; that what was wanted 
in a manager was, not that he should be free 
from bias, but that he should be energetic, able, 
well-informed, and active. The ability and in- 
formation of Francis were admitted ; and the 
very animosity with which he was reproached, 
whether a virtue or a vice, was at least a 
pledge for his energy and activity. It seems 
difficult to refute these arguments. But the 
inveterate hatred borne by Francis to Hastings 
had excited general disgust. The House de- 
cided that Francis should not be a manager. 
Pitt voted with the majority, Dundas with the 
minority. 

In the mean time, the preparations for the 
trial had proceeded rapidly; and on the 13th 
of February, 1788, the sittings of the Court 
commenced. There have been spectacles more 
dazzling to the eye, more gorgeous with jewel- 
lery and cloth of gold, more attractive to grown- 
up children, than that whichjwas then exhi- 
bited at Westminster; but, perhaps, there never 



was a spectacle so well calculated to strike a 
highly cultivated, a reflecting, an imaginative 
mind. All the various kinds of interest which 
belong to the near and to the distant, to the 
present and to the past, were collected on one 
spot and in one hour. All the talents and all 
the accomplishments which are developed by 
liberty and civilization were now displayed, 
with every advantage that could be derived 
both from co-operation and from contrast 
Every step in the proceedings carried the mind 
either backward, through many troubled cen- 
turies, to the days when the foundations of the 
constitution were laid; or far away, over bound- 
less seas and deserts, to dusky nations living 
under strange stars, worshipping strange gods, 
and writing strange characters from right to 
left. The High Court of Parliament was to sit, 
according to forms handed down from the days 
of the Plantagenets, on an Englishman accused 
of exercising tyranny over the lord of the holy 
city of Benares, and the ladies of the princely 
house of Oude. 

The place was Avorthy of such a trial. Il 
was the great hall of William Rufus ; the hal I 
which had resounded with acclamations at the 
inauguration of thirty kings ; the hall which 
had witnessed the just sentence of Bacon and 
the just absolution of Somers ; the hall where 
the eloquence of Strafford had for a momenl 
awed and melted a victorious party inflamed 
with just resentment ; the hall where Charles 
had confronted the High Court of Justice with 
the placid courage which has half redeemed 
his fame. Neither military nor civil pomp was 
wanting. The avenues were lined with gre- 
nadiers. The streets were kept clear by ca- 
valry. The peers, robed in gold and ermine, 
were marshalled by the heralds under Garter 
King-at-Arms. The judges, in their vestments 
of state, attended to give advice on points of 
law. Near a hundred and seventy Lords, three- 
fourths of the Upper House, as the Upper 
House then was, walked in solemn order from 
their usual place of assembling to the tribunal. 
The junior baron present led the way- — Lord 
Heathfield, recently ennobled for his memo 
rable defence of Gibraltar against the fleets and 
armies of France and Spain. The long pro- 
cession was closed by the Duke of Norfolk, 
Earl Marshal of the realm, by the great digni- 
taries, and by the brothers and sons of the 
king. Last of all came the Prince of Wales, 
conspicuous by his fine person and noble bear- 
ing. The gray old walls were hung with scarlet. 
The long galleries were crowded by such an 
audience as has rarely excited the fears or the 
emulation of an orator. There were gathered 
together, from all parts of a great, free, enlight- 
ened, and prosperous realm, grace and female 
loveliness, wit and learning, the representatives 
of every science and of every art. There 
were seated around the queen the fair-haireu 
young daughters of the house of Brunswick. 
There the ambassadors of great kings and 
commonwealths gazed with admiration on a 
spectacle which no other country in the world 
could present. There Siddons, in the prime 
of her majestic beauty, looked with emotion on 
a scene surpassing all the imitations of the 
stage. There the historian of the Roman Em 



406 



MACAULAY'S MISCELIANEOUS WRITINGS. 



pirt thought of the days when Cicero pleadet 
the cause of Sicily against Verres ; and when, 
before a senate which had still some show of 
freedom, Tacitus thundered against the op- 
pressor of Africa. There were seen, side by 
side, the greatest painter and the greatest scho- 
lar of the age. The spectacle had allured 
Reynolds from that easel which has preserved 
to us the thoughtful foreheads of so many 
writers and statesmen, and the sweet smiles of 
so many noble matrons. It had induced Parr 
to suspend his labours in that dark and pro- 
found mine from which he had extracted a vast 
treasure of erudition — a treasure too often bu- 
ried in the earth, too often paraded with inju- 
dicious and inelegant ostentation ; but still pre- 
cious, massive, and splendid. There appeared 
the voluptuous charms of her to whom the heir 
of the throne had in secret plighted his faith. 
There, too, was she, the beautiful mother of a 
beautiful race, the Saint Cecilia, whose deli- 
cate features, lighted up by love and music, 
art has rescued from the common decay. There 
were the members of that brilliant society 
which quoted, criticised, and exchanged repar- 
tees, under the rich peacock hangings of Mrs. 
Montague. And there the ladies, whose lips, 
more persuasive than those of Fox himself, had 
carried the Westminster election against pa- 
Lace and treasury, shone round Georgiana Du- 
ehess of Devonshire. 

The Sergeants made proclamation. Hast- 
ings advanced to the bar, and bent his knee. 
The culprit was indeed not unworthy of that 
great presence. He had ruled an extensive 
and populous country, had made laws and 
treaties, had sent forth armies, had set up and 
pulled down princes. And in his high place 
he had so borne himself, that all had feared 
him, that most had loved him, and that hatred 
itself could deny him no title to glory, except 
virtue. He looked like a great man, and not 
like a bad man. A person small and ema- 
ciated, yet deriving dignity from a carriage 
which, while it indicated deference to the 
court, indicated also habitual self-possession 
and self-respect; a high and intellectual fore- 
head; a brow pensive, but not gloomy; a 
mouth of inflexible decision ; a face pale and 
worn, but serene, on which was written, as 
legibly as under the great picture in the Coun- 
cil-chamber at Calcutta, Mens aqua in arduis; — 
such was the aspect with which the great pro- 
consul presented himself to his judges. 

His counsel accompanied him, men all of 
whom were afterwards raised by their talents 
and learning to the highest posts in their pro- 
fession, — the bold and strong-minded Law, 
afterwards Chief Justice of the King's Bench ; 
;he more humane and eloquent Dallas, after- 
wards Chief Justice of the Common Pleas ; 
and Plomer, who, nearly twenty years later, 
successfully conducted in the same high court 
the defence of Lord Melville, and subsequently 
became Vice-chancellor and master of the 
Rolls. 

But neither the culprit nor his advocates at- 
a acted so much notice as the accusers. In 
Ihc midst of the blaze of red drapery, a space 
had been fitted up with green benches and 
seats for the Commons. The managers, with 



Burke at their head, appeared ;n full dress. 
The collectors of gossip did not fail to remara 
that even Fox, generally so regardless of his 
appearance, had paid to the illustrious tribunal 
the compliment of wearing a bag and sword, 
Pitt had refused to be one of the conductors of 
the impeachment; and his commanding, copi- 
ous, and sonorous eloquence was wanting to 
that great muster of various talents. Age and 
blindness had unfitted Lord North for the du- 
ties of a public prosecutor; and his friends 
were left without the help of his excellent 
sense, his tact, and his urbanity. But, in spite 
of the absence of these two distinguished mem- 
bers of the Lower House, the box in which the 
managers stood contained an array of speak- 
ers such as perhaps had not appeared together 
since the great age of Athenian eloquence. 
There stood Fox and Sheridan, the English 
Demosthenes and the English Hyperides. 
There was Burke, ignorant, indeed, or negli- 
gent of the art of adapting his reasonings and 
his style to the capacity and taste of his hcar- 
eifs ; but in aptitude of comprehension and 
richness of imagination superior to every ora- 
tor, ancient or modern. There, with eyes re- 
verentially fixed on Burke, appeared the finest 
gentleman of the age — his form developed by 
every manly exercise — his face beaming with 
intelligence and spirit — the ingenious, the 
chivalrous, the- high-souled Windham. Nor, 
though surrounded by such men, did the 
youngest manager pass unnoticed. At an age 
when most of those who distinguish them- 
selves in life are still contending for prizes 
and fellowships at college, he had won for 
himself a conspicuous place in Parliament. 
No advantage of fortune or connection was 
wanting that could set off to the height his 
splendid talents and his unblemished honour. 
At twenty-three he had been thought worthy 
to be ranked with the veteran statesmen who 
appeared as the delegates of the British Com- 
mons, at the bar of the British nobility. AH 
who stood at that bar, save him alone, are 
gone — culprit, advocates, accusers. To the 
generation which is now in the vigour of life, 
he is the sole representative of a great age 
which has passed away. But those who, 
within the last ten years, have listened with 
delight, till the morning sun shone on the 
tapestries of the House of Lords, to the lofty 
and animated eloquence of Charles Earl Grey, 
are able to form some estimate of the powers 
of a race of men among whom he was not the 
foremost. 

The charges and the answers of Hastings 
were first read. This ceremony occupied two 
whole days, and was rendered less tedious 
than it would otherwise have been, by the 
silver voice and just emphasis of Cowper, the 
clerk of the court, a near relation of the amia- 
ble poet. On the third day Burke rose. Four 
sittings of the court were occupied by his 
opening speech, which was intended to be a 
general introduction to all the charges. With 
an exuberance of thought and a splendour of 
diction which more than satisfied the highly- 
raised expectation of the audience, he described 
the character and institutions of the natives of 
India ; recounted the circumstances in which 



WARREN HASTINGS. 



497 



the Asiatic empire of Britain had originated; 
and set forth the constitution of the Company 
and of the English Presidencies. Having thus 
attempted to communicate to his hearers an 
idea of Eastern society, as vivid as that which 
existed in his own mind, he proceeded to ar- 
raign the administration of Hastings, as sys- 
tematically conducted in defiance cf morality 
and public law. The energy and pathos of 
the great orator extorted expressions of un- 
wonted admiration even from the stern and 
hostile Chancellor ; and, for a moment, seemed 
to pierce even the resolute heart of the defend- 
ant. The ladies in the galleries, unaccustomed 
to such displays of eloquence, excited by the 
solemnity of the occasion, and perhaps not un- 
willing to display their taste and sensibility, 
were in a state of uncontrollable emotion. 
Handkerchiefs were pulled out ; smelling-bot- 
tles were handed round ; hysterical sobs and 
screams were heard ; and Mrs. Sheridan was 
carried out in a fit. At length the orator con- 
cluded. Raising his voice till the old arches 
of Irish oak resounded — "Therefore," said he, 
"hath it trith all confidence been ordered by 
the Commons of Great Britain, that I impeach 
Warren Hastings of high crimes and misde- 
meanours. I impeach him in the name of the 
Commons House of Parliament, whose trust 
he has betrayed. I impeach him in the name 
of the English nation, whose ancient honour 
he. has sullied. I impeach him in the name 
of the people of India, whose rights he has 
trodden under foot, and whose country he has 
turned into a desert. Lastly, in the name of 
human nature itself, in the name of both sexes, 
in the name of every age, in*the name of every 
rank, I impeach the common enemy and op- 
pressor of all !" 

When the deep murmur of various emotions 
had subsided, Mr. Fox rose to address the Lords 
respecting the course of proceeding to be fol- 
lowed. The wish of the accuser was, that the 
court would bring to a close the investigation 
of the first charge before the second was open- 
ed. The wish of Hastings and his counsel 
was, that the managers should open all the 
charges, and produce all the evidence for the 
prosecution, before the defence began. The 
Lords retired to their own house, to consider 
the question. The Chancellor took the side of 
Hastings. Lord Loughborough, who was now 
in opposition, supported the demand of the 
managers. The division showed which way 
the inclination of the tribunal leaned. A ma- 
jority of near three to one decided in favour of 
the course for which Hastings contended. 

When the court sat again, Mr. Fox, assisted 
by Mr. Grey, opened the charge respecting 
Cheyte Sing, and several days were spent in 
reading papers and hearing witnesses. The 
next article was that relating to the Princesses 
cf Oude. The conduct of this part of the case 
was intrusted to Sheridan. The curiosity of 
the public, to hear him was unbounded. His 
sparkling and highly-finished declamation last- 
ed two days ; but the Hall was crowded to suf- 
focation during the whole time. It was said 
that fifty guineas had been paid for a single 
ticket. Sheridan, when he concluded, con- 
trived, with a knowledge of stage-effect which 



his fatht. .* might have envied, to sink hack, aa 
if exhausted, into the arms of Burke, who 
hugged him with the energy of generous admi- 
ration ! 

June was now far advanced. The session 
could not last much longer, and the progress 
which had been made in the impeachment was 
not very satisfactory. There were twenty 
charges. On two only of these had even the 
case for the prosecution been heard; and it 
was now a year since Hastings had been ad 
mitted to bail. 

The interest taken by the public in the trial 
was great when the court began to sit, and 
rose to the height when Sheridan spoke on the 
charge relating to the Begums. From that 
time the excitement went down fast. The 
spectacle had lost the attraction of novelty. 
The great displays of rhetoric were over. 
What was behind was not of a nature to entice 
men of letters from their books in the morning, 
or to tempt ladies who had left the masquerade 
at two, to be out of bed before eight. There 
remained examinations and cross-examina- 
tions. There remained statements of accounts. 
There remained the reading of papers, filled 
with words unintelligible to English ears — with 
lacs and crores, zemindars and aumils, sun- 
nuds and perwannahs, jaghires and nuzzurs. 
There remained bickerings, not always carriec 
on with the best taste or with the best temper 
between the managers of the impeachment and 
the counsel for the defence, particularly between 
Mr. Burke and Mr. Law. There remained the 
endless marches and counter-marches of the 
Peers between their house and the hall; for 
as often as a point of law was to be dis- 
cussed their lordships retired to discuss it 
apart; and the consequence was, as the late 
Lord Stanhope wittily said, that the judges 
walked and the trial stood still. 

It is to be added, that in the spring of 1788, 
when the trial commenced, no important ques- 
tion, either of domestic or foreign policy, ex- 
cited the public mind. The proceeding in 
Westminster Hall, therefore, naturally excited 
most of the attention of Parliament and of the 
public. It was the one great event of that sea- 
son. But in the following year, the king's ill- 
ness, the debates en the regency, the expecta- 
tion of a change of ministry, completely diverted 
public attention from Indian affairs ; and within 
a fortnight after George the Third had returned 
thanks in St. Paul's for his recovery, the States- 
General of France met at Versailles. In the 
midst of the agitation produced by those events, 
the impeachment was for a time almost for- 
gotten. 

The trial in the hall went on languidly. In 
the session of 1788, when the proceedings had 
the interest of novelty, and when the Peers had 
little other business before them, only thirty- 
five days were given 1o the impeachment. In 
1789, the Regency Bill occupied the Upper 
House till the session was far advanced. When 
the king recovered, the circuits were beginning. 
The judges left town ; the Lords waited for the 
return of the oracles of jurisprudence ; and 
the consequence was, that during the whole 
year only seventeen days were given to the 
case of Hastings. It was clear that the matte* 



498 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



would be protracted to a length unprecedented 
m the annals of criminal law. 

In truth, it is impossible to deny that im- 
peachment, though it is a fine ceremony, and 
though it may have been useful in the seven- 
teenth century, is not a proceeding from which 
much good can now be expected. Whatever 
confidence may be placed in the decisions of 
the Peers on an appeal arising out of ordinary 
litigation, it is certain that no man has the least 
confidence in their impartiality, when a great 
public functionary, charged with a great state 
crime, is brought to their bar. They are all 
politicians. There is hardly one among them, 
whose vote on an impeachment may not be 
confidently predicted before a witness has been 
examined ; and even were it possible to rely on 
their justice, they would still be quite unfit to 
try such a cause as that of Hastings. They 
sit only during half the year. They have to 
transact much legislative and much judicial 
business. The law-lords, whose advice is re- 
quired to guide the unlearned majority, are 
employed daily in administering justice else- 
where. It is impossible, therefore, that during 
a busy session, the Upper House should give 
more than a few days to an impeachment. To 
expect that their lordships would give up par- 
tridge-shooting, in order to bring the greatest 
delinquent to speedy justice, or to relieve ac- 
cused innocence by speedy acquittal, would be 
unreasonable indeed. A well constituted tribu- 
nal, sitting regularly six days in the week, and 
nine hours in the day, would have finished the 
trial of Hastings in less than three months. 
The Lords had not finished their work in seven 
years. 

The result ceased to be a matter of doubt, 
from the time when the Lords resolved that 
they would be guided by the rules of evidence 
which are received in inferior courts of the 
realm. Those rules, it is well known, exclude 
much information which would be quite suffi- 
cient to determine the conduct of any reasona- 
ble man, in the most important transactions of 
private life. Those rules, at every assizes, 
save scores of culprits, whom judges, jury, and 
spectators, firmly believed to be guilty. But 
when those rules were rigidly applied to of- 
fences committed many years before, at the 
distance of many thousand miles, conviction 
was, of course, out of the question. We do 
not blame the accused and his counsel for 
availing themselves of every legal advantage 
in order to obtain an acquittal. But it is clear 
diat an acquittal so obtained cannot be pleaded 
in bar of the judgment of history. 

Several attempts were made by the friends 
of Hastings to put a stop to the trial. In 1789 
thsy proposed a vote of censure upon Burke, 
for some violent language which he had used 
respecting the death of Nuncomar, and the 
connection between Hastings and Impey. 
Burke was then unpopular in the last de- 
gree both with the House and with the- coun- 
try. The asperity and indecency of some 
expressions which he had used during the 
debates on the Regency had annoyed even his 
wannest friends. The vote of censure was 
carried, and those who had moved it hoped 
that the managers would resign in disgust. 



Burke was deeply hurt. But his zeal for whaj 
he considered as the cause of justice and mer* 
cy triumphed over his personal feelings. H« 
received the censure of the House with dignity 
and meekness, and declared that no personal 
mortification or humiliation should induce him 
to flinch from the sacred duty which he had 
undertaken. 

In the following year, the Parliament was 
dissolved; and the friends of Hastings enter- 
tained a hope that the new House of Commons 
might not be disposed to go on with the im- 
peachment. They began by maintaining thai 
the whole proceeding was terminated by the 
dissolution. Defeated on this point, they made 
a direct motion that the impeachment should be 
dropped ; but they were defeated by the com- 
bined forces of the government and the oppo- 
sition. It was, however, resolved that, for the 
sake of expedition, many of the articles should 
be withdrawn. In truth, had not some such 
measure been adopted, the trial would have 
lasted till the defendant was in his grave. 

At length, in the spring of 1795, the decision 
was pronounced, nearly eight years after Hast- 
ings had been brought by'the sergeant-at-arms 
of the Commons to the bar of the Lords. On 
the last day of this great procedure, the public 
curiosity, long suspended, seemed to be re- 
vived. Anxiety about the judgment there 
could be none ; for it had been fully ascer- 
tained that there was a great majority for the 
defendant. But many wished to see the pa- 
geant, and the hall was as much crowded as 
on the first day. But those who, having been 
present on the first day, now bore a part in the 
proceedings of the last, were few, and most of 
those few were altered men. 

As Hastings himself said, the arraignment 
had taken place before one generation, and the 
judgment was pronounced by another. The 
spectator could not look at the woolsack, or at 
the red benches of the peers, or at the green 
benches of the Commons, without seeing 
something that reminded him of the instability 
of all human things ; — of the instability of 
power, and fame, and life, of the more lamenta- 
ble instability of friendship. The great seal 
was borne before Lord Loughborough, who, 
when the trial commenced, was a fierce oppo- 
nent of Mr. Pitt's government, and who was 
now a member of that government; while 
Thurlow, who presided in the court when it 
first sat, estranged from all his old allies, sat 
scowling among the junior barons. Of a hun- 
dred and sixty nobles who walked in the pro- 
cession on the first day, sixty had been laid in 
their family vaults. Still more affecting must 
have been the sight of the managers' box. 
What had become of that fair fellowship, so 
closely bound together by public and private 
ties, so resplendent with every talent and ac- 
complishment? It had been scattered by ca- 
lamities more bitter than the bitterness e/ 
death. The great chiefs were still living, and 
still in the full vigour of their genius. But 
their friendship was at an end. It had been 
violently and publicly dissolved with tears and 
stormy reproaches. If those men, once so deaf 
to each other, were now compelled to meet for 
the purpose of managing the impeachment 



WARREN HASTINGS. 



499 



they met as strangers whom public business 
had brought together, and behaved to each 
other with cold and distant civility. Burke 
had in his vortex whirled away Windham. 
Fox had been followed by Sheridan and Grey. 

Only twenty-nine peers voted. Of these 
only six found Hastings guilty, on the charges 
relating to Cheyte Sing and to the Begums. 
On other charges the majority in his favour 
was still greater. -On some he was unani- 
mously absolved. He was then called to the 
bar, informed from the woolsack that the Lords 
had acquitted him, and solemnly discharged. 
He bowed respectfully, and retired. 

We have said that the decision had been 
fully expected. It was also generally approved. 
At the commencement of the trial there had 
been a strong and indeed unreasonable feeling 
against Hastings. At the close of the trial, 
there was a feeling equally strong and equally 
unreasonable in his favour. One cause of the 
change was, no doubt, what is commonly call- 
ed the fickleness of the multitude, but what 
seems t»us to be merely the general law of 
human nature. Both in individuals and in 
masses "violent excitement is always followed 
by remission, and often by reaction. We are 
all inclined to depreciate whatever we have 
overpraised ; and, on the other hand, to show 
undue indulgence where we have shown un- 
due rigour. It was thus in the case of Hast- 
ings. The length of his trial, moreover, made 
him an object of compassion. It was thought, 
and not without reason, that, even if he was 
guilty, he was still an ill-used man, and that 
an impeachment of eight years was more than 
a sufficient punishment. It was also felt that, 
though in the ordinary course of criminal law, 
a defendant is not allowed to set off his good 
actions against his crimes, a great political 
cause should be tried on different principles ; 
and that a man who had governed a great 
country during thirteen years might have done 
some very reprehensible things, and yet might 
be on the whole deserving of rewards and ho- 
nours rather than of fine and imprisonment. 
The Press, an instrument neglected by the pro- 
secutors, was used by Hastings and his friends 
with great effect. Every ship, too, that arrived 
from Madras or Bengal brought a cuddy full 
of his admirers. Every gentleman from India 
spoke of the late Governor-General as having 
deserved better, and having been treated 
worse, than any man living. The effect of 
this testimony, unanimously given by all per- 
sons who knew the East, was naturally very 
great. Retired members of the Indian ser- 
vices, civil and military, were settled in all 
corners of the kingdom. Each of them was, 
of course, in his own little circle regarded as 
an oracle on an Indian question; and they 
were, with scarcely one exception, the zealous 
advocates of Hastings. It is to be added, that 
the numerous addresses to the late Governor- 
General, which his friends in Bengal obtained 
from the natives and transmitted to England, 
made a considerable impression. To these ad- 
dresses we attach little or no importance. 
That Hastings was beloved by the people 
whom he governed is true; but the eulogies 
of pundits, zemindars, Mohammedan doctors, 



do not prove it to be true. For an English col- 
lector or judge would have found it easy to in- 
duce any native who could write, to sign a 
panegyric on the most odious ruler that evei 
was in India. It was said that at Benares, the 
very place at which the acts set forth in the 
first article of impeachment had been com- 
mitted, the natives had erected a temple to 
Hastings ; and this story excited a strong sen 
sation in England. Burke's observations on 
the apotheosis were admirable. He saw no 
reason for astonishment, he said, in the inci- 
dent which had been represented as so strik- 
ing. He knew something of the mythology of 
the Brahmins. He knew that, as they wor- 
shipped some gods from love, so they wor- 
shipped others from fear. He knew that they 
erected shrines, not only to the benignant dei- 
ties of light and plenty, but also to the fiends 
who preside over smallpox and murder. Nor 
did he at all dispute the claim of Mr. Hastings 
to be admitted into such a Pantheon. This 
reply has always struck us as one of the finest 
that ever was made in Parliament. It is a 
grave and forcible argument, decorated by the 
most brilliant wit and fancy. 

Hastings was, however, safe. But, in every 
thing except character, he would have been 
far better off, if, when first impeached, he had 
at once pleaded guilty, and paid a fine of fifty 
thousand pounds. He was a ruined man. The 
legal expenses of his defence had been enor- 
mous. The expenses which did not appear in 
his attorney's bill were perhaps larger still. 
Great sums had been paid to Major Scott. 
Great sums had been laid out in bribing news- 
papers, rewarding pamphleteers, and circulat- 
ing tracts. Burke, so early as 1790, declared 
in the House of Commons that twenty thousand 
pounds had been employed in corrupting the 
press. It is certain that no controversial 
weapon, from the gravest reasoning to the 
coarsest ribaldry, was left unemployed. Logan, 
in prose, defended the accused governor with 
great ability. For the lovers of verse, the 
speeches of the managers were burlesqued in 
Simpkin's letters. It is, we are afraid, indis- 
putable that Hastings stooped so low as to 
court the aid of that malignant and filthy ba- 
boon, John Williams, who called himself An- 
thony Pasquin. It was necessary to subsidize 
such allies largely. The private hoards of Mrs. 
Hastings had disappeared. It is said that the 
banker to whom they had been intrusted had 
failed. Still, if Hastings had practised strict 
economy, he would, after all his losses, have 
had a moderate competence ; but in the ma- 
nagement of his private affairs he^was impru. 
dent. The dearest wish of his heart had always 
been to regain Daylesford. At length, in the 
very year in which his trial commenced, the 
wish was accomplished ; and the domain, 
alienated more than seventy years before, re- 
turned to the descendant of its old lords. But 
the manor-house was a ruin ; and the grounds 
round it had, during many years, been utterly 
neglected. Hastings proceeded to build, to 
plant, to form a sheet of water, to excavate a 
grotto ; and, before he was dismissed from the 
bar of the House of Lords, he had expended 
more than 40,0007. in adorning his sea.'. 



600 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



The general feeling both of the Directors and 
of the proprietors of the East India Company 
was, that he had great claims on them, that his 
services to them had been eminent, and that his 
misfortunes had been the effect of his zeal for 
their interests. His friends in Leadenhall 
street, proposed to reimburse him for the costs 
of his trial, and to settle on him an annuity of 
five thousand pounds a year. But the consent 
of the Board of Control was required ; and at 
the head of the Board of Control was Mr. Dun- 
das, who had himself been a party to the im- 
peachment, who had, on that account, been 
reviled with great bitterness by the partisans 
of Hastings, and who, therefore, was not in a 
very complying mood. He refused to consent 
to what the Directors suggested. The Directors 
remonstrated. A long controversy followed. 
Hastings, in the mean time, was reduced to 
such distress that he could hardly pay his 
weekly bills. At length a compromise was 
made. An annuity of four thousand a year 
was settled on Hastings ; and, in order to en- 
able him to meet pressing demands, he was to 
receive ten years' annuity in advance. The 
Company was also permitted to lend him fifty 
thousand pounds, to be repaid by instalments, 
without interest. This relief, though given in 
the most absurd manner, was sufficient to en- 
able the retired governor to live in comfort, 
and even in luxury, if he had been a skilful 
manager. But he was careless and profuse, 
and was more than once under the necessity 
cf applying to the Company for assistance, 
which was liberally given. 

He had security and affluence, but not the 
power and dignity, which, when he landed 
from India, he had reason to expect. He had 
then looked forward to a coronet, a red riband, 
a seat at the Council-board, an office at White- 
hall. He was then only fifty-two, and might 
hope for many years of bodily and mental 
vigour. The case was widely different when 
he left the bar of the Lords. He was now too 
old a man to turn his mind to a new class of 
studies and duties. He had no chance of re- 
ceiving any mark of royal favour while Mr. 
Pitt remained in power ; and, when Mr. Pitt 
retired, Hastings was approaching his seven- 
tieth year. 

Once, and only once, after his acquittal, he 
interfered in politics, and that interference was 
not much to his honour. In 1804, he exerted 
himself strenuously to prevent Mr. Addington, 
against whom Fox and Pitt had combined, 
from resigning the Treasury. It is difficult to 
believe that a man so able and energetic as 
Hastings, can have thought that, when Bona- 
parte was at Boulogne with a great army, the 
defence of our island could safely be intrusted 
to a ministry which did not contain a single 
person whom flattery could describe as a great 
statesman. It is also certain that, on the im- 
portant question which had raised Mr. Adding- 
ton to power, and on which he differed from 
both Fox and Pitt, Hastings, as might have 
been expected, agreed with Fox and Pitt, and 
was decidedly opposed to Addington. Religious 
intolerance has never been the vice of the India 
service, and certainly was not the vice of 
Hastings. But Mr. Addington had treated him 



with marked favour. Fox had been a principa. 
manager of the impeachment. To Pitt it was 
owing that there had been an impeachment; 
and Hastings, we fear, was on this occasion 
guided by personal considerations, rather than 
by a regard to the public interest. 

The last twenty-four years of his life were 
chiefly passed at Daylesford. He amused him- 
self with embellishing his grounds, riding fine 
Arab horses, fattening prize-cattle, and trying 
to rear Indian animals and vegetables in Eng« 
land. He sent for seeds of a very fine custard* 
apple, from the garden of what had once been 
his own villa, among the green hedgerows cf 
Allipore. He tried also to naturalize in Wor 
cestershire the delicious leechee, almost the 
only fruit of Bengal, which deserves tc be re 
gretted even amidst the plenty of Covent-Gar- 
den. The Mogul emperors, in the time of their 
greatness, had in vain attempted to introduce 
into Hindostan the goat of the table-land of 
Thibet, whose down supplies the looms of 
Cashmere with the materials of the finest 
shawls. Hastings tried, with no better fortune, 
to rear a breed at Daylesford ; nor does he 
seem to have succeeded better with the cattle 
of Bootan, whose tails are in high esteem as the 
best fans for brushing away the musquitoes. 

Literature divided his attention with his con- 
servatories and his menagerie. He had always 
loved books, and they were now necessary to 
him. Though not a poet, in any high sense 
of the word, he wrote neat and polished lines 
with great facility, and was fond of exercising 
this talent. Indeed, if we must speak out, he 
seems to have been more of a Trissotin than 
was to be expected from the powers of his 
mind, and from the great part which he had 
played in life. We are assured in these Me- 
moirs, that the first thing which he did in the 
morning was to compose a copy of verses. 
When the family and gu«sts assembled, the 
poem made its appearance as regularly as the 
eggs and rolls ; and Mr. Gleig requires us tc 
believe that, if from any accident Hastings 
came to the breakfast-table without one of his 
charming performances in his hand, the omis- 
sion was felt by all as a grievous disappoint- 
ment. Tastes differ widely. For ourselves 
we must say that, however good the breakfasts 
at Daylesford may have been— and we are as- 
sured that the tea was of the most aromatic 
flavour, and that neither tongue nor venison- 
pasty was wanting — we should have thought 
the reckoning high, if we had been forced to 
earn our repast by listening every day to a new 
madrigal or sonnet composed by our host. We 
are glad, however, that Mr. Gleig has preserved 
this little feature of character, though we think 
it by no means a beauty. It is good to be often 
reminded of the inconsistency of human na- 
ture ; and to learn to look without wonder or 
disgust on the weaknesses which are found in 
the strongest minds. Dionysius in old times, 
Frederic in the last century, with capacity and 
vigour equal to the conduct of the greatest af- 
fairs, united all the little vanities and affecta- 
tions of provincial blue-stockings. These great 
examples may console the admirers of Hast- 
ings for the affliction of seeing him reduced to 
the level of the Hayleys and the Sewards. 



WARREN HASTINGS. 



50 1 



When Hastings had passe 1 many years in 
retirement, and had long outlived the common 
age of men, he again became for a short time 
an object of general attention. In 1813 the 
charter of the East India Company was renew- 
ed ; and much discussion about Indian affairs 
took place in Parliament. It was determined to 
examine witnesses at the bar of the Commons, 
and Hastings was ordered to attend. He had 
appeared at that bar before. It was when he 
read his answer to the charges which Burke 
had laid on the table. Since that time twenty- 
seven years had elapsed; public feeling had 
undergone a complete change ; the nation had 
now forgotten his faults, and remembered only 
his services. The reappearance, too of a man 
who had been among the most distinguished 
of a generation that had passed away, who now 
belonged to history, and who seemed to have 
risen from the dead, could not but produce a 
solemn and pathetic effect. The Commons 
received him with acclamations, ordered a 
chair to be set for him, and when he retired, 
rose and uncovered. There were, indeed, a 
few who dul not sympathize with the general 
feeling. One or two of the managers of the 
impeachment were present. They sat in the 
same seats which they had occupied when they 
had been thanked for the services which they 
had rendered in Westminster Hall ; for, by the 
courtesy of the House, a member who has been 
thanked in his place, is considered as having a 
right always to occupy that place. These gen- 
tlemen were not disposed to admit that they 
had employed several of the best years of their 
Jives in persecuting an innocent man. They 
accordingly kept their seats, and pulled their 
hats over their brows ; but the exceptions only 
made the prevailing enthusiasm more remark- 
able. The Lords received the old man with 
similar tokens of respect. The University of 
Oxford conferred on him the degree of Doctor 
of Laws ; and, in the Sheldonian theatre, the 
under-graduates welcomed him with tumultu- 
ous cheering. 

These marks of public esteem were soon 
followed by marks of the favour of the crown. 
Hastings was sworn of the Privy Council, and 
was admitted to a long private audience of the 
Prince Regent, who treated him very gracious- 
ly. When the Emperor of Russia and the King 
of Prussia visited England, Hastings appeared 
in their train both at Oxford and in the Guild- 
hall of London ; and, though surrounded by a 
crowd of princes and great warriors, was every- 
where received by the public with marks of 
respect and admiration. He was presented by 
the Prince Regent both to Alexander and to 
Frederic William; and his Royal Highness 
went so far as to declare in public, that honours 
far higher than a seat in the Privy Council 
were due, and should soon be paid, to the man 
who had saved the British dominions in Asia. 
Hastings now confidently expected a peerage ; 
but, from some unexplained cause, he was 
EgaJn disappointed. 



He lived about four years longer in ihe eu 
joyment of good spirits, of faculties not im 
paired to any painful or degrading extent, and 
of health such as is rarely enjoyed by those 
who attain such an age. At length, on the 22d 
of August, 1819, in the eighty-sixth year of his 
age, he met death with the same tranquil and 
decorous fortitude which he had opposed to 
all the trials of his various and eventful life. 

With all his fa ilts — and they were neithei 
few nor small — only one cemetery was worthy 
to contain his remains. In that temple of si 
lence and reconciliation, where the enmities 
of twenty generations lie buried, in the Great 
Abbey which has for ages afforded a quiet 
resting-place to those whose minds and bodies 
have been shattered by the contentions of the 
Great Hall, the dust of the illustrious accused 
should have been mingled with the dust of the 
illustrious accusers. This was not to be. Yet 
the place of interment was not ill chosen. Be- 
hind the chancel of the parish-church of 
Daylesford, in earth which already held the 
bones of many chiefs of the house of Hastings, 
was laid the coffin of the greatest man who 
has ever borne that ancient and widely extend- 
ed name. On that very spot probably, four- 
score years before, the little Warren, meanly 
clan and scantily fed, had played with the chil- 
dren of ploughmen. Even then his young mind 
had revolved plans which might be called ro- 
mantic. Yet, however romantic, it is not like- 
ly that they had been so strange as the truth. 
Not only had the poor orphan retrieved the 
fallen fortunes of his line. Not only had he 
repurchased the old lands, and rebuilt the old 
dwelling. He had preserved and extended an 
empire. He had founded a polity. He had 
administered government and war with more 
than the capacity of Richelieu; and had pa- 
tronised learning with the judicious liberality 
of Cosmo. He had been attacked by the most 
formidable combination of enemies that ever 
sought the destruction of a single victim ; and 
over that combination, after a struggle of ten 
years, he had triumphed. He had at length 
gone down to his grave in the fulness of age — 
in peace, after so many troubles ; in honour, 
after so much obloquy. 

Those who look on his character without fa • 
vour or malevolence, will pronounce that, in 
the two great elements of all social virtue — in 
respect for the rights of others, and in sympa- 
thy for the sufferings of others — he was den 
cient. His principles were somewhat lax. 
His heart was somewhat hard. But while we 
cannot with truth describe him either as a 
righteous or as a merciful ruler, we cannot 
regard without admiration the amplitude and 
fertility of his intellect — his rare talents for 
command, for administration, and for contro- 
versy — his dauntless courage — his honourable 
poverty — his fervent zeal for the interests of 
the state — his noble equanimity, tried by both 
extremes of fortune, atd never disturbed by 
either. 



503 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT.' 



[Edinburgh Review, April, 1842.] 



This work, which has the high honour cf 
being introduced to the world by the author of 
"Lochiel' and " Hohenlinden," is not wholly- 
unworthy of so distinguished a chaperon. It 
professes, indeed, to be no more than a compi- 
lation ; but it is an exceedingly amusing com- 
pilation, and we shall be glad to have more of 
it The narrative comes down at present only 
to the commencement of the Seven Years' 
War, and therefore does not comprise the 
most interesting portion of Frederic's reign. 

It may not be unacceptable to our readers 
that we should take this opportunity of pre- 
senting them with a slight sketch of the life of 
the greatest king that has, in modern times, 
succeeded by right of birth to a throne. It may, 
we fear, be impossible to compress so long and 
eventful a story within the limits which we must 
prescribe to ourselves. Should we be compelled 
to break off, we shall, when the continuation of 
this work appears, return to the subject. 

The Prussian monarchy, the youngest of the 
great European states, but in population and 
in revenue the fifth amongst them, and in art, 
science, and civilization entitled to the third, if 
not the second place, sprang from an humble 
origin. About the beginning of the fifteenth cen- 
tury, the marquisate of Brandenburg was be- 
stowed by the Emperor Sigismund on the noble 
family ct Hohenzollern. In the sixteenth century 
that family embraced the Lutheran doctrines. 
Early in the seventeenth century it obtained 
from the King of Poland the investiture of the 
duchy of Prussia. Even after this accession 
of territory, the chiefs of the house of Hohen- 
zollern hardly ranked with the Electors of Sax- 
ony and Bavaria. The soil of Brandenburg 
was for the most part sterile. Even round 
Berlin, the capital of the province, and round 
Potsdam, the favourite residence of the Mar- 
graves, the country was a desert. In some 
tracts, the deep sand could with difficulty be 
forced by assiduous tillage to yield thin crops 
of rye and oats. In other places, the ancient 
forests, from which the conquerors of the Ro- 
man empire had descended on the Danube, 
remained untouched by the hand of man. 
Where the soil was rich it was generally 
marshy, and its insalubrity repelled the culti- 
vators whom its fertility attracted. Frederic 
William, called the Great Elector, was the 
prince to whose policy his successors have 
agreed to ascribe their greatness. He ac- 
quired by the peace of Westphalia several 
raluable possessions, and among them the rich 
city and district of Magdeburg ; and he left to 
his son Frederic a principality as considerable 
aa any which was not called a kingdom. 

Frederic aspired to the style of royalty. Os- 



* Frederic the Great and his Times. Edited, with an 
Introduction, by Thomas Campbell, Esq. 2 vols. 8vo. 
london 1842. 



tentatious and profuse, negligent' of his tnw 
interests and of his high duties, insatiably 
eager for frivolous distinctions, he added no* 
thing to the real weight of the state which he 
governed ; perhaps he transmitted his inheri* 
tance to his children impaired rather than 
augmented in value, but he succeeded in gain- 
ing the great object of his life, the title of king. 
In the year 1700 he assumed this new dignity. 
He had on that occasion to undergo all the 
mortifications which fall to the lot of ambitious 
upstarts. Compared with the other crowned 
heads of Europe, he made a figure resembling 
that which a Nabob or a Commissary, who 
had bought a title, would make in the com- 
pany of Peers whose ancestors had been at- j 
tainted for treason against the Plantagenets. 

The envy of the class which he quitted, and 
the civil scorn of the class into which he in- 
traded himself, were marked in very signifi- 
cant ways. The elector of Saxony at first : 
refused to acknowledge the new majesty. 
Louis the Fourteenth looked down on his bro- 
ther king with an air not unlike that with ■/ 
which the count in Moliere's play regards j 
Monsieur Jourdain, just fresh from the mum- 
mery of being made a gentleman. Austria 
exacted large sacrifice in return for her re«* j 
cognition, and at last gave it ungraciously. 

Frederic was succeeded by his son, Frederic 
William, a prince who must be allowed to j| 
have possessed some talents for administra-i 
tion, but whose character was disfigured by .' ■ 
the most odious vices, and whose eccentrici- H 
ties were such as had never been seen out of d ; I 
madhouse. He was exact and diligent in the 
transaction of business, and he was the first 
who firmed the design of obtaining for Prus- 
sia a place among the European powers, alto- 
gether out of proportion to her extent and 
population, by means of a strong military or- . 
ganization. Strict economy enabled him to 
keep up a peace establishment of sixty thou- 
sand troops. These troops were disciplined 
in such a manner, that placed beside them, 
the household regiments of Versailles and St. 
James's would have appeared an awkward 
squad. The master of such a force could not 
but be regarded by all his neighbours as a for- 
midable enemy, and a valuable ally. 

But the mind of Frederic William was so 
ill-regulated, that al» his inclinations became 
passions, and all his passions partook of the 
character of moral and intellectual disease. 
His parsimony degenerated into sordid ava- 
rice. His taste for military pomp and ordel 
became 'a mania, like that of a Dutch burgo 
master for tulips ; or that of a member of the 
Roxburgh club for Caxtons. While the en 
voys of the court of Berlin were in a state of 
such squalid poverty as moved the laughtei 
of foreign capitals j while the food placed be. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 



503 



ibre the princes ana the princesses of the 
blood-royal of Prussia was too scanty to ap- 
pease hunger, and so bad that even hunger 
loathed it— no price was thought too extrava- 
gant for tall recruits. The ambition of the 
King was to form a brigade of giants, and 
every country was ransacked by his agents 
for men above the ordinary stature. These 
researches were not confined to Europe. No 
head that towered above the crowd in the ba- 
zaars of Aleppo, of Cairo, or of Surat, could 
escape the crimps of Frederic William. One 
Irishman more than seven feet high, who was 
picked up in London by the Prussian ambas- 
sador, received a bounty of nearly 1300/. ster- 
ling — very much more than the ambassador's 
salary. This extravagance was the more ab- 
surd, because a stout youth of five feet eight, 
who might have been procured for a few dol- 
lars, would in all probability have been a 
much more valuable soldier. But to Frederic 
William, this huge Irishman was what a brass 
Otho, or a Vinegar Bible, is to a collector of a 
different kind. 

It is remarkable, that though the main end 
of Frederic William's administration was to 
have a military force, though his reign forms 
an important epoch in the history of military 
discipline, and though his dominant passion was 
the love of military display, he was yetoneof the 
most pacific of princes. We are afraid that 
his aversion to war was not the effect of huma- 
nity, but was merely one of his thousand whims. 
His feeling about his troops seems to have re- 
sembled a miser's feeling about his money. 
He loved to collect them, to count them, to see 
them increase ; but he could not find it in his 
heart to break in upon the precious hoard. 
He looked forward to some future time when 
his Patagonian battalions were to drive hostile 
infantry before them like sheep. But this fu- 
ture time was always receding ; and it is pro- 
bable that, if his life had been prolonged thirty 
years, his superb army would never have seen 
any harder service than a sham fight in the 
fields near Berlin. But the great military 
means which he had collected, were destined 
to be employed by a spirit far more daring 
and inventive than his own. 

Frederic, surnamed the Great, son of Fre- 
deric William, was born in January, 1712. It 
may safely be pronounced that he had received 
from nature a strong and sharp understanding, 
and a rare firmness of temper and intensity of 
will. As to the other parts of his character, it 
is difficult to say whether they are to be as- 
cribed to nature, or to the strange training 
which he underwent. The history of his boy- 
hood is painfully interesting. Oliver Twist in 
the parish workhouse, Smike at Dotheboys 
Hall, were petted children when compared 
with this wretched heir-apparent of a crown. 
The nature of Frederic William was hard and 
bad, and the habit of exercising arbitrary power 
had made him frightfully savage. His rage 
constantly vented itself to right and left in 
curses and blows. When his majesty took a 
walk, every human being fled before him, as 
if a tiger had broken loose from a menagerie. 
If he met a lady in the street, he gave her a 
kick, and told her to go home and mind her 



brats. If he saw a clergyman staring at the 
soldiers, he admonished the reverend gentle, 
man to betake himself to study and prayer, 
and enforced this pious advice by a sound 
caning, administered on the spot. But it was 
in his own house that he was most unreasona* 
ble and ferocious. His palace was hell, and 
he the most execrable of fiends — a cross be- 
tween Moloch and Puck. His son Frederic 
and his daughter Wilhelmina, afterwards Mar- 
gravine of Bareuth, were in an especial man- 
ner objects of his aversion. His own mind 
was uncultivated. He despised literature. He 
hated infidels, Papists, and metaphysicians, 
and did not very well understand in what they 
differed from each other. The business cf 
life, according to him, was to drill and to be 
drilled. The recreations suited to a prince, 
were to sit in a cloud of tobacco-smoke, to sip 
Swedish beer between the puffs of the pipe, to 
play backgammon for three-halfpence a rub- 
ber, to kill wild hogs, and to shoot partridges 
by the thousand. The Prince-Royal showed 
little inclination either for the serious employ- 
ments or for the amusements of his father. He 
shirked the duties of the parade — he detested 
the fume of tobacco — he had no taste either for 
backgammon or for field-sports. He had re- 
ceived from nature an exquisite ear, and per- 
formed skilfully on the flute. His earliest in 
structorshadbeen French refugees, and they had 
awakened in him a strong passion for French 
literature and French society. Frederic Wil- 
liam regarded these tastes as effeminate and 
contemptible, and, by abuse and persecution 
made them still stronger. Things became 
worse when the Prince-Royal attained that 
time of life at which the great revolution in 
the human mind and body takes place. He 
was guilty of some youthful indiscretions, 
which no good and wise parent would regard 
with severity. At a later period he was ac- 
cused, truly or falsely, of vices, from which 
History averts her eyes, and which even Sa- 
tire blushes to name — vices such that, to bor- 
row the energetic language of Lord-Keeper 
Coventry, " the depraved nature of man, which 
of itself carrieth man to all other sin, abhorreth 
them." But the offences of his youth were not 
characterized by any peculiar turpitude. They 
excited, however, transports of rage in the 
king, who hated all faults except those to 
which he was himself inclined ; and who con- 
ceived that he made ample atonement to Hea- 
ven for his brutality, by holding the softer pas- 
sions in detestation. The Prince-Royal, too, 
was not one of those who are content to take 
their religion on trust. He asked puzzling 
questions, and brought forward arguments 
which seemed to savour of something different 
from pure Lulheranism. The king suspected 
that his son was inclined to be a heretic cf 
some sort or other, whether Calvinist or Atheist 
his majvsty did not very well know. The or 
dinary malignity of Frederic William was ba<2 
enough. He now thought malignity a part of 
his duty as a Christian man, and all the con- 
science that he had stimulated his hatred. 
The flute was broken — the French books wers 
sent out of the palace — the prince was kicked, 
and cudgelled, an;:! nulled by the hair. At din 



604 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ner the' plates were hurled at his head — some- 
times he was restricted to bread and water — 
sometimes he was forced to swallow food so 
nauseous that he could not keep it on his sto- 
mach. Once his father knocked him down, 
dragged him along the floor to a window, and 
was with difficulty prevented from strangling 
him with the cord of the curtain. The queen, 
for the crime of not wishing to see her son 
murdered, was subjected to the grossest indig- 
nities. The Princess Wilhelmina, who took 
her brother's part, was treated almost as ill as 
Mrs. Brownrigg's apprentices. Driven to de- 
spair, the unhappy youth tried to run away ; 
then the fury of the old tyrant rose to madness. 
The prince was an officer in the army; his 
flight was therefore desertion, and, in the moral 
code of Frederic William, desertion was the 
highest of all crimes. " Desertion," says this 
royal theologian, in one of his half-crazy let- 
ters, " is from hell. It is a work of the child- 
ren of the devil. No child of God could pos- 
sibly be guilty of it." An accomplice of the 
prince, in spite of the recommendation of a 
court-martial, was mercilessly put to death. 
It seemed probable that the prince himself 
would suffer the same fate. It was with dif- 
ficulty that the intercession of the States of 
Holland, of the Kings of Sweden and Poland, 
and of the Emperor of Germany, saved the 
House of Brandenburgh from the stain of an 
unnatural murder. After months of cruel sus- 
pense, Frederic learned that his life would be 
spared. He remained, however, long a pri- 
soner; but he was not on that account to be 
pitied. He found in his jailers a tenderness 
which he had never found in his father ; his 
table was not sumptuous, but he had whole- 
some food in sufficient quantity to appease 
nunger; he could read the Henriade without 
being kicked, and play on his flute without 
having it broken over his head. 

When his confinement terminated, he was 
a man. He had nearly completed his twenty- 
first year, and could scarcely, even by such a 
parent as Frederic William be kept much 
longer under the restraints which had made 
nis boyhood miserable. Suffering had matured 
his understanding, while it had hardened his 
heart and soured his temper. He had learnt 
self-command and dissimulation ; he affected 
to^conform to some of his father's views, and 
submissively accepted a wife, who was a wife 
only in name, from his father's hand. He also 
served with credit, though without any oppor- 
tunity of acquiring brilliant distinction, under 
the command of Prince Eugene, during a cam- 
paign marked by no extraordinary events. He 
was now permitted to keep a separate esta- 
blishment, and was therefore able to indulge 
with caution his own tastes. Partly in order 
to conciliate the king, and partly, no doubt, 
from inclination, he gave up a portion of his 
time to military and political business, and 
thus gradually acquired such an aptitude for 
affairs as his most intimate associates were 
not aware that he possessed. 

His favourite abode was at Rheinsberg, near 
the frontier which separates the Prussian do- 
minions from the duchy of Mecklenburg. 
Rheinsberg is a fertile and smiling spot, in the 



midst of the sandy waste of the Marquisate. 
The mansion, surrounded by woods of oaft 
and beech, looks out upon a spacious lake. 
There Frederic amused himself by laying out 
gardens in regular alleys and intricate mazes, 
by building obelisks, temples, and conserva- 
tories, and by collecting rare fruits and flowers. 
His retirement was enlivened by a few com- 
panions, among whom he seems to have pre- 
ferred those who, by birth or extraction, were 
French. With these inmates he dined and 
supped well, drank freely, and amused him- 
self sometimes with concerts, sometimes with 
holding chapters of a fraternity which he call- 
ed the Order of Bayard ; but literature was hia 
chief resource. 

His education had been entirely French. 
The long ascendency which Louis XIV. had 
enjoyed, and the eminent merit of the tragic 
and comic dramatists, of the satirists, and of 
the preachers who had flourished under that 
magnificent prince, had made the French lan- 
guage predominant in Europe. Even in coun- 
tries which had a national literature, and winch 
could boast of names greater than those cf 
Racine, of Moliere, and of Massillon — in the 
country of Dante, in the country of Cervantes, 
in the country of Shakspeare and Milton — the 
intellectual fashions of Paris had been to a 
great extent adopted. Germany had not yet 
produced a single masterpiece of poetry or 
eloquence. In Germany, therefore, the French 
taste reigned without rival and without limit 
Every youth of rank was taught to speak and 
write French. That he should speak and 
write his own tongue with politeness, or even 
with accuracy and facility, was regarded a? 
comparatively an unimportant object. Ever 
Frederic William, with all his rugged Saxon 
prejudices, thought it necessary that his chil- 
dren should know French, and quite unneces- 
sary that they should be well versed in German. 
The Latin was positively interdicted. "My 
son," his majesty wrote, " shall not learn Latin 
and, more than that, I will not suffer anybody 
even to mention such a thing to me." One of 
the preceptors ventured to read the Golden 
Bull in the original with the Prince-Royal. 
Frederic William entered the room, and broke 
out in his usual kingly style. 

"Rascal, what are you at there 1" 

"Please your majesty," answered the pre 
ceptor, " I was explaining the Golden Bull tc 
his royal highness." 

" I'll Golden Bull you, you rascal !" roared 
the majesty of Prussia. Up went the king's 
cane, away ran the terrified instructor, and 
Frederic's classical studies ended forever. 
He now and then affected to quote Latin sen* 
tences, and produced such exquisite Cicero- 
nian phrases as these : — " Stante pede morire," 
— " De gustibus non est disputandus," — " Tot 
verbas tot spondera." Of Italian, he had no, 
enough to read a page of Metastasio with ease 
and of the Spanish and English, he did not, 
as far as we are aware, understand a single 
word. 

As the highest human compositions to which 
he had access were those of the French writers, 
it is not strange that his admiration for those 
writers should have been unbounded. Hia 



FREDERIC iiiE GREAT. 



505 



ambitious and eager temper early prompted 
him to imitate what he admired. The wish, 
perhaps, dearest to his heart was, that he might 
rank among the masters of French rhetoric 
and poetry. He wrote prose and verse as 
indefatigably as if he had been a starving 
hack of Cave or Osborn ; but Nature, which 
had bestowed on him, in a large measure, the 
talents of a captain and of an administrator, 
had withheld from him those higher and rarer 
gifts, without which industry labours in vain 
to produce immortal eloquence or song. And, 
indeed, had he been blessed with more imagi- 
nation, wit, and fertility of thought, than he 
appears to have had, he would still have been 
subject to one great disadvantage, which would, 
in all probability, have forever prevented him 
from taking a high place among men of letters. 
He had not the full command of any language. 
There was no machine of thought which he 
could employ with perfect ease, confidence, 
and freedom. He had German enough to 
scold his servants, or to give the word of 
command to his grenadiers ; but his grammar 
and pronunciation were extremely bad. He 
found it difficult to make out the meaning 
even of the simplest German pcetry On one 
occasion a version of Racine's Iphiginie was 
read to him. He held the French original in 
his hand; but was forced to own that, even 
With such help, he could not understand the 
translation. Yet though he had neglected his 
mother tongue in order to bestow all his atten- 
tion on French, his French was, after all, the 
French of a foreigner. It was necessary for 
him to have always at his beck some men of 
letters from Paris to point out the solecisms 
and false rhymes, of which, to the last, he was 
frequently guilty. Even had he possessed the 
poetic faculty — of which, as far as we can 
judge, he was utterly destitute — the want of a 
language would have prevented him from be- 
ing a great poet. No noble work of imagina- 
tion, as far as we recollect, was ever composed 
by any man, except in a dialect which he had 
learned without remembering how or when ; 
and which he had spoken with perfect ease 
before he had ever analyzed its structure. 
Romans of great talents wrote Greek verses ; 
but how many of those verses have deserved 
to live 1 Many men of eminent genius have, 
in modern times, written Latin poems ; but, 
as far as we are aware, none of those poems, 
not even Milton's, can be ranked in the first 
class of art, or even very high in the second. 
It is not strange, therefore, that in the French 
verses of Frederic, we can find nothing be- 
yond the reach of any man of good parts and 
industry — nothing above the level of Newdi- 
gate and Seatonian poetry. His best pieces 
may perhaps rank with the worst in Dodsley's 
collection. In history, he succeeded better. 
We do not, indeed, find in any part of his 
voluminous Memoirs, either deep reflection or 
vivid painting. But the narrative is distin- 
guished by clearness, conciseness, good sense, 
and a certain air of truth and simplicity, which 
is singularly graceful in a man who, having 
done great things, sits down to relate them. 
Oh the whole, however, none of his writings 
are so agreeable to us as his Letters ; particu- 



larly those whicht'are written with earnestness 
and are not embroidered with verses. 

It is not strange that a young man devoted to 
literature, and acquainted only with the litera- 
ture of France, shouldhave looked with profound 
veneration on the genius of Voltaire. Nor is 
it just to condemn him for this feeling. " A 
man who has never seen the sun," says Calde- 
ron in one of his charming comedies, "cannot 
be blamed for thinking that no glory can exceed 
that of the moon. A man who has seen neither 
moon nor sun, cannot be blamed for talking of 
the unrivalled brightness of the morning star." 
Had Frederic been able to read Homer and 
Milton, or even Virgil and Tasso, his admira- 
tion of the Henriade would prove that he was 
utterly destitute of the power of discerning 
what is excellent in art. Had he been familiar 
with Sophocles or Shakspeare, we should have 
expected him to appreciate Zaire more justly. 
Had he been able to study Thucydides and 
Tacitus in the original Greek and Latin, he 
would have known that there were heights in 
the eloquence of history far beyond the reach 
of the author of the Life of Charles the Twelfth, 
But the finest heroic poem, several of the most 
powerful tragedies, and the most brilliant and 
picturesque historical work that Frederic had 
ever read, were Voltaire's. Such high and 
various excellence moved the young prince 
almost to adoration. The opinions of Voltaire 
on religious and philosophical questions had 
not yet been fully exhibited to the public. At 
a later period, when an exile from his country 
and at open war with the Church, he spoke 
out. But when Frederic was at Rheinsberg, 
Voltaire was still a courtier ; and, though he 
could not always curb his petulant wit, he had 
as yet published nothing that could exclude 
him from Versailles, and little that a divine of 
the mild and generous school of Grotius and 
Tillotson might not read with pleasure. In 
the Henriade, in Zaire, and in Alzire, Christian 
piety is exhibited in the most amiable form ; 
and, some years after the period of which we 
are writing, a Pope condescended to accept 
the dedication of Mahomet. The real senti- 
ments of the poet, however, might be clearly 
perceived by a keen eye through the decent 
disguise with which he veiled them, and could 
not escape the sagacity of Frederic, who held 
similar opinions, and had been accustomed to 
practise similar dissimulation. 

The prince wrote to his idol in the style of a 
worshipper, and Voltaire replied with exquisite 
grace and address. A correspondence follow- 
ed, which may be studied with advantage by 
those who wish to become proficients in the 
ignoble art of flattery. No man ever paid 
compliments better than Voltaire. His sweet- 
ened confectionary had always a delicate, yet 
stimulating flavour, which was delightful to 
palates wearied by the coarse preparations of 
inferior artists. It was only from his hand that 
so much sugar could be swallowed without 
making the swallower sick. Copies of verses, 
writing-desks, trinkets of amber, were ex- 
changed between the friends. Frederic con- 
fided his writings to Voltaire, and Voltaire 
applauded, as if Frederic had been Racine and 
Bossuet in one. One of his royal highness* 



506 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



performances was a refutation of the Principe 
of Machiavelli. Voltaire undertook to convey 
it to the press. It was entitled the A-ntirMachi- 
avel, and was an edifying homily against rapa- 
city, perfidy, arbitrary government, unjust war 
— in short, against almost every thing for which 
its author is now remembered among men. 

The old king uttered now and then a fero- 
cious growl at the diversions of Rheinsberg. 
But his health was broken, his end was ap- 
proaching, and his vigour was impaired. He 
had only one pleasure left — that of seeing tall 
soldiers. He could always be propitiated by a 
present of a grenadier of six feet eight or six 
feet nine ; and such presents were from time 
to time judiciously offered by his son. 

Early in the year 1740, Frederic William 
met death with a firmness and dignity worthy 
of a better and wiser man ; and Frederic, who 
had just completed his twenty-eighth year, be- 
came King of Prussia. His character was 
little understood. That he had good abilities, 
indeed, no person who had talked with him or 
corresponded with him could doubt. But the 
easy Epicurean life which he had led, his love 
of good cookery and good wine, of music, of 
conversation, of light literature, led many to 
regard him as a sensual and intellectual volup- 
tuarj\ His habit of canting about moderation, 
peace, liberty, and the happiness which a good 
mind derives from the happiness of others, had 
imposed on some who should have known 
better. Those who thought best of him, ex- 
pected a Telemachus after Fenelon's pattern. 
Others predicted the approach of a Medicean 
age — an age propitious to learning and art, and 
Qot unpropnious to pleasure. Nobody had the 
feast suspicion that a tyrant of extraordinary 
military and political talents, of industry more 
extraordinary still, without fear, without faith, 
and without mercy, had ascended the throne. 

The disappointment of Falstaff at his old 
boon companion's coronation, was not more 
bitter than that which awaited some of the 
inmates of Rheinsberg. They had long looked 
forward to the accession of their patron, as to 
the day from which their own prosperity and 
greatness was to date. They had at last reach- 
ed the promised land, the land which they had 
figured to themselves as flowing with milk and 
honey, and they found it a desert. " No more 
of these fooleries," was the short, sharp admo- 
nition given by Frederic to one of them. It 
soon became plain that, in the most important 
points, the new sovereign bore a strong family 
likeness to his predecessor. There was a wide 
difference between the father and the son as 
respected extent and vigour of intellect, specu- 
lative opinions, amusements, studies, outward 
demeanour. But the groundwork of the cha- 
racter was the same in both. To both were 
eoHcmon the love of order, the love of business, 
Ihe military taste, the parsimony, the imperious 
apirit, the temper irritable even to ferocity, the 

Sleasure in the pain and humiliation of others, 
iut these propensities had in Frederic William 
partaken of the general unsoundness of his 
mind, and wore a very different aspect when 
found in company with the strong and culti- 
rated understanding of his successor. Thus, 
for example, Frederic was as anxious as any 



prince could be about the efficacy of his army 
But this anxiety never degenerated into a nn> 
nomania, like that which led his father to paj 
fancy-prices for giants. Frederic was as thrifty 
about money as any prince or any private man 
ought to be. But he did not conceive, like his 
father, that it was worth while to eat unwhole- 
some cabbages for the sake of saving four or 
five rix-dollars in the year. Frederic was, we 
fear, as malevolent as his father; but Frede- 
ric's wit enabled him often to show his male- 
volence in ways more decent than those to 
which his father resorted, and to inflict misery 
and degradation by a taunt instead of a blow. 
Frederic, it is true, by no means relinquished 
his hereditary privilege of kicking and cudgel- 
ling. His practice, however, as to that matter, 
differed in some important respects from his 
father's. To Frederic William, the mere cir- 
cumstance that any persons whatever, men, 
women, or children, Prussians or foreigners, 
were within reach of his toes and of his cane, 
appeared to be a sufficient reason for proceed- 
ing to belabour them. Frederic required pro- 
vocation as well as vicinity; nor was he ever 
known to inflict this paternal species of correc- 
tion on any but his born subjects ; though on 
one occasion M. Thiebault had reason, during 
a few seconds, to anticipate the high honour 
of being an exception to this general rule. 

The character of Frederic was still very im- 
perfectly understood either by his subjects or 
by his neighbours, when events occurred which 
exhibited it in a strong light. A few months 
after his accession died Charles VI., Emperor 
of Germany, the last descendant, in the male 
line, of the house of Austria. 

Charles left no son, and had, long before his 
death, relinquished all hopes of male issue. 
During the latter part of his life, his principal 
object had been to secure to his descendants in 
the female line the many crowns of the house 
of Hapsburg. With this view, he had promul- 
gated a new law of succession, widely cele- 
brated throughout Europe under the name of 
the " Pragmatic Sanction." By virtue of this 
decree, his daughter, the Archduchess Maria 
Theresa, wife of Francis of Lorraine, succeed- 
ed to the dominions of her ancestors. 

No sovereign has ever taken possession of 
a throne by a clearer title. All the politics of 
the Austrian cabinet had, during twenty years, 
been directed to one single end — the settlement 
of the succession. From every person whose 
rights could be considered as injuriously af- 
fected, renunciations in the most solemn form 
had been obtained. The new law had been 
ratified by the Estates of all the kingdoms and 
principalities which made up the great Aus- 
trian monarchy. England, France, Spain, Rus- 
sia, Poland, Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, tha 
Germanic body, had bound themselves by treaty 
to maintain the " Pragmatic Sanction." That 
instrument was placed under the protection of 
the public faith of the whole civilized world. 

Even if no positive stipulations on this sub- 
ject had existed, the arrangement was one 
which no good man would have been willing 
to disturb. It was a peaceable arrangement. 
It was an arrangement acceptable to the great 
population whose happiness was chiefly con 



FREDERIC THE GREAT 



507 



;erned. It was an arrangement which made 
no change in the distribution of power among 
the states of Christendom. It was an arrange- 
ment which could be set aside only by means 
of a general war ; and, if it were set aside, the 
effect would be, that the equilibrium of Europe 
would be deranged, that the loyaL and patriotic 
feelings of millions would be cruelly outraged, 
and that great provinces, which had been 
united for centuries, would be torn from each 
other by main force. 

The sovereigns of Europe were, therefore, 
bound by every obligation which those who 
are intrusted with power over their fellow- 
creatures ought to hold most sacred, to respect 
and defend the rights of the Archduchess. Her 
situation and her personal qualities were such 
as might be expected to move the mind of any 
generous man to pity, admiration, and chival- 
rous tenderness. She was in her twenty-fourth 
year. Her form was majestic, her features 
beautiful, her countenance sweet and ani- 
mated, her voice musical, her deportment gra- 
cious and dignified. In all domestic relations 
she was without reproach. She was married 
to a husband whom she loved, and was on the 
point of giving birth to a child when death de- 
prived her of her father. The loss of a parent 
and the new cares of the empire were too 
much for her in the delicate state of her health. 
Her spirits were depressed, and her cheek lost 
Us bloom. 

Yet it seemed that she had little cause for 
anxiety. It seemed that justice, humanity, and 
the faith of treaties would have their due 
weight, and that the settlement so solemnly 
guarantied would be quietly carried into effect. 
England, Russia, Poland, and Holland declared 
in form their intention to adhere to their en- 
gagements. The French ministers made a 
verbal declaration to the same effect. But 
from no quarter did the young Queen of Hun- 
gary receive stronger assurances of friendship 
and support than from the King of Prussia. 

Yet the King of Prussia, the " Anti-Machia- 
vel," had already fully determined to commit 
the great crime of violating his plighted faith, 
of robbing the ally whom he was bound to de- 
fend, and of plunging all Europe into a long, 
bloody, and desolating war, and all this for no 
end whatever except that he might extend his 
dominions and see his name in the gazettes. 
He determined to assemble a great army with 
speed and secrecy to invade Silesia before 
Maria Theresa should be apprized of his de- 
sign, and to add that rich province to his king- 
dom. 

We will not condescend to refute at length 
the pleas which the compiler of the Memoirs 
before us has copied from Doctor Preuss. 
They amount to this — that the house of Bran- 
denburg had some ancient pretensions to Sile- 
sia, and had in the previous century been com- 
pelled, by hard usage on the part of the court 
of Vienna, to waive those pretensions. It is 
certain that, whoever might originally have 
been in the right, Prussia had submitted. 
Prince after prince of the house of Branden- 
burg had acquiesced in the existing arrange- 
ment. Nay, the court of Berlin had recently 
oeen allied with that of Vienna, and had gua- 



rantied the integrity of the Austrian • ,.es. I» 
it not perfectly clear that, if antiquated claims 
are to be set up against recent treaties and 
long possession, the world can never be at 
peace for a day? The laws of all nations 
have wisely established a time of limitation, 
after which titles, however illegitimate in thew 
origin, cannot be questioned. It is felt by 
everybody that to eject a person from his 
estate on the ground of some injustice com- 
mitted in the time of the Tudors, would pror 
duce all the evils which result from arbitrary 
confiscation, and would make all property in- 
secure. It concerns the commonwealths— so 
runs the legal maxim — that there be an end 
of litigation. And surely this maxim is at 
least equally applicable to the great common- 
wealth of states, for in that commonwealth liti- 
gation means the devastation of provinces, the 
suspension of trade and industry, sieges like 
those of Badajoz and St. Sebastian, pitched 
fields like those of Eylau and Borodino. We 
hold that the transfer of Norway from Denmark 
to Sweden was an unjustifiable proceeding; but 
would the king of Denmark be therefore justi- 
fied in landing, without any new provocation, 
in Norway, and commencing military opera- 
tions there 1 The King of Holland thinks, no 
doubt, that he was unjustly deprived of the 
Belgian provinces. Grant that it were so. 
Would he, therefore, be justified in marching 
with an army on Brussels 1 The case against 
Frederic was still stronger, inasmuch as the 
injustice of which he complained had been 
committed more than a century before. Nor 
must it be forgotten that he owed the highest 
personal obligations to the house of Austria. 
It may be doubted whether his life had not 
been preserved by the intercession of the prince 
whose daughter he was about to plunder. 

To do the king justice, he pretended to no 
more virtue than he had. In manifestoes he 
might, for form's sake, insert some idle stories 
about his antiquated claim on Silesia ; but in 
his conversations and Memoirs he took a very 
different tone. To quote his own words, — "Am 
bition, interest, the desire of making people talk 
about me, carried the day, and I decided foi 
war." 

Having resolved oq,his course, he acted with 
ability and vigour. It was impossible wholly 
to conceal his preparations, for throughout the. 
Prussian territories regiments, guns, and bag- 
gage were in motion, The Austrian envoy 
at Berlin apprized his court of these facts, and 
expressed a suspicion of Frederic's designs; 
but the ministers of Maria Theresa refused to 
give credit to so iMack an imputation on a 
young prince who was known chiefly by his 
high professions of integrity and philanthropy. 
"We will not," — they wrote — "we cannot be- 
lieve it." 

In the mean time the Prussian forces had 
been assembled. Without any declaration of 
war, without any demand for reparation, in the 
very act of pouring forth compliments and as- 
surances of good-will, Frederic commenced 
hostilities. Many thousands of his troops wer« 
actually in Silesia before the Queen of Hun« 
gary knew that he had set up any claim to 
any part of her territories. A length he sent 



508 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



her a message which could be regarded only 
as an insult. If she would but let him have 
Silesia, he \dbuld, he said, stand by her against 
any power which should try to deprive her of 
her other dominions : as if he was not already 
bound to stand by her, or as if his new promise 
could be of more value than the old one ! 

It was the depth of winter. The cold was 
severe, and the roads deep in mire. But the 
Prussians passed on. Resistance was impos- 
sible. The Austrian army was then neither 
numerous nor efficient. The small portion of 
that army which lay in Silesia was unprepared 
for hftstilities. Glogau was blockaded ; Bres- 
lau opened its gates; Ohlau was evacuated. 
A few scattered garrisons still held out; but 
the whole open country was subjugated: no 
enemy ventured to encounter the king in the 
field; and, before the end of January, 1741, he 
returned to receive the congratulations of his 
subjects at Berlin. 

Had the Silesian question been merely a 
question between Frederic and Maria Theresa 
it would be impossible to acquit the Prussian 
king of gross perfidy. But when we consider 
the effects which his policy produced, and 
could not fail to produce, on the whole com- 
munity of civilized nations, we are compelled 
to pronounce a condemnation still more se- 
vere. Till he began the war it seemed pos- 
sible, even probable, that the peace of the world 
would be preserved. The plunder of the great 
Austrian heritage was indeed a strong tempta- 
tion : and in more than one cabinet ambitious 
schemes were already meditated. But the trea- 
ties by which the " Pragmatic Sanction" had 
been guarantied were express and recent. To 
throw all Europe into confusion for a purpose 
clearly unjust was no light matter. England 
was true to her engagements. The voice of 
Fleury had always been for peace. He had a 
conscience. He was now in extreme old age, 
and was unwilling, after a life which, when his 
situation was considered, must be pronounced 
singularly pure, to carry the fresh stain of a 
great crime before the tribunal of his God. 
Even the vain and unprincipled Belle-Isle, 
whose whole life was one wild daydream of 
conquest and spoliation, felt that France, bound 
as she was by solemn stipulations, could not 
without disgrace make a direct attack on the 
Austrian dominions. Charles, Elector of Ba- 
varia, pretended that he had a right to a large 
part of the inheritance which the " Pragmatic 
Sanction" gave to the Queen of Hungary, but 
he was not sufficiently powerful to move with- 
out support. It might, therefore, not unreason- 
ably be expected that, after a short period of 
restlessness, all the potentates of Christendom 
would acquiesce in the arrangements made by 
the late emperor. But the selfish rapacity of 
the King of Prussia gave the signal to his 
neighbours. His example quieted their sense 
of shame. His success led them to underrate 
the difficulty of dismembering the Austrian mo- 
narchy. The whole world sprang to arms. On 
the head of Frederic is all the blood which was 
sned in a war which raged during many years 
and m*every quarter of the globe — the blood of 
ihe column of Fontenoy, the blood of the brave 
mountaineers who were slaughtered at Cullo- 



den. The evils produced by this wickedncu 
were felt in lands where the name of Prussia 
was unknown; and, in order that he might rob 
a neighbour whom he had promised to defend, 
black men fought on the coast of Coromandel, 
and red men scalped each other by the great 
lakes of North America. 

Silesia had been occupied without a battle ; 
but the Austrian troops were advancing to the 
relief of the fortresses which still held out. In 
the spring Frederic rejoined his army. He 
had seen little of war, and had never com- 
manded any great body of men in the field. It 
is not, therefore, strange that his first military 
operations showed little of that skill which, at 
a later period,, was the admiration of Europe. 
What connoisseurs say of some pictures paint- 
ed by Raphael in his youth, may be said of this 
campaign. It was in Frederic's early bad 
manner. Fortunately for him, the generals to 
whom he was opposed were men of small ca- 
pacity. The discipline of his own troops, par- 
ticularly of the infantry, was unequalled in 
that age ; and some able and experienced offi- 
cers were at hand to assist him with their ad- 
vice. Of these, the most distinguished was 
Field-Marshal Schwerin — a brave adventurer 
of Pomeranian extraction, who had served half 
the governments in Europe, had borne the 
commissions of the States-General of Holland 
and of the Duke of Mecklenburg, and fought 
under Marlborough at Blenheim, and had been 
with Charles the Twelfth at Bender. 

Frederic's first battle was fought at Molwitz 
and never did the career of a great commander 
open in a more inauspicious manner. His 
army was victorious. Not only, however, did 
he not establish his title to the character of an 
able general, but he was so unfortunate as tc 
make it doubtful whether he possessed th< 
vulgar courage of a soldier. The cavalry 
which he commanded in person, was put tr 
flight. Unaccustomed to the tumult and car 
nage of a field of battle, he lost his self-posses 
sion, and listened too readily to those whc 
urged him to save himself. His English gray 
carried him many miles from tho field, while 
Schwerin, though wounded in two places, man 
fully upheld the day. The skill of the old Field- 
Marshal and the steadiness of the Prussian ba- 
talions prevailed ; and the Austrian army was 
driven from the field with the loss of eighl 
thousand men. 

The news was carried late at night to a mill 
in which the king had taken shelter. It gave 
him a bitter pang. He was successful ; but he 
owed his success to dispositions which others 
had made, and to the valour of men who had 
fought while he was flying. So unpromising 
was the first appearance of the greatest warrior 
of that age ! 

The battle < f Molwitz was the signa. for a 
general explosion throughout Europe. Bararia 
took up arms. France, not yet declaring her 
self a principal in the war, took part in it a? 
an ally of Bavaria. The two great statesmen 
to whom mankind had owed many years of 
tranquillity, disappeared about this time from 
the scene ; but not till they had both been guilty 
of the weakness of sacrificing their sense of 
justice and their love of peace in the vain hop* 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 



509 



»f J reserving their power. Fleury, sinking 
under age and infirmity, was borne down by 
the impetuosity of Belle-Isle. Walpole retired 
from the service of his ungrateful country to 
his woods and paintings at Houghton; and his 
power devolved on the daring and eccentric 
Carteret. As were the ministers, so were the 
nations. Thirty years during which Europe 
had, with few interruptions, enjoyed repose, 
had prepared the public mind for great mili- 
tary efforts. A new generation had grown up, 
which could not remember the siege of Turin 
or th^e slaughter of Malplaquet ; which knew 
war "by nothing but its trophies; and which, 
while it looked with pride on the tapestries at 
Blenheim, or the statue in the " Place of Vic- 
tories," little thought by what privations, by 
what waste of private fortunes, by how many 
bitter tears, conquests must be purchased. 

For a time fortune seemed adverse to the 
Queen of Hungary. Frederic invaded Moravia. 
The French and Bavarians penetrated into 
Bohemia, and were there joined by the Saxons. 
Prague was taken. The Elector of Bavaria 
was raised*by the suffrages of his colleagues 
to the Imperial throne — a throne which the 
practice of centuries had almost entitled the 
house of Austria to regard as a hereditary 
possession. 

Yet was the spirit of the haughty daughter 
of the Caesars unbroken. Hungary was still 
hers by an unquestionable title ; and although 
her ancestors had found Hungary the most 
mutinous of all their kingdoms, she resolved 
to trust herself to the fidelity of a people, rude 
indeed, turbulent, and impatient of oppression, 
out brave, generous, and simple-hearted. In 
the midst of distress and peril she had given 
birth to a son, afterwards the Emperor Joseph 
the Second. Scarcely had she risen from her 
couch, when she hastened to Presburg. There, 
in the sight of an innumerable multitude, she 
was crowhed with the crown and robed with 
the robe of St. Stephen. No spectator could 
refrain his tears when the beautiful young 
mother, still weak from child-bearing, rode, 
after the fashion of her fathers, up the Mount 
of Defiance, unsheathed the ancient sword of 
state, shook it towards north and south, east 
and west, and, with a glow on her pale face, 
challenged the four corners of the world to dis- 
pute her rights and those of her boy. At the 
first sitting of the Diet she appeared clad in 
deep mourning for her father, and in pathetic 
and dignified words implored her people to 
support her just cause. Magnates and deputies 
sprang up, half drew their sabres, and with 
eager voices vowed to stand by her with their 
lives and fortunes. Till then, her firmness had 
never once forsaken her before the public eye, 
but at that shout she sank down upon her throne, 
and wept aloud. Still more touching was the 
sight when, a few days later, she came before 
the Estates of her realm, and held up before 
them the little Archduke in her arms. Then 
it was that the enthusiasm of Hungary broke 
forth into that war-cry which soon resounded 
throughout Europe, " Let us die for our King, 
Maria Theresa !" 

In the mean time, Frederic was meditating 
a change of policy. He had no wish to raise 
33 



France to supreme power on the continent, a*. 
the expense of the house of Hapsburg. His 
first object was, to rob the Queen of Hungary. 
His second was, that, if possible, nobody should 
rob her but himself. He had entered into en- 
gagements with the powers leagued against 
Austria; but these engagements were in his 
estimation of no more force than the guarantee 
formerly given to the " Pragmatic Sanction." 
His game was now to secure his share of the 
plunder by betraying his accomplices. Maria 
Theresa was little inclined to listen to any such 
compromise; but the English government re- 
presented to her so strongly the necessity of 
buying off so formidable an enemy as Frederic, 
that she agreed to negotiate. The negotiation 
would not, however, have ended in a treaty, 
had not the arms of Frederic been crowned 
with a second victory. Prince Charles of Lor- 
raine, brother-in-law to Maria Theresa, a bold 
and active, though unfortunate general, gave 
battle to the Prussians at Chotusitz, and was 
defeated. The king was still only a learner of 
the military art. He acknowledged, at a later 
period, that his success on this occasion was 
to be attributed, not at all to his own general- 
ship, but solely to the valour and steadiness of 
his troops. He completely effaced, however, 
by his courage and energy, the stain which 
Molwitz had left on his reputation. 

A peace, concluded under the English media 
tion, was the fruit of this battle. Maria Theresa 
ceded Silesia ; Frederic abandoned his allies : 
Saxony followed his example; and the queen 
was left at liberty to turn her whole force 
against France and Bavaria. She was every 
where triumphant. The French were com 
pelled to evacuate Bohemia, and with difficulty 
effected their escape. The whole line of theii 
retreat might be tracked by the corpses of 
thousands who died of cold, fatigue and hunger 
Many of those who reached their country car- 
ried with them seeds of death. Bavaria was 
overrun by bands of ferocious warriors from 
that bloody " debatable land," which lies on the 
frontier between Christendom and Islam. The 
terrible names of the Pandoor, the Croat, and 
the Hussar, then first became familiar to west- 
ern Europe. The unfortunate Charles of Ba- 
varia, vanquished by Austria, betrayed by- 
Prussia, driven from his hereditary states, and 
neglected by his allies, was hurried by shame 
and remorse to an untimely end. An English 
army appeared in the heart of Germany, and 
defeated the French at Dettingen. The Aus- 
trian captains already began to talk of com 
pleting the work of Marlborough and Eugene, 
and of compelling France to relinquish Alsace 
and the Three Bishoprics. 

The Court of Versailles, in this peril, looked 
to Frederic for help. He had been guilty ctf 
two great treasons, perhaps he might be -in- 
duced to commit a third. The Dutchess of 
Chateauroux then held the chief influence ovei 
the feeble Louis. She determined to send an 
agent to Berlin, and Voltaire was selected foi 
the mission. He eagerly undertook the task; 
for, while his literary fame filled all Europe, he 
was troubled with a childish craving for politi- 
cal distinction. He was vain, and not withou; 
reason, of his address, and of his insinuating 



510 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



sloquence ; and he flattered himself that he pos- 
sessed boundless influence over the King of 
Prussia. The truth was, that he knew, as yet, 
only one corner of Frederic's character. He 
was well acquainted with all the petty vanities 
and affectations of the poetaster; but was not 
aware that these foibles were united with all 
the talents and vices which lead to success in 
active life ; and that the unlucky versifier who 
bored him with reams of middling Alexan- 
drians, was the most vigilant, suspicious, and 
severe of politicians. 

Voltaire was received with every mark of 
respect and friendship, was lodged in the 
palace, and had a seat daily at the royal table. 
The negotiation was of an extraordinary de- 
scription. Nothing can be conceived more 
whimsical than the conferences which took 
place between the first literary man and the 
first practical man of the age, whom a strange 
weakness had induced to exchange their parts. 
The great poet. would talk of nothing but trea- 
ties and guarantees, and the great king of 
nothing but metaphors and rhymes. On one 
occasion Voltaire put into his Majesty's hand 
a paper on the state of Europe, and received it 
back with verses scrawled on the margin. In 
secret they both laughed at each other. Vol- 
taire did not spare the king's poems ; and the 
king has left on record his opinion of Voltaire's 
diplomacy. "He had no credentials," says 
Frederic, "and the whole mission was a joke, 
a mere farce." 

But what the influence of Voltaire could not 
jffect, the rapid progress of the Austrian arms 
effected. If it should be in the power of Maria 
Theresa and George the Second to dictate 
terms of peace to France, what chance was 
fthere that Prussia would long retain Silesia 1 
Frederic's conscience told him that he had 
acted perfidiously and inhumanly towards the 
Queen of Hungary. That her resentment was 
strong she had given ample proof; and of 
her respect for treaties he judged by his 
own. Guarantees, he said, were mere filigree, 
pretty to look at, but too brittle to bear the 
slightest pressure. He thought it his safest 
course to ally himself closely to France, and 
again to attack the Empress Queen. Accord- 
ingly, in the autumn of 1744, without notice, 
without any decent pretext, he recommenced 
hostilities, marched through the electorate of 
Saxony without troubling himself about the 
permission of the Elector, invaded Bohemia, 
took Prague, and even menaced Vienna. 

It was now that, for the first time, he expe- 
rienced the inconstancy of fortune. An Austrian 
army under Charles of Lorraine threatened his 
communications with Silesia. Saxony was all 
in arms behind him. He found it necessary to 
save himself by a retreat. He afterwards 
owned that his failure was the natural effect of 
his own blunders. No general, he said, had 
ever committed greater faults. It must be added, 
that to the reverses of this campaign he always 
ascribed his subsequent successes. 

It was in the midst of difficulty and disgrace 
mat he caught the first clear glimpse of the 
principles of the military art. 

The memorable year of 1745 followed. The 
var raged by sea and land, in Italy, in Germany, 



and in Flanders ; and even England, after man^ 
years of profound internal quiet, saw, for th< 
last time, nostile armies set in battle array 
against each other. This year is memorable 
in the life of Frederic, as the date at which 
his noviciate in the art of war may be said to 
have terminated. There have been great cap- 
tains whose precocious and self-taught military 
skill resembled intuition. Conde, Clive, and 
Napoleon are examples. But Frederic was 
not one of these brilliant portents. His profi« 
ciency in military science was simply the pro- 
ficiency which a man of vigorous faculties 
makes in any science to which he applies his 
mind with earnestness and industry. It was 
at Hohenfreidberg that he first proved how 
much he had profited by his errors, and by their 
consequences. His victory on that day was 
chiefly due to his skilful dispositions, and con- 
vinced Europe that the prince who, a few years 
before, had stood aghast in the rout of Molwitz, 
had attained in the military art a mastery 
equalled by none of his contemporaries, or 
equalled by Saxe alone. The victory of Ho- 
henfreidberg was speedily followed by that of 
Sorr. 

In the mean time, the arms of France had 
been victorious in the Low Countries. Fre- 
deric had no longer reason to fear that Maria 
Theresa would be able to give law to Europe, 
and he began to meditate a fourth breach of 
his engagements. The court of Versailles was 
alarmed and mortified. A letter of earnest 
expostulation, in the handwriting of Louis, 
was sent to Berlin ; but in vain. In the au- 
tumn of 1745, Frederic, made peace with Eng- 
land, and, before the close of the year, with 
Austria also. The pretensions of Charles of 
Bavaria could present no obstacle to an ac- 
commodation. That unhappy prince was no 
more ; and Francis of Lorraine, the husband 
of Maria Theresa, was raised, with the general 
consent of the Germanic body, to the Imperial 
throne. 

Prussia was again at peace ; but the Eu- 
ropean war lasted till, in the year 1748, it was 
terminated by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. 
Of all the powers that had taken part in it, the 
only gainer was Frederic. Not only had he 
added to his patrimony the fine province oi 
Silesia ; he had, by his unprincipled dexterity 
succeeded so well in alternately depressing the 
scale of Austria and that of France, that ht 
was generally regarded as holding the balance 
of Europe — a high dignity for one who ranked 
lowest among kings, and whose great-grand- 
father had been no more than a margrave. By 
the public, the King of Prussia was considered 
as a politician destitute alike of morality and 
decency, insatiably rapacious, and shameless 
ly false ; nor was the public much in the wrong 
He was at the same time allowed to be a man 
of parts, — a rising general, a shrewd nego- 
tiator and administrator. Those qualities 
wherein he surpassed all mankind, were as 
yet unknown to others or to himself; for they 
were qualities which shine out only on a dark 
ground. His career had hitherto, with little 
interruption, been prosperous ; and it was onlj 
in adversity, in adversity which seemed with- 
out hope or resource, in adversity that would 



FREDERIC THE GREAT 



511 



have overwhelmed even men celebrated for 
strength of mind, that his real greatness could 
be shown. 

He had from the commencement of his reign 
applied hi m self to public business after a fashion 
unknown among kings. Louis XIV., indeed, 
had been his own prime minister, and had ex- 
ercised a general superintendence over all the 
departments of the government ; but this was 
not sufficient for Frederic. He was not con- 
tent with being his own prime minister — he 
would be his own sole minister. Under him 
there was no room, not merely for a Richelieu 
or a Mazarin, but for a Colbert, a Louvois, or 
a Torcy. A love of labour for its own sake, a 
restless and insatiable longing to dictate, to 
intermeddle, to make his power felt, a profound 
scorn and distrust of his fellow-creatures, in- 
disposed hitn to ask counsel, to confide import- 
ant secrets, to delegate ample powers. The 
highest functionaries under his government 
were mere clerks, and were not so much 
trusted by him as valuable clerks are often 
trusted by the heads of departments. He was 
his own treasurer, his own commander-in- 
chief, his own intendant of public works ; his 
own minister for trade and justice, for home 
affairs and foreign affairs ; his own master of 
the horse, steward and chamberlain. Matters 
of which no chief of an office in any other 
government would ever hear, were, in this sin- 
gular monarchy, decided by the king in person. 
If a traveller wished for a good place to see a 
rsyiew, he had to write to Frederic, and re- 
ceived next day, from a royal messenger, Fre- 
deric's answer signed by Frederic's own hand. 
This was an extravagant, a morbid activity. 
The public business would assuredly have 
been better done if each department had been 
put under a man of talents and integrity, and 
if the king had contented himself with a gene- 
ral control. In this manner the advantages 
which belong to unity of design, and the ad- 
vantages which belong to the division of labour, 
would have been to a great extent combined. 
But such a system would not have suited the 
peculiar temper of Frederic. He could tole- 
rate no will, no reason in the state, save his 
own. He wished for no abler assistance than 
that of penmen who had just understanding 
enough to translate, to transcribe, to make out 
his scrawls, and to put his concise Yes and No 
into an official form. Of the higher intellec- 
tual faculties, there is as much in a copying 
machine, or a lithographic press, as he required 
from a secretary of the cabinet. 

His own exertions were such as were hard 
.y to be expected from a human body, or a 
human mind. At Potsdam, his ordinary resi- 
dence, he rose at three in summer and four in 
winter. A page soon appeared, with a large 
basketful of all the letters which had arrived 
for the king by the last courier — despatches 
r rom ambassadors, reports from officers of 
revenue, plans of buildings, proposals for 
draining marshes, complaints from persons 
who thought themselves aggrieved, applica- 
tions from persons who wanted titles, military 
commissic us, and civil situations. He ex- 
amined the seals with a keen eye ; for he was 
never for a moment free from the suspicion that 



some fraud might be practised on him. Theii 
he read the letters, divided them into several 
packets, and signified his pleasure, generally 
by a mark, often by two or three words, now 
and then by some cutting epigram. By eight 
he had generally finished this part of his task. 
The adjutant-general was then in attendance, 
and received instructions for the day as to all 
the military arrangements of the kingdom. 
Then the king went to review his guards, noS 
as kings ordinarily review their guards, but 
with the minute attention and severity of an 
old drill-sergeant. In the mean time the four 
cabinet secretaries had been employed in an- 
swering the letters on which the king had that 
moruing signified his will. These unhappy 
men were forced to work all the year round 
like negro slaves in the time of the sugar-crop. 
They never had a holiday. They never knew 
what it was to dine. It was necessary that, 
before they stirred, they should finish the whole 
of their work. The king, always on his guard 
against treachery, took from the heap a hand- 
ful at random, and looked into them to see 
whether his instructions had been exactly 
followed. This was no bad security against 
foul play on the part of the secretaries ; for if 
one of them were detected in a trick, he might 
think himself fortunate if he escaped with five 
years imprisonment in a dungeon. Frederic 
then signed the replies, and all were sent off 
the same evening. 

The general principles on which this strange 
government was conducted, deserve attention. 
The policy of Frederic was essentially the same 
as his father's ; but Frederic, while he carried 
that policy to lengths to which his father never 
thought of carrying it, cleared it at the same 
time from the absurdities with which his father 
had encumbered it. The king's first object 
was to have a great, efficient, and well-trained 
army. He had a kingdom which in extent 
and population was hardly in the second rank 
of European powers ; and yet he aspired to a 
place not inferior to that of the sovereigns of 
England, France, and Austria. For that end 
it was necessary that Pru&sia should be all 
sting. Louis XV., with five times as many 
subjects as Frederic, and more than five times 
as large a revenue, had not a more formidable 
army. The proportion which the soldiers in 
Prussia bore to the people, seems hardly cre- 
dible. Of the males in the vigour of life, a 
seventh part were probably under arms ; and 
this great force had, by drilling, by reviewing, 
and by the unsparing use of cane and scourge, 
been taught to perform all evolutions with a 
rapidity and a precision which would have 
astonished Villars or Eugene. The elevated 
feelings which are necessary to the best kind 
of army were then wanting to the Prussian 
service. In those ranks were not found the 
religious and political enthusiasm which in- 
spired the pikemen of Cromwell — the patriotic 
ardour, the thirst of glory, the devotion to a 
great leader, which inflamed the Old Guard of 
Napoleon. But in all the mechanical parts 
of the military calling, the Prussians were as 
superior to the English and French troops of 
that day, as the English and French troops to 
a rustic militia. 



bU 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Though the pay of the Prussian soldier was 
small, though every rixdollar of extraordinary 
charge was scrutinized by Frederic with a vi- 
gilance and suspicion such as Mr. Joseph 
Hume never brought to the examination of an 
army-estimate, the expense of such an esta- 
blishment was, for the means of the country, 
enormous. In order that it might not be ut- 
terly ruinous, it was necessary that every other 
expense should be cut down to the lowest pos- 
sible point. Accordingly, Frederic, though his 
dominions bordered on the sea, had no navy. 
He neither had nor wished to have colonies. 
His judges, his fiscal officers, were meanly 
paid. His ministers at foreign courts walked 
on foot, or drove shabby old carriages till the 
axletrees gave way. Even to his highest diplo- 
matic agents, who resided at London and Paris, 
he allowed less than a thousand pounds sterling 
a year. The royal household was managed 
with a frugality unusual in the establishments 
of opulent subjects — unexampled in any other 
palace. The king loved good eating and drink- 
ing, and during great part of his lffe took plea- 
sure in seeing his table surrounded by guests; 
yet the whole charge of.his kitchen was brought 
within the sum of two thousand pounds sterling 
a year. He examined every extraordinary item 
with a care which might be thought to suit the 
mistress of a boarding-house better than a 
great prince. When more than four rixdollars 
were asked of him for a hundred oysters, he 
stormed as if he had heard that one of his ge- 
nerals had sold a fortress to the Empress- 
Queen. Not a bottle of champagne was un- 
corked without his express order. The game 
of the royal parks and forests, a serious head 
of expenditure in most kingdoms, was to him 
a source of profit. The whole was farmed 
out ; and though the farmers were almost 
ruined by their contract, the king would grant 
them no remission. His wardrobe consisted 
of one fine gala dress, which lasted him all his 
life ; of two or three old coats fit for Monmouth 
street, of yellow waistcoats soiled with snuff, 
and of huge boots embrowned by time. One 
taste alone sometimes allured him beyond the 
limits of parsimony, nay, even beyond the 
limits of prudence — the taste for building. In 
all other things his economy was such as we 
might call by a harsher name, if we did not 
reflect that his funds were drawn from a 
heavily taxed people, and that it was impos- 
sible for him, without excessive tyranny, to 
keep up at once a formidable army and a 
splendid court. 

Considered as an administrator, Frederic 
had undoubtedly many titles to praise. Order 
■w as strictly maintained throughout his domi- 
nions. Property was secure. A great liberty 
of speaking and of writing was allowed. Con- 
fident in the irresistible strength derived from 
a great army, the king iooked down on male- 
contents and libellers with a wise disdain ; and 
gave little encouragement to spies and inform- 
ers. When he was told of the disaffection of 
one of his subjects, he merely asked, " How 
many thousand men can he bring into the 
field 1 ." He once saw a crowd staring at some- 
thing on a wall. He rode up, and found that 
*he object of curiosity was a scurrilous placard 



against himself. The placard had been posted 
up so high that it was not easy to read it 
Frederic ordered his attendants to take it down 
and put it lower. "My people and I," he said, 
"have come to an agreement which satisfies 
us both. They are to say what they please, 
and I am to do Avhat I please." No person 
would have dared to publish in London satires 
on George II. approaching to the atrocity of 
those satires on Frederic which the book- 
sellers at Berlin sold with impunity. One book- 
seller sent to the palace a copy of the most 
stinging lampoon that perhaps was ever writ- 
ten in the world, the " Memoirs of Voltaire," 
published by Beaumarchais, and asked for his 
majesty's orders. " Do not advertise it ir. an 
offensive manner," said the king; "but sell it 
by all means. I hope it will pay you well." 
Even among statesmen accustomed to the 
license of a free press such steadfastness of 
mind as this is not very common. > 

It is due also to the memory of Frederic to 
say, that he earnestly laboured to secure to his 
people the great blessing of cheap and speedy 
justice. He was one of the first rulers who 
abolished the cruel and absurd practice of tor- 
ture. No sentence of death, pronounced by the 
ordinary tribunals, was executed without his 
sanction; and his sanction, except in cases of 
murder, was rarely given. Towards his troops 
he acted in a very different manner. Military 
offences were punished with such barbarous 
scourging, that to be shot was considered by 
the Prussian soldier as a secondary punish 
ment. Indeed, the principle which pervaded 
Frederic's whole policy was this — that the 
more severely the army is governed, the safer 
it is to treat the rest of the community with 
lenity. 

Religious persecution was tmknown undtfi 
his government — unless some foolish and un- 
just restrictions which lay upon the Jews may 
be regarded as forming an exception. His 
policy with respect to the Catholics of Silesia 
presented an honourable contrast to the policy 
which, under very similar circumstances, Eng- 
land long followed with respect to the Catholics 
of Ireland. Every form of religion and irreli- 
gion found an asylum in his states. The 
scoffer whom the Parliaments of France had 
sentenced to a cruel death, was consoled by a 
commission in the Prussian service. The 
Jesuit who could show his face nowhere else — 
who in Britain was still subject to penal laws, 
who was proscribed by France, Spain, Portu- 
gal, and Naples, who had been given up even 
by the Vatican — found safety and the means 
of subsistence in the Prussian dominions. 

Most of the vices of Frederic's administra- 
tion resolve themselves into one vice — the 
spirit of meddling. The indefatigable activity 
of his intellect, his dictatorial temper, his mili- 
tary habits, all inclined him to this great fault 
He drilled his people as he drilled his grena- 
diers. Capital and industry were diverted from 
their natural direction by a crowd of prepos- 
terous regulations. There was a monopoly of 
coffee, a monopoly of tobacco, a monopoly of 
refined sugar. The public money, of which 
the king was generally so sparing, was lavishly 
spent in ploughing bogs, in planting mulbenr- 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 



513 



trees amic'st the sand, in bringing sheep from 
Spain to improve the Saxon wool, in bestowing 
prizes for fine yarn, in building manufactories 
of porcelain, manufactories of carpets, manu- 
factories of hardware, manufactories of lace. 
Neither the experience of other rulers, nor his 
own, could ever teach him that something 
more than an edict and a grant of public mo- 
ney is required to create a Lyons, a Brussels, 
or a Birmingham. 

For his commercial policy, however, there 
; s some excuse. He had on his side illustrious 
examples and popular prejudice. Grievously 
as he erred, he erred in company with his age. 
Tn other departments his meddling was alto- 
gether without apology. He interfered with 
the course of justice as well as with the course 
of trade ; and set up his own crude notions of 
equity against the law as expounded by the 
unanimous voice of the gravest magistrates. 
It never occurred to him that a body of men, 
whose lives were passed in adjudicating on 
questions of civil right, were more likely to 
form correct opinions on such questions fhan 
a prince whose attention was divided between 
a thousand objects, and who had probably 
never read a law-book through. The resistance 
opposed to him by the tribunals inflamed him 
to fury. He reviled his Chancellor. He 
kicked the shins of his Judges. He did not, it 
is true, intend to act unjustly. He firmly .be- 
lieved that he was doing right, and defending 
the cause of the poor against the wealthy. Yet 
this well-meant meddling probably did far more 
harm than all the explosions of his evil pas- 
sions during the whole of his long reign. We 
could make shift to live under a debauchee or 
a tyrant; but to be ruled by a busy-body is 
more than human nature can bear. 

The same passion for directing and regulat- 
ing appsared in every part of the king's 
policy. Every lad of a certain station in life 
was forced to go to certain schools within the 
Prussian dominions. If a young Prussian re- 
paired, though but for a few weeks, to Leyden 
or Gottingen for the purpose of study, the of- 
fence was punished with civil disabilities, and 
sometimes with confiscation of property. No- 
body was to travel without the royal permission. 
If the permission were granted, the pocket- 
money of the tourist was fixed by royal ordi- 
nances. A merchant might take with him two 
hundred and fifty rixdollars in gold, a noble 
was allowed to take four hundred ; for it may 
be observed, in passing, that Frederic studi- 
ously kept up the old distinction between the 
nobles and the community. In speculation, he 
was a French philosopher; but in action, a 
German prince. He talked and wrote about 
the privileges of blood in the style of Sieyes ; 
but in practice no chapter in the empire look- 
ed with a keener eye to genealogies and quar- 
terings. 

Such was Frederic the Ruler. But there 
was another Frederic, the Frederic of Rheins- 
burg, the fiddler and flute-player, the poetaster 
and metaphysician. Amidst the cares of state 
the king had retained his passion for music, 
for reading, for writing, for literary society. 
To these amusements he devoted all the time 
he cculd snatch from the business of war and 



government ; and perhaps more" light is thrown 
on his character by what passed during his 
hours of relaxation than by his battles or his 
laws. 

It was the just boast of Schiller, that in his 
country no Augustus, no Lorenzo, had watched 
over the infancy of art. The rich and ener- 
getic language of Luther, driven by the Latin 
from the schools of pedants, and by the French 
from the palaces of kings, -had taken refuge 
among the people. Of the powers of that lan- 
guage Frederic had no notion. He generally 
spoke of it, and of those who used it, with the 
contempt of ignorance. His library consisted 
of French books ; at his table nothing was 
heard but French conversation. 

The associates of his hours of relaxation 
were, for the most part, foreigners. Britain 
furnished to the royal circle two distinguished 
men, born in the highest rank, and driven by 
civil dissensions from the land to which, under 
happier circumstances, their talents and vir- 
tues might have been a source of strength and 
glory. George Keith, Earl Marischal of Scot- 
land, had taken arms for the house of Stuart in 
1715, and his younger brother James, then only 
seventeen years old, had fought gallantly by 
his side. When all was lost they retired to 
the Continent, roved from country to country, 
served under many standards, and so bore 
themselves as to win the respect and good-will 
of many who had no love for the Jacobite 
cause. Their long wanderings terminated at 
Potsdam ; nor had Frederic any associates who 
deserved or obtained so large a share of his 
esteem. They were not only accomplished 
men, but nobles and warriors, capable of serv- 
ing him in war and diplomacy, as well as of 
amusing him at supper. Alone of all his com- 
panions they appear never to have had reason 
to complain of his demeanour towards them. 
Some of those who knew the palace best pro- 
nounced that the Lord Marischal was the 
only human being whom Frederic ever really 
loved. 

Italy sent to the parties at Potsdam the in- 
genious and amiable Algarotti, and Bastiani, 
the most crafty, cautious, and servile of Abb^s. 
But the greater part of the society which Fre- 
deric had assembled round him, was drawn 
from France. Maupertuis had acquired some 
celebrity by the journey which he made to Lap- 
land, for the purpose of ascertaining, by actual 
measurement, the shape of our planet. He 
was placed in the chair of the Academy of 
Berlin, a humble imitation of the renowned 
academy of Paris. Baculard D'Arnaud, a 
young poet, who was thought to have given 
promise of great things, had been induced to 
quit his country, and to reside at the Prussian 
court. The Marquess D'Argens was among 
the king's favourite companions, on account, 
as it should seem, of the strong opposition be- 
tween their characters. The parts of D'Ar- 
gens were good, and his manners those of «. 
finished French gentleman ; but his whole soul 
was dissolved in sloth, timidity, and self-indul- 
gence. His was one of that abject class of 
minds which are superstitious without being 
religious. Hating Christianity with a rancoui 
which made him incapable of rational inquiry 



514 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



unable to see in the harmony and beauty of the 
universe the traces of divine power and wis- 
dom, he was the slave of dreams and omens ; 
— would not sit down to the table with thirteen 
*.n company; turned pale if the salt fell to- 
wards him ; begged his guests not to cross 
their knives and forks on their plates; and 
would not for the world commence a journey 
on Friday. His health was a subject of con- 
stant anxiety to him. Whenever his head 
ached, or his pulse beat quick, his dastardly 
fears and effeminate precautions were the jest 
of all Berlin. All this suited the king's pur- 
pose admirably. He wanted somebody by 
whom he might be amused, and whom he 
might despise. When he wished to pass half 
an hour in easy polished conversation, D'Ar- 
gens was an excellent companion; when he 
wanted to vent his spleen and contempt, D'Ar- 
gens was an excellent butt. 

With these associates, and others of the same 
class, Frederic loved to spend the time which he 
could steal from public cares. He wished his 
supper-parties to be gay and easy; and invited 
his guests to lay aside all restraint, and to forget 
that he was at the head of a hundred and sixty 
thousand soldiers, and was absolute master of 
the life and liberty of all who sat at meat with 
him. There was, therefore, at these meetings the 
outward show of ease. The wit and learning 
of the company were ostentatiously displayed. 
The discussions on history and literature were 
often highly interesting. But the absurdity of 
all the religions known among men was the 
chief topic of conversation ; and the audacity 
with which doctrines and names venerated 
throughout Christendom were treated on these 
occasions, startled even persons accustomed 
to the society of French and English free-think- 
ers. But real liberty, or real affection, was in 
this brilliant society not to be found. Absolute 
kings seldom have friends: and Frederic's 
faults were such as, even where perfect equa- 
lity exists, make friendship exceedingly pre- 
carious. He had indeed many qualities, which, 
on a first acquaintance, were captivating. His 
conversatii n was lively; his manners to those 
whom he desired to please were even caress- 
ing. No man could flatter with more delicacy. 
No man succeeded more completely in inspir- 
ing those who approached him with vague 
hopes of some great advantage from his kind- 
ness. But under this fair exterior he was a 
tyrant — suspicious, disdainful, and malevolent. 
He had one taste which may be pardoned in a 
boy, but which, when habitually and delibe- 
rately indulged in a man of mature age and 
strong Understanding, is almost invariably the 
sign of a bad heart — a taste for severe practi- 
cal jokes. If a friend of the king was fond of 
dress, oil was flung over his richest suit. If he 
was fond of money, some prank was invented 
to make him disburse more than he could spare, 
[fhe was hypochondrical,hewas made to believe 
he had the dropsy. If he particularly set his 
heart on visiting a place, a letter was forged to 
frighten him from going thither. These things, 
it may be said, are trifles. They are so ; but they 
are indications, not to be mistaken, of a nature 
to which the sight of human suffering and hu- 
man degradation is an agreeable excitement. 



Frederic had a. keen eye for the foibles cl 
others, and loved'to communicate his discover- 
ies. He had some talent for sarcasm, am} 
considerable skill in detecting the sore places 
where sarcasm would be most actually felt 
His vanity, as well as his malignity, founa 
gratification in the vexation and confusion of 
those who smarted under his caustic jests, 
Yet in truth his success on these occasions 
belonged quite as much to the king as to the 
wit. We read that Commodus descended, 
sword in hand, into the arena against a wretch- 
ed gladiator, armed only with a foil of lead, 
and, after shedding the blood of the helpless 
victim, struck medals to commemorate the in- 
glorious victory. The triumphs of Frederic 
in the war of repartee were much of the same 
kind. How to deal with him was the most 
puzzling of questions. To appear constrained 
in his presence was to disobey his commands, 
and to spoil his amusement. Yet if his asso- 
ciates were enticed by his graciousness to in- 
dulge in the familiarity of a cordial intimacy, 
he was certain to make them repent of their 
presumption by some cruel humiliation. To 
resent his affronts was perilous ; yet not to re- 
sent them was to deserve and to invite them. 
In his view, those who mutinied were insolent 
and ungrateful ; those who submitted, were 
curs made to receive bones and kickings with 
the same fawning patience. It is, indeed, dif- 
ficult to conceive how any thing short of the 
rage of hunger should have induced men to 
bear the misery of being the associates of the 
Great King. It was no lucrative post. His 
majesty was as severe and economical in hia 
friendships as in the other charges of his esta- 
blishment, and as unlikely to give a rixdollar 
too much for his guests as for his dinners, 
The sum which he allowed to a poet or a phi- 
losopher, was the very smallest sum for which 
such poet or philosopher could be induced to 
sell himself into slavery; and the bondsman 
might think himself fortunate, if what had been 
so grudgingly given was not, after years of suf- 
fering, rudely and arbitrarily withdrawn. 

Potsdam was, in truth, what it was called by 
one of its most illustrious inmates, the Palace 
of Alcina. At the first glance it seemed to be 
a delightful spot, where every intellectual and 
physical enjoyment awaited the happy ad- 
venturer. Every new comer was received 
with eager hospitality, intoxicated with flattery, 
encouraged to expect prosperity and greatness. 
It was in vain that a long succession of fa 
vourites who had entered that abode with de- 
light and hope, and who, after a short term of 
delusive happiness, had been doomed to ex- 
piate their folly by years of wretchedness and 
degradation, raised their voices to warn the 
aspirant who approached the charmed thresh- 
old. Some had wisdom enough to discover 
the truth early, and spirit enough to fly without 
looking back ; others lingered on to a cheerless 
and unhonoured old age. We have no hesi- 
tation in saying that the poorest author of that 
time in London, sleeping on a bulk, dining in 
a cellar, with a cravat of paper, and a skewer 
for a shirt-pin, was a happier man than any 
of the literary inmates of Frederic's court. 

But of all who entered the enchanted gardec 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 



515 



di the inebriation of delight, and quitted i in 
5gonies of rage and shame, the most remarka- 
ble was Voltaire. Many circumstances had 
made him desirous of finding a home at a dis- 
tance from his country. His fame had raised 
him up enemies. His sensibility gave them a 
formidable advantage over him. They were, 
indeed, contemptible assailants. Of all that 
they wrote against him, nothing has survived 
except what he has himself preserved. But 
the constitution of his mind resembled the con- 
stitution of those bodies in which the slightest 
scratch of a bramble, or the bite of a gnat, 
never fails to fester. Though his reputation 
was rather raised than lowered by the abuse 
of such writers as Freron and Desfontaines — 
though the vengeance which he took on Fre- 
ron and Desfontaines was such, that scourging, 
branding, pillorying, would have been a trifle 
to it — there is reason to believe that they gave 
him far more pain than he ever gave them. 
Though he enjoyed during his own lifetime the 
reputation of a classic — though he was extolled 
by his contemporaries above all poets, philo- 
sophers, and historians — though his works were 
read with as much delight and admiration at 
Moscow and Westminster, at Florence and 
Stockholm, as at Paris itself, he was yet tor- 
mented by that restless jealousy which should 
seem to belong only to minds burning with the 
desire of fame, and yet conscious of impotence. 
To men of letters who could by no possibility 
be his rivals, he was, if they behaved well to 
.lim, not merely just, not merely courteous, but 
often a hearty friend and a munificent bene- 
factor. But to every writer who rose to a 
celebrity approaching his own, he became 
either a disguised or an avowed enemy. He 
slyly depreciated Montesquieu and Buffon. He 
publicly, and with violent outrage, made war 
on Jean Jacques. Nor had he the art of hiding 
his feelings under the semblance of good-hu- 
mour or of contempt. With all his great ta- 
lents, and all his long experience of the world, 
he had no more self-command than a petted 
child or an hysterical woman. Whenever he 
was mortified, he exhausted the whole rhetoric 
of anger and sorrow to express his mortifica- 
tion. His torrents of bitter words — his stamp- 
ing and cursing — his grimaces and his tears 
of rage — were a rich feast to those abject na- 
tures, whose delight is in the agonies of pow- 
erful spirits and in the abasement of immortal 
names. These creatures had now found out 
a way of galling him to the very quick. In 
one walk, at least, it had been admitted by envy 
itself that he was without a living competitor. 
Since Racine had been laid among the great 
men whose dust made the holy precinct of 
.•Port-Royal holier, no tragic poet had appeared 
" who could contest the palm with the author of 
Zaire, of Mzire, and of Merope. At length a 
rival was announced. Old Crebillon, who, 
many years before, had obtained some theatri- 
cal success, and who had long been forgotten, 
came forth from his garret in one of the mean- 
est lanes near the Rue St. Antoine, and was 
welcomed by the acclamations of envious men 
of letters, and of a capricious populace. A 
thing called Catiline, which he had written in 
his retirement, was acted with boundless ap- 



plause. Of this execrable piece it is sufficient 
to say, that the plot turns on a love affair, car- 
ried on in all the forms of Scudery, between 
Catiline, whose confidant is the Praetor Lentu- 
lus, and Tullia, the daughter of Cicero. The 
theatre resounded with acclamations. The 
king pensioned the successful poet; and the 
coffee-houses pronounced that Voltaire was a 
clever man, but that the real tragic inspiration, 
the celestial fire which glowed in Corneille 
and Racine was to be found in Crebillon 
alone. 

The blow went to Voltaire's hfart. Had 
his wisdom and fortitude been in proportion to 
the fertility of his intellect, and to the brilliancy 
of his wit, he would have seen that it was out 
of the power of all the puffers and detractors 
in Europe to put Catiline above Zaire ; but he 
had none of the magnanimous patience with 
which Milton and Bentley left their claims to 
the unerring judgment of time. He eagerly 
engaged in an undignified competition with 
Crebillon, and produced a series of plays on 
the same subjects which his rival had treated. 
These pieces were coolly received. Angry 
with the court, angry with the capital, Voltaire 
began to find pleasure in the prospect of exile. 
His attachment for Madame- de Chatelet long 
prevented him from executing his purpose 
Her death set him at liberty; and he deter- 
mined to take refuge at Berlin. 

To Berlin he was invited by a series of let- 
ters, couched in terms of the most enthusiastic 
friendship and admiration. For once the rigid 
parsimony of Frederic seemed to have relaxed. 
Orders, honourable offices, a liberal pension, a 
well-served table, stately apartments under a 
royal roof, were offered in return for the plea- 
sure and honour which were expected from 
the society of the first wit of the age. A thou- 
sand louis were remitted for the charges of 
the journey. No ambassador setting out from 
Berlin for a court of the first rank, had ever 
been more amply supplied. But Voltaire was 
not satisfied. At a later period, when he pos- 
sessed an ample fortune, he was one of the 
most liberal of men ; but till his means had 
become equal to his wishes, his greediness for 
lucre was unrestrained either by justice or by 
shame. He had the effrontery to ask for a 
thousand louis more, in order to enable him to 
bring his niece, Madame Denis, the ugliest of 
coquettes, in his company. The indelicate 
rapacity of the poet produced its natural effect 
on the severe and frugal king. The answer 
was a dry refusal. "I did not," said his ma- 
jesty, " solicit the honour of the lady's society." 
On this, Voltaire went off into a paroxysm of 
childish rage. " Was there ever such avarice ? 
He has hundred of tubs full of dollars in his 
vaults, and haggles with me about a poor thou- 
sand louis." It seemed that the negotiation 
would be broken off; but Frederic, with great 
dexterity, affected indifference, and seemed 
inclined to transfer his idolatry to Baculard 
d'Arnaud., His majesty even wrote some bad 
verses, of which the sense was, that Voltaire 
was a setting sun, and that Arnaud was rising 
Good-natured friends soon carried the lines to 
Voltaire. He was in his bed. He jumped out 
in his shirt, danced about the room with rage, 



516 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



and sent for his passport and his post-horses. 
It was not difficult to foresee the end of a con- 
nection which had such a beginning. 

It was in the year 1750 that Voltaire left the 
great capital, which he was not to see again 
till, after the lapse of nearly thirty years, he 
returned, bowed down by extreme old age, to 
die in the midst of a splendid and ghastly tri- 
umph. His reception in Prussia was such as 
might well have elated a less vain and excit- 
able mind. He wrote to his friends at Paris, 
that the kindness and the attention with which 
he had been welcomed surpassed description 
— that the king was the most amiable of men — 
that Potsdam was the Paradise of philosophers. 
He was created chamberlain, and received, to- 
gether with his gold key, the cross of an order, 
and a patent ensuring to him a pension of 
eight hundred pounds sterling a year for life. 
A hundred and sixty pounds a year were pro- 
mised to his niece if she survived him. The 
royal cooks and coachmen were put at his dis- 
posal. He was lodged in the same apartments 
in which Saxe had lived, when, at the height 
of power and glory, he visited Prussia. Fre- 
deric, indeed, stooped for a time even to use 
the language of adulation. He pressed to his 
lips the meager hand of the little grinning ske- 
leton, whom he regarded as the dispenser of 
immortal renown. He would add, he said, to 
the titles which he owed to his ancestors and 
his sword, another title, derived from his last 
and proudest acquisition. His style should 
run thus : — Frederic, King of Prussia, Mar- 
grave of Brandenburg, Sovereign Duke of Si- 
lesia, Possessor of Voltaire. But even amidst 
the delights of the honey-moon, Voltaire's sen- 
sitive vanity began to take alarm. A few days 
after his arrival, he could not help telling his 
niece, that the amiable king had a trick of 
giving a sly scratch with one hand while pat- 
ting and stroking with the other. Soon came 
hints not the less alarming because mysteri- 
ous. " The supper parties are delicious. The 
king is the life of the company. But — I have 
operas and comedies, reviews and concerts, 
my studies and books. But — but — Berlin is 
fine, the princess charming, the maids of 
honour handsome. But" 

This eccentric friendship was fast cooling. 
Never had there met two persons so exquisite- 
ly fitted to plague each other. Each of them 
nad exactly the fault of which the other was 
most impatient; and they were, in different 
ways, the most impatient of mankind. Frede- 
ric was frugal, almost niggardly. When he 
had secured his plaything, he began to think 
that he had bought it too dear. Voltaire, on 
the other hand, was greedy, even to the extent 
of impudence and knavery ; and conceived 
that the favourite of a monarch, who had bar- 
rels full of gold and silver laid up in cellars, 
ought to make a fortune which a receiver- 
general might envy. They soon discovered 
*ach other's feelings. Both were angry, and 
a war began, in which Frederic stooped to the 
part of Harpagon, and Voltaire to that of Sea- 
pin. It is humiliating to relate, that the great 
warricr and statesman gave orders that his 
guest's allowance of sugar and chocolate 
should be curtailed. It is. if possible, a still 



more humiliating fact, that Voltaire indemn* 
fied himself by pocketing the wax-candles in 
the royal antechamber. Disputes about mo 
ney, however, were not the most serious dis- 
putes of these extraordinary associates. The 
sarcasms soon galled the sensitive temper of 
the poet. D'Arnaud and D'Argens, Guichard 
and La Metrie, might, for the sake of a morsel 
of bread, be willing to bear the insolence c f a 
master ; but Voltaire was of another order. 
He knew that he was a potentate as well as 
Frederic ; that his European reputation, and 
his incomparable power of covering whatever 
he hated with ridicule, made him an object of 
dread even to the leaders of armies and the 
rulers of nations. In truth, of all the intellec- 
tual weapons which have ever been wielded 
by man, the most terrible was the mockery of 
Voltaire. Bigots and tyrants, who had never 
been moved by the wailing and cursing of 
millions, turned pale at his name. Principles 
unassailable by reason, principles which had 
withstood the fiercest attacks of power, the 
most valuable truths, the most generous senti- 
ments, the noblest and most graceful images, 
the purest reputations, the most august institu- 
tions, began to look mean and loathsome as 
soon as that withering smile was turned upon 
them. To every opponent, however strong in 
his cause and his talents, in his station and his 
character, who ventured to encounter the great 
scoffer, might be addressed the caution which 
was given of old to the Archangel : — 

"1 forewarn thee, shun 
His deadly arrow ; neither vainly hope 
To be invulnerable in those bright arms, 
Though temper'd heavenly ; for that fatal dint, 
Save Him who reigns above, none can resist." 

We cannot pause to recount how often that 
rare talent was exercised against rivals worthy 
of esteem — how often it was used to crush and 
torture enemies worthy only of silent disdain — 
how often it was perverted to the more noxious 
purpose of destroying the last solace of earthly 
misery, and the last restraint on earthly power. 
Neither can we pause to tell how often it was 
used to vindicate justice, humanity, and tolera- 
tion — the principles of sound philosophy, the 
principles ox" free government. This is no 
the place for a full character of Voltaire. 

Causes of quarrel multiplied fast. Voltaire, 
who, partly from love of money, and partly 
from love of excitement, was always fond of 
stockjobbing, became implicated in transac- 
tions of at least a dubious character. The 
king was delighted at having such an oppor- 
tunity to humble his guest; and bitter re- 
proaches and complaints were exchanged. 
Voltaire, too, was soon at war with the other 
men of letters who surrounded the king ; and 
this irritated Frederic, who, however, had him- 
self chiefly to blame: for, from that love of 
tormenting which was in him a ruling passion, 
he perpetually lavished extravagant praises 
on small men and bad books, merely in order 
that he might enjoy the mortification and rage 
which on such occasions Voltaire took no 
pains to conceal. His majesty, however, soon 
had reason to regret the pains which he had 
taken to kindle jealousy among the members 
of his household. The whole palace was in a 



FREDERIC I HE GREAT. 



61T 



fermen, with literary intrigues and cabals. It 
was to no purpose that the imperial voice, 
which kept a hundred and sixty thousand sol- 
diers in order, was raised to quiet the conten- 
tion of the exasperated wits. It was far easier 
to stir up such a storm than to lull it. Nor 
Was Frederic, in his capacity of wit, by any 
means without his own share of vexations. 
He had sent a large quantity of verses to Vol- 
taire, and requested that they might be returned, 
with remarks and correction. " See," exclaim- 
ed Voltaire, "what a quantity of his dirty linen 
the king has sent me to wash !" Talebearers 
were not wanting to carry the sarcasm to the 
royal ear ; and Frederic was as much incensed 
as a Grub Street writer who had found his 
name in the " Dunciad." 

This could not last. A circumstance which, 
when the mutual regard of the friends was in 
its first glow, would merely have been matter 
for laughter, produced a violent explosion. 
Maupertuis enjoyed as much of Frederic's 
good-will as any man of letters. He was Pre- 
sident of the Academy of Berlin; and stood 
second to Voltaire, though at an immense dis- 
tance, in the literary society which had been 
assembled at the Prussian court. Frederic 
had, by playing for his own amusement on the 
feelings of the two jealous and vainglorious 
Frenchmen, succeeded in producing a bitter 
enmity between them. Voltaire resolved to 
set his mark, a mark never to be effaced, on 
the forehead of Maupertuis ; and wrote the ex- 
quisitely ludicrous diatribe of Doctor Akakia. 
He showed this little piece to Frederic, who 
had too much taste and too much malice not 
to relish such delicious pleasantry. In truth, 
even at this time of day, it is not easy for any 
person who has the least perception of the ridi- 
culous to read the jokes on the Latin city, the 
Patagonians, and the hole to the centre of the 
earth, without laughing . till he cries. But 
though Frederic was diverted by this charm- 
ing pasquinade, he was unwilling that it should 
get abroad. His self-love was interested. He 
had selected Maupertuis to fill the Chair of 
his Academy. If all Europe were taught to 
laugh at Maupertuis, would not the reputation 
of the Academy, would not even the dignity of 
its royal patron, be in some degree compro- 
mised 1 The king, therefore, begged Voltaire 
to suppress his performance. Voltaire pro- 
mised to do so, and broke his word. The dia- 
tribe was published, and received with shouts 
of merriment and applause by all who could 
read the French lauguage. The king stormed. 
Voltaire, with his usual disregard of truth, pro- 
tested his innocence, and made up some lie 
about a printer or an amanuensis. The king 
was not to be so imposed upon. He ordered 
Ihe pamphlet to be burned by the common 
hangman, and insisted upon having an apology 
from Voltaire, couched in the most abject 
terms. Voltaire sent back to the king his 
cross, his key, and the patent of his pension. 
After this burst of rage, the strange pair began 
to he ashamed of their violence, and went 
through the forms of reconciliation. But the 
breach was irreparable ; and Voltaire took his 
leave of Frederic forever. They parted with 
eold civ'.li:y; but their hearts were big with 



resentment. Voltaire had n his keeping a 
volume of the king's poetry, and forgot to re 
turn it. This was, we believe, merely one ol 
the oversights which men setting out upon a 
journey often commit. That Voltaire could 
have meditated plagiarism is quite incredible. 
He would not, we are confident, for the half of 
Frederic's kingdom, have consented to fathei 
Frederic's verses. The king, however, who 
rated his own writings much above their value, 
and who was inclined to see all Voltaire's ac- 
tions in the worst light, was enraged to think 
that his favourite compositions were in the 
hands of an enemy, as thievish as a daw and 
as mischievous as a monkey. In the anger 
excited by this thought, he lost sight of reason 
and decency, and determined on committing 
an outrage at once odious and ridiculous. 

Voltaire had reached Frankfort. His niece, 
Madame Denis, came thither to meet him. He 
conceived himself secure from the power of his 
late master, when he was arrested by order of 
the Prussian resident. The precious volume 
was delivered up. But the Prussian agents 
had, no doubt, been instructed not to let Vol- 
taire escape without some gross indignity. He 
was confined twelve days in a wretched hovel. 
Sentinels with fixed bayonets kept guard over 
him. His niece was dragged through the 
mire by the soldiers. Sixteen hundred dollars 
were extorted from him by his insolent jailers. 
It is absurd to say that this outrage is not to be 
attributed to the king. Was anybody punish- 
ed for if? Was anybody called in question 
for if? Was it not consistent with Frederic's 
character 1 Was it not of a piece with his con- 
duct on other similar occasions 1 Is it not nr- 
torious that he repeatedly gave private direc- 
tions to his officers to pillage and demolish the 
houses of persons against whom he had a 
grudge — charging them at the same time to 
take their measures in such a way that his 
name might not be compromised 1 He acted 
thus towards Count Buhl in the Seven Years' 
War. Why should we believe that he would 
have been more scrupulous with regard to Vol- 
taire 1 

When at length the illustrious prisoner re- 
gained his liberty, the prospect before him was 
but dreary. He was an exile both from the 
country of his birth and from the country of 
his adoption. The French government had 
taken offence at his journey to Prussia, and 
would not permit him to return to Paris ; and 
in the vicinity of Prussia it was not safe for 
him to remain. 

He took refuge on the beautiful shores of 
Lake Leman. There, loosed from every tie 
which had hitherto restrained him, and having 
little to hope or to fear from courts and 
churches, he began his long war against all 
that, whether for good or evil, had authority 
over man ; for what Burke said of the Consti- 
tuent Assembly, was eminently true of this its 
great forerunner. He could not build — he 
could only pull down — he was the very Vitru- 
vius of ruin. He has bequeathed to us not a 
single doctrine to be called by his name — not 
a single addition to the stock of our positive 
knowledge. But no human teacher ever left be 
hind him so vast and terrible a wreck of trutns 



S18 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



and falsehoods — of things " noble and things 
base — of things useful and things pernicious. 
From the time when his sojourn beneath the 
Alps commenced, the dramatist, the wit, the 
historian, was merged in a more important 
character. He was now the patriarch, the 
founder of a sect, the chief of a conspiracy, the 
prince of a wide intellectual commonwealth. 
He often enjoyed a pleasure dear to the better 
part of his nature, the pleasure of vindicating 
innocence which had no other helper — of re- 
pairing cruel wrongs — of punishing tyranny 
in high places. He had also the satisfaction, 
not less acceptable to his ravenous vanity, of 
hearing terrified Capuchins call him the Anti- 
christ. But whether employed in works of 
benevolence, or in works of mischief, he never 
forgot Potsdam and Frankfort; and he listened 
anxiously to every murmur which indicated 
that a tempest was gathering in Europe, and 
that his vengeance was at hand. 

He soon had his wish. Maria Theresa had 
never for a moment forgotten the great wrong 
which she had received at the hand of Frede- 
ric. Young and delicate, just left an orphan, 
just about to be a mother, she had been com- 
pelled to fly from the ancient capital of her 
race ; she had seen her fair inheritance dis- 
membered by robbers, and of those robbers he 
had been the foremost. Without a pretext, 
without a provocation, in defiance of the most 
sacred engagements, he had attacked the help- 
less ally whom he was bound to defend. The 
Empress-Queen had the faults as well as the 
virtues which are connected with quick sensi- 
bility and a high spirit. There was no peril 
which she was not ready to brave, no calamity 
which she was not ready to bring on her sub- 
jects, or on the whole human race, if only she 
might once taste the sweetness of a complete 
revenge. Revenge, too, presented itself to her 
narrow and superstitious mind in the guise of 
duty. Silesia had been wrested not only from 
the house of Austria, but from the Church of 
Rome. 

The conqueror had indeed permitted his new 
subjects to worship God after their own fashion; 
but this was not enough. To bigotry it seemed 
an intolerable hardship that the Catholic Church, 
having long enjoyed ascendency, should be 
compelled to content itself with equality. Nor 
was this the only circumstance which led 
Maria Theresa to regard her enemy as the 
enemy of God. The profaneness of Frederic's 
writings and conversation, and the frightful 
rumours which were circulated respecting the 
immoralities of his private life, naturally shock- 
ed a woman who believed with the firmest 
faith all that her confessor told her ; and who, 
though surrounded by temptations, though 
young and beautiful, though ardent in all her 
passions, though possessed of absolute power, 
had preserved her fame unsullied even by the 
breath of slander. 

To recover Silesia, to humble the dynasty 
of Honenzollern to the dust, was the great ob- 
ject of her life. She toiled during many years 
for this end, with zeal as indefatigable as that 
which the poet ascribes to the stately goddess 
who tired out her immortal horses in the work 
»f raising the nations against Troy, and wh» 



offered to give up to destruction her darling 
Sparta and Mycenae, if only she might once seo 
the smoke going up from the palace of Priam, 
With even such a spirit did the proud Austrian 
Juno strive to array against her foe a coalition 
such as Europe had never seen. Ncthing 
would content her but that the whole civilized 
world, from the White Sea to the Adriatic, from 
the Bay of Biscay to the pastures of the wild 
horses of Tanais, should be combined in arms 
against one petty state. 

She early succeeded by various arts in ob- 
taining the adhesion of Russia. An ample 
share of spoil was promised to the King of 
Poland ; and that prince, governed by his fa- 
vourite, Count Buhl, readily promised the as- 
sistance of the Saxon forces. The great diffi- 
culty was with France. That the houses of 
Bourbon and of Hapsburg should ever cor- 
dially co-operate in any great scheme of Euro- 
pean policy, had long been thought, to use the 
strong expression of Frederic, just as impos- 
sible as that fire and water should amalgamate. 
The whole history of the Continent, during two 
centuries and a half, had been the history of 
the mutual jealousies and enmities of France 
and Austria. Since the administration of Riche- 
lieu, above all, it had been considered as the 
plain policy of the Most Christian king to 
thwart on all occasions the court of Vienna ; 
and to protect every member of the Germanic 
body who stood up against the dictation of the 
Caesars. Common sentiments of rehgion had 
been unable to mitigate this strong antipathy 
The rulers of France, even while clothed in 
the Roman purple, even while persecuting the 
heretics of Rochelle and Auvergne, had still 
looked with favour on the Lutheran and Cal- 
vinistie princes who were struggling against 
the chief of the empire. If the French ministers 
paid any respect to the traditional rules handed 
down to them through many generations, they 
would have acted towards Frederic as the 
greatest of their predecessors acted towards 
Gustavus Adolphus. That there was deadly 
enmity between Prussia and Austria, was of 
itself a sufficient reason for close friendship 
between Prussia and France. With France, 
Frederic could never have any serious contro- 
versy. His territories were so situated, that 
his ambition, greedy and unscrupulous as it 
was, could never impel him to attack her of 
his own accord. He was more than half a 
Frenchman. He wrote, spoke, read nothing 
but French; he delighted in French society 
The admiration of the French he proposed to 
himself as the best reward of all his exploits 
It seemed incredible that any French govern- 
ment, however notorious for levity or stupidity, 
could spurn away such an ally. 

The court of Vienna, however, did not de- 
spair. The Austrian diplomatists propounded 
a new scheme of politics, which, it must be 
owned, was not altogether without plausibility. 
The great powers, according to this theory, 
had long been under a delusion. They had 
looked on each other as natural enemies, while 
in truth they were natural allies. A succession 
of cruel wars had devastated Europe, had 
thinned the population, had exhausted the 
public resources, had loaded g< vernments witb 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 



619 



an immense burden of debt ; and when, after 
two hundred years of murderous hostility or 
of hollow truce the illustrious houses whose 
enmity had distracted the world sat down to 
count their gains, to what did the real ad- 
vantage on either side amount? Simply to 
this, that they had kept each other from thriv- 
ing- It was not the King of France, it was not 
the Emperor, who had reaped the fruits of the 
Thirty Years' War, of the War of the Grand 
Alliance, of the War of the Pragmatic Sanction. 
Those fruits had been pilfered by states of the 
second and third rank, which, secured against 
jealousy by their insignificance, had dexterously 
aggrandized themselves while pretending to 
serve the animosity of the great chiefs of 
Christendom. While the lion and tiger were 
tearing each other, the jackal had run off into 
the jungle with the prey. The real gainer by 
the Thirty Years' War had been neither France 
nor Austria, but Sweden. The real gainer by 
the War of the Grand Alliance had been neither 
France nor Austria, but Savoy. The real 
gainer by the War of the Pragmatic Sanction 
had been neither France nor Austria, but the 
upstart of Brandenburg. Of all these instances, 
the last was the most striking: France had 
made great efforts, had added largely to her 
military glory, and largely to her public bur- 
dens; and for what end 1 Merely that Frederic 
might rule Silesia. For this and this alone 
one French army, wasted by sword and famine, 
had perished in Bohemia; and another had 
purchased, with floods of the noblest blood, the 
barren glory of Fonteno3 r . And this prince, 
for whom France had suffered so much, was 
he a grateful, was he even an honest ally? 
Had he not been as false to the court of Ver- 
sailles as to the court of Vienna ? Had he not 
played en a largt scale, the same part which, 
in private life, is played by the vile agent of 
chicane who sets his neighbours quarrelling, in- 
volves them in costly and interminable litiga- 
tion, and betrays them to each other all round, 
certain that, whoever may be ruined, he shall 
be enriched 1 Surely the true wisdom of the 
great powers was to attack, not each other, 
but this common barrator, who, by inflaming 
the passions of both, by pretending to serve 
both, and by deserting both, had raised himself 
above the station to which he was born. The 
great object of Austria was to regain Silesia ; 
the great object of France was to obtain an ac- 
cession of territory on the side of Flanders. 
If they took opposite sides, the result would 
probably be that, after a war of many years, 
after the slaughter of many thousands of brave 
men, after the waste of many millions of crowns, 
they would lay down their arms without having 
achieved either object ; but, if they came to an 
understanding, there would be no risk and no 
difficulty. Austria would willingly make in 
Belgium such cessions as France could not 
expect to obtain by ten pitched battles. Silesia 
would easily be annexed to the monarchy of 
which it had long been a part. The union of 
two such powerful governments would at once 
overawe the King of Prussia. If he resisted, 
one short compaign would settle his fate. 
France and Austria, long accustomed to rise 
from the game of war both losers, would, for 



the first time, both be gainers. There could be 
no room for jealousy between them. The 
power of both would be increased at once ; the 
equilibrium between them would be preserved; 
and the only sufferer would be a mischievous 
and unprincipled bucanier, who deserved no 
tenderness from either. 

These doctrines, attractive from their novel- 
ty and ingenuity, soon became fashionable at 
the supper-parties and in the coffee-houses of 
Paris, and were espoused by every gay mar- 
quis and every facetious abbe wlo was ad- 
mitted to see Madame de Pompadour's hair 
curled and powdered. It was not, however, to 
any political theory that the strange coalition 
between France and Austria owed its origin. 
The real motive which induced the great conti- 
nental powers to forget their old animosities 
and their old state maxims, was personal aver- 
sion to the King of Prussia. This feeling was 
strongest in Maria Theresa; but it was by no 
means confined to her. Frederic, in some re- 
spects a good master, was emphatically a bad 
neighbour. That he was hard in all his deal- 
ings, and quick to take all advantages, was not 
his most odious fault. His bitter and scoffing 
speech had inflicted keener wounds than his 
ambition. In his character of wit he was 
under less restraint than even in his character 
of ruler. Satirical verses against all the 
princes and ministers of Europe were ascribed 
to his pen. In his letters and conversation he 
alluded to the greatest potentates of the age in 
terms which would have better suited Colle, in 
a war of repartee with young Crebillon at 
Pelletier's table, than a great sovereign speak- 
ing of great sovereigns. About women he was 
in the habit of expressing himself in a man- 
ner which it was impossible for the meekest 
of women to forgive ; and, unfortunately for 
him, almost the whole Continent was men go- 
verned by women who were by no means con- 
spicuous for meekness. Maria Theresa her- 
self had not escaped his scurrilous jests ; the 
Empress Elizabeth of Russia knew that her 
gallantries afforded him a favourite theme for 
ribaldry and invective; Madame de Pompa- 
dour, who was really the head of the French 
government, had been even more keenly galled. 
She had attempted, by the most delicate flattery, 
to propitiate the King of Prussia, but her mes- 
sages had drawn from him only dry and sar- 
castic replies. The Empress-Queen took a 
very different course. Though the haughtiest 
of princesses, though the most austere of ma- 
trons, she forgot in her thirst for revenge both 
the dignity of her race and the purity of hei 
character, and condescended to flatter the low- 
born and low-minded concubine, who, having 
acquired influence by prostituting herself, re- 
tained it by prostituting others. Maria The- 
resa'actually wrote with ner own hand a note, 
full of expressions of esteem and friendship, 
to her dear cousin, the daughter of the butcher 
Poisson, the wife of the publican D'Etioltis, 
the kidnapper of young girls for the Parc-aux- 
cerfs — a strange cousin for the descendant of so 
many Emperors of the West ! The mistress 
was completely gained over, and easily carried 
her point with Louis, who had, indeed, wrongs 
of his own to resent. His feelings were do. 



520 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



quick ; but contempt, si.ys the eastern proverb, 
pierces even through the shell of the tortoise ; 
and neither prudence nor decorum had ever 
restrained Frederic from expressing his mea- 
sureless contempt for the sloth, the imbecility, 
and the baseness of Louis. France was thus 
induced to join the coalition ; and the example 
of France determined the conduct of Sweden, 
then completely subject to French influence. 

The enemies of Frederic were surely 
strong enough to attack him openly ; but they 
were desirous to add to all their other advan- 
tages the advantage of a surprise. He was 
not, however, a man to be taken off his guard. 
He had tools in every court ; and he now re- 
ceived from Vienna, from Dresden, and from 
Paris, accounts so circumstantial and so con- 
sistent, that he could not doubt of his danger. 
He learnt that he was to be assailed at once 
by France, Austria, Russia, Saxony, Sweden, 
and the Germanic body ; that the greater part 
of his dominions was to be portioned out 
amongst his enemies ; that France, which 
from her geographical position could not di- 
rectly share in his spoils, was to receive an 
equivalent in the Netherlands ; that Austria 
was to have Silesia, and the czarina East 
Prussia; that Augustus of Saxony expected 
Magdeburg; and that Sweden would be re- 
warded with part of Pomerania. If these de- 
signs succeeded, the house of Bradenburg 
would at once sink in the European system to 
a place lower than that of the Duke of Wur- 
temburg or the Margrave of Baden. 

And what hope was there that these designs 
would fail 1 No such union of the continental 
powers had been seen for ages. A less formi- 
dable confederacy had in. a week conquered 
all the provinces of Venice, when Venice was 
at the height of power, wealth, and glory. A 
less formidable confederacy had compelled 
Louis the Fourteenth to bow down his haughty 
head to the very earth. A less formidable con- 
federacy has, wi'nin our own memory, subju- 
gated a still mightier empire, and abased a still 
prouder name. Such odds had never been 
heard of in war. The people whom Frederic 
ruled were not five millions. The population 
of the countries which were leagued against 
him amounted to a hundred millions. The 
disproportion in wealth was at least equally 
great. Small communities, actuated by strong 
sentiments of patriotism or loyalty, have some- 
times made head against great monarchies 
weakened by factions and discontents. But 
small as was Frederic's kingdom, it probably 
contained a greater number of disaffected sub- 
jects than were to be found in all the states of 
his enemies. Silesia formed a fourth part of 
his dominions ; and from the Silesians, born 
under the Austrian princes, the utmost that he 
could expect was apathy. From the Silesian 
Catholics he could hardly expect any thing but 
resistance. 

Some states have been enabled, by their geo- 
graphical position, to defend themselves with 
advantage against immense force. The sea 
aas repeatedly protected England against the 
fury of the whole Continent. The Venetian 
government, driven from its possessions on the 
tand, could still bid defiance to the cenfederates 



of Cambray from the arsenal amidst the la- 
goons. More than one great and well-appoint 
ed army, which regarded the shepherds of Swit 
zerland as an easy prey, has perished in the 
passes -jf the Alps. Frederic had no such ad-> 
vantage. The form of his states, their situa- 
tion, the nature of the ground, all were against 
him. His long, scattered, straggling territory, 
seemed to have been shaped with an express 
view to the convenience of invaders, and was 
protected by no sea, by no chain of hills. 
Scarcely any corner of it was a week's march 
from the territory of the enemy. The capital 
itself, in the event of war, would be constantly 
exposed to insult. In truth, there was hardly 
a politician or a soldier in Europe who doubted 
that the conflict would be terminated in a very 
few days by the prostration of the house of 
Brandenburg. 

Nor was Frederic's own opinion very differ- 
ent. He anticipated nothing short of his own 
ruin, and of the ruin of his family. Yet there 
was still a chance, a slender chance, of escape- 
His states had at least the advantage of a cen 
tral position ; his enemies were widely sepa 
rated from each other, and could not conve- 
niently unite their overwhelming forces on one 
point. They inhabited different climates, and 
it was probable that the season of the year 
which would be best suited to the military ope- 
rations of one portion of the league, would be 
unfavourable to those of another portion. The 
Prussian monarchy, too, was free from some 
infirmities which were found in empires far 
more extensive and magnificent. Its effective 
strength for a desperate struggle was not to be 
measured merely by the number of square 
miles or the number of people. In that spare 
but well-knit i.id well-exercised body, there 
was nothing tut sinew, and muscle, and bone. 
No public creditors looked for dividends. No 
distant colonies required defence. No court, 
filled with flatterers and mistresses, devoured 
the pay of fifty battalions. The Prussian 
army, though far inferior in number to the 
troops which were about to be opposed to it, 
was yet strong out of all proportion to the extent 
of the Prussian dominions. It was also admi- 
rably trained and admirably officered, accus- 
tomed to obey and accustomed to conquer. 
The revenue was not only unencumbered by 
debt, but exceeded the ordinary outlay in time 
of peace. Alone of all the European princes, 
Frederic had a treasure laid up for a day of 
difficulty. Above all, he was one, and his 
enemies were many. In their camps would 
certainly be found the jealousy, the dissension, 
the slackness inseparable from coalitions ; on 
his side was the energy, the unity, the secrecy 
of a strong dictatorship. To a certain extent 
the deficiency of military means might be sup- 
plied by the resources of military art. Small 
as the king's army was, when compared with 
the six hundred thousand men whom the con- 
federates could bring into the field, celerity of 
movement might in some degree compensate 
for deficiency of bulk. It was thus just possi- 
ble that genius, judgment, resolution, and good 
luck united, might protract the struggle during 
a campaign or two ; and to gain even a month 
was of importance. It could not be long bo* 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 



521 



fore the vices which are found in all extensive 
confederacies would begin to show themselves. 
Every member of the league would think his 
own share of the war too large, and his own 
share of the spoils too small. Complaints and 
recrimination would abound. The Turk might 
stir on the Danube ; the statesmen of France 
might discover the error which they had com- 
mitted in abandoning the fundamental princi- 
ples of their national policy. Above all, death 
might rid Prussia of its most formidable ene- 
mies. The war was the effect of the personal 
aversion with which three or four sovereigns 
regarded Frederic ; and the decease of any of 
those sovereigns might produce a complete 
revolution in the state of Europe. 

In the midst of an horizon generally dark 
and stormy, Frederic could discern one bright 
spo( The peace which had been concluded 
between England and France in 1748, had 
been in Europe no more than an armistice ; 
and had not even been an armistice in the 
other quarters of the globe. In India the sove- 
reignty of the Carnatic was disputed between 
two great 'Mussulman houses ; Fort Saint 
George had taken the one side, Pondicherry the 
other; and in a series of battles and sieges 
the troops of Lawrence and Clive had been 
opposed to those of Dupleix. A struggle less 
important in its consequence, but not less 
likely to produce immediate irritation, was 
carried on between those French and English 
adventurers, Avho kidnapped negroes and col- 
lected gold dust on the coast of Guinea. But 
it was in North America that the emulation 
and mutual aversion of the two nations were 
most conspicuous. The French attempted to 
hem in the English colonists by a chain of 
military posts, extending from the Great Lakes 
to the mouth of the Mississippi. The English 
took arms. The wild aboriginal tribes ap- 
peared on each side mingled with the " Pale 
Faces." Battles were fought; forts were 
stormed ; and hideous stories about stakes, 
scalpings, and death-songs reached Europe, 
and inflamed that national animosity which 
the rivalry of ages had produced. The dis- 
putes between France and England came to a 
crisis at the very time when the tempest which 
had been gathering was about to burst on 
Prussia,. The tastes and interests of Frederic 
would have led him, if he had been allowed 
an cpt on, to side with the house of Bourbon. 
But the folly of the court of Versailles left 
him no choice. France became the tool of 
Austria, and Frederic was forced to become the 
ally of England. He could not, indeed, expect 
that a power which covered the sea with its 
fleets, and which had to make war at once on 
the Ohio and the Ganges, would be able to 
spare a large number of troops for operations 
in Germany. But England, though poor com- 
pared with the England of our time, was far 
richer than any country on the Continent. 
The amount of her revenue, and the resources 
which she found in her credit, though they 
may be thought small by a generation which 
has seen her raise a hundred and thirty mil* 
lions in a single year, appeared miraculous to 
the politicians of that age. A very moderate 
portion of her wealth, expended by an able 



and economical prince, in a country wber« 
prices were low, would be sufficient tc equip 
and maintain a formidable army. 

Such was the situation in which Frederia 
found himself. He saw the whole extent of 
his peril. He saw that there was still a fain/ 
possibility of escape ; and, with prudent temc 
rity, he determined to strike the first blow. I) 
was in the month of August, 1756, that the 
great war of the Seven Years commenced. 
The king demanded of the Empress-Queen a 
distinct explanation of her intentions, and 
plainly told her that he should consider a 
refusal as a declaration of war. " I want," he 
said, " no answer in the style of an oracle." 
He received an answer at once haughty and 
evasive. In an instant, the rich electorate of 
Saxony was overflowed by sixty thousand 
Prussian troops. Augustus with his army 
occupied a strong position at Pirna. The 
Queen of Poland was at Dresden. In a few 
days Pirna was blockaded and Dresden was 
taken. The object of Frederic was to obtain 
possession of the Saxon State Papers ; for 
those papers, he well knew, contained ample 
proofs that, though apparently an aggressor, he 
was really acting in self-defence. The Queen 
of Poland, as well acquainted as Frederic 
with the .importance of those documents, had 
packed them up, had concealed them in her 
bed-chamber, and was about to send them off 
to Warsaw, when a Prussian officer made his 
appearance. In the hope that no soldier would 
venture to outrage a lady, a queen, a daughter 
of an emperor, the mother-in-law of a dauphin, 
she placed herself before the trunk, and at 
length sat down on it. But all resistance was 
vain. The papers were carried to Frederic, 
who found in them, as he expected, abundant 
evidence of the designs of the coalition. Tha 
most important documents were instantly pub 
lished, and the effect of the publication was 
great. It was clear that, of whatever sins tha 
King of Prussia might formerly have been 
guilty, he was now the injured party, and had 
merely anticipated a blow intended to destroy 
him. 

The Saxon camp at Pirna was in the mean 
time closely invested ; but the besieged were 
not without hopes of succour. A great Aus 
trian army under Marshal Brown was abocrt 
to pour through the passes which separata 
Bohemia from Saxony. Frederic left at Pirna 
a force sufficient to deal with the Saxons, has- 
tened into Bohemia, encountered Brown a' 
Lowositz, and defeated him. This battle de 
cided the fate of Saxony. Augustus and hit 
favourite, Buhl, fled to Poland. The whole 
army of the electorate capitulated. From tha\ 
time till the end of the war, Frederic treated 
Saxony as a part of his dominions, or, rather, 
he acted towards the Saxons in a manner 
which may serve to illustrate the whole mean- 
ing of that tremendous sentence — subjectos tcv>v 
quam suos, viles tanquam alienos. Saxony wa* 
as much in his power as Brandenburg ; and 
he had no such interest in the welfare of Sax- 
ony as he had in the welfare of Brandenburg, 
He accordingly levied troops and exacted con« 
tributions throughout the enslaved province, 
with far more rigour than in any part of his 



52-2 



MACALLAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



dw a dominions. Seventeen thousand men who 
had been in the camp at Pirna were half com- 
pelled half persuaded, to enlist under their 
conqueror. Thus, within a few weeks from 
the commencement of hostilities, one of the 
confederates had been disarmed, and his wea- 
pons pointed against the rest. 

The winter put a stop to military operations. 
All had hitherto gone well. But the real tug 
of war was still to come. It was easy to foresee 
that the year 1757 would be a memorable era 
in the history of Europe. 

The scheme for the campaign was simple, 
bcld, and judicious. The Duke of Cumberland 
with an English and Hanoverian army was in 
Western Germany, and might be able to pre- 
vent the French troops from attacking Prussia. 
The Russians, confined by their snows, would 
probably not stir till the spring was far ad- 
vanced. Saxony was prostrated. Sweden could 
do nothing very important. During a few 
months Frederic would have to deal with 
Austria alone. Even thus the odds were 
against him. But ability and courage have 
often triumphed against odds still more formi- 
dable. 

Early in 1757 the Prussian army in Saxony 
oegan to move. Through four defiles in the 
mountains they came pouring into Bohemia. 
Prague was his first mark ; but the ulterior ob- 
ject was probably Vienna. At Prague lay 
Marshal Brown with one great army. Daun, 
he most cautious and fortunate of the Austrian 
captains, was advancing with another. Fre- 
deric determined to overwhelm Brown before 
Daun should arrive. On the sixth of May was 
fought, under those Avails which, a hundred and 
thirty years before, had witnessed the victory 
of the Catholic league and the flight of the un- 
happy Palatine, a battle more bloody than any 
which Europe saw during the long interval be- 
tween Malplaquet and Eylau. The king and 
Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick were distin- 
guished on that day by their valour and exer- 
tions. But the chief glory was with Schwerin. 
When the Prussian infantry wavered, the stout 
Did marshal snatched the colours from an en- 
sign, and, waving them in the air, led back his 
regiment to the charge. Thus at seventy-two 
j ears of age, he fell in the thickest battle, still 
grasping the standard which bears 'the black 
eagle on the field argent. The victory remain- 
ed with the king. But it had been dearly pur- 
chased. Whole columns of his bravest war- 
riors had fallen. He admitted that he had lost 
eighteen thousand men. Of the enemy, twenty- 
four thousand had been killed, wounded, or 
taken. 

Part of the defeated army was shut up in 
Prague. Part fled to join the troops which, 
under the command of Daun, were now close 
at hand. Frederic determined to play over 
the same game which had succeeded at Lowo- 
sitz. He left a large force to besiege Prague, 
and at the head of thirty thousand men he 
marched against Daun. The cautious marshal, 
though he had a great superiority in numbers, 
would risk nothing. He occupied at Kolin a 
position almost impregnable, and awaited the 
attack of the king. 

It was the 18th of June — a day which, if the 



Greek superstition still retained its influence; 
would be held sacred to Nemesis — a day on 
which the two greatest princes and soldiers cf 
modern times were taught, by a terrible expe- 
rience, that neither skill nor valour can fix the 
inconstancy of fortune. The battle began before 
noon ; and part of the Prussian army maintain- 
ed the contest till after the midsummer sun 
had gone down. But at length the king found 
that his troops, having been repeatedly driven 
back with frightful carnage, could no longer be 
led to the charge. He was with difficulty per- 
suaded to quit the field. The officers of his 
personal staff were under the necessity of ex- 
postulating with him, and one of them took the 
liberty to say, " Does your majesty mean to 
storm the batteries alone 1" Thirteen thousand . 
of his bravest followers had perished. Nothing 
remained for him but to retreat in good order, 
to raise the siege of Prague, and to hurry his 
army by different routes out of Bohemia. 

This stroke seemed to be final. Frederic's 
situation had at best been such, that only an un- 
interrupted run of good-luck could save him, 
as it seemed, from ruin. And now, almost in 
the outset of the contest, he had met with a 
check which, even in a war between equal 
powers, would have been felt as serious. He 
had owed much to the opinion which all 
Europe entertained of his army. Since his ac- 
cession, his soldiers had in many successive 
battles been victorious over the Austrians. 
But the glory had departed from his arms. All 
whom his malevolent sarcasms had wounded 
made haste to avenge themselves by scoffing 
at the scoffer. His soldiers'had ceased to con- 
fide in his star. In every part of his camp his 
dispositions were severely criticised. Even in 
his own family he had detractors. His next 
brother William, heir-presumptive, or rather, 
in truth, heir-apparent to the throne, and great- 
grandfather of the present king, could not re- 
frain from lamenting his own fate and that of 
the house of Hohenzollern, once so great and 
so prosperous, but now, by the rash ambition 
of its chief, made a byword to all nations. 
These complaints, and some blunders which 
William committed during the retreat from 
Bohemia, called forth the bitter displeasure of 
the inexorable king. The prince's heart was 
broken by the cutting reproaches of his brother; 
he quitted the army, retired to a country seat, 
and in a short time died of shame and vexa- 
tion. 

It seemed that the king's distress could 
hardly be increased. Yet at this moment 
another blow not less terrible than that of 
Kolin fell upon him. The French under Mar- 
shal D'Estrees had invaded Germany. The 
Duke of Cumberland had given them battle at 
Hastembeck, and had been defeated. In order 
to save the Electorate of Hanover from entire 
subjugation, he had made, at Clostern Severn, 
an arrangement with the French generals, 
which left them at liberty to turn their arms 
against the Prussian dominions. 

That nothing might be wanting to Frederic's 
distress, he lost his mother just at this time; 
and he appears to have felt the loss more than 
was to be expected from the hardness and se« 
verity of his character. In truth, his misfor 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 



523 



tunes had now cut to the quick. The mocker, 
the tyrant, the most rigorous, the most imperi- 
ous, the most cynical of men, was very un- 
happy. His race was so haggard and his form 
so thin, that when on his return from Bohemia 
he passed through Leipsic, the people hardly 
knew him again. His sleep was broken ; the 
tears, in spite of himself, often started into his 
eyes ; and the grave began to present itself to 
his agitated mind as the best refuge from 
misery and dishonour. His resolution was 
fixed never to be taken alive, and never to 
make peace on condition of descending from 
his place among the powers of Europe. He 
saw nothing left for him except to die ; and he 
deliberately chose his mode of death. He al- 
ways carried about with him a sure and speedy 
poison in a small glass case ; and to the few 
in whom he placed confidence, he made no 
mystery of his resolution. 

But we should very imperfectly describe the 
state of Frederic's mind, if we left out of view 
the laughable peculiarities which contrasted so 
singularly with the gravity, energy, and harsh- 
ness of hig character. It is difficult to say 
whether the tragic or the comic predominated 
in the strange scene which was then acted. In 
the midst of all the great king's calamities, his 
passion for writing indifferent poetry grew 
stronger and stronger. Enemies all around 
him, despair in his heart, pills of corrosive 
sublimate hidden in his clothes, he poured forth 
hundreds upon hundreds of lines, hateful to 
gods and men — the insipid dregs of Voltaire's 
Hipppcrene — the faint echo of the lyre of 
Chaulieu. It is amusing to compare what he 
did during the last months of 1757, with what 
he wrote during the same time. It may be 
doubted whether any equal portion of the life 
of Hannibal, of Caesar, or of Napoleon, will 
bear a comparison with that short period, the 
most brilliant in the history of Prussia and of 
Frederic. Yet at this very time the scanty lei- 
sure of the illustrious warrior was employed 
in producing odes and epistles, a little better 
>han Cibber's, and a little worse than Hayley's. 
Here and there a manly sentiment which de- 
serves to be in prose, makes it appearance in 
company with Prometheus and Orpheus, Ely- 
sium and Acheron, the plaintive Philomel, the 
poppies of Morpheus, and all the other frippery 
which, like a robe tossed by a proud beauty to 
her waiting-women, has long been contemptu- 
ously abandoned by genius to mediocrity. We 
hardly know any instance of the strength and 
weakness of human nature so striking, and so 
grotesque, as the character of this haughty, 
vigilant, resolute, sagacious blue-stocking, 
half Mithridates and half Trissotin, bearing up 
against a world in arms, with an ounce of 
poison in one pocket and a quire of bad verses 
in the other. 

Frederic had some time before made ad- 
vances towards a reconciliation with Voltaire, 
and some civil letters had passed between 
them. After the battle of Kolin their episto- 
lary intercourse became, at least in seeming, 
friendly and confidential. We dc not know 
any collection of letters which threw so much 
.Ight on the darkest and most intricate parts 
of human nature as the correspondence of these 



strange beings after they had exchanged for- 
giveness. Both felt that the quarrel had lower* 
ed them in the public estimation. They ad- 
mired each other. They stood in need of each 
other. The great king wished to be handed 
down to posterity by the great writer. The great 
writer felt himself exalted by the homage cf the 
great king. Yet the wounds which they had 
inflicted on each other were too deep to be 
effaced, or even perfectly healed. Not only did 
the scars remain; the sore places often festered 
and bled afresh. 

The letters consisted for the most part of 
compliments, thanks, offers of service, assu- 
rances of attachment. But if any thing brought 
back to Frederic's recollection the cunning 
and mischievous pranks by which Voltaire 
had provoked him, some expression of con- 
tempt and displeasure broke forth in the midst 
of his eulogy. It was much worse when any 
thing recalled to the mind of Voltaire the out- 
rages which he and his kinswoman had suf- 
fered at Frankfort. All at once his flowing 
panegyric is turned into invective. "Remem- 
ber how you behaved to me. For your sake I 
have lost the favour of my king. For your 
sake I am an exile from my country. I loved 
you. I trusted myself to you. I had no wish 
but to end my life in your service. And what 
was my reward ? Stripped of all you had be- 
stowed on me, the key, the order, the pension, 
I was forced to fly from your territories. I was 
hunted as if I had been a deserter from your 
grenadiers. I was arrested, insulted, plundered. 
My niece was dragged in the mud of Frankfort 
by your soldiers as if she had been some wretch> 
ed follower of your camp. You have great ta- 
lents. You have good qualities. But you have 
one odious vice. You delight in the abasement 
of your fellow-creatures. You have brought 
disgrace on the name of philosopher. You 
have given some colour to the slanders of the 
bigots who say that no confidence can be 
placed in the justice or humanity of those who 
reject the Christian faith." Then the king an- 
swers with less heat, but with equal severity — 
" You know that you behaved shamefully in 
Prussia. It is well for you that you had to 
deal with a man so indulgent to the infirmities 
of genius as I am. You richly deserved to see 
the inside of a dungeon. Your talents are not 
more widely known than your faithlessness 
and your malevolence. The grave itself is no 
asylum from your spite. Maupertuis is dead ; 
but you still go on calumniating and deriding 
him, as if you had not made him miserable 
enough while he was living. Let us have no 
more of this. And, above all, let me hear no 
more of your niece. I am sick to death of her 
name. I can bear with your faults for the sake 
of your merits ; but she has not written Maho- 
met or Merope." 

An explosion of this kind, it might be sup- 
posed, would necessarily put an end to all ami- 
cable communication. But it was not so. After 
every outbreak of ill humour this extraordinary 
pair became more loving than before, and ex 
changed compliments and assurances of mu- 
tual regard with a wonderful air of sincerity. 

It may well be supposed that men who wrote 
thus to each other were not very guarded in 



524 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



what they said of each other. The English 
ambassador, Mitchell, who knew that the King 
of Prussia was constantly writing to Voltaire 
with the greatest freedom on the most import- 
ant subjects, was amazed to hear his majesty 
designate this highly favoured correspondent 
as a bad-hearted fellow, the greatest rascal on 
the face of the earth. And the language which 
the poet held about the king was not much 
more respectful. 

It would probably have puzzled Voltaire him- 
self to say what was his real feeling towards 
Frederic. It was compounded of all senti- 
ments, from enmity to friendship, and from 
scorn to admiration; and the proportions in 
which these elements were mixed changed 
every moment. The old patriarch resembled 
the spoiled child who screams, stamps, cuffs, 
laughs, kisses, and cuddles within one quarter 
of an hour. His resentment was not extin- 
guished; yet he was not without sympathy for 
his old friend. As a Frenchman, he wished 
success to the arms of his country. As a phi- 
losopher, he was anxious for the stability of a 
throne on which a philosopher sat. He longed 
both to save and to humble Frederic. There 
was one way, and only one, in which all his 
conflicting feelings could at once be gratified. 
If Frederic were preserved by the interference 
of France, if it were known that for that inter- 
ference he was indebted to the mediation of 
Voltaire, this would indeed be delicious re- 
venge; this would indeed be to heap coals 
of fire on that haughty head. Nor did the vain 
and restless poet think it impossible that he 
might, from his hermitage near the Alps, dic- 
tate peace to Europe. D'Estrees had quitted 
Hanover, and the command of the French 
army had been intrusted to the Duke of Riche- 
lieu, a man whose chief distinction was derived 
from his success in gallantry. Richelieu was, 
in truth, the most eminent of that race of se- 
ducers by profession who furnished Crebillon 
the younger and La Clos with models for their 
heroes. In his earlier days the royal house 
itself had not been secure from his presumptu- 
ous love. He was believed to have carried his 
conquests into the family of Orleans; and some 
suspected that he was not unconcerned in the 
mysterious remorse which imbittered the last 
hours of the charming mother of Louis the Fif- 
teenth. But the duke was now fifty years old. 
With a heart deeply corrupted by vice, a head 
long accustomed to think only on trifles, an im- 
paired constitution, an impaired fortune, and, 
worst of all, a very red nose, he was entering 
on a dull, frivolous, and uninspected old age. 
Without one qualification for military com- 
mand except that personal courage which was 
common to him and the whole nobility of 
France, he had been placed at the head of the 
army of Hanover; and in that situation he did 
his best to repair, by extortion and corruption, 
the injury wh ich he had done to his property 
by a life of dissolute profusion. 

The Duke of Richelieu to the end of his life 
hated the phi! >sophers as a sect — not for those 
parts of their system which a good and wise 
man would have condemned — but for their 
virtues, for their spirit of free inquiry, and for 
their hatred of those social abuses of which he 



was himself the personification. But he, like 
many of those who thought with him, excepted 
Voltaire from the list of proscribed writers. 
He frequently sent flattering letters to Ferney. 
He did the patriarch the honour to borrow 
money of him, and even carried his conde* 
scending friendship so far as to forget to pay 
interest. Voltaire thought that it might be in 
his power to bring the duke and the King of 
Prussia into communication with each other. 
He wrote earnestly to both ; and he so far suc- 
ceeded that a correspondence between them 
was commenced. 

But it was to very different means that Fre- 
deric was to owe his deliverance. At the be- 
ginning of November, the net seemed to have 
closed completely round him. The Russians 
were in the field, and were spreading devasta- 
tion through his eastern provinces. Silesia 
was overrun by the Austrians. A great French 
army was advancing from the west under the 
command of Marshal Soubise, a prince of the 
great Armorican house of Rohan. Berlin it- 
self had been taken and plundered by the 
Croatians. Such was the situation from which 
Frederic extricated himself, with dazzling 
glory, in the short space of thirty days. 

He marched first against Soubise. On the 
fifth of November the armies met at Rosbach. 
The French were two to one ; but they were 
ill-disciplined, and their general was a dunce. 
The tactics of Frederic, and the well-regulated 
valour of the Prussian troops, obtained a com 
plete victory. Seven thousand of the invaders 
were made prisoners. Their guns, their co- 
lours, their baggage, fell into the hands of the 
conquerors. Those who escaped fled as con- 
fusedly as a mob scattered by cavalry. Victo- 
rious in the west, the king turned his arms 
towards Silesia. In that quarter every thing 
seemed to be lost. Breslau had fallen ; and 
Charles of Lorraine, with a mighty power, 
held the whole province. On the fifth of De- 
cember, exactly one month after the battle of 
Rosbach, Frederic, with forty thousand men, 
and Prince Charles, at the head of not less 
than sixty thousand, met at Leuthen, hard by 
Breslau. The king, who was, in general, 
perhaps too much inclined to consider the 
common soldier as a mere machine, resorted, 
on this great day, to means resembling those 
which Bonaparte afterwards employed with 
such signal success for the purpose of stimu- 
lating military enthusiasm. The principal 
officers were convoked. Frederic addressed 
them with great force and pathos ; and directed 
them to speak to their men as he had spoken 
to fhem. When the armies were set in battle 
array, the Prussian troops were in a state of 
fierce excitement; but their excitement showed 
itself after the fashion of a grave people. The 
columns advanced to the attack chanting, to 
the sound of drums and fifes, the rude hymns 
of the old Saxon Herhholds. They had never 
fought so well; nor had the genius of their 
chief ever been so conspicuous. "That bat- 
tle," said Napoleon, " was a masterpiece. Of 
itself it is sufficient to entitle Frederic to a 
place in the first rank among generals." The 
victory was complete. Twenty-seven thousand 
Austrians were killed, wounded, or f ake» 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 



525 



fifty stand of colours, a hundred guns, four 
thousand wagons, fell into the hands of the 
Prussians. Breslau opened its gates ; Silesia 
was reconquered ; Charles of Lorraine retired 
to hide his shame and sorrow at Brussels ; and 
Frederic allowed his troops to take some re- 
pose in winter quarters, after a campaign, to 
the vicissitudes of which it will be difficult to 
find any parallel in ancient or modern history. 

The king's fame filled all the world. He 
had, during the last year, maintained a con- 
test, on terms of advantage, against three 
powers, the weakest of which had more than 
three times his resources. He had fought four 
great pitched battles against superior forces. 
Three of these battles he had gained ; and the 
defeat of Kolin, repaired as it had been, rather 
raised than lowered his military renown. The 
victory of Leuthen is, to this day, the proudest 
on the roll of Prussian fame. Leipsic, indeed, 
and Waterloo, produced consequences more 
important to mankind. But the glory of Leipsic 
must be shared by the Prussians with the Aus- 
trians and Russians; and at Waterloo the 
British infantry bore the burden and heat of 
the day. The victory of Rosbach was, in a 
military point of view, less honourable than 
that of Leuthen , for it was gained over an 
incapable general and a disorganized army. 
But the moral effect which it produced was 
immense. All the preceding triumphs of 
Frederic had been triumphs over Germans, and 
could excite no emotions of natural pride 
among the German people. It was impossible 
that a Hessian or a Hanoverian could feel any 
patriotic exultation at hearing that Pomeranians 
slaughtered Moravians, -or that Saxon banners 
had been hung in the churches of Berlin. In- 
deed, though the military character of the Ger- 
mans justly stood high throughout the world, 
they could boast of no great day which belong- 
ed to them as a people ; — of no Agincourt, of 
no Bannockburn. Most of their victories had 
been gained over each other ; and their most 
splendid exploits against foreigners had been 
achieved under the command of Eugene, who 
was himself a foreigner. 

The news of the battle of Rosbach stirred 
the blood of the whole of the mighty popula- 
tion from the Alps to the Baltic, and from the 
borders of Courtland to those of Lorraine. 
Westphalia and Lower Saxony had been 
deluged by a great host of strangers, whose 
speech was unintelligible, and whose petulant 
and licentious manners had excited the strong- 
est feelings of disgust and hatred. That great 
host had been put to flight by a small band of 
German warriors, led by a prince of German 
blood on the side of father and mother, and 
marked by the fair hair and the clear blue eye 
of Germany. Never since the dissolution of 
the empire of Charlemagne, had the Teutonic 
race won such a field against the French. The 
tidings called forth a general burst of delight 
and pride from the whole of the great family 
which spoke the various dialects of the ancient 
anguage of Arminius. The fame of Frederic 
began to supply, in some degree, the place of a 
common government and of a common capi- 
tal. It became a rallying point for all true 
Germans — a subject of mutual congratulation 
34 



to the Bavarian and the Westphalian, to tha 
citizen of Frankfort and the citizen of Nurem- 
berg. Then first it was manifest that the Ger- 
mans were truly a nation. Then first was 
discernible that patriotic spirit which, in 1813, 
achieved the great deliverance of central Eu- 
rope, and which still guards, and long will 
guard against foreign ambition, the old freedom 
of the Rhine. 

Nor were the effects produced by that cele- 
brated day merely political. The greatest 
masters of German poetry and eloquence have 
admitted that, though the great king neither 
valued nor understood his native language, 
though he looked on France as the only seat 
of taste and philosophy; yet, in his own despite, 
he did much to emancipate the genius of his 
countrymen from the foreign yoke ; and that, 
in the act of vanquishing Soubise, he was, un- 
intentionally, rousing the spirit which soon 
began to question the literary precedence of 
Boileau and Voltaire. So strangely do events 
confound all the plans of man ! A prince who 
read only French, who wrote only French, who 
ranked as a French classic, became, quite un- 
consciously, the means of liberating half the 
Continent from the dominion of that French 
criticism of which he was himself, to the end 
of his life, a slave. Yet even the enthusiasm 
of Germany in favour of Frederic, hardly 
equalled the enthusiasm of England. The 
birth-day of our ally was celebrated with as 
much enthusiasm as that of our own sovereign, 
and at night the streets of London were in a 
blaze with illuminations. Portraits of the Hero 
of Rosbach, with his cocked hat and long pig- 
tail, were in every house. An attentive observer 
will, at this day, find in the parlours of old- 
fashioned inns, and in the portfolios of printsel 
lers, twenty portraits of Frederic for one of 
George II. The sign-painters were everywhere 
employed in touching up Admiral Vernon into 
the King of Prussia. Some young Englishmen 
of rank proposed to visit Germany as volun- 
teers, for the purpose of learning the art of war 
under the greatest of commanders. This last 
proof of British attachment and admiration, 
Frederic politely but firmly declined His 
camp was no place for amateur students of 
military science. The Prussian discipline was 
rigorous even to cruelty. The officers, while 
in the field, were expected to practise an abste- 
miousness and self-denial such as was hardly 
surpassed by the most rigid monastic orders. 
However noble their birth,- however high theii 
rank in the service, they were not permitted to 
eat from any thing better than pewter. It was 
a high crime even in a -count and field-marshal 
to have a single silver spoon among his bag- 
gage. Gay young Englishmen of twenty thou- 
sand a year, accustomed to liberty and to luxu- 
ry, would not easily submit to these Spartan 
restraints. The king could not venture to keep 
them in order as he kept his own subjects in 
order. Situated as # he was with respect to 
England, he could not well imprison or shoot 
refractory Howards and Cavendishes. On th<? 
other har d, the example of a few fine gentie 
men, attended by chariots and livery servants, 
eating in plate, and drinking champagne and 
tokay, was enough to corrupt his whole arm? 



526 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



He thought it best to make a stand at first, and 
civilly refused to admit such dangerous com- 
panions among his troops. 

The help of England was bestowed in a 
manner far more useful and more acceptable. 
An annual subsidy of near seven hundred thou- 
sand pounds enabled the king to add probably 
more than fifty thousand men to his army. 
Pitt, now at the height of power and populari- 
ty, undertook the task of defending Western 
Germany against France, and asked Frederic 
only for the loan of a general. The general 
selected was Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, 
who had attained high distinction in the Prus- 
sian service. He was put at the head cf an 
army, partly English, partly Hanoverian, parti}' 
composed of mercenaries hired from the petty 
princes of the empire. He soon vindicated the 
choice of the two allied courts, and proved 
Himself the second general of the age. 

Frederic passed the winter at Breslau, in 
reading, writing, and preparing for the next 
campaign. The havoc which the war had 
made among his troops was rapidly repaired, 
and in the spring of 1758 he was again ready 
for the conflict. Prince Ferdinand kept the 
French in check. The king, in the mean time, 
after attempting against the Austrians some 
operations which led to no very important 
result, marched to encounter the Russians, who, 
slaying, burning, and wasting wherever they 
turned, had penetrated into the heart of his 
realm. He gave them battle at Zorndorf, near 
Frankfort on the Oder. The fight was long 
and bloody. Quarter was neither given nor 
taken ; for the Germans and Scythians regard- 
ed each other with bitter aversion, and the sight 
of the ravages committed by the half-savage 
invaders had incensed the king and his army. 
The Russians were overthrown with great 
slaughter, and for a few months no further 
danger was to be apprehended from the east. 

A day of thanksgiving was proclaimed by 
the king, and was celebrated with pride and 
delight by his people. The rejoicings in Eng- 
land were not less enthusiastic or less sincere. 
This may be selected as the point of time at 
which the military glory of Frederic reached 
the zenith. In the short space of three-quar- 
ters of a year he had won three great battles 
over the armies of three mighty and warlike 
monarchies — France, Austria, and Russia. 

Rut it was decreed that the temper of that 
strong mind should be tried by both extremes 
of fortune in rapid succession. Close upon 
this bright series of triumphs came a series of 
disasters, such as would have blighted the fame 
and broken the heart of almost any other com- 
mander. Yet Frederic, in the midst of his 
calamities, was still an object of admiration to 
his subjects, his allies, and his enemies. Over- 
whelmed by adversity, sick of life, he still 
maintained the contest, greater in defeat, in 
flight, and in what seemed hopeless ruin, than 
on the fields of his proudest victories. 

Having vanquished the Russians, he hasten- 
ed into Saxony to oppose the troops of the 
Empress-Queen, commanded by Daun, the 
most cautious, and Laudohn, the most inven- 
tive and enterprising of her generals. These 
■ wo celebrated commanders agreed on a scheme, 



in which the prudence of the one and the vigoui 
of the other seem to have happily combined. 
At dead of night they surprised the king m hia 
camp at Hochkirchen. His presence of mind 
saved his troops from destruction, but nothing 
could save them from defeat and severe loss. 
Marshal Keith was among the slain. The first 
roar of the guns roused the noble exile from 
his rest, and he was instantly in the front of 
the battle. He received a dangerous wound, 
but refused to quit the field, and was in the act 
of rallying his broken troops, when an Aus- 
trian bullet terminated his checkered and 
eventful life. 

The misfortune was serious. But, of all ge- 
nerals, Frederic understood best how to repair 
defeat, and Daun understood least how to im- 
prove victory. In a few days the Prussian 
army was as formidable as before the battle. 
The prospect was, however, gloomy. An Aus- 
trian army under General Harsch had invaded 
Silesia, and invested the fortress of Neisse. 
Daun, after his success at Hochkirchen, had 
written to Harsch in very confident terms : — 
" Go on with your operations against Neisse, 
Be quite at ease as to the king. I will give 
you a good account of him." In truth, the 
position of the Prussians was full of difficulties. 
Between them and Silesia lay the victorious 
army of Daun. It was not easy for them to 
reach Silesia at all. If they did reach it, they 
left Saxony exposed to the Austrians. But the 
vigour and activity of Frederic surmounted 
every obstacle. He made a circuitous march 
of extraordinary rapidity, passed Daun, hasten- 
ed into Silesia, raised the seige of Neisse, and 
drove Harsch into Bohemia. Daun availed 
himself of the king's absence to attack Dres- 
den. The Prussians defended it desperately. 
The inhabitants of that wealthy and polished 
capital begged in vain for mercy from the gar- 
rison within, and from the besiegers without. 
The beautiful suburbs were burned to the 
ground. It was clear that the town, if won at 
all, would be won street by street by the bay- 
onet. At this conjuncture came news that 
Frederic, having cleared Silesia of his enemies, 
was returning by forced marches into Saxony. 
Daun retired from before Dresden, and fell 
back into the Austrian territories. The king, 
over heaps of ruins, made his triumphant entry 
into the unhappy metropolis, which had so 
cruelly expiated the weak and perfidious poicy 
of its sovereign. It was now the 20th of No- 
vember. The cold weather suspended military 
operations, and the king again took up his 
winter-quarters at Breslau. 

The third of the seven terrible years was 
over ; and Frederic still stood his ground. He 
had been recently. tried by domestic as well as 
by military disasters. On the 14th of October, 
the day on which he was defeated at Hochkir- 
chen, the day on the anniversary of which, 
forty-eight years later, a defeat far more tre- 
mendous laid the Prussian monarchy in the 
dust, died Wilhelmina. Margravine of Bareuth. 
From the portraits which we have of her, by 
her own hand, and by the hands of the most 
discerning of her contemporaries, we should 
pronounce her to have been coarse, indelicate, 
and a good hater, but not destitute of kind and 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 



G27 



generoas feelings. Her mind, naturally strong 
and observant, had been highly cultivated ; and 
she was, and deserved to be, Frederic's favour- 
ite sister. He felt the loss as much as it was 
in his iron nature to feel the loss of any thing 
but a province or a battle. 

At Breslau, during the winter, he was in- 
defatigable in his poetical labours. The most 
spirited lines, perhaps, that he ever wrote, are 
to be found in a bitter lampoon on Louis and 
Madame de Pompadour, which he composed 
at this time, and sent to Voltaire. The verses 
were, indeed, so good, that Voltaire was afraid 
that he might himself be suspected of having 
written them, or at least of having* corrected 
them ; and partly from fright — partly, we fear, 
from love of mischief— sent them to the Duke 
of Choiseul, then prime minister of France. 
Choiseul very wisely determined to encounter 
Frederic at Frederic's own weapons, and ap- 
plied for assistance to Palissot, who had some 
skill as a versifier, and who, though he had 
not yet made himself famous by bringing 
Rousseau and Helvetius on the stage, was 
known to possess some little talent for satire. 
Palissot produced some very stinging lines on 
the moral and literary character of Frederic, 
and these lines the duke sent to Voltaire. This 
war of couplets, following close on the carnage 
of Zorndorf and the conflagration of Dresden, 
illustrates well the strangely compounded cha- 
racter of the King cf Prussia. 

At this moment he was assailed by a new 
enemy. Benedict XIV., the best and wisest of 
the two hundred and fifty successors of St. 
Peter, was no more. During the short interval 
between his reign and that of his disciple Gan- 
ganelli, the chief seat in the Church of Rome 
was filled by Rezzonico, who took the name of 
Clement XIII. This absurd priest determined 
to try what the weight of his authority could 
affect in favour of the orthodox Maria Theresa 
against a heretic king. At the high mass on 
Christmas day, a sword with a rich belt and 
scabbard, a hat of crimson velvet lined with 
ermine, and a dove of pearls, the mystic sym- 
bol of the Divine Comforter, were solemnly 
blessed by the supreme pontiff, and were sent 
with great ceremony to Marshal Daun, the con- 
queror of Kolin and Hochkirchen. This mark 
of favour had more than once been bestowed 
by the Popes on the great champions of the 
faith. Similar honours had been paid, more 
than six centuries earlier, by Urban II. to God- 
frey of Bouillon. Similar honours had been 
conferred on Alba for destroying the liberties 
of the Low Countries, and on John Sobiesky 
after the deliverance of Vienna. But the pre- 
sents which were received with profound re- 
verence by the Baron of the Holy Sepulchre 
in the eleventh century, and which had not 
wholly lost their value even in the seventeenth 
century, appeared inexpressibly ridiculous to 
a generation which read Montesquieu and Vol- 
taire. Frederic wrote sarcastic verses on the 
gifts, the giver, and the receiver. But the 
public wanted no prompter; and a universal 
roar of laughter from Petersburg to Lisbon 
reminded the Vatican that the age of crusades 
was over. 

The fourth campaign, the most disastrous 



of all the campaigns of this ftarful war, had 
now opened. The Austrians filled Saxony, 
and menaced Berlin. The Russians defeated 
the king's generals on the Oder, threatened Si- 
lesia, effected a junction with Laudohn, and 
intrenched themselves strongly at Kunersdorf. 
Frederic hastened to attack them. A great 
battle was fought. During the earlier part of 
the day every thing yielded to the impetuosity 
of the Prussians, and to the skill of their chief. 
The lines were forced. Half the Russian guns 
were taken. The king sent off a courier to 
Berlin with two lines, announcing a complete 
victory. , But, in the mean time, the stubborn 
Russians, defeated yet unDroken, had taken up 
their stand in an almost impregnable position, 
on an eminence where the Jews of Frankfort 
were wont to bury their dead. Here the battle 
recommenced. The Prussian infantry, ex- 
hausted by six hours of hard fighting under a 
sun which equalled the tropical heat, were yet 
brought up repeatedly to the attack, but in vain. 
The king led three charges in person. Twc 
horses were killed under him. The officers of 
his staff fell all around him. His coat war 
pierced by several bullets. All was in vain 
His infantry was driven back with frightful 
slaughter. Terror began to spread fast from 
man to man. At that moment, the fiery cavalry 
of Laudohn, still fresh, rushed on the wavering 
ranks. Then followed a universal rout. Fre- 
deric himself was on the point of falling into 
the hands of the conquerors, and was with dif- 
ficulty saved by a gallant officer, who, at the 
head of a handful of Hussars, made good a 
diversion of a few minutes. Shattered in body, 
shattered in mind, the king reached that night 
a village which the Cossacks had plundered ; 
and there, in a ruined and deserted farm-house, 
flung himself on a heap of straw. He had sent 
to Berlin a second despatch very different from 
his first : — " Let the royal family leave Berlin. 
Send the archives to Potsdam. The town may 
make terms with the enemy." 

The defeat was, in truth, overwhelming. Of 
fifty thousand men, who had that morning 
marched under the black eagles, not three 
thousand remained together. The king be- 
thought him again of his corrosive sublimate, 
and wrote to bid adieu to his friends, and to 
give directions as to the measures to be taken 
in the event of his death : — " I have no resource 
left" — such is the language of one of his letters 
— " all is lost. I will not survive the ruin of 
my country. Farewell forever." 

But the mutual jealousies of the confederates 
prevented them from following up their vic- 
tory. They lost a few days in loitering and 
squabbling; and a few days, improved by Fre- 
deric, were worth more than the years of othei 
men. On the morning after the battle, he 
had got together eighteen thousand of his 
troops. Very soon his force amounted to thirty 
thousand. Guns were procured from the 
neighbouring fortresses ; and there was again 
an army. , Berlin was for the present safe ; 
but calamities came pouring on the king in 
uninterrupted succession. One of his generals, 
with a large body of troops, was taken at 
Maxen ; another was defeated at Meisssn 
and when at length the campaign nf 1759 



528 



MACAUI AY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



closed, m the midst of a rigorous winter, the 
situation of Prussia appeared desperate. The 
only consoling circumstance was, that, in the 
West, Ferdinand of Brunswick had been more 
fortunate than his master ; and by a series of 
exploits, of which the battle of Minden was the 
most glorious, had removed all apprehension 
of danger on the side of France. 

The fifth year was now about to commence. 
It seemed impossible that the Prussian terri- 
tories, repeatedly devastated by hundreds of 
thousands of invaders, could longer support 
the contest. But the king carried on war as 
no European power has ever carried on war, 
except the Committee of Public Safety during 
the great agony of the French Revolution. He 
governed his kingdom as he would have go- 
verned a besieged town, not caring to what 
extent property was destroyed, or the pursuits 
of civil life suspended, so that he did but make 
head against the enemy. As long as there was 
a man left in Prussia, that man might carry 
a musket — as long as there was a horse left, 
that horse might draw artillery. The coin was 
debased, the civil functionaries were left un- 
paid ; in some provinces civil government 
altogether ceased to exist. But there were still 
rye-bread and potatoes ; there were still lead 
and gunpowder ; and, while the means of sus- 
taining and destroying life remained, Frederic 
•was determined to fight it out to the very last. 

The earlier part of the campaign of 1760 
#-as unfavourable to him. Berlin was again 
occupied by the enemy. Great contributions 
were levied on the inhabitants, and the royal 
palace was plundered. But at length, after 
two years of calamity, victory came back to 
his arms. At Lignitz he gained a great battle 
over Laudohn ; at Torgau, after a day of hor- 
rible carnage, he triumphed over Daun. The 
fifth year closed and still the event was in 
suspense. In the countries where the war had 
raged, the misery and exhaustion were more 
appalling than ever ; but still there were left 
men and beasts, arms and food, and still Fre- 
deric fought on. In truth he had now been 
baited into savageness. His heart was ulce- 
rated with hatred. The implacable resentment 
with which his enemies persecuted him, though 
originally provoked by his own unprincipled 
ambition, excited in him a thirst for vengeance 
which he did not even attempt to conceal. "It 
is hard," he says in one of his letters, " for a 
man to bear what I bear. I begin to feel that, 
as the Italians say, revenge is a pleasure for 
the gods. My philosophy is worn out by suf- 
fering. I am no saint, like those of whom we 
read in the legends; and I will own that I 
should die content if only I could first inflict a 
portion of the misery Avhich I endure." 

Borne up by such feelings, he struggled with 
/arious success, but constant glory, through 
the compaign of 1761. On the whole, the re- 
sult of this campaign was disastrous to Prus- 
sia. No great battle was gained by the enemy ; 
but, in spite of the desperate bounds of the 
hunted tiger, the circle of pursuers was fast 
cksing round him. Laudohn had surprised 
ihe important fortress of Sweidnitz. With 
that fortress, half of Silesia, and the command 
of the most important defiles through the 



mountains, had been transferred to the Aus 
trians. The Russians had overpowered thti 
king's generals in Pomerania. The country 
was so completely desolated that he began, by 
his own confession, to look round him with 
blank despair, unable to imagine where re- 
cruits, hoxfees, or provisions were to be found. 

Just at this time two great events brought 
on a complete change in the relations of al- 
most all the powers of Europe. One of those 
events was the retirement of Mr. Pitt from 
office ; the other was the death of the Empress 
Elizabeth of Russia. 

The retirement of Pitt seemed to be an omen 
of utter ruin to the House of Brandenburg, 
His proud and vehement nature was incapable 
of any thing that looked like either fear or 
treachery. He had often declared that, while 
he was in power, England should never make 
a peace of Utrecht; — should never, for any 
selfish object, abandon an ally even in the las! 
extremity of distress. The continental war 
was his own war. He had been bold enough 
— he who in former times had attacked, with 
irresistible powers of oratory, the Hanoverian- 
policy of Carteret, and the German subsidies 
of Newcastle — to declare that Hanover ought 
to be as dear to us as Hampshire, and that he 
would conquer America in Germany. He had 
fallen; and the power which he had exercised, 
not always with discretion, but always with 
vigour and genius, had devolved on a favour- 
ite whe was the representative of the Tory 
party — of the party which had thwarted Wil- 
liam, which had persecuted Marlborough, and 
which had given up the Catalans to the ven- 
geance of Philip of Anjou. To make peace 
with France — to shake off with all, or more 
than all, the speed compatible with decency, 
every Continental connection, these were among 
the chief objects of the new minister. The 
policy then followed inspired Frederic with 
an unjust, but deep and bitter aversion to the 
English name ; and produced effects which are 
still felt throughout the civilized world. To 
that policy it was owing that, ome years later, 
England could not find on the whole Continent 
a single ally to stand by her, in her extreme 
need, against the H6use of Bourbon. To that 
policy it was owing that Frederic, alienated 
from England, was compelled to connect him- 
self closely, during his later years, with Rus- 
sia; and was induced reluctantly to assist in 
that great crime, the fruitful parent of other 
great crimes — the first partition of Poland. 

Scarcely had the retreat of Mr. Pitt deprived 
Prussia of her only friend, when the death of 
Elizabeth produced an entire revolution in the 
politics of the North. The Grand Duke Peter 
her nephew, who now ascended the Russian 
throne, was not merely free from the prejudices 
which his aunt had entertained against Fre- 
deric, but was a worshipper, a servile imitator, 
a Boswell, of the great king. The days of the 
new czar's government were few and evil, but 
sufficient to produce a change in the whole state 
of Christendom. He set the Prussian prisoners 
at liberty, fitted them out decently, and sent 
them back to their master; he withdrew his 
troops from the provinces which Elizabeth had 
decided on incorporating with her dominicus, 



FREDERIC THE GREAT 



529 



and absolved all those Prussian subjects, who 
had been compelled to swear fealty to Russia, 
from their engagements. 

Not content with concluding peace on terms 
favourable to Prussia, he solicited rank in the 
Prussian service, dressed himself in a Prus- 
sian uniform, wore the Black Eagle of Prus- 
sia on his breast, made preparations for visiting 
Prussia, in order to have an interview with the 
object of his idolatry, and actually sent fifteen 
thousand excellent troops to reinforce the 
shattered army of Frederic. Thus strength- 
ened, the king speedily repaired the losses of 
the preceding year, reconquered Silesia, de- 
feated Daun at Buckersdorf, invested and re- 
took Schweidnitz, and, at the close of the year, 
presented to the forces of Maria Theresa a 
front as formidable as before the great reverses 
of 1759. Before the end of the campaign, his 
friend the Emperor Peter having, by a series 
of absurd insults to the institutions, manners, 
and feelings of his people, united them in hos- 
tility to his person and government, was de- 
posed and murdered. The empress, who, under 
the title of Catherine the Second, now assumed 
the supreme power, was, at the commence- 
ment of her administration, by no means par- 
tial to Frederic, and refused to permit her troops 
to remain under his command. But she ob- 
served the peace made by her husband ; and 
Prussia was no longer threatened by danger 
from the East. 

England and France at the same time paired 
off together. They concluded a treaty, by 
which they bound themselves to observe neu- 
trality with respect to the German war. Thus 
L ne cca_ifions on both sides were dissolved; 
and the original enemies, Austria and Prussia, 
remained alone confronting each other. 

Austria had undoubtedly by far greater means 
than Prussia, and was less exhausted by hos- 
tilities; yet it seemed hardly possible that 
Austria could effect alone what she had in 
vain attempted to effect when supported by 
France on the one side, and by Russia on the 
other. Danger also began to menace the im- 
perial house from another quarter. The Otto- 
man Porte held threatening language, and a 
hundred thousand Turks were mustered on 
the frontiers of Hungary. The proud and re- 
vengeful spirit of the Empress-Queen at length 
gave way ; and, in February, 1763, the peace 
of Hubertsburg put an end to the conflict 
which had, during seven years, devasted Ger- 
many. The king ceded nothing. The whole 
Continent in arms had proved unable to tear 
Silesia from that iron grasp. 

The war was over. Frederic was safe. His 
glory was beyond the reach of envy. If he had 
not made conquests as vast as those of Alex- 
ander, of Cresar, and of Napoleon— if he had 
not, on field of battle, enjoyed the constant 
success of Marlborough and Wellington — he 
had yet given an example unrivalled in histoiy, 
of what capacity and resolution can effect 
against the greatest superiority of power and 
the utmost spite of fortune. He entered Berlin 
in triumph, after an absence of more than six 
years. The streets were brilliantly lighted up, 
and as h<; passed along in an open carriage, 
with Ferdinand of Brunswick at his side, the 



multitude saluted him with loud praises and 
blessings. He was moved I y those marks of 
attachment, and repeatedly exclaimed — " Long 
live my dear people ! — Long live my children !'* 
Yet, even in the midst of that gay spectacle, he 
could not but perceive everywhere the traces 
of destruction and decay. The city had been 
more than once plundered. The population 
had considerably diminished. Berlin, how- 
ever, had suffered little when compared with 
most parts of the kingdom. The ruin of pri- 
vate fortunes, the distress of all ranks, was 
such as might appal the firmest mind. Almost 
every province had been the seat of war, and 
of war conducted with merciless ferocity. 
Clouds of Croatians had descended on Silesia. 
Tens of thousands of Cossacks had been let 
loose on Pomerania and Brandenburg. The 
mere contributions levied by the invaders 
amounted, it was said, to more than a hundred 
millions of dollars ; and the value of what 
they extorted was probably much less than the 
value of what they destroyed. The fields lay 
uncultivated. The very seed-corn had been 
devoured in the madness of hunger. Famine, 
and contagious maladies the effect of famine, 
had swept away the herds and flocks; and 
there was reason to fear that a great pestilence 
among the human race was likely to follow in 
the train of that tremendous war. Near fif- 
teen thousand houses had been burned to the 
ground. 

The population of the kingdom had in seven 
years decreased to the frightful extent of ten 
per cent. A sixth of the males capable of 
bearing arms had actually perished on the 
field of battle. In some districts, no labourers, 
except women, were seen in the fields at har- 
vest time. In others, the traveller passed shud- 
dering through a succession of silent villages, 
in which not a single inhabitant remained. 
The currency had been debased ; the authority 
of laws and magistrates had been suspended ; 
the whole social system was deranged. For, 
during that convulsive struggle, every thing 
that was not military violence was anarchy. 
Even the army was disorganized. Some great 
generals, and a crowd of excellent officers, had 
fallen, and it had been impossible to supply 
their places. The difficulty of finding recruits 
had, towards the close of the war, been so 
great, that selection and rejection were impos- 
sible. Whole battalions were composed of de- 
serters or of prisoners. It was hardly to be 
hoped that thirty years of repose and industry 
would repair the ruin produced by seven years 
of havoc. One consolatory circumstance, in- 
deed, there was. No debt had been incurred. 
The burdens of the war had been terrible, 
almost insupportable ; but no arrear was 
left to embarrass the finances in the time of 
peace. 

Here, for the present, we must pause. We 
have accompanied Frederic to the close of his 
career as a warrior. Possibly, when these Me- 
moirs are completed, we may resume the con- 
sideration of his character, and give some ac- 
count of his domestic and foreign policy, and 
of his private habits, during the many years of 
tranquillity which followed the Seven Years' 
War. 



LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



BY 



l'HOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 



LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



PREFACE. 



That what is called the history of the kings 
and early consuls of Rome is to a great extent 
fabulous, few scholars have, since the time of 
Beaufort, ventured to deny. It is certain that, 
more than three hundred and sixty years after 
the date ordinarily assigned for the foundation 
of the city, the public records were, with 
scarcely an exception, destroyed by the Gauls. 
It is certain that the oldest annals of the com- 
monwealth were compiled more than a centu- 
ry and a half after the destruction of the re- 
cords. It is certain, therefore, that the great 
Latin writers of a later period did not possess 
those materials, without which a trustworthy 
account of the infancy of the republic could 
not possibly be framed. They own, indeed, 
that the chronicles to which they had access 
were filled with battles that were never fought 
and consuls that were never inaugurated ; and 
we have abundant proof that, in those chroni- 
cles, events of the greatest importance, such 
as the issue of the war with Porsena, and the 
issue of the war with Brennus were grossly 
misrepresented. Under these circumstances a 
wise man will look with great suspicion on the 
•eend which has come down to us. He will, 
erhaps, be inclined to regard the princes who 
are said to have founded the civil and religious 
institutions of Rome, the son of Mars, and the 
husband of Egeria, as mere mythological per- 
sonages, of the same class with Perseus and 
Ixion. As he draws nearer and nearer to the 
confines of authentic history, he will become 
less and less hard of belief. He will admit 
that the most important parts of the narrative 
have some foundation in truth. But he will 
distrust almost all the details, not only because 
they seldom rest on any solid evidence, but 
also because he will constantly detect in them, 
even when they are within the limits of physi- 
cal possibility, that peculiar character, more 
easily understood than defined, which distin- 
guishes the creations of the imagination from 
the realities of the world in which we live. 

The early history of Rome is indeed far 
more poetical than any thing else in Latin lite- 
rature. The loves of the Vestal and the God 
of War, the cradle laid among the reeds of 
Tiber, the fig tree, the she-wolf, the shepherd's 
cabin, the recognition, the fratricide, the rape 
3f the Sabines, the djsath of Tarpeia, the fall 
of Hostus Hostilius, the struggle of Mettus 
Curtius through the marsh, the women rushing 
with torn raiment and dishevelled hair between 
their fathers and their husbands, the nightly 
meetings of Numa and the Nymph by the well 



in the sacred grove, the fight of the three Ro« 
mans and the three Albans, the purchase cf the 
Sibyline books, the crime of Tullia, the simu- 
lated madness of Brutus, the ambiguous reply 
of the Delphian oracle to the Tarquins, the 
wrongs of Lucretia, the heroic actions of Ho- 
ratius Codes, of Scaevola, and of Clcelia, the 
battle of Regillus won by the aid of Castor and 
Pollux, the fall of Cremera, the touching story 
of Coriolanus, the still more touching story of 
Virginia, the wild legion about the draining of 
the Alban lake, the combat between Valerius 
Corvus and the gigantic Gaul, are among the 
many instances which will at once suggest 
themselves to every reader. 

In the narrative of Livy, who was a man of 
fine imagination, these stories retain much of 
their genuine character. Nor could even the 
tasteless Dionysius distort and mutilate them 
into mere prose. The poetry shines, in spite 
of him, through the dreary pedantry of his 
eleven books. It is discernible in the most te- 
dious and in the most superficial modern works 
on the early times of Rome. It enlivens the 
dulness of the Universal History, and gives a 
charm to the most meager abridgments of 
Goldsmith. 

Even in the age of Plutarch there were dis- 
cerning men who rejected the popular account 
of the foundation of Rome, because that ac- 
count appeared to them to have the air, not of 
a history, but of a romance or a drama. Plu- 
tarch, who was displeased at their incredulity, 
had nothing better to say in reply to their ar- 
guments than that chance sometimes turns 
poet, and produces trains of events not to be 
distinguished from the most elaborate plots 
which are constructed by art.* But though 
the existence of a poetical element in the early 
history of the Great City was detected so many 
ages ago, the first critic who distinctly saw 
from what source that poetical element had 
been derived was James Perizonius, one of the 
most acute and learned critics of the seven- 
teenth century. His theory, which, in his own 
age, attracted little or no notice, was revived in 
the present generation by Niebuhr, a man who 



* "Xvoitrov ulv eviots IittI to SpapiaTiKdv Kal it\aana- 
T&iJes' ov Set oe aitiaruv, rr\v rvxi" bpiovTas, olutv jtojjj- 
lidrwv Srmiovpy6s tori.— Plut. Rom. viii. This remark- 
able passage has been more grossly misinterpreted than 
any other in the Greek language, where the sense was 
so obvious. The Latin version of Cruserius, the French 
version of Amyot, the old English version by several 
hands, and the later English version by Langhorne, are 
all equally destitute of every trace of the meaning of the 
original. None of the translators saw even that rtoiijua 
is a poem. They all render it an evont. 

M3 



634 



LAYS OP ANCIENT ROME. 



would have been the first writer of his time, 
if his talent for communicating truths had 
borne any proportion to his talent for investi- 
gating them. It has been adopted by several 
eminent scholars of our own country, particu- 
larly by the Bishop of St. David's, by Professor 
Maiden, and by the lamented Arnold. It ap- 
pears to be now generally received by men 
conversant with classical antiquity; and in- 
deed it rests on such strong proofs, both in- 
ternal and external, that it will not be easily 
subverted. A popular exposition of this theory 
and of the evidence by which it is supported 
may not be without interest even for readers 
who are unacquainted with the ancient lan- 
guages. 

The Latin literature which has come down 
to us is of later date than the commencement 
of the second Punic war, and consists almost 
exclusively of words fashioned on Greek mo- 
dels. The Latin metres, heroic, elegiac, lyric, 
and dramatic, are of Greek origin. The best 
Latin epic poetry is the feeble echo of the Iliad 
and Odyssey. The best Latin eclogues are 
imitations of Theocritus. The plan of the most 
finished didactic poem in the Latin tongue was 
taken from Hesiod. The Latin tragedies are 
bad copies of the master-pieces of Sophocles 
and Euripides. The Latin comedies are free 
translations from Demophilus, Menander, and 
Apollodorus. The Latin philosophy was bor- 
rowed, without alteration, from the Portico and 
the Academy ; and the great Latin orators con- 
stantly proposed to themselves as patterns the 
speeches of Demosthenes and Lysias. 

But there was an earlier Latin literature, a 
literature truly Latin, which has wholly pe- 
rished — which had, indeed, almost wholly pe- 
rished long before those whom we are in the 
habit of regarding as the greatest Latin writers 
were born. That literature abounded with 
metrical romances, such as are found in every 
country where there is much curiosity and in- 
telligence, but little reading and writing. All 
human beings, not utterly savage, long for 
some information about past times, and are 
delighted by narratives which present pictures 
to the eye of the mind. But it is only in very 
enlightened communities that books are readily 
accessible. Metrical composition, therefore, 
which, in a highly civilized nation, is a mere 
luxury, is, in nations imperfectly civilized, 
almost a necessary of life, and is valued less 
on account of the pleasure which it gives to 
the ear than on account of the help which it 
gives to the memory. A man who can invent 
or embellish an interesting story, and put it 
into a form which others may easily retain in 
their recollection, will always be highly esteem- 
ed by a people eager for amusement and infor- 
mation, but destitute of libraries. Such is the 
origin of ballad-poetry, a species of composi- 
tion which scarcely ever fails to spring up and 
flourish in every society, at a certain point in 
the progress towards refinement. Tacitus in- 
forms us that songs were the only memorials 
of the past which the ancient Germans pos- 
sessed. We learn from Lucan and from Am- 
mianus Marcellinus, that the brave actions of 
the ancient Gauls were commemorated in the 
verses of Bards. During many ages, and 



through many revolutions, minstrelsy retainer 
its influence over both the Teutonic and the 
Celtic race. The vengeance exacted by the 
spouse of Attila for the murder cf Siegfried 
was celebrated in rhymes, of which Germany 
is still justly proud. The exploits of Athelstant 
were commemorated by the Anglo-Saxons, and 
those of Canute by the Danes, in rude poems, 
of which a few fragments have come down to 
us. The chants of the Welsh harpers pre- 
served, through ages of darkness, a faint and 
doubtful memory of Arthur. In the highlands 
of Scotland may still be gleaned some reliques 
of the old songs about Cuthullin and Fingal. 
The long struggle of the Servians against the 
Ottoman power was recorded in lays full of 
martial spirit. We learn from Herrera that, 
when a Peruvian Inca died, men of skill were 
appointed to celebrate him in verses which 
all the people learned by heart, and sang in 
public on days of festival. The feats of Kur- 
roglou, the great freebooter of Turkistan, re- 
counted in ballads composed by himself, are 
known in every village of Northern Persia. 
Captain Beechey heard the bards of the Sand- 
wich Islands recite the heroic achievements of 
Tamehameha, the most illustrious of their 
kings. Mungo Park found in the heart of Africa 
a class of singing men, the only annalists of 
their rude tribes, and heard them tell the story 
of the great victory which Darnel, the negro 
prince of the Jaloffs, won over Abdulkader, the 
Mussulman tyrant of Foota Torra. This spe- 
cies of poetry attained a high degree of excel- 
lence among the Castilians, before they began 
to copy Tuscan patterns. It attained a still 
higher degree of excellence among the English 
and the Lowland Scotch, during the fourteenth, 
fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. But it reach- 
ed its full perfection in ancient Greece ; for 
there can be no doubt that the great Homeric 
poems are generically ballads, though widely 
indeed distinguished from all other ballads, and, 
indeed, from almost all other human compo- 
sitions, by transcendant merit. 

As it is agreeable to general experience that, 
at a certain stage in the progress of society, 
ballad-poetry should flourish, so is it also 
agreeable to general experience that, at a sub- 
sequent stage in the progress of society, ballad- 
poetry should be undervalued and neglected. 
Knowledge advances: manners change : great 
foreign models of composition are studied and 
imitated. The phraseology of the old minstrels 
becomes obsolete. Their versification, which, 
having received its laws only from the ear, 
abounds in irregularities, seems licentious and 
uncouth. Their simplicity appears beggarly 
when compared with the quaint forms and 
gaudy colouring of such artists as Cowley and 
Gongora. The ancient lays, unjustly despised 
by the learned and polite, linger for a time in 
the memory of the vulgar, and are at length too 
often irretrievably lost. We cannot wonder 
that the ballads of Home should have altogether 
disappeared, when we remember how very 
narrowly, in spite of the invention of printing, 
those of our own country and those of Spain 
escaped the same fate. There is, indeed, little 
doubt that oblivion covers many English songs 
equal to any that were published by Bishop 



PREFACE 



53d 



Percy, and many Spanish songs as good as 
♦he best of those which have been so happily 
translated by Mr. Lockhart. Eighty years ago 
England possessed only one tattered copy of 
Childe Waters and Sir Cauline, and Spain only 
one tattered copy of the noble poem of the Cid. 
The snuff" of a candle, or a mischievous dog, 
might in a moment have deprived the world for 
ever of any of those fine compositions. Sir 
Walter Scott, who united to the fire of a great 
poet the mipute curiosity and patient diligence 
of a great antiquary, was but just in time to 
save the precious reliques of the Minstrelsy of 
the Border. In Germany, the lay of the Ni- 
belungs had been long utterly forgotten, when, 
in the eighteenth century, it was, for the first 
time, printed from a manuscript in the old 
library of a noble family. In truth, the only 
people who, through their whole passage from 
simplicity to the highest civilization, never for 
a moment ceased to love and admire their old 
ballads, were the Greeks. 

That the early Romans should have had 
ballad-poetry, and that this poetry should have 
perished, is, therefore, not strange. It would, on 
the contrary, have been strange if it had not 
come to pass ; and we should be justified in 
pronouncing them highly probable, even if we 
had no direct evidence on the subject. But 
we have direct evidence of unquestionable 
authority. 

Ennius, who flourished in the time of the 
Second Punic War, was regarded in the 
Augustan age as the father of La-tin poetry. He 
was, in truth, the father of the second school 
of Latin poetry, — of the only school of which 
the works have descended to us. But from 
Ennius himself we learn that there were poets 
who stood to him in the same relation in 
which the author of the romance of Count 
Alarcos stood to Garcilaso, or the author of the 
" Lytell Geste of Robin Hode" to Lord Surrey. 
Ennius speaks of verses which the Fauns and 
the Bards were wont to chant in the old time, 
when none had yet studied the graces of 
speech, when none had yet climbed the peaks 
sacred to the Goddesses of Grecian song. 
" Where," Cicero mournfully asks, " are those 
old verses now !"* 

Contemporary with Ennius was Quintus 
Fabius Pictor, the earliest of the Roman anna- 
lists. His account of the infancy and youth of 
Romulus and Remus has been preserved by 



• " Quid ? Nostri veteres versus ubi sunt 1 

.... 'QuosolimFauni vatesquecanebant, 
Cum neque Musarum scopulos quisqtiam superarat, 
Nee dictistudiosus erat.' " 

Cic. in Bruto, cap. xviii. 

The Muses, it should be observed, are Greek divinities. 
The Italian Goddesses of verse were the Camoense. At 
a later period, the appellations were used indiscriminate- 
ly ; but in the age of Ennius there was probably a dis- 
tinction. In the epitaph of Najvius who was the repre- 
sentative of the old Italian school of poetry, the Ca- 
moens, not the Muses, are represented as grieving for 
tie loss of their votary. The " Musarum scopuli" are 
evidently the peaks of Parnassus. ■ * 

Scaliger, in a note on Varro We Lingua Latina, lib. 
vi.) suggests, with great ingenuity, that the Fauns who 
were represented by the superstition of later ages as a 
race of monsters, half gods and half brutes, may really 
have been a class of men who exercised in Latium, at a 
very remote period, the same functions which belonged 
to the Magians in Persia and to the Bards in Gaul. 



Dionysius, and contains a very remarkable re- 
ference to the old Latin poetry. Fabius sayl 
that, in his time, his countrymen were still in 
the habit of singing ballads about the Twins. 
" Even in the hut of Faustulus," — so these old 
lays appear to have run, — " the children of 
Rhea and Mars were, in port and in spirit, not 
like unto swineherds or cowherds, but such 
that men might well guess them to be of tht 
blood of kings and gods."* 

Cato the Censor, who also lived in the days 
of the Second Punic War, mentioned this los* 
literature in his lost work on the antiquities of 
his country. Many ages, he said, before his 
time, there were ballads in praise of illustrious 

* Oi Si dvSpo)8tvTCs yivovrai, Kara re d^iojuiv popqirii 
Kal (frpovfiixaros SyKov, ov avoijiopfioTs Kal 0ovk6Xois ioi- 
kotcs, liXX' o'iovs nv rts d^taxreie rois Ik Paaikeiov r« 
<bvvT<xs yivovs, Kal drrd iaipovuiv oiropas yeveadai vopi^o- 
pivovs, Uf Iv toTs 7rarpioij vpvoi; viro 'Vwixaioyv en xa\ 
vvva Strcu. — Dion. Hal. i. 79. This passage has sometimes 
been cited as if Dionysius had been speaking in his own 
person, and had, Greek as he was, been so industrious or 
so fortunate as to discover some valuable remains of 
that early Latin poetry which the greatest Latin writers 
of his age regretted as hopelessly lost. Such a suppo- 
sition is highly improbable ; and indeed it seems clear 
from the context that Dionysius, as Reiske and other 
editors evidently thought, was merely quoting from Fa- 
bius Pictor. The whale passage has the air of an extract 
from an ancient chronicle, and is introduced by the 
words, KoVjtoj plv $d/?(oj b Hikto>p \eyoucvos, rrjit 
ypa<j>ei. 

Another argument may be urged which seems to de- 
serve consideration. The author of the passage in 
question mentions a thatched hut which, in his time 
stood between Mount Palatine and the Cirrus. This 
hut, he says, was built by Romulus, and was t distantly 
kept in repair at the public charge, but never in any res- 
pect embellished. Now, in theage of Dionysius then 
certainly waB at Rome a thatched hut, said to have been 
that of Romulus. But this hut, as we learn from Vitru- 
vius, stood, not near the Circus, but in the Capitol. (Vit. 
ii. 1.) If, therefore, we understand Dionysius to speak 
in his own person, we can reconcile his statement with 
that of Vitruvius only by supposing that there were at 
Rome, in the Augustan age, two thatched huts, both be- 
lieved to have been built by Romulus, and both carefully 
repaired, and held in high honour. The objections to 
such a supposition seem to be strong. Neither Dionysiug 
nor Vitruvius speaks of more than one such hut. Dio 
Cassius informs us that twice, during the long adminis- 
tration of Augustus, the hut of Romulus caught fire, 
(xlviii. 43. liv. 29.) Had there been two such huts, 
would he not have told us of which he spoke 1 An Eng- 
lish historian would hardly give an account of a fire ai 
Queen's College without saying whether it was at 
Queen's College, Oxford, or at Queen's College, Cam- 
bridge. Marcus Seneca, Macrobius, and Conon, a Greek 
writer from whim Photius has made large extracts, 
mention only one hut of Romulus, that in the Capitol. 
(M. Seneca, Contr. i. C; Macrobius, Sat. i. 15; Photiut, 
Bibl. 186.) Ovid, Petronius, Valerius Maximus, Luciua 
Seneca, and St. Jerome mention only one hut of Romu- 
lus without specifying the site. (Ovid, Faiti, iii. 183, 
Petronius, Fragm. ; Vol. Max. iv. 4 ; L. Seneca, Consola- 
tio ad Helviam ; D. Hieron. ad Paulinianum de Didymo. 

The whole difficulty is removed, if we suppose thai 
Dionysius was merely quoting Fabius Pictor. Nothing 
is more probable than that the cabin, which in the time 
of Fabius stood near the Circus, might, long before tha 
age of Augustus, have been transported to the Capitol, 
as the place fittest, by reason both of its safety and of 
its sanctity, to contain so precious a relique. 

The language of Plutarch confirms this hypothesis. 
He describes, with great precision, the spot where Ro- 
mulus dwelt between the Palatine Mount and the Cir- 
cus : but he says not a word implying that the dwelling 
was still to be seen there. Indeed, his expressions im- 
ply that it was no longer there. The evidence of Soli 
nus is still more to the point. He, like Plutarch, 
describes the spot where Romulus nad resided, and 
says expressly that the hut had been there, but that, in 
his time, it was there no longer. The site, it is certain, 
was well remembered ; and probably retained its old 
name, as Charing Cross and the Haymarket have done. 
This is probably the explanation of the words, "can 
Romuli" in Victor's description of the Tenth Region of 
Rome, under Valentinian 



536 



LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



men ; and these ballads it was the fashion for 
Jie guests at banquets to sing in turn while the 
piper played. " Would," exclaims Cicero, " that 
we still had the old ballads of which Cato 
speaks !"* 

Valerius Maximus gives us exactly similar 
information, without mentioning his authority, 
and observes that the ancient Roman ballads 
were probably of more benefit to the young 
than all the lectures of the Athenian schools, 
and that to the influence of the national poetry 
were to be ascribed the virtues of such men 
as Camillus and Fabricius.f 

Varro, whose authority on all questions con- 
nected with the antiquities of his country is 
entitled to the greatest respect, tells us that at 
banquets it was once the fashion for boys to 
sing, sometimes with and sometimes without 
Instrumental music, ancient ballads in praise 
of men of former times. These young per- 
formers, he observes, were of unblemished 
character, a circumstance which he probably 
mentioned because, among the Greeks, and 
indeed in his time among the Romans also, 
the morals of singing boys were in no high 
repute.t 

The testimony of Horace, though given in- 
cidentally, confirms the statements of Cato, 
Valerius Maximus, and Varro. The poet pre- 
dicts that, under the peaceful administration 
of Augustus, the Romans will, over their full 
goblets, sing to the pipe, after the fashion of 
their fathers, the deeds of brave captains, and 
the ancient legends touching the origin of the 
city.§ 

The proposition, then, that Rome had ballad- 
poetry is not merely in itself highly probable, 
but it is fully proved by direct evidence of the 
greatest weight: 

This proposition being established, it be- 
comes easy to understand why the early his- 
tory of the city is unlike almost every thing 
else in Latin literature — native where almost 
every thing else is borrowed, imaginative 
where almost every thing else is prosaic. We 
can scarcely hesitate to pronounce that the 
magnificent, pathetic, and truly national le- 



* Cicero refers twice to this important passage in 
Cato's Antiquities : — " Gravissimus auctor in ' Origini- 
bus* dixit Cato, morem apud majores nunc epularum 
fuisse, ut deinceps, qui accubarent, canerent ad tibiam 
elarorum virorum laudes atque virtutes. Ex quo per- 
spicuum est, et cantus turn fuisse rescriptos vocum so- 
nis,et carmina." — Tusc. Quast. iv. 2. Again : " Utinam 
exstarent ilia carmina quce multis saeculis ante suani 
astatem in epulis esse cantitata a singulis convivis de 
elarorum virorum laudibus in 'Originibus' scriptum re- 
liquit Cato." — Brutus, cap. xix. 

f " Majores natu in conviviis ad tibias egregia supe- 
rlorum opera carmine comprehensa pangebant, quo ad 
ea imitanda juventutem alacriorum redderent. . . . 
iluas Athenas, quam scholam, quse alienigena studia 
huic domesticse discipline prsetulerim ? Inde oriebantur 
Camilli, Scipiones, Fabricii, Marcelli, Fabii." — Val. 
Max. ii. 1. 

fin conviviis pueri modesti ut cantarent carmina 
■ntiqua, in quibus laudes erant majorum, et assa voce, 
et cum tibicine." Nonius, Jlssa voce pro sola. 
" Nosque et profestis lucibus et sacris, 
Inter jocosi munera Liben, 
Cum prole matronisque nostris, 
Rite Deos prius apprecati, 
Virtute functos, more pateum, duces, 
Lydis remixto carmine tibiis, 
Trojamque, et Anchisen, et almte 
Progeniem Veneris canemus." 

Carm. iv. 51. 



gends, which present so striking a contrast to 
all that surrounds them, are broken and de« 
faced fragments of that early poetry whichi 
even in the age of Cato the Censor, had be« 
come antiquated, and of which Tully had 
never heard a line. 

That this poetry should have been suffered 
to perish will not appear strange when we 
consider how complete was the triumph of the 
Greek genius over the public mind of Italy 
It is probable that, at an early period, Homer, 
Archilochus, and Herodotus, furnished some 
hints to the Latin minstrels :* but it was not 
till after the war with Pyrrhus that the poetry 
of Rome began to put off its old Ausoniai. 
character. The transformation was soon con- 
summated. The conquered, says Horace, led 
captive the conquerors. It was precisely at 
the time at which the Roman people rose to 
unrivalled political ascendency, that they 
stooped to pass under the intellectual yoke. 
It was precisely at the time at which the 
sceptre departed from Greece that the empire 
of her language and of her arts became uni- 
versal and despotic. The revolution indeed 
was not effected without a struggle. Nsevius 
seems to have been the last of the ancient line 
of poets. Ennius was the founder of a new 
dynasty. Nasvius celebrated the First Punic 
War in Saturnian verse, the old national verse 
of Italy .f Ennius sang the Second Punic War 

* See the Preface to the Lay of the Battle of RegiUus. 

| Cicero gpeaks highly in more than one place of this 
poem of Nsevius ; Ennius sneered at it, and stole from it 

As to the Saturnian measure, see Herman's Elementa 
Doctrine Metricas, iii. 9. 

The Saturnian line consisted of two parts. The first 
was a catalectic dimeter iambic; the second was com- 
posed of three trochees. But the license taken by the 
early Latin poets seems to have been almost boundless. 
The most perfect Saturnian line which has been pre- 
served by the grammarians was the work, not of a pro- 
fessional artist, but of an amateur ; 

"Dabunt malum Metelli Na;vio poette." 

There has been much difference of opinion among 
learned men respecting the history of this measure. 
That it is the same with a Greek measure used by Ar- 
chilochus is indisputable. (Bentley, Phalaris, xi.) But 
in spite of the authority of Terentianus Maurus, and of 
the still higher authority of Bentley, we may venture to 
doubt whether the coincidence was not fortuitous. We 
constantly find the same rude and simple numbers in 
different countries, under circumstances which make it 
impossible to suspect that there has been imitation on 
either side. Bishop Heber heard the children of a vil- 
lage in Bengal singing " Radha, Radha," to the tune of 
"My boy Billy." Neither the Castilian nor the German 
minstrels of the middle ages owed any thing to Faros or 
to ancient Rome. Yet both the poem of the Cid and the 
poem of the Nibelungs contain many Saturnian verses; 
as, — 

" Estas nuevas a mio Cid eran venidas. ' 
" A mi lo dicen ; a ti dan las orejadas." 

"Man mohte michel wunder von Sifride sagen." 
" Wa ich den Kiinic vinde daz sol man mir sagen." 

Indeed, there cannot be a more perfect Saturnian line 
than one which is sung in every English nursery— 

" The queen was in her parlour eating bread and honey/' 

yet the author of this line, we may be assured, borrowed 
nothing from either Ntevius or Archilochus. 

On the other hand, it is by no means improbable that, 
two or three hundred years before the time of Ennius, 
some Latin minstrels may have visited Sybaris or Cro- 
tona, may have heard some verses of Archilochus sung, 
may have been pleased with the metre, and may have 
introduced it at Rome. Thus much is certain, that tha 
Saturnian measure, if not a native of Italy, was ai 
least so early and so completely naturalized tnere tha* 
its foreign origin was forgotten. 



PREFACE. 



537 



.n numbers borrowed from the Iliad. The 
elder poet, in the epitaph which he wrote for 
himself, and which is' a fine specimen of the 
early Roman diction and versification, plain- 
tively boasted that the Latin language had 
died with him.* Thus, what to Horace ap- 
peared to be the first faint dawn of Roman 
literature, appeared to Nsevius to be its hope- 
less setting. In truth, one literature was set- 
ting, and another dawning. 

Ine victory of the foreign taste was deci- 
sive: and indeed we can hardly blame the 
Romans for turning away with contempt from 
the rude lays which had delighted their fathers, 
and giving their whole admiration to the great 
productions of Greece. The national romances, 
neglected by the great and the refined whose 
education had been finished at Rhodes or 
Athens, continued, it may be supposed, during 
some generations, to delight the vulgar. While 
Virgil, in hexameters of exquisite modulation, 
described the sports of rustics, those rustics 
were still singing their wild Saturnian ballads.-j- 
It is not improbable that, at the time when 
Cicero lamanted the irreparable loss of the 
poems mentioned by Cato, a search among the 
nooks of the Apennines, as active as the search 
which Sir Walter Scott made among the de- 
scendants of the mosstroopers of Liddesdale, 
might have brought to light many fine remains 
of ancient minstrelsy. No such search was 
made. The Latin ballads perished forever. 
Yet discerning critics have thought that they 
could still perceive in the early history of 
Home numerous fragments of this lost poetry, 

Bentley says, indeed, that the Saturnian measure was 
first brought from Greece into Italy by Naevius. But this 
is merely obiter dictum, to use a phrase common in our 
courts of law, and would not have been deliberately 
maintained by that incomparable critic, whose memory 
is held in reverence by all lovers of learning. The 
arguments which might be brought against Bentley's 
assertion — for it is mere assertion, supported by no evi- 
dence — are innumerable. A. few will suffice. 

1. Bentley's assertion is opposed to the testimony of 
Ennius. Ennius sneered at Nsevius for writing on the 
First Punic War in verses such as the old Italian bards 
used before Greek literature had been studied. Now, 
the poem of Ncevius was in Saturnian verse. Is it pos- 
sible that Ennius could have used such expressions, if 
the Saturnian verse had been just imported from 
Greece for the first time? 

2. Bentley's assertion is opposed to the testimony of 
Horace. " When Greece," says Horace, " introduced 
her arts into our uncivilized country, those rugged Sa- 
turnian numbers passed away." Would Horace have 
Baid this, if the Saturnian numbers had been imported 
from Greece just before the hexameter? 

3. Bentley's assertion is opposed to the testimony of 
Festus and of Aurelius Victor, both of whom positively 
say that the most ancient prophecies attributed to the 
Fauns were in Saturnian verse. 

4. Bentley's assertion is opposed to the testimony of 
Terentianus Maurus, to whom he has himself appealed. 
Terentianus Maurus does indeed say that the Saturnian 
measure, though believed by the Romans from a very 
early period ("credidit vetustas") to be of Italian in- 
vention, was really borrowed from the Greeks. But 
Terentianus Maurus does not say that it was first bor- 
rowed by Naevius. Nay, the expressions used by Te- 
rentianus Maurus clearly imply the contrary; for how 
could the Romans have believed, from a very early 
period, that this measure was the indigenous production 
of Latium, if it was really brought over from Greece in 
an age of intelligence and liberal curiosity, — in the age 
Which gave birth to Ennius, Plautus, Cato the Censor, 
and other distinguished writers ? If Bentley's assertion 
were correct, there could have been no more doubt at 
Rome about the Greek origin of the Saturnian measure 
lhan about the Greek origin of hexameters or Sapphics. 

* Aulus Gellius, JVoctes Mtica, i. 24. 
i See Set vius, in Georg. ii. 385 



as the traveller on classic ground sometimes 
finds, built into the heavy wall of a fort or con 
vent, a pillar rich with acanthus leaves, or a 
frieze where the Amazons and Bacchanals 
seem to live. The theatres and temples of the 
Greek and the Roman were degraded into the 
quarries of the Turk and the Goth. Even so 
did the old Saturnian poetry become the quarry 
in which a crowd of orators and annalists 
found the materials for their prose. 

It is not difficult to trace the process by 
which the old songs were transmuted into the 
form which they now wear. Funeral pane- 
gyric and chronicle appear to have been the 
intermediate links which connected the lost 
ballads with the histories now extant. From 
a very early period it was the usage that an 
oration should be pronounced over the remains 
of a noble Roman. The orator, as we learn 
from Polybius, was expected, on such an occa- 
sion, to recapitulate all the services which the 
ancestors of the deceased had, from the earliest 
time, rendered to the commonwealth. There 
can be little doubt that the speaker on whom 
this duty was imposed would make use of all 
the stories suited to his purpose which were to 
be found in the popular lays. There can be as 
little doubt that the family of an eminent man 
would preserve a copy of the speech which 
had been pronounced over his corpse. The 
compilers of the early chronicles would have 
recourse to these speeches ; and the great his- 
torians of a later period would have recourse 
to >.ne chronicles. 

It may be worth while to select a particular 
*tory,and to trace its probable progress through 
these stages. The description of the migration 
of the Fabian house to Cremera is one of the 
finest of the many fine passages which lie 
thick in the earlier books of Livy. The Con- 
sul, clad in his military garb, stands ia the 
vestibule of his house, marshalling his clan, 
three hundred and six fighting men, all of the 
same proud patrician blood, all worthy to be 
attended by the fasces and to command the 
legions. A sad and anxious retinue of friends 
accompanies the adventurers through the 
streets ; but the voice of lamentation is drown- 
ed by the shouts of admiring thousands. As 
the procession passes the Capitol, prayers and 
vows are poured forth, but in vain. The de- 
voted band, leaving Janus on the right, marches 
to its doom through the Gate of Evil Luck. 
After achieving great deeds of valour against 
overwhelming numbers, all perish save one 
child, the stock from which the great Fabian 
race was destined again to spring, for the 
safety and glory of the commonwealth, That 
this fine romance, the details of which are so # 
full of poetical truth, and so utterly destitute 
of all show of historical truth, came originally 
from some lay which had often been sung with 
great applause at banquets, is in the highest 
degree probable. Nor is it difficult to imagine 
a mode in which the transmission might have 
taken place. The celebrated Quintus Fabius 
Maximus, who died about twenty years before 
the First Punic War, and more than forty 
years before Ennius was born, is said to have 
been interred with extraordinary pomp. In the 
eulogy pronounced over his body all the great 



538 



LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



exploits of his ancestors were doubtless re- 
counted and exaggerated. If there, were then 
extant songs which gave a vivid and touching 
description of an event, the saddest and the 
most glorious in the long history of the Fabian 
house, nothing could be more natural than that 
the panegyrist should borrow from such songs 
their finest touches, in order to adorn his 
speech. A few generations later the songs 
would perhaps be forgotten, or remembered 
only by shepherds and vine-dressers. But the 
speech would certainly be preserved in the 
archives of the Fabian nobles. Fabius Pictor 
would be well acquainted with a document so 
interesting to his personal feelings, and would 
insert large extracts from it in his rude chro- 
nicle. That chronicle, as we know, was the 
oldest to which Livy had access. Livy would 
at a glance distinguish the bold strokes of the 
forgotten poet from the dull and feeble narra- 
tive by which they were surrounded, would 
retouch them with a delicate and powerful 
pencil, and would make them immortal. 

That this might happen at Rome can scarcely 
be doubted ; for something very like this has 
happened in several countries, and, among 
others, in our own. Perhaps the theory of 
Perizonius cannot be better illustrated than by 
showing that what he supposes to have taken 
place in ancient times has, beyond all doubt, 
taken place in modern times. 

" History," says Hume, with the utmost gra- 
vity, "has preserved some instances of Edgar's 
amours, from which, as from a specimen, we 
may form a conjecture of the rest." He then 
tells very agreeably the stories of Elfleda and 
ElfriJa; two stories which have a most sus- 
picious air of romance, and which, indeed, 
greatly resemble, in their general character, 
some of the legends of early Rome. He cites, 
as his authority for these two tales, the chro- 
nicle of William of Malmesbury, who lived in 
the time of King Stephen. The great majority 
of readers suppose that the device by which 
Elfleda was substituted for her young mistress, 
the artifice by which Athelwold obtained the 
hand of Elfrida, the detection of that artifice, 
the hunting party, and the vengeance of the 
amorous king, are things about which there is 
no more doubt than about the execution of 
Anne Boleyn, or the slitting of Sir John Co- 
ventry's nose. But, when we turn to William 
o r Malmesbury, we find that Hume, in his 
eagerness to relate these pleasant fables, has 
overlooked one very important circumstance. 
William does indeed tell both the stories ; but 
he gives us distinct notice that he does not 
warrant their truth, and that they rest on no 
better authority than that of ballads.* 

Such is the way in which these two well- 
known tales have been handed down. They 
originally appeared in a poetical form. They 
found their way from ballads into an old chroni- 
cle. The ballads perished ; the chronicle re- 
mained. A great historian, some centuries 



* "Infamias quas post dicam magis resperserunt can- 
Hens." Edgar appears to luive been most mercilessly 
treated in the Anglo-Saxon ballads. He was the fa- 
vourite of the monks; and the monks and minstrels 
were at deadly feud. 



after the ballads had been altogether forgotten, 
consulted the chronicle. He was struck by th*> 
lively colouring of these ancient fictions ; he 
transferred them to his pages; and thus wc 
find inserted, as unquestionable facts, in a nar- 
rative which is likely to last as long as the 
English tongue, the inventions of some min- 
strel whcse works were probably never com- 
mitted to writing, whose name is buried in 
oblivion, and whose dialect has become obso- 
lete. It must then be admitted to be possible, 
or rather highly probable, that the stories of 
Romulus and Remus, and of the Horatii and 
Curiatii, may have had a similar origin. 

Castilian literature will furnish us with an- 
other parallel case. Mariana, the classical 
historian of Spain, tells the story of the ill-star- 
red marriage which the King Don Alonso 
brought about between the heirs of Carrion 
and the two daughters of the Cid. The Cid 
bestowed a princely dower on his sons-in-law. 
But the young men were base and proud, cow- 
ardly and cruel. They were tried in danger 
and found wanting. They fled before the 
Moors, and once, when a lion broke out of his 
den, they ran and couched in an unseemly 
hiding-place. They knew that they were de- 
spised, and took counsel how they might be 
avenged. They parted from their father-in-law 
with many signs of love, and set forth on a 
journey with Doiia Elvira and Dona Sol. In 
a solitary place the bridegrooms seized their 
brides, stripped them, scourged them, and de- 
parted, leaving them for dead. But one of the 
house of Bivar, suspecting foul play, had fol- 
lowed them in disguise. The ladies were 
brought back safe to the house of their father. 
Complaint was made to the king. It was ad- 
judged by the Cortes that the dower given by 
the Cid should be returned, and that the heirs 
of Carrion together with one of their kindred 
should do battle against three knights of the 
party of the Cid. The guilty youths would 
have declined the combat ; but all their shifts 
were vain. They were vanquished in the lists, 
and forever disgraced, while their injured 
wives were sought in marriage by great 
princes.* 

Some Spanish writers have laboured to 
show, by an examination of dates and circum- 
stances, that this story is untrue. Such con- 
futation was surely not needed ; for the narra* 
tive is on the face of it a romance. How it 
found its way into Mariana's history is quits 
clear. He acknowledges his obligations to the 
old chronicles, and had doubtless before him 
the " Cronica del famoso Cavallero Cid Ruy 
Diez Campeador," which had been printed as 
early as the year 1552. He little suspected 
that all the most striking passages in this 
chronicle were copied from a poem of the 
twelfth century, a poem of which the language 
and versification had long been obsolete, but 
which glowed with no common portion of the 
fire of the Iliad. Yet such was the fact. 
More than a century and a half after the death 
of Mariana, this grand old ballad, of which one 
imperfect copy on parchment, four hundred 

• Mariana, Jib. x. cap. 4 



PREFACE. 



539 



years eld, had been preserved at Bivar, was 
for the first time printed. Then it was found 
that every interesting circumstance of the story 
of the heirs of Carrion was derived by the elo- 
quent Jesuit from a song of which he had 
never heard, and which was composed by a 
minstrel whose very name had long been for- 
gotten.* 

Such, or nearly such, appears to have been 
the process by which the lost ballad-poetry of 
Rome was transformed into history. To re- 
verse that process, to transform some portions 
of early Roman history back into the poetry 
out of which they were made, is the object of" 
this Avork. 

In the following poems the author speaks, 
not in his own person, but in the persons of 
ancient minstrels who know only what a Ro- 
man citizen, born three or four hundred years 
before the Christian era, may be supposed to 
have known, and who are in nowise above 
the passions and prejudices of their age and 
country. To these imaginary poets must be 
ascribed some blunders which are so obvious 
that it is unnecessary to point them out. The 
real blunder would have been to represent 
these old poets as deeply versed in general 
history, and studious of chronological accuracy. 
To them must also be attributed the illiberal 
sneers at the Greeks, the furious party spirit, 
the contempt for the arts of peace, the love of 
war for its own sake, the ungenerous exultation 

• See the account which Sanchez gives of the Bivar 
manuscript in the first volume of the Colection de Poesias 
Castellanas anteriores al Siglo XV. Part of the story of 
the lords of Carrion, in the poem of the Cid, has been 
translated by Mr. Frere in a manner above all praise. 



over the vanquished, which the reader will 
sometimes observe. To portray a Roman of 
the age of Camillus or Curius as superior to 
national antipathies, as mourning over the de- 
vastation and slaughter by which empire and 
triumphs were to be won, as looking on human 
suffering with the sympathy of Howard, or as 
treating conquered enemies with the delicacy 
of the Black Prince, would be to violate all 
dramatic propriety. The old Romans had 
some great virtues, — fortitude, temperance, 
veracity, spirit to resist oppression, respect for 
legitimate authority, fidelity in the observing 
of contracts, disinterestedness, ardent public 
spirit; but Christian charity and chivalrous 
generosity were alike unknown to them. 

It would have been obviously improper to 
mimic the manner of any particular age or 
country. Something has been borrowed, how- 
ever, from our own old ballads, and more from 
Sir Walter Scott, the great restorer of our bal- 
lad-poetry. To the Iliad still greater obliga- 
tions are due ; and those obligations have been 
contracted with the less hesitation because 
there is reason to believe that some of the old 
Latin minstrels really had recourse to that in- 
exhaustible store of poetical images. 

It would have been easy to swell this little 
volume to a very considerable bulk, by append- 
ing notes filled with quotations ; but to a learn- 
ed reader such notes are not necessary ; for an 
unlearned reader they would have little inte- 
rest; and the judgment passed both by the 
learned and by the unlearned on a work of the 
imagination will always depend much more 
on the general character and spirit of such a 
work than on minute details. 



640 



LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



HORATIUS. 



Theiie can be little doubt that among those 
parts of early Roman history which had a po- 
etical origin was the legend of Horatius Codes. 
We have several versions of the story, and 
these versions differ from each other in points 
if no small importance. Polybius, there is 
reason to believe, heard the tale recited over 
the remains of some Consul or Preetor descend- 
ed from the old Horatian patricians ; for he 
evidently introduces it as a specimen of the 
narratives with which the Romans were in the 
habit of embellishing their funeral oratory. It 
is remarkable that, according \o his descrip- 
tion, Horatius defended the bridge alone, and 
perished in the waters. According to the 
chronicles which Livy and Dionysius fol- 
lowed, Horatius had two companions, swam 
safe to shore, and was loaded with honours 
and rewards. 

These discrepancies are easily explained. 
Our own literature, indeed, will furnish an 
exact parallel to what may have taken place 
at Rome. It is highly probable that the me- 
mory of the war of Porsena was preserved by 
compositions much resembling the two ballads 
which stand first in the ReUques ofJlnrient Eng- 
lish Poetry. In both those ballads the English, 
commanaed by the Percy fight with the Scots, 
commanded by the Douglas. In one of the 
ballads, the Douglas is killed by a nameless 
English archer, and the Percy by a Scottish 
spearman : in the other, the Percy slays the 
Douglas in single combat, and is himself made 
prisoner. In the former, Sir Hugh Montgomery 
is shot through the heart by a Northumbrian 
bowman: in the latter, he is taken, and ex- 
changed for the Percy. Yet both the ballads 
relate to the same event, and that an event 
which probably took place within the memory 
of persons who were alive when both the bal- 
lads were made. One of the minstrels says : 

" Old men that knowen the grownde well yenoughe 
Call it the battell of Otterburn : 
At Otterburn began this spurne 
Upon a monnyn day. 
Ther was the dougghte Doglas slean : 
The Perse never went away." 

The other poet sums up the event in the fol- 

owing lines : 

" Thys fraye bygan at Otterborne 
Bytwene the nyghte and the day ; 
Ther the Dowglas lost hys lyfe, 
And the Percy was lede away." 

It is by no means unlikely .ha; there were 



two old Roman lays about the detence of ths 
bridge ; and that, while the story which Livy 
has transmitted to us was preferred by the 
multitude, the other, which ascribed the whole 
glory to Horatius alone, may have been the 
favourite with the Horatian house. 

The following ballad is supposed to have 
been made about a hundred and twenty years 
after the war which it celebrates, and just be- 
fore the taking of Rome by the Gauls. The 
author seems to have been an honest citizen, 
proud of the military glory of his country, sick 
of the disputes of factions, and much given to 
pining after good old times which had never ' 
really existed. The allusion, however, to the 
partial manner in which the public lands were 
allotted could proceed only from a plebeian ; 
and the allusion to the fraudulent sale of spoils 
marks the date of the poem, and shows that 
the poet shared in the general discontent with 
which the proceedings of Camillus, after the 
taking of Veii, were regarded. 

The penultimate syllable of the name Porse- 
na has been shortened in spite of the authority 
of Niebuhr, who pronounces, without assign- 
ing any ground for his opinion, that Martial 
was guilty of a decided blunder in the line, 
"Hanc spectare manum Porsena non potuit." 

It is not easy to understand how any modern 
scholar, whatever his attainments may be,— 
and those of Niebuhr were undoubtedly im- 
mense, — can venture to pronounce that Mar- 
tial did not know the quantity of a word which 
he must have uttered and heard uttered a 
hundred times before he left school. Niebuhr 
seems also to have forgotten that Martial has 
fellow culprits to keep him in countenance. 
Horace has committed the same decided blun- 
der ; i for he gives us, as a pure iambic line, 

"Minacis aut Etrusca Porsente manus." 
Silius Italicus has repeatedly offended in the 
same way, as when he says, 

" Cernitur effugiens ardentem Porsena dextram ;" 
and again, 

" Clusinum vulgus, cum, Porsena magne, jubebas." 
A modern writer may be content to err in such 
company. 

Niebuhr's supposition that each of the three 
defenders of the bridge was the representative 
of one of the three patrician tribes is both in- 
genious and probable, and has been adopted 
in the following poem. 



HORATIUS. 



541 



HORATIUS. 



A LAY MADE ABOUT THE YEAR OF THE CITY CCCLX. 



1. 
Lah* Porsena of Clusium 

By the Nine Gods he swore 
That the great house of Tarquin 

Should suffer wrong no more. 
By the Nine Gods he swore it, 

And named a trysting day, 
And bade his messengers ride forth, 
East and west and south and north, 

To summon his array. 

2. 

East and west and south and nortft 

The messengers ride fast, 
And tower and town and cottage 

Have heard the trumpet's blast. 
Shame on the false Etruscan 

Who lingers in his home, 
When Porsena of Clusium 

Is on the march for Rome. 



The horsemen and the footmen 

Are pouring in amain 
From many a stately market-place, 

From many a fruitful plain; 
From many a lonely hamlet, 

Which, hid by beech and pine, 
Like an eagle's nest hangs on the crest 

Of purple Apennine ; 

4. 
From lordly Volaterrse, 

Where scowls the far-famed hold 
Piled by the hands of giants 

For god-like kings of old ; 
From seagirt Populonia, 

Whose sentinels descry 
Sardinia's snowy mountain-tops 

Fringing the southern sky ; 

5. 
From the proud mart of Pisa;, 

Queen of the western waves, 
Where ride Massilia's triremes 

Heavy with fair-haired slaves ; 
From where sweet Clanis wanders 

Through corn, and vines, and flowers 
From where Cortona lifts to heaven 

Her diadem of towers. 



Tall are the oaks whose acorns 

Drop in dark Auser's rill ; 
Fat are the stags that champ the boughs 

Of the Ciminian hill ; 
Beyond all streams Clitumnus 

Is to the herdsman dear ; 
Best of all pools the fowler loves 

The great Volsinian mere. 



"But now no stroke of woodman 
Is heard t>v Auser's rill , 
35 



No hunter tracks the stag's green path 

Up the Ciminian hill ; 
Unwatched along Clitumnus 

Grazes the milk-white steer; 
Unharmed the water-fowl may dip 

In the Volsinian mere. 

8. 
The harvests of Arretium 

This year old men shall reap ; 
This year young boys in Umbro 

Shall plunge the struggling sheep ; 
And in the vats of Luna, 

This year, the must shall foam 
Round the white feet of laughing girls 

Whose sires have marched to Rome 



There be thirty chosen prophets 

The wisest of the land, 
Who alway by Lars Porsena 

Both morn and evening stand : 
Evening and mdrn the Thirty 

Have turned the verses o'er, 
Traced from the right on linen white 

By mighty seers of yore. 

10. 

And with one voice the Thirty 

Have their glad answer given: 
" Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena 

Go forth, beloved of Heaven ; 
Go, and return in glory 

To Clusium's royal dome, 
And hang round Nurscia's altars 

The golden shields of Rome." 

11. 

And now hath every city 

Sent up her tale of men: 
The foot are fourscore thousand, 

The horse are thousands ten. 
Before the gates of Sutrium 

Is met the great array, 
A proud man was Lars Porsena 

Upon the trysting day. 

12. 
For all the Etruscan armies 

Were ranged beneath his eye, 
And many a banished Roman, 

And many a stout ally; 
And with a mighty following 

To join the muster came 
The Tusculan Mamilius, 

Prince of the Latian name. 

13. 

But by the yellow Tiber 

Was tumult and affright : 
From all the spacious champaign 

To Rome men took their flight 
A mile around the city, 

The throng stopped up the ways : 



642 



LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



A fearful sight it was to see 
Through two long nights and days. 

14. 

For aged folk on crutches, 

And women great with child, 
And mothers sobbing over babes 

That clung to them and smiled, 
And sick men borne in litters 

High on the necks of slaves, 
And troops of sun-burned husbandmen 

With reaping-hooks and staves, 

15. 

And droves of mules and asses 

Laden with skins of wine, 
And endless flocks of goats and sheep, 

And endless herds of kine, 
And endless trains of wagons 

That creaked beneath their weight 
Of corn-sacks and of household goods, 

Choked every joaring gate. 

16. 
Now, from the rock Tarpeian, 

Could the wan burghers spy 
The line of blazing villages 

Red in the midnight sky. 
The Fathers of the City, 

They sat all night and day, 
For every hour some horseman came 

With tidings of dismay. 

17. 
To eastward and to westward 

Have spread the Tuscan bands ; 
Nor house, nor fence, nor dovecote, 

In Crustumerium stands. 
Verbenna down to Ostia 

Hath wasted all the plain ; 
Astur hath stormed Janiculum, 

And the stout guards are slain. 

18. 
I wis, in all the Senate, 

There was no heart so bold, 
But sore it ached, and fast it beat, 

When that ill news was told. 
Forthwith up rose the Consul, 

Up rose the Fathers all ; 
In haste they girded up their gowns, 

And hied them to the wall. 

19. 
They held a council standing 

Before the River-gate ; 
Short time was there, ye well may guess, 

For musing or debate. 
Out spoke the Consul roundly : 

" The bridge must straight go down ; 
For, since Janiculum is lost, 

Naught else can gave the town." 

20. 
Just then a scout came flying, 

All wild with haste and fear : 
" To arms ! to arms ! Sir Consul ; 

Lars Porsena is here." 
On the low hills to westward 

The Consul fixed his eye, 
And saw the swarthy storm of dust 

Bis.e last along the sky. 



21. 



And nearer fast and nearer 

Doth the red whirlwind come ; 
And louder still and still more lona, 
From underneath that rolling cloud, 
Is heard the trumpet's war-note proud, 

The trampling and the hum. 
And plainly and more plainly 

Now through the gloom appears, 
Far to left and far to right, 
In broken gleams of dark-blue light, 
The long array of helmets bright, 

The long array of spears. 

22. 

And plainly and more plainly, 

Above that glimmering line, 
Now might ye see the banners 

Of twelve fair cities shine ; 
But the banner of proud Clusium 

Was highest of them all, 
The terror of the Umbrian, 

The terror of the Gaul. 

23. 
And plainly and more plainly 

Now might the burghers know, 
By port and vest, by horse and crest, 

Each warlike Lucumo. 
There Cilnius of Arretium 

On his fleet roan was seen ; 
And Astur of the fourfold shield, 
Girt with the brand none else may wield, 
Tolumnius with the belt of gold, 
And dark Verbenna from the hold 

By reedy Thrasymene. 

21. 

Fast by the royal standard, 

O'erlooking all the war, 
Lars Porsena of Clusium 

Sate in his ivory car. 
By the right wheel rode Mamilius, 

Prince of the Latian name ; 
And by the left false Sextus, 

That wrought the deed of shame. 

25. 
But when the face of Sextus 

Was seen among the foes, 
A yell that rent the firmament 

From all the town arose. 
On the house-tops was no woman 

But spate towards him and hissed ; 
No child but screamed out curses, 

And shook its little fist. 

26. 
But the Consul's brow was sad, 

And the Consul's speech was low, 
And darkly looked he at the wall, 

And darkly at the foe. 
" Their van will be upon us 

Before the bridge goes down ; 
And if they once may win the bridge 

What hope to save the town?" 

27. 
Then out spake brave Horatius. 
The Captain of the gate : 



HORATIUS. 



543 



14 To every man upon this earth 

Death cometh soon or late. 
And how can man die better 

Than facing fearful odds, 
For the ashes of his fathers, 

And the temples of his Gods, 

28. 
" And for the tender mother 

Who dandled him to rest, 
And for the wife who nurses 

His baby at her breast, 
And for the holy maidens 

Who feed the eternal flame, 
To save them from false Sextus 

That wrought the deed of shame 1 

29. 
" Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, 

With all the speed ye may; 
I, with two more to help me, 

Will hold the foe in play. 
In yon strait path a thousand 

May well be stopped by three. 
Now, who will stand on either hand, 

And feep the bridge with me 1" 

30. 

Then out spake Spurius Lartius, 

A Ramnian proud was he : 
" Lo, I will stand on thy right hand, 

And keep the bridge with thee." 
And out spake strong Herminius, 

Of Titian blood was he: 
" I will abide on thy left side, 

And keep the bridge with thee." 

31. 
" Horatius," quoth the Consul, 

" As thou sayest, so let it be." 
And straight against that great array 

Forth went the dauntless Three. 
For Romans in Rome's quarrel 

Spared neither land nor gold, 
Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life, 

In the brave days of old. 

32. 

Then none was for a party ; 

Then all were for the state ; 
Then the great man helped the poor, 

And the poor man loved the great : 
Then lands were fairly portioned ; 

Then spoils were fairly sold : 
The Romans were like brothers 

In the brave days of old. 

33. 

Now Roman is to Roman 

More hateful than a foe, 
And the Tribunes beard the hign, 

And the Fathers grind the low. 
As we wax hot in faction, 

In battle we wax cold ; 
Wherefore men fight not as they fought 

In the brave days of old. 

34. 

Now, while the Three were tightening 
Their harness on their backs, 

-The Consul was the foremost man 
To take in hand an axe ; 



At 1 Fathers mixed with Commons 

Seized hatchet, bar, and crow 
And smote upon the planks above, 

And loosed the props below. 

35. 

Meanwhile the Tuscan army, 

Right glorious to behold, 
Came flashing back the noonday light, 
Rank behind rank, like surges bright 

- Of a broad sea of gold. 
Four hundred trumpets sounded 

A peal of warlike glee, 
As that great host, with measured tread, 
And spears advanced, and ensigns spread, 
Rolled slowly towards the bridge's head, 

Where stood the dauntless Three. 

36. 
The Three stood calm and silent, 

And looked upon the foes, 
And a great shout of laughter 

From all the vanguard rose : 
And forth three chiefs came spurring 

Before that mighty mass ; 
To earth they sprang, their swords they drew 
And lifted high their shields, and flew 

To win the narrow pass ; 

37. 
Aunus from green Tifernum, 

Lord of the Hill of Vines ; 
And Seius, whose eight hundred slaves 

Sicken in Ilva's mines ; 
And Picus, long to Clusium 

Vassal in peace and war, 
Who led to fight his Umbrian powers 
Frcm that gray crag where, girt with towen 
The fortress of Nequinum lowers 

O'er the pale waves of Nar. 

38. 
Stout Lartius hurled down Aunus 

Into the stream beneath ; 
Herminius struck at Seius, 

And clove him to the teeth ; 
At Picus brave Horatius 

Darted one fiery thrust, 
And the proud Umbrian's gilded arnu 

Clashed in the bloody dust. 

39. 
Then Ocnus of Falerii 

Rushed on the Roman Three ; 
And Lausulus of Urgo 

The rover of the sea ; 
And Aruns of Volsinium, 

Who slew the great wild boar, 
The great wild boar that had his dea 
Amidst the reeds of Cosa's fen, 
And wasted fields and slaughtered mm 

Along Albinia's shore. 

40. 
Herminius smote down Aruns ; 

Lartius laid Ocnus low : 
Right to the heart of Lausulus 

Horat ius sent a blow. 
" Lie there," he cried, " fell pirate ' 

No more, aghast and pale, 



544 



LAYS OF ANCIENT ROML. 



From Ostia's walls tne crowd shall mark 
The track of thy destroying bark. 
No more Campania's hinds shall fl tf 
To woods and caverns when they spy 
Thy thrice accursed sail." 

41. 
Dut now no sound of laughter 

Was heard amongst the foes. 
A wild and wrathful clamour 

From all the vanguard rose. 
Six spears' lengths from the entrance 

Halted that mighty mass, 
And for a space no man came forth 

To win the narrow pass. 

42. 
But hark ! the cry is Astur : 
And lo ! the ranks divide ; 
And the great Lord of Luna 

Comes with his stately stride. 
Upon his ample shoulders 
. Clangs loud the fourfold shield, 
And in his hand he shakes the brand 
Which none but he can wield. 

43. 
He smiled on those bold Romans 

A smile serene and high ; 
He eyed the flinching Tuscans, 

And scorn was in his eye. 
Quoth he, " The she-wolf's litter 

Stand savagely at bay : 
But will ye dare to follow, 

If Astur clears the way?" 

44. 
Then, whirling up his broadsword 

With both hands to the height, 
He rushed against Horatius, 

And smote with all his might. 
With shield and blade Horatius 

Right deftly turned the blow. 
The blow, though turned, came yet too nigh ; 
It missed his helm, but gashed his thigh : 
The Tuscans raised a joyful cry 

To see the red blood flow. 

45. 
He reeled, and on Herminius 

He leaned one breathing-space ; 
Then, like a wild cat mad with wounds, 

Sprang right at Astur's face. 
Through teeth, and skull, and helmet, 

So fierce a thrust he sped, 
The good sword stood a hand-breadth out 

Behind the Tuscan's head. 

46. 
And the great Lord of Luna 

Fell at that deadly stroke, 
A* falls on Mount Al vermis 

A thunder-smitten oak. 
Far o'er the crashing forest 

The giant arms lie spread ; 
A.nd the pale augurs, muttering low, 

Gaze on the blasted head. 

47. 
fro Astur's throat Horatius 
Right firmly tssed his heel, 



And thric° and four times tuggea amum. 

Ere he wrenched out the steel. 
" And see," he cried " the welcome, 

Fair guests, that waits you here ! 
What noble Lucumo comes next 

To taste our Roman cheer V 

48. 
But at his haughty challenge 

A sullen murmur ran, 
Mingled of wrath, and shame, and dreadj 

Along that glittering van. 
There lacked not men of prowess, 

Nor men of lordly race ; 
For all Etruria's noblest 

Were round the fatal place. 

49. 
But all Etruria's noblest 

Felt their hearts sink to see 
On the earth the bloody corpses, 

In the path the dauntless Three : 
And, from the ghastly entrance 

Where those bold Romans stood, 
All shrank, like boys who unaware, 
Ranging the woods to start a hare, 
Come to the mouth of the dark lair 
Where, growling low, a fierce old bea» 

Lies amidst bones and blood. 

50. 
Was none who would be foremost 

To lead such dire attack ; 
But those behind cried " Forward !" 

And those before cried " Back !" 
And backward now and forward 

Wavers the deep array ; 
And on the tossing sea of steel, 
To and fro the standards reel ; 
And the victorious trumpet-peal 

Dies fitfully away. 

51. 

Yet one man for one moment 

Strode out before the crowd ; 
Well known was he to all the Three, 

And they gave him greeting loud. 
"Now welcome, welcome, Sextus ! 

Now welcome to thy home ! 
Why dost thou stay, and turn away * 

Here lies the road to Rome " 

52. 
Thrice looked he on the city; 

Thrice looked he on the dead* 
And thrice came on in fury, 

And thrice turned back in dread 
And, white with fear and hatred, 

Scowled at the narrow way 
Where, wallowing in a pool of blood. 

The bravest Tuscans lay. 

53. 
But meanwhile axe and lever 

Have manfully been plied, 
And now the bridge hangs tottering 

Above the boiling tide. 
" Come back, come back, Horatius '" 
• Loud cried the Fathers all. 
"Back, Lartius ! back, Herminius ! 

Back, ere the ruin fall !" 



HORATIUS 



6*5 



54. 
Back darted Spurius Lartius ; 

Herminius darted back : 
And, as they passed, beneath their feet 

They felt the timbers crack. 
But when they turned their faces, 

And on the farther shore 
Saw brave Horatius stand alone, 

They would have crossed once more. 

55. 
But with a crash like thunder 

Fell every loosened beam, 
And, like a dam, the mighty wreck 

Lay right athwart the stream : 
And a long shout of triumph 

Rose from the walls of Rome, 
As to the highest turret-tops 

Was splashed the yellow foam. 

56. 
And like a horse unbroken 

When first he feels the rein, 
The furious river struggled hard, 

And Jpssed his tawny mane ; 
And burst the curb, and bounded, 
' Rejoicing to be free ; 
And whirling down, in fierce career 
Battlement, and plank, and pier, 

Rushed headlong to the sea. 

57. 
Alone stood brave Horatius., 

But constant still in mind ; 
Thrice thirty thousand foes before, 

And the broad flood behind. 
" Down with him !" cried false Sextus, 

With a smile on his pale face. 
" Now yield thee," cried Lars Porsena, 

" Now yield thee to our grace." 

58. 
Round turned he, as not deigning 

Those craven ranks to see ; 
Naught spake he to Lars Porsena, 

To Sextus naught spake he ;] 
But he saw on Palatinus 

The white porch of his home ; 
And he spake to the noble river 

That rolls by the towers of Rome. 

59. 
" Oh, Tiber ! father Tiber ! 

To whom the Romans pray, 
A Roman's life, a Roman's arms, 

Take thou in charge this day !" 
So he spake, and speaking sheathed 

The good sword by his side, 
And, with his harness on his back, 

Plunged headlong in the tide. 

60. 
No sound of joy or sorrow 

Was heard from either bank ; 
But friends and foes in dumb surprise, 
With parted lips and straining eyes, 

Stood gazing where he sank ; 
And when above the surges 

They saw his crest appear, 
All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry, 
And even the ranks of Tuscany 

Could scarce forbear to cheer. 



61. 

But fiercely ran the current, 

Swollen high by months of rain t 
And fast his blood was flowing ; 

And he was sore in pain, 
And heavy with his armour, 

And spent with changing blows : 
And oft they thought him sinking, 

But still again he rose. 

62. 

Never, I ween, did swimmer, 

. In such an evil case, 
Struggle through such a raging flood 

Safe to the landing place : 
But his limbs were borne up bravely 

By the brave heart within, 
And our good father Tiber 

Bare bravely up his chin.* 

63. 

" Curse on him !" quoth false Sextus 

" Will not the villain drown ] 
But for this stay, ere close of day 

We should have sacked the town I" 
" Heaven help him !" quoth Lars Porte na, 

" And bring him safe to shore ; 
For such a gallant feat of arms 

Was never seen before." 

64. 

And now he feels the bottom ; 

Now on dry earth he stands , 
Now round him throng the Fathers 

To press his gory hands ; 
And now with shouts and clapping, 
>:•' And noise of weeping loud, 
He enters through the River-gate, 

Borne by the joyous crowd. 

65. 

They gave him of the corn-land, 

That was of public right, 
As much as two strong oxen 

Could plough from morn till night. 
And they made a molten image, 

And set it up on high, 
And there it stands unto this day 

To witness if I lie. 

66. 

It stands in the Comitium, 

Plain for all folk to see ; 
Horatius in his harness, 

Halting upon one knee ; 
And underneath is written, 

In letters all of gold, 
How valiantly he kept the bridge 

In the brave days of old. 



* " Our ladye bare upp her chinne." 

Ballad of Childe Water** 

"Never heavier man and horse 
Stemmed a midnight torrent's force ; 

* * * * • 

Yet through good heart and our lady's grace, 
At length he gained the landing-place. 

Lay of the Last Minstrel, I. 



546 



LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



67. 
Ar.d still his name sounds stirring 

Unto the men of Rome, 
As the trumpet blast that cries to them 

To charge the Volscian home ; 
And wives still pray to Juno 

For boys with hearts as bold 
As his who kept the bridge so well 

In the brave days of old. 



A.nd in the nights of winter, 

When the cold north winds blow, 
And the long howling of the wolves 

Is heard amidst the snow ; 
When round the lonely cottage 

Roars loud the tempest's din, 
And the good logs of Algidus 

Roar louder yet witfhic ; 



69. 
When the oldest cask is opened, 

And the largest lamp is lit, 
When the chestnuts glow in the embers^ 

And the kid turns on the spit ; 
When young and old in circle 

Around the firebrands close ; 
When the girls are weaving baskets, 

And the lads are shaping bows ; 

70. 
When the goodman mends his armour, 

And trims his helmet's plume ; 
When the goodwife's shuttle merrily 

Goes flashing through the loom ; 
With weeping and with laughter 

Still is the story told, 
How well Horatius kept the bridge 

2i :i3 brave days of old. 



THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 



547 



THE BATTLE OE THE LAKE REGILLUS. 



The following poem is supposed to have 
ceen produced ninety years after the lay of 
Horatius. Some persons mentioned in the lay 
of Horatius make their appearance again, and 
some appellations and epithets used in the lay 
of Horatius have been purposely repeated; for, 
in an age of ballad-poetry, it scarcely ever 
fails to happen, that certain phrases come to 
be appropriated to certain men and things, 
and are regularly applied to those men and 
things by every minstrel. Thus we find both 
in the Homeric poems and in Hesiod, 0i» 'Hg*- 
zKhiih, mgjx.Xv'TQS 'A/wfryuMU!, Siawroeps ' Agyetpovn;, 
iindvuKo; ©«',<2», "Exivus eW tivx.ifji.oio. Thus, too, in 
our own national songs, Douglas is almost 
always the doughty Douglas: England is 
merry Enfland : all the gold is red ; and all 
the ladies are gay. 

The principal distinction between the lay of 
Horatius and the lay of the Lake Regillus is, 
that the former is meant to be purely Roman, 
while the latter, though national in its general 
spirit, has a slight tincture of Greek learning 
and of Greek superstition. The story of the 
Tarquins, as it has come down to us, appears 
to have been compiled from the works of seve- 
ral popular poets ; and one, at least, of those 
poets appears to have visited the Greek colo- 
nies in Italy, if not Greece itself, and to have 
had some acquaintance with the works of Ho- 
mer and Herodotus. Many of the most strik- 
ing adventures of the house of Tarquin, till 
Lucretia makes her appearance, have a Greek 
character. The Tarquins themselves are re- 
presented as Corinthian nobles of the great 
house of the Bacchiadse, driven from their 
country by the tyranny of that Cypselus, the 
tale of whose strange escape Herodotus has re- 
lated with incomparable simplicity and liveli- 
ness.* Livy and Dionysius tell us that, when 
Tarquin the Proud was asked what was the 
best mode of governing a conquered city, he 
replied only by beating down with his staff all 
the tallest poppies in his garden.-]- This is ex- 
actly what Herodotus, in the passage to which 
reference has already been made, relates of the 
counsel given to Periander, the son of Cypse- 
lus. The stratagem by which the town of 
Gabii is brought under the power of the Tar- 
quins is, again, obviously copied from Herodo- 
tus.}: The embassy of the young Tarquins to 
the oracle at Delphi is just such a story as 
would be told by a poet whose head was full 
of the Greek mythology ; and the ambiguous 
answer returned by Apollo is in the exact 
style of the prophecies which, according to He- 
rodotus, lured Crasus to destruction. Then 
the character of the narrative changes. From 
the first mention of Lucretia to the re treat of 



• Herodotus, v. 92. Livy, i. 34. Dionysius, iii. 46. 
fLivy, i. 54. Dionysius, iv. 56. 
t Her jdotus, iii. 154. Livy, i. 53. 



Porsena nothing seems to be borrowed from 
foreign sources. The villany of Sexlus, the 
suicide of his victim, the revolution, the death 
of the sons of Brutus, the defence of the bridge, 
Mucius burning his hand,* Claslia swimming 
through Tiber, seem to be all strictly Roman. 
But when we have done with the Tuscan war, 
and enter upon the war with the Latines, we 
are again struck by the Greek air of the story. 
The Battle of the Lake Regillus is in all re- 
spects a Homeric battle, except that the com- 
batants ride astride on their horses, instead of 
driving chariots. The mass of fighting men is 
hardly mentioned. The leaders single each 
other out, and engage hand to hand. The great 
object of the warriors on both sides is, as in 
the Iliad, to obtain possession of the spoils and 
bodies of the slain ; and several circumstances 
are related which forcibly remind us of the 
great slaughter round the corpses of Sarpedon 
and Patroclus. 

But there is one circumstance which de- 
serves especial notice. Both the war of Troy 
and the war of Regillus were caused by the 
licentious passions of young princes, who were 
therefore peculiarly bound not to be sparing of 
their own persons in the day of battle. Now 
the conduct of Sextus at Regillus, as described 
by Livy, so exactly resembles that of Paris, as 
described at the beginning of the third book of 
the Iliad, that it is difficult to believe the re- 
semblance accidental. Paris appears before 
the Trojan ranks, defying the bravest Greek to 
encounter him : 

Tpcoalv filvKpon&x^v 'AM^avSpos Bsoei5t]i, 

'Apyeiwv rpoxaAf^ero -navras dpiaTOv;, 

dvTi/Siov iiaxtaaodai iv aiVjf Srj'ioTrjn. 

Livy introduces Sextus in a similar manne/ : 
" Ferocem juvenem Tarquinium, ostentantem 
se in prima exsulum acie." Menelaus rushes 
to meet Paris. A Roman noble, eager for 
vengeance, spurs his horse towards Sextus. 
Both the guilty princes are instantly terror- 
stricken • 

Tov S' wj ovv lv6t)oc.v 'AXi^avSpos BeociSni, 
iv irpofiaxoiai (pavevra, Karcw\f)yq (fiiXov rjTop, 
aip S' irapuiv eis cdvoi ixdX,BTO Krjp d^eeivcov. 

" Tarquinius," says Livy, " retro in agmen 
suorum infenso cessit hosti." If this be a 
fortuitous coincidence, it is one of the most ex- 
traordinary in literature. 

In the following poem, therefore, images 
and incidents have been borrowed, not merely 
without scruple, but on principle, from the in 
comparable battle-pieces of Homer. 



* M. de Pouilly attempted, a hundred and twenty 
years ago, to prove that the story of Mucius waa of 
Greek origin ; but he was signally confuted by the &.bM 
Sallier. See the Mimoires de I'Acadimie det Interim- 
tions, vi. 27, 66. 



5i8 



LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



The popular belief at Rome, from an early 
period, seems to have been that the event of 
the great day of Regillus was decided by su- 
pernatural agency. Castor and Pollux, it was 
said, had fought, armed and mounted, at the 
head of the legions of the commonwealth, and 
had afterwards carried the news of the victory 
with incredible speed to the city. The well in 
the Forum at which they had alighted was point- 
ed out. Near the well rose their ancient temple. 
A great festival was kept to their honour on 
(he Ides of Qumtilis, supposed to be the anni- 
versary of the battle ; and on that day sumptu- 
ous sacrifices were offered to them at the pub- 
lic charge. One spot on the margin of Lake 
Regillus was regarded during many ages with 
superstitious awe. A mark, resembling in 
shape a horse's hoof, was discernible in the 
volcanic rock ; and this mark was believed 
to have been made by one of the celestial 
chargers. 

How the legend originated, cannot now be 
ascertained : but we may easily imagine seve- 
ral ways in which it might have originated : 
nor is it at all necessary to suppose, with Julius 
Frontinus, that two young men were dressed up 
by the Dictator to personate the sons of Leda. 
It is probable that Livy is correct when he says 
that the Roman general, in the hour of peril, 
vowed a temple to Castor. If so, nothing 
could be more natural than that the multitude 
should ascribe the victory to the favour of the 
Twin Gods. When such was the prevailing 
sentiment, any man who chose to declare that, 
in the midst of the confusion and slaughter, he 
had seen two godlike forms on white horses 
scattering the Latines, would find ready cre- 
dence. We know, indeed, that, in modern 
times, a very similar story actually found cre- 
dence among a people much more civilized 
than the Romans of the fifth century before 
Christ. A chaplain of Cortes, writing about 
thirty years after the conquest of Mexico, in 
an age of printing-presses, libraries, universi- 
ties, scholars, logicians, jurists, and statesmen, 
had the face to assert that, in one engagement 
against the Indians, St. James had appeared 
on a gray horse at the head of the Castilian 
adventurers. Many of these adventurers were 
.iving when this lie was printed. One of them, 
honest Bernal Diaz, wrote an account of the 
expedition. He had the evidence of his own 
senses against the chaplain's legend ; but he 
seems to have distrusted even the evidence of 
his own senses. He says that he was in the 
battle, and that he saw a gray horse with a 
man on his back, but that the man was, to his 
thinking, Francesco de Morla, and not the ever- 
blessed apostle St. James. "Nevertheless," 
he adds, " it may be that the person on the gray 
horse was the glorious apostle St. James, and 
thai I, sinner that I am, was unworthy to see 
him.'' The Romans of the age of Cincinnatus 
were probably quite as credulous as the Spa- 
nish aibjccts of Charles the Fifth. It is there- 
fore conceivable that the appearance of Castor 
and Pollux may have become an article of 
faita before the generation which had fought 
at Regillus had passed away. Nor could any 
thing he more natural than that the poets of the 
next age should embellish this story, and make 



the celestial horsemen bear the tidings cf vie 
tory to Rome. 

Many years after the temple of the Twin 
Gods had been built in the Forum, an import 
ant addition was made to the ceremonial by 
which the state annually testified its gratitude 
for their protection. Quintus Fabius and Pub- 
lius Decius were elected Censors at a mo- 
mentous crisis. It had become absolutely 
necessary that the classification of the citizens 
should be revised. On that classification de- 
pended the distribution of political power. 
Party spirit ran high ; and the republic seemed 
to be in danger of falling under the dominion 
either of a narrow oligarchy or of an ignorant 
and headstrong rabble. Under such circum- 
stances, the most illustrious patrician and the 
most illustrious plebeian of the age were in- 
trusted with the office of arbitrating between 
the angry factions ; and they performed their 
arduous task to the satisfaction of all honest 
and reasonable men. 

One of their reforms was a remodelling of 
the equestrian order ; and, having effected this 
reform, they determined to give to their work 
a sanction derived from religion. In the chi- 
valrous societies of modern times, societies 
which have much more than may at first sight 
appear in common with the equestrian order 
of Rome, it has been usual to invoke the special 
protection of some Saint, and to observe his 
day with peculiar solemnity. Thus the Com- 
panions of the Garter wear the image of St. 
George depending from their collars, and meet, 
on great occasions, in St. George's Chapel. 
Thus, when Louis the Fourteenth instituted a 
new order of chivalry for the rewarding of mi- 
litary merit, he commended it to the favour of 
his own glorified ancestor and patron, and 
decreed that all the members of the fraternity 
should meet at the royal palace on the Feast 
of St. Louis, should attend the king to chapel, 
should hear mass, and should subsequently 
hold their great annual assembly. There is a 
considerable resemblance between this rule of 
the Order of St. Louis and the rule which Fa- 
bius and Decius made respecting the Roman 
knights. It was ordained that a grand muster 
and inspection of the equestrian body should 
be part of the ceremonial performed, on the 
anniversary of the battle of Regillus, in honour 
of Castor and Pollux, the two equestrian Gods. 
All the knights, clad in purple and crowned 
with olive, were to meet at a temple of Mars in 
the suburbs. Thence they were to ride in state 
to the Forum, where the temple of the Twins 
stood. This pageant was, during several cen- 
turies, considered as one of the most splendid 
sights of Rome. In the time of Dionysius the 
cavalcade sometimes consisted of five thou- 
sand horsemen, all persons of fair repute and 
easy fortune.* 

There can be no doubt that the Censors who 
instituted this magnificent ceremony acted in 
concert with the Pontiffs to whom, by the con- 
stitution of Rome, the superintendence of the 



* See Livy, ix. 46. Val. Max., ii. 2. Aurel. Vict. Da 
Viris Illustribus, 32. Dionysius, vi. 13. Plin. Hist 
Nat. xv. 5. See also the singularly ingenious chapter 
in Niebuhr's posthumous volume, £>ie, Censur del Q 
Fabius und P. Decius. 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 



549 



public worship belonged ; and it is probable 
that those high religious functionaries were, 
as usual, fortunate enough to find in their 
books or traditions some warrant for the inno- 
vation. 

The following poem is supposed to have 
been made for this great occasion. Songs, we 
know, were chanted at the religious festivals 
of Rome from an early period, indeed from so 
early a period that some of the sacred verses 
were popularly ascribed to Numa, and were 
utterly unintelligible in the age of Augustus. 
In the Second Punic War a great feast was 
held in honour of Juno, and a song was sung 
in her praise. This song was extant when 
Livy Wrote; and, though exceedingly rugged 
and uncouth, seemed to him not wholly desti- 
tute of merit.* A song, as we learn from Ho- 
race, was part of the established ritual at the 
great Secular Jubilee.f It is therefore likely 
that the Censors and Pontiffs, when they had 
resolved to add a grand procession of knights 
to the other solemnities annually performed on 
the Ides of Quintilis, would call in the aid of a 
poet. Such a poet would naturally take for 
his subject the battle of Regillus, the appear- 
ance of the Twin Gods, and the institution of 
their feslival. He would find abundant mate- 
rials in the ballads of his predecessors; and he 
would make free use of the scanty stock of 
Greek learning which he had himself acquired. 
He would probably introduce some wise and 



holy Pontiff enjoining the magnificent ceremo 
nial which, after a long interval, had at length 
been adopted. If the poem succeeded, many 
persons would commit it to memory. Parts ot' 
it would be sung to the pipe at banquets. Is 
would be peculiarly interesting to the great 
Posthumian house, which numbered among 
its many images that of the Dictator Aulus, th« 
hero of Regillus. The orator who, in the fol- 
lowing generation, pronounced the funeral 
panegyric over the remains of Lucius Posthu- 
mius Megellus, thrice Consul, would borrow 
largely from the lay; and thus some passages, 
much disfigured, would probably find their 
way into the chronicles which were afterwards 
in the hands of Dionysius and Livy. 

Antiquaries differ widely as to the situation 
of the field of battle. The opinion of those who 
suppose that the armies met near Cornufelle, 
between Frascati and the Monte Porzio, is, at 
least, plausible, and has been followed in the 
poem. 

As to the details of the battle, it has not been 
thought desirable to adhere minutely to the ac- 
counts which have come down to us. Those 
accounts, indeed, differ widely from each other, 
and, in all probability, differ as widely from the 
ancient poem from Avhich they were originally 
derived. 

It is unnecessary to point out the obvious 
imitations of the Iliad, which have been pur 
posely introduced. 



THE 

BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 

LAV SUNG AT THE FEAST OF CASTOR AND POLLUX ON THE IDES OF QUINTILIS, IN THE ? ! 

OF THE CITY CCCCLI. 



1. 

Ho, trumpets, sound a war-note ! 

Ho, lictors, clear the way ! 
The Knights will ride, in all their pride, 

Along the streets to-day. 
To-day the doors and windows 

Are hung with garlands all, 
From Castor in the Forum, 

To Mars without the wall. 
Each Knight is robed in purple, 

With olive each is crown'd ; 
A gallant war-horse under each 

Paws haughtily the ground. 
While flows the Yellow River, 

While stands the Sacred Hill, 
The proud Ides of Quintilis 

Shall have such honour still. 
Gay are the Martian Kalends : 

December's Nones are gay . [rides, 

But the proud Ides, when the squadron 

Shall be Rome's whitest day. 

2. 

Unto the Great Twin Brethren 
We keep this solemn feast. 

♦ I.ivy, xxvii. 37. f Ilor. Carmen Seculare 



Swift, swift, the Great Twin Brethren 

Came spurring from the east. 
They came o'er wild Parthenius 

Tossing in waves of pine, 
O'er Cirrha's dome, o'er Adria's foam, 

O'er purple Apennine, 
From where with flutes and dances 

Their ancient mansion rings, 
In lordly Lacedasmon, 

The City of two kings, 
To where, by Lake Regillus, 

Under the Porcian height, 
All in the lands of Tusculum, 

Was fought the glorious fight. 

3. 

Now on the place of slaughter 

Are cots and sheepfolds seen, 
And rows of vines, and fields of wheal 

And apple-orchards green. 
The swine crush the big acorns 

That fall from Corne's oaks : 
Upon the turf by the Fair Fount 

The reaper's pottage smokes. 
The fisher baits his angle ; 

The hunter twangs his bow , 



550 



LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



Little they think on those strong limbs 

That moulder deep below. 
Little they think how sternly 

That day the trumpets pealed ; 
How in the slippery swamp of blood 

Warrior and war-horse reeled ; 
How wolves came with fierce gallop, 

And crows on eager wings, 
To tear the flesh of captains, 

And peck the eyes of kings ; 
How thick the dead lay scattered 

Under the Porcian height ; 
How through the gates of Tusculum 

Raved the wild stream of flight; 
And how the Lake Regillus 

Bubbled with crimson foam, 
What time the Thirty Cities 

Came forth to war with Rome. 



But, Roman, when thou standest 

Upon that holy ground, 
Look thou with heed on the dark rock 

That girds the dark lake round. 
So shalt thou see a hoof-mark 

Stamped deep into the flint : 
It was no hoof of mortal steed 

That made so strange a dint : 
There to the Great Twin Brethren 

"Vow thou thy vows, and pray 
That they, in tempest and in fight, 

Will keep thy head alway. 



Since last the Great Twin Brethren 

Of mortal eyes were seen, 
Have years gone by a hundred 

And fourscore and thirteen. 
That summer a Virginius 

Was Consul first in place i 
The second was stout Aulus, 

Of the Posthumian race. 
The Herald of the Latines; 

From Gabii came in state : 
The Herald of the Latines 

Passed through Rome's Eastern Ga.e : 
The Herald of the Latines 

Did in our Forum stand ; 
And there he did his oflice, 

A sceptre in his hand. 



" Hear, Senators and people 

Of the good town of Rome : 
The Thirty Cities charge you 

To bring the Tarquins home : 
And if ye still be stubborn, 

To work the Tarquins wrong, 
The Thirty Cities warn you, 

Look that your walls be strong 



Then spake the Consul Aulus, 

He spake a bitter jest ; 
" Once the jays sent a message 

Unto the eagle's nest : — 
Now yield thou up thine eyrie 

Unto the carrion-kite, 
CJr come forth valiantly, and face 

The jays in deadly fight. — 



Fortr. looked in wrath the eagle ; 

At-1 carrion-kite and jay, 
Soon as they saw his beak and claw, 

Fled screaming far away." 

8. 
The Herald of the Latines 

Hath hied him back in state . 
The Fathers of the City 

Are met in high debate. 
Then spake the elder Consul, 

An ancient man and wise : 
"Now hearken, Conscript Father*. 

To that which I advise. 
In seasons of great peril 

'Tis good that one bear sway, 
Then choose we a Dictator, 

Whom all men shall obey. 
Camerium knows how deeply 

The sword of Aulus bites ; 
And all our city calls him 

The man of seventy fights. 
Then let him be Dictator 

For six months and no more, 
And have a Master of the Knights, 

And axes twenty-four." 

9. 
So Aulus was Dictator, 

The man of seventy fights ; 
He made iEbutius Elva 

His Master of the Knights. 
On the third morn thereafter, 

At dawning of the day, 
Did Aulus and iEbutius 

Set forth with their array. 
Sempronius Atratinus 

Was left in charge at home 
With boys and with gray-headed mra. 

To keep the walls of Rome, 
Hard by the Lake Regillus! 

Our camp was pitched at night ; 
Eastward a mile the Latines lay, 

Under the Porcian height. 
Far over hill and valley 

Their mighty host was spread ; 
And with their thousand watchfires 

The midnight sky was red. 

10. 
Up rose the golden morning 

Over the Porcian height, 
The proud ides of Quintilis 

Marked evermore with white. 
Not without secret trouble 

Our bravest saw the foes, 
For, girt by threescore thousand speari, 

The thirty standards rose. 
From every warlike city 

That boasts the Latian name, 
Foredoomed to dr gs and vultures, 

That gallant army came ; 
From Setia's purple vineyards, 

From Norba's ancient wall, 
From the white streets of Tusculum, 

The proudest town of all ; 
From where the Witch's Fortress 

O'erhangs the dark-blue seas, 
From the still glassy lake that sleep* 

Beneath Aricia's trees — 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 



Ml 



Those trees in wnosc dim shadow 

The ghastly priest doth reign, 
The priest who slew the slayer, 

And shall himself be slain ; — 
From the drear banks of Ufens, 

Where nights of marsh-fowl play, 
And buffaloes lie wallowing 

Through the hot summer's day; 
From the gigantic watch-towers, 

No work of earthly men, 
Whence Cora's sentinels o'erlook 

The never-ending fen ; 
From the Laurentian jungle, 

The wild hog's reedy home, 
^rom the green steps whence Anio leaps 

1 n. floods of snow-white foam. 

11. 

Aricia, Cora, Norba, 

Velitrse, with the might 
Of Setia and of Tusculum, 

Were marshalled on their right: 
Their leader was Mamilius, 

Prince of the Latian name ; 
Upon his head a helmet 

Of red gold shone like flame : 
High on a gallant charger 

Of dark-gray hue he rode ; 
Over his gilded armour 

A vest of purple flowed, 
Woven in the land of sunrise 

By Syria's dark-brewed daughters, 
And by the sails of Carthage brought 

Far o'er the southern waters. 

12. 
Lavinium and Circeium 

Had on the left their post, 
With all the banners of the marsh, 

And banners of the coast. 
Their leader was false Sextus, 

That wrought the deed of shame : 
With restless pace and haggard face, 

To his last field he came. 
Men said he saw strange visions, 

Which none beside might see ; 
And that strange sounds were in his ears, 

Which none might hear but he. 
A woman fair and stately, 

But pale as are the dead, 
Oft through the watches of the night 

Sate spinning by his bed. 
And as she plied the distaff, 

In a sweet voice and low, 
She sang of great old houses, 

And fights fought long ago. 
So spun she, and so sung she, 

Until the east was gray; 
Then pointed to her bleeding breast, 

And shrieked, and fled away. 

13. 

But in the centre thickest 

Were ranged the shields of foes, 
And from the centre loudest 

The cry of battle rose. 
There Tibur marched and Pedum 

Beneath proud Tarquin's rule, 
And Ferentinum of the rock, 

And Gabii of the pool. 



There rode the Volscian succours 

There, in a dark, stern ring, 
The Roman exiles gathered close 

Around the ancient king. 
Though white as Mount Soracte, 

When winter nights are long, 
His beard flowed down o'er mail and b^lt, 

His heart and hand were strong : 
Under his hoary eyebrows 

Still flashed forth quenchless rage . 
And if the lance shook in his gripe, 

'Twas more with hate than age. 
Close at his side was Titus 

On an Apulian steed, 
Titus, the youngest Tarquin, 

Too good for such a breed. 

14. 

Now on each side the leaders 

Gave signal for the charge ; 
And on each side the footmen 

Strode on with lance and targe ; 
And on each side the horsemen 

Struck their spurs deep in gore, 
And front to front the armies 

Met with a mighty roar : 
And under that great battle 

The earth with blood was red ; 
And, like the Pomptine fog at morn, 

The dust hung overhead ; 
And louder still and louder 

Rose from the darkened fie.d 
The braying of the war-horns, 

The clang of sword and shield, 
The rush of squadrons sweeping 

Like whirlwinds o'er the plain, 
The shouting of the slayers, 

And screeching of the slain. 



15. 

False Sextus rode out foremost « 

His look was high and bold ; 
His corslet was of bison's hide. 

Plated with steel and gold. 
As glares the famished eagle 

From the Digentian rock, 
On a choice lamb that bounds alone 

Before Bandusia's flock, 
Herminius glared on Sextus, 

And came with eagle speed ; 
Herminius on black Auster, 

Brave champion on brave steed. 
In his right hand the broadsword 

That kept the bridge so well, 
And on his helm the crown he won 

When proud Fidenae fell. 
Wo to the maid whose lover 

Shall cross his path to-day ! 
False Sextus saw, and trembled, 

And turned, and fled away. 
As turns, as flies, the woodman 

In the Calabrian brake, 
When through the reeds gleam3 the 'j und 
eye 

Of that fell painted snake ; 
So turned, so fled, false Sextus, 

And hid him in the rear, 
Behind the dark Lavinian ranks, 

Bristling with crest and spear 



563 



LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



16. 
Then far to North ^Ebutius, 

The Master of the Knights, 
Gave Tubero of Norba 

To feed the Porcian kites. 
Next under those red horse-hoofs 

Flaccus of Setia lay; 
Better had he been pruning 

Among his elms that day. 
Mamilius saw the slaughter, 

And tossed his golden crest, 
And towards the Master of the Knights 

Through the thick battle pressed. 
^Ebutius smote Mamilius 

•So fiercely on the shield, 
That the great lord of Tusculum 

Wellnigh rolled on the field. 
Mamilius smote iEbutius, 

With a good aim and true, 
lust where the neck and shoulder join, 

And pierced him through and through ; 
And brave ^Ebutius Elva 

Fell swooning to the ground : 
But a thick wall of bucklers 

Encompassed him around. 
His clients from the battle 

Bare him some little space ; 
And filled a helm from the dark lake, ' 

And bathed his brow and face ; 
And when at last he opened 

His swimming eyes to light, 
Men say, the earliest word he spake 

Was, "Friends, how goes the fight V 

17. 
But meanwhile in the centre 

Great deeds of arms were wrought ; 
There Aulus the Dictator, 

And there Valerius fought. 
Aulus, with his good broadsword, 

A bloody passage cleared 
To where, amidst the thickest foes, 

He saw the long white beard. 
Flat lighted that good broadsword 

Upon proud Tarquin's head. 
He dropped the lance : he dropped the reins 

He fell as fall the dead. 
Down Aulus springs to slay him, 

With eyes like coals of fire ; 
But faster Titus hath sprung down, 

And hath bestrode his sire. 
Latian captains, Roman knights, 

Fast down to earth they spring ; 
And hand to hand they fight on foot 

Around the ancient king. 
First Titus gave tall Casso 

A death wound in the face ; 
Tall Cseso was the bravest man 

Of the brave Fabian race : 
Aulus slew Rex of Gabii, 

The priest of Juno's shrine : 
Valerius smote down Julius, 

Of Rome's great Julian line ; 
fuliu.s, who left his mansion 

High on the Velian hill, 
And through all turns of weal and wo 

Followed proud Tarquin still. 
Now right across proud Tarquin 

A corpse was Julius laid : 
And Titus groaned with rage a: d grief, 

And at Valerius made 



Valerius struck at Titus, 

And lopped off half his crest; 
But Titus stabbed Valerius 

A span deep in the breast. 
Like a mast snapped by the tempesfc, 

Valerius reeled and fell. 
Ah ! wo is me for the good house 

That loves the people well ! 
Then shouted loud the Latines ; 

And with one rush they bore 
The struggling Romans backward 

Three lances' length and more : 
And up they took proud Tarquin, 

And laid him on a shield, 
And four, strong yeomen bare him, 

Still senseless, from the field. 

18. 
But fiercer grew the fighting 

Around Valerius dead ; 
For Titus dragged him by the foot, 

And Aulus by the head. 
" On, Latines, on !" quoth Titus, 

"See how the rebels fly!" 
" Romans, stand firm !" quoth Aulus, 

" And win this fight or die ! 
They must not give Valerius 

To raven and to kite ; 
For aye Valerius loathed the wrong, 

And aye upheld the right : 
And for your wives and babies 

In the front rank he fell. 
Now play the men for the good hcuss 

That loves the people well !" 

19. 

Then tenfold round the body 

The roar of battle rose, 
Like the roar of a burning forest, 

When a strong northwind blows. 
Now backward, and now forward, 

Rocked furiously the fray, 
Till none could see Valerius, 

And none wist where he lay. 
For shivered arms and ensigns 

Were heaped there in a mound, 
And corpses stiff, and dying men 

That writhed and gnawed the ground 
And wounded horses kicking, 

And snorting purple foam : 
Right well did such a couch befit 

A Consular of Rome. 

20. 
But north looked the Dictator ; 

North looked he long and hard ; 
And spake to Caius Cossus, 

The Captain of his Guard : 
" Caius, of all the Romans 

Thou hast the keenest sight ; 
Say, what through yonder storm cf 2csJ 

Comes from the Latian right V 

21. 
Then answered Caius Cossus : 

" I see an evil sight ; 
The banner of proud Tusculum 

Comes from the Latian right , 
I see the plumed horsemen ; 

And far before the rest 
I see the dark-gray charger, 

I see the purple vest ; 



BATTLE OP THE LAKE REGILLU8. 



fi53 



see the golden nelraet 
That shines far off like flame ; 
So ever rides Mamilius, 
Prince of the Latian name." 

22. 
M Now, hearken, Cams Cossus ; 

Spring on thy horse's back ; 
Ride as the wolves of Apennine 

Were all upon thy track ! 
Haste to our southward battle, 

And never draw thy rein 
Until thou find Herminius, 

And bid him come amain." 

23. 
80 Aulus spake, and turned him 

Again to that fierce strife ; 
And Caius Cossus mounted, 

And rode for death and life. 
Loud clanged beneath his horse-hocfs 

The helmets of the dead, 
And many.a curdling pool of blood 

Splashed him from heel to head. 
So came he far to southward, 

Where fought the Roman host 
Against the banners of the marsh 

And banners of the coast. 
Like corn before the sickle 

The stout Lavinians fell, 
Beneath the edge of the true sword 

That kept the bridge so well. 

24. 
* Herminius ! Aulus greets thee ; 

He bids thee come with speed 
To help our central battle, 

For sore is there our need : 
There wars the youngest Tarquin, 

And there the Crest of Flame, 
The Tusculan Mamilius, 

Prince of the Latian name. 
Valerius hath fallen fighting 

In front of our array, 
And Aulus of the seventy fields 

Alone upholds the day " 

25, 
Herminius beat his bosom, 

But never a word he spake : 
He clapped his hands on Auster's mane ; 

He gave the reins a shake. 
Away, away went Auster 

Like an arrow from the bow ; 
Black Auster was the fleetest steed 

From Aufidus to Po. 

26. 
Right glad were all the Romans 

Who, in that hour of dread, 
Against great odds bare up the war 

Around Valerius dead, 
When from the south the cheering 

Rose with a mighty swell, — 
M Herminius comes, Herminius, 

Who kept the bridge so well !" 

27. 
Mamilius spied Herminius, 
And dashed acros 1 * ihe way 



" Herminius ! I have sought thee • 

Through many a bloody day. 
One of us two, Herminius 

Shall never more go home. 
I will lay on for Tusculum, 

And lay thou on for Rome !" 

28. 
All round them paused the battle, 

While met in mortal fray 
The Roman and the Tusculan, 

The horses black and gray. 
Herminius smote Mamilius 

Through breastplate and through breast, 
And fast flowed out the purple blood • 

Over the purple vest. 
Mamilius smote Herminius 

Through headpiece and through head, 
And side by side those chiefs of pride 

Together fell down dead. 
Down fell they dead together 

In a great lake of gore ; 
And still stood all who saw them fall 

While men might count a score. 

29. 
Fast, fast, with heels wild spurning, 

The dark-gray charger fled ; 
He burst through ranks of fighting men, 

He sprang o'er heaps of dead. 
His bridle far out-streaming, 

His flanks all blood and foam, 
He sought the southern mountains, 

The mountains of his home. 
The pass was steep and rugged, 

The wolves they howled and whined ; 
But he ran like a whirlwind up the pass. 

And he left the wolves behind. 
Through many a startled hamlet 

Thundered his flying feet : 
He rushed through the gate of Tusculnik, 

He rushed up the long white street ; 
He rushed by tower and temple, 

And paused not from his race 
Till he stood before his master's door 

In the stately market-place. 
And straightway round him gathered 

A pale and trembling cnnvd, 
And when they knew him cries of rag? 

Brake forth, and wailing loud : 
And women rent their tresses 

For their great prince's fall : 
And old men girt on their old swords, 

And went to man the wall. 

30. 
But, like a graven image, 

Black Auster kept his place, 
And ever wistfully he looked 

Into his master's face. 
The raven-mane that daily, 

With pats and fond caresses, 
The young Herminia washed and core'«4 

And twined in even tresses, 
And decked with coloured ribands 

From her own gay attire, 
Hung sadly o'er her father's corpse 

In carnage and in mire. 
Forth with a shout sprang Titus, 

And seized black Auster's rein , 
Then Aulus sware a fearful oath, 

And ran at him amain. 



554 



LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



- The furies of thy brother 

With me and mine abide, 
If one of your accursed house 

Upon black Auster ride !" 
As on an Alpine watch-tower 

From heaven comes down the flame, 
Full on the neck of Titus 

The blade of Aulus came : 
And out the red blood spouted, 

In a wide arch and tall, 
As spouts a fountain in the court 

Of some rich Capuan's hall. 
The knees of all the Latines 

Were loosened with dismay 
When dead, on dead Herminius, 

The bravest Tarquin lay. 

31. 

And Aulus the Dictator 

Stroked Auster's raven mane, 
With heed he looked unto the girths, 

With heed unto the rein. 
" Now bear me well, black Auster, 

Into yon thick array; 
And thou and I will have revenge 

For thy good lord this day." 

32. 
So spake he; and was buckling 

Tighter black Auster's band, 
When he was aware of a princely pair 

That rode at his right hand. 
So like they were, no mortal 

Might one from other know : 
White as snow their armour was : 

Their steeds were white as snow. 
Never on earthly anvil 

Did such rare armour gleam ; 
And never did such gallant steeds 

Drink of an earthly stream. 

33. 

And aL who saw them trembled, 

And pale grew every cheek ; 
And Aulus the Dictator 

Scarce gathered voice to speak. 
" Say by what name men call you ] 

What city is your home 1 
And wherefore ride } r e in such guise 

Before the ranks of Romel" 

34.. 
* By many names men call us ; 

In many .ands we dwell : 
WeK Samothracia knows us : 

Cyrene knows us 'well. 
t>ur house in gay Tarentum 

Is hung each morn with flowers : 
High o'er the masts of Syracuse 

Our marble portal towers : 
But by the proud Eurotas 

Is our dear native home ; 
And for the right we come to fight 

Before the ranks of Rome." 

35. 

No answered those strange horsemen, 
And each couched low his spear; 

And forthwith all the ranks of Rome 
Were bold, and of good cheer: 

And on the thirty armies 
Came wonder and affright, 



And Ardea wavered on th 2 left, 

And Cora on the right. 
" Rome to the charge !" cried Aulus ; 

" The foe begins to yield ! 
Charge for the hearth of Vesta ! 

Charge for the Golden Shield ! 
Let no man stop to plunder, 

But slay, and slay, and slay : 
The gods who live forever 

Are on our side to-day." 

36. 

Then the fierce trumpet-flourish 

From earth to heaven arose, 
The kites know well the long stern swsl 

That bids the Romans close. 
Then the good sword of Aulus 

Was lifted up to slay : 
Then, like a crag down Apennine, 

Rushed Auster through the fray. 
But under those strange horsemen 

Still thicker lay the slain ; 
And after those strange horses 

Black Auster toiled in vain. 
Behind them Rome's long battle 

Came rolling on the foe, 
Ensigns dancing wild above, 

Blades all in line below. 
So comes the Po in flood-time 

Upon the Celtic plain : 
So comes the squall, blacker than nigtm 

Upon the Adrian main. 
Now, by our Sire Quirinus, 

It was a goodly sight 
To see the thirty standards 

Swept down the tide of flight. 
So flies the spray of Adria 

When the black squall doth blow , 
So corn-sheaves in the flood-time 

Spin down the whirling Po. 
False Sextus to the mountains 

Turned first his horse's head : 
And fast fled Ferentinum, 

And fast Circeium fled. 
The horsemen of Nomentum 

Spurred hard out of the fray ; 
The footmen of Velitrse 

Threw shield and spear away. 
And underfoot was trampled, 

Amidst the mud and gore, 
The banner of proud Tusculum, 

That never stooped before : 
And down went Flavius Faustus, 

Who led his stately ranks 
From where the apple blossoms wave 

On Anio's echoing banks, 
And Tullus of Arpinum, 

Chief of the Volscian aids, 
And Metius with the long fair curls, 

The love of Anxur's maids, 
And the white head of Vulso 

The great Arician seer 
And Nepos of Laurenturn, 

The hunter of the deer 
And in the back false Sextus 

Felt the good Roman steel, 
And wriggling in the dust he died. 

Like a worm beneath the wheel : 
And fliers and pursuers 

Were mingled in a mass; 



BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 



655 



And far away the battle 
Went roaring through the pass. 

37. 

Sempronius Atratinus 

Sate in the Eastern Gate. 
Beside him were three Fathers, 

Each in his chair of state ; 
Fabius, whose nine stout grandsons 

That day were in the field, 
And Manlius, eldest of the Twelve 

Who keep the Golden Shield; 
And Sergius, the High Pontiff, 

For wisdom far renowned ; 
In all Etruria's colleges 

Was no such Pontiff found. 
And all around the portal, 

And high above the wall, 
Stood a great throng of people, 

But sad and silent all ; 
Young lads, and stooping e*ders 

That might not bear the mail, 
Matrons with lips that quivered, 

And maids with faces pale. 
Since the first gleam of daylight, 

Sempronius had not ceased 
To listen for the rushing 

Of horse-hoofs from the east. 
The mist of eve was rising, 

The sun was hastening down, 
When he was aware of a princely pair 

Fast pricking towards the town. 
So like they were, man never 

Saw twins so like before ; 
Red with gore their armour was, 

Their steeds were red with gore. 

38. 

" Hail to the great Asylum ! 

Hail to the hill-tops seven ! 
Hail to the fire that burns for aye, 

And the shield that fell from heaven! 
This day, by Lake Regillus, 

Under the Porcian height, 
All in the lands of Tusculum 

Was fought a glorious fight. 
To-morrow your Dictator 

Shall bring in triumph home 
The spoils of thirty cities 

To deck the shrines of Rome !" 

39. 

Then burst from that great concourse 
A shout that shook the towers, 

And some ran north, and some ran south; 
Crying, " The day is ours !" 

But on rode these strange horsemen, 
With slow and lordly pace ; 



And none who saw their bearing 

Durst ask their name or race. 
On rode they to the Forum, 

While laurel-boughs and flowers, 
From housetops and from windows, 

Fell on their crests in showers. 
When they drew nigh to Vesta, 

They vaulted down amain, 
And washed their horses in the well 

That springs by Vesta's fane. 
And straight again they mounted, 

And rode to Vesta's door ; 
Then, like a blast, away they passed, 

And no man saw them more. 

40. 
And all the people trembled, 

And pale grew every cheek ; 
And Sergius the High Pontiff 

Alone found voice to speak : 
" The Gods who live forever 

Have fought for Rome to-day ! 
These be the Great Twin Brethren 

To whom the Dorians pray. 
Back comes the Chief in triumph, 

Who, in th^ hour of fight, 
Hath seen the Great Twin Brethren 

In harness on his right. 
Safe comes the ship to haven, 

Through billows and through gales 
If once the Great Twin Brethren 

Sit shining on the sails. 
Wherefore they washed their horses 

In Vesta's holy well, 
Wherefore they rode to Vesta's door 

I know, but may not tell. 
Here, hard by Vesta's temple, 

Build we a stately dome 
Unto the Great Twin Brethren 

Who fought so well for Rome. 
And when the months returning 

Bring back this day of fight, 
The proud Ides of Quintilis, 

Marked evermore with white, 
Unto the Great Twin Brethren 

Let all the people throng, 
With chaplets and with offerings, 

With music and with song; 
And let the doors and windows 

Be hung with garlands all, 
And let the Knights be summoned 

To Mars without the wall: 
Thence let them ride in purple 

With joyous trumpet-sound, 
Each mounted on his war-horse, 

And each with olive crowned ; 
And pass in solemn order 

Before the sacred dome, 
Where dwell the Great Twin Brethren 

Who fought so well for Rome." 



55G 



LAYS OP ANCIENT ROME. 



VIRGINIA. 



A collection consisting exclusively of war- 
songs wouift give an imperfect, or rather an 
erroneous notion of the spirit of the old Latin 
ballads. The Patricians, during ahout a cen- 
tury and a half after the expulsion of the 
kings, held all the high military commands. A 
Plebeian, even though, like Lucius Siccius, he 
were distinguished by his valour and know- 
ledge of war, could serve only in subordinate 
posts. A minstrel, therefore, who wished to 
celebrate the early triumphs of his country, 
could hardly tak<3 any but Patricians for his 
heroes. The warriors who are mentioned in 
the two preceding lays, Horatius, Lartius, Her- 
minius, Aulus Posthumius, iEbutius Elva, Sem- 
pronius Atratinus, Valerius Poplicola, were all 
members of the dominant order ; and a poet 
who was singing their praises, whatever his 
own political opinions might be, would natu- 
rally abstain from insulting the class to which 
they belonged, and from reflecting on the sys- 
tem which had placed such men at the head of 
the legions of the commonwealth. 

But there was a class of compositions in 
which the great families were by no means so 
courteously treated. No parts of early Roman 
history are richer with poetical colouring than 
those which relate to the long contest between 
the privileged houses and ' the commonalty. 
The population of Rome was, from a very early 
period, divided into hereditary castes, which, 
indeed, readily united to repel foreign enemies, 
but which regarded each other, during many 
years, with bitter animosity. Between those 
castes there was a barrier hardly less strong 
than that which, at Venice, parted the mem- 
bers of the Great Council from their country- 
men. In some respects, indeed, the line which 
separated an Icilius or a Duilius from a Post- 
humius or a Fabius was even more deeply 
marked than that which separated the rower 
of a gondola from a Contai'ini or a Morosini. 
At Venice the distinction was merely civil. At 
Rome it was both civil and religious. Among 
the grievances under Avhich the Plebeians suf- 
fered,, three were felt as peculiarly severe. 
They were excluded from the highest magis- 
tracies ; they were excluded from all share in 
the public lands ; and they were ground down 
to the dust by partial and barbarous legislation 
touching pecuniary contracts. The ruling 
class in Rome was a moneyed class ; and it 
made and administered the laws with a view 
solely to its own interest. Thus the relation 
between lender and borrower was mixed up 
with the relation between sovereign and sub- 
iect. The great men held a large portion of the 
community in dependence by means of ad- 
vances at enormous usury. The law of debt, 
framed by creditors, and for the protection of 
cr_Jitors, was the most horrible that has ever 
been known among men. The liberty, and 
ev en the life, of the insolvent were at the mercy 



of the Patrician money-lenders. Children oftea 
became slaves in consequence of the misfor 
tunes of their parents. The debtor was impri- 
soned, not in a public jail under the care of 
impartial public functionaries, but in a private 
workhouse belonging to the creditor. Fright- 
ful stories were told respecting these dungeons. 
It was said that torture and brutal violation 
were common ; that tight stocks, heavy chains, 
scanty measures of food, were used to punish 
wretches guilty of nothing but poverty; and 
that brave soldiers, whose breasts were co- 
vered with honourable scars, were often mark- 
ed still more deeply on the back by the scourges 
of high-born usurers. 

The Plebeians were, however, not wholly 
without constitutional rights'. From an early 
period they had been admitted to some share 
of political power. They were enrolled in the 
centuries, and were allowed a share, consider- 
able though not proportioned to their numerical 
strength, in the disposal of those high dignities 
from which they were themselves excluded. 
Thus their position bore some resemblance to 
that of the Irish Catholics during the interval 
between the year 1792 and the year 1829. The 
Plebeians had also the privilege of annually 
appointing officers, named Tribunes, who had 
no active share in the government of the Com- 
monwealth, but who, by degrees, acquired a 
power which made them formidable even to the 
ablest and most resolute Consuls and Dicta- 
tors. The person of the Tribune was inviola 
ble ; and, though he could directly effect little 
he could obstruct every thing. 

During more than a century after the institu- 
tion of the Tribuneship, the Commons strug- 
gled manfully for the removal of grievances 
under which they laboured ; and, in spite of 
many checks and reverses, succeeded in 
wringing concession after concession from the 
stubborn aristocracy. At length, in the year 
of the city 378, both parties mustered their 
whole strength for their last and most desperate 
conflict. The popular and active Tribune, 
Caius Licinius, proposed the three memorable 
laws which are called by his name, and which 
were intended to redress the three great evils 
of which the Plebeians complained. He was 
supported, with eminent ability and firmness, 
by his colleague, Lucius Sextius. The strug- 
gle appears to have been the fiercest that ever 
in any community terminated without an ap- 
peal to arms. If such a contest had raged in 
any Greek city, the streets would have run 
with blood. But, even in the paroxysms of 
faction, the Roman retained his gravity, his 
respect for law, and his tenderness for the lives 
of his fellow-citizens. Year after year Licinius 
and Sextius were re-elected Tribunes. Year 
after year, if the narrative which has come 
down to us is to be trusted, they continued to 
exert, to the full extent, their power of ftopping 



VIRGINIA. 



557 



the whole machine of government. No curule 
magistrates could be chosen ; no military mus- 
ter could be hetd. We know too little of the 
state of Rome in those days to be able to con- 
jecture how, during that long anarchy, the 
peace was kept, and ordinary justice adminis- 
tered between man and man. The animosity 
of both parties rose to the greatest height. The 
excitement, we may well suppose, would have 
Deen peculiarly intense at the annual election 
of Tribunes. On such occasions there can be 
little doubt that the great families did all that 
could be done, by threats and caresses, to 
break the union of the Plebeians. That union, 
however, proved indissoluble. At length the 
good cause triumphed. The Licinian laws 
were carried. Lucius Sextius was the first 
Plebeian Consul, Caius Licinius the third. 

The results of this great change were singu- 
larly happy and glorious. Two centuries of 
prosperity, harmony, and victory followed the 
reconciliation of the orders. Men who re- 
membered Rome engaged in waging petty 
wars almost within sight of the Capitol lived 
to see her the mistress of Italy. While the 
disabilities of the Plebeians continued, she was 
scarcely able to maintain her ground against 
the Volscians and Hernicans. When those 
disabilities were removed, she rapidly became 
more than a match for Carthage and Ma- 
cedon. 

During the great Licinian contest the Ple- 
beian poets were, doubtless, not silent. Even 
in modern times songs have been by no means 
without influence on public affairs ; and we 
may therefore infer, that, in a society where 
printing was unknown, and where books were 
■"tare, a pathetic -or humorous party-ballad 
must have produced ^fleets such as we can 
but faintly conceive. It is certain that satiri- 
cal poems were common at Rome from a very 
early period. The rustics who lived at a dis- 
tance from the seat of government, and took 
little part in the strife of factions, gave vent to 
their petty local animosities in coarse Fescen- 
nine verse. The lampoons of the city were 
doubtless of a higher order ; and their sting 
was early felt by the nobility. For in the 
Twelve Tables, long before the time of the 
Licinian laws, a severe punishment was de- 
nounced against the citizen who should com- 
pose or recite verses reflecting on another.* 
Satire is, indeed, the only sort of composition 
in which the Latin poets, whose works have 
come down to us, were not mere imitators of 
foreign models ; and it is therefore the only 
sort of composition in which they had never 
been rivalled. It was not, like their tragedy, 
their comedy, their epic and lyric poetry, a 
hot-house plant which, in return for assiduous 
and skilful culture, yielded only scanty and 
eickly fruits. It was hardy, and full of sap ; 
and in all the various juices which it yielded 
might be distinguished the flavour of the Au- 
sonian soil. "Satire," said Quintilian, with 
just pride, " is all our own." It sprang, in 



* Cicero justly infers from thig law that there had 
been early Latin poets whose wo-ks had been lost be- 
fore his time. " Quamquam id quidem etiam xii tabulae 
declarant; condi jam turn solitum esse carmen, quod 
ne liceret fieri ad alterius injuriam lege sanxerunt." — 
Tutc. iv. 2. 



truth, naturally from the ccnstitution of the 
Roman government and from the spirit of the 
Roman people ; and, though it submitted to 
metrical rules derived from Greece, it retained 
to the last its essentially Roman character. Lu- 
cilius was the earliest satirist whose works 
were held in esteem under the Ccesars. -But, 
many years before Lucilius was born, Nsevius 
had been flung into a dungeon, and guarded 
there with circumstances of unusual rigoui 
till the Tribunes interfered in his behalf, on 
account of the bitter lines in which he had at- 
tacked the great Ctecilian family.* The ge- 
nius and spirit of the Roman satirists survived 
the liberties of their country, and were not ex- 
tinguished by the cruel despotism of the Julian 
and Flavian emperors. The great poet who 
told the story of Domitian's turbot was the 
legitimate successor of those forgotten min- 
strels whose songs animated the factions of 
the infant Republic. 

Those minstrels, as Niebuhr has remarked, 
appear to have generally taken the popular 
side. We can hardly be mistaken in suppos- 
ing that, at the great crisis of the civil conflict, 
they employed themselves in versifying all the 
most powerful and virulent speeches of the 
Tribunes, and in heaping abuse on the chiefs 
of the aristocracy. Every personal defect, 
every domestic scandal, every tradition dis- 
honourable to a noble house, would be sought 
out, brought into notice, and exaggerated. The 
illustrious head of the aristocratical party, 
Marcus Furius Camillus, might perhaps be, in 
some measure, protected by his venerable age 
and by the memory of his great services to the 
state. But Appius Claudius Crassus enjoyed 
no such immunity. He was descended from 
a long line of ancestors distinguished by theii 
haughty demeanour, and by the inflexibility 
with which they had withstood all the demands 
of the Plebeian order. While the political con 
duct and the deportment of the Claudian no- 
bles drew upon them the fiercest public hatred, 
they were wanting, if any credit is due to the 
early history of Rome, in a class of qualities 
which, in a military Commonwealth, is suffi- 
cient to cover a multitude of c fences. Several 
of them appear to have been eloquent, versed 
in civil business, and learned after the fashion 
of their age; but in war they were not distin- 
guished by skill or valour. Some of them, as 
if conscious where their weakness lay, had, 
when filling the highest magistracies, taken 
internal administration as their department of 
public business, and left the military com 
mand to their colleagues.f One of them hau 
been intrusted with an army, and had failed 
ignominiously.t None of them had been 
honoured with a triumph. None of them had 
achieved any martial exploit, such as those by 
which Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, Titus 
Quinctius Capitolinus, Aulus Cornelius Cos:, as, 
and, above all, the great Camillus, had extorted 
the reluctant esteem of the multitude. During 
the Licinian conflict, Appius Claudius Crassu* 
signalized himself by the ability and severity 
with which he harangued against *he twe 

* Plautus, Miles Gloriosus. Aulus Gellius iii 3 
f In the years of the city 2G0, 304, and 330 
j In the year of the city 282. 



55S 



LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



great agitators. He would naturally, there- 
fore, be the favourite mark of the Plebeian 
satirists ; nor would they have been at a loss 
to find a point on which he was open to 
attack. 

His grandfather, named like himself, Appius 
Claudius, had left a name as much detested 
as that of Sextus Tarquinius. He had been 
Consul more than seventy years before the 
introduction of the Licinian laws. By availing 
himself of a singular crisis in public feeling, 
he had obtained the consent of the Commons 
to the abolition of the Tribuneship, and had 
been the chief of that Council of Ten to which 
the whole direction of the State had been com- 
mitted. In a few months his administration 
had become universally odious. It was swept 
away by an irresistible outbreak of popular 
fury ; and its memory was still held in abhor- 
rence by the whole city. The immediate 
cause of the downfall of this execrable govern- 
ment was said to have been an attempt made 
by Appius Claudius on the chastity of a beau- 
tiful young girl of humble birth. The story 
ran, that the Decemvir, unable to succeed by 
bribes and solicitations, resorted to an outrage- 
ous act of tyranny. A vile dependant of the 
Claudian house laid claim to the damsel as his 
slave. The cause was brought before the tri- 
bunal of Appius. The wicked magistrate, in 
defiance of the clearest proofs, gave judgment 
for the claimant ; but the girl's father, a brave 
soldier, saved her from servitude and disho- 
nour by stabbing her to the heart in the sight 
ofc' the whole Forum. That blow was the sig- 
nal for a general explosion. Camp and city 
rose at once ; the Ten were pulled down ; the 



Tribuneship was re-established; and Appius 
escaped the hands of the executioner only by 
a voluntary death. 

It can hardly be doubted that a story so ad- 
mirably adapted to the purposes both of the 
poet and of the demagogue would be eagerly 
seized upon by minstrels burning with hatred 
against the Patrician order, against the Clau- 
dian house, and especially against the grandson 
and namesake of the infamous Decemvir. 

In order that the reader may judge fairly of 
these fragments of the lay of Virginia, he must 
imagine himself a Plebeian who has just voted 
for the re-election of Sextius and Licinius. All 
the power of. the Patricians has been exerted 
to throw out the two great champions of the 
Commons. Every Posthumius, ^Emilius, and 
Cornelius has used his influence to the utmost. 
Debtors have been kt out of the workhouses 
on condition of voting against the men of the 
people ; clients have been posted to hiss and 
interrupt the favourite candidates ; Appius 
Claudius Crassus has spoken with more than 
his usual eloquence and asperity; all has been 
in vain ; Licinius and Sextus have a fifth time 
carried all the tribes ; work is suspended ; the 
booths are closed ; the Plebeians bear on their 
shoulders the two champions of liberty through 
the Forum. Just at this moment it is an- 
nounced that a popular poet, a zealous adherent 
of the Tribunes, has made a new song which 
will cut the Claudian family to the heart. The 
crowd gathers round him, and calls on him to 
recite it. He takes his stand on the spot 
where, according to tradition, Virginia, more 
than seventy years ago, was seized by the 
pander of Appius, and he begins his story. 



VIRGINIA. 



rRAGMENTS OF A LAY SUNG IN THE FORUM ON THE DAY WHEREON LUCIUS SEXTIUS SEXTI* 
NUS LATERANUS AND CAIUS LICINIUS CALVUS STOLO WERE ELECTED TRIBUNES OF TUB 
COMMONS THE FIFTH TIME, IN THE YEAR OF THE CITY CCCLXXXII. 



Ye good men of the Commons, with loving hearts and true, 
Who stand by the bold Tribunes that still have stood by you, 
Come, make a circle round me, and mark my tale with care, 
A tale of what Rome once hath borne ; of what Rome yet may bear. 
This is no Grecian fable, of fountains running wins, 
Of maids with snaky tresses, or sailors turned to swine. 
Here, in this very Forum, under the noonday sun, 
In sight of all the people, the bloody deed was done. 
Old men still creep among us who saw that fearful day, 
Just seventy years and seven ago, when the wicked Ten bare sway. 

Of all the wicked Ten still the names are held accursed, 
And of all the wicked Ten, Appius Claudius was the worst. 
He stalked along the Forum like King Tarquin in his pride : 
Twelve axes waited on him, six marching on a side ; 
The townsmen shrank to right and left, and eyed askance with fear 
His lowering brow, his curling mouth which alway seemed to sneer : 
That brow of hate, that mouth of scorn, marks all the kindred still ; 
For never was there Claudius yet but wished the Commons ill : 
Nor lacks he fit attendance ; for close behind his heels, 
With outstretched chin and crouching pace, the client Marcus steals, 



VIRGINIA. 5M 

His loins girt up to run with speed, be the errand what it may, 
And v ,he smile flickering on his cheek, for aught his lord may sav. 
Such varlets pimp and jest for hire among the lying Greeks : 
Such varlets still are paid to hoot when brave Licinius speaks 
Where'er ye shed the honey, the buzzing flies will crowd ; 
Where'er ye fling the carrion, the raven's croak is loud; 
Where'er down Tiber garbage floats, the greedy pike ye see ; 
And wheresoe'er such lord is found, such client still will be. 

Just then, as through one cloudless chink in a black stormy sky 
Shines out the dewy morning-star, a fair young girl came by. 
With her small tablets in her hand, and her satchel on her arm, 
Home she went bounding from the school, nor dreamed of shame or harm 
And past those dreaded axes she innocently ran, 

With bright, frank brow that had not learned to blush at gaze of man ; 
And up the Sacred Street she turned, and, as she danced al,ong, 
She warbled gayly to herself lines of the good old song, 
How for a sport the princes came spurring from the camp, 
And found Lucrece, combing the fleece, under the midnight lamp. 
The maiden sang as sings the lark, when up he darts his flight, 
From his nest in the green April corn, to meet the morning light ; 
And Appius heard her sweet young voice, and saw her sweet young face, 
And loved her with the accursed love of his accursed race, 
A"nd all along the Forum, and up the Sacred Street, 
His vulture eye pursued the trip of those small glancing feet. 

• ***#****• 

Over the Alban mountains the light of morning broke ; 
From all the roofs of the Seven Hills curled the thin wreaths of smoke : 
The city gates were opened ; the Forum, all alive, 
With buyers and with sellers was humming like a hive. 
Blithely on brass and timber the craftsman's stroke was ringing, 
And blithely o ? er her panniers the market-girl was singing, 
And blithely young Virginia came smiling from her home : 
Ah ! wo for young Virginia, the sweetest maid in Rome ! 
With her small tablets in her hand, and her satchel on her arm, 
Forth she went bounding to the school, nor dreamed of shame or harm. 
She crossed the Forum shining with stalls in alleys gay, 
And just had reached the very spot whereon I stand this day, 
When up the varlet Marcus came ; not such as when erewhile 
He crouched behind his patron's heels with the true client smile : 
He came with lowering forehead, swollen features, and clenched fist, 
And strode across Virginia's path, and caught her by the wrist. 
Hard strove the frighted maiden, and screamed with look aghast; 
And at her scream from right and left the folk came running fast; 
The money-changer Crispus, with his thin silver hairs, 
And Hanno from the stately booth glittering with Punic wares, 
And the strong smith Muraena, grasping a half-forged brand, 
And Volero the rlesher, his cleaver in his hand. 
All came in wrath and wonder ; for all knew that fair child ; 
And, as she passed them twice a day, all kissed their hands and smiled; 
And the strong smith Mureena gave Marcus such a blow, 
The caitiff reeled three paces back, and let the maiden go. 
Yet glared he fiercely round him, and growled in harsh, fell tone, 
"She's mine, and I will have her. I seek but for mine own: 
She is my slave, born in my house, and stolen away and sold, 
The year of the sore sickness, ere she was twelve hours old. 
'Twas in the sad September, the month of wail and fright, 
Two augurs were borne forth that morn ; the Consul died ere night. 
I wait on Appius Cladius ; I waited on his sire : 
Let him who works the client wrong, beware the patron's ire !" 

So spake the varlet Marcus ; and dread and silence came 
On all the people at the sound of the great Claudian name. 
For then there was no Tribune to speak the word of might, 
Which makes the rich man tremble, and guards the poor man's right 
There was no brave Licinius, no honest Sextius then ; 
But all the city, in great fear, obeyed the wicked Ten. 
Yet ere the valet Marcus again might seize the maid, 
Who clung tight to Muraena's skirt, and sobbed, and shrieked for aid. 



500 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Forth through vhe throng of gazers the young Icilius pressed, 

And stamped his foot, and rent his gown, and smote upon his breast, 

And sprang upon that column, by many a minstrel sung, 

Whereon three mouldering helmets, three rustling swords are hung, 

And beckoned to the people, and in bold voice and clear 

Poured thick and fast the burning words which tyrants quake to hea? 

"Now, by your children's cradles, now, by your father's graves, 
Be men to-day, Quirites, or be forever slaves ! 
For this did Servius give us laws 1 For this did Lucrece bleed 1 
For this was the great vengeance done on Tarquin's evil seed 1 
For this did those false sons make red the axes of their sire ] 
For this did Scsevola's right hand hiss in the Tuscan fire 1 
Shall the vile fox-earth awe the race that stormed the lion's den ? 
Shall we, who could not brook one lord, crouch to .the wicked Ten ' 
Oh for that ancient spirit, which curbed the Senate's will ! 
Oh for the tents which in old time whitened the Sacred Hill ! 
In those brave days our fathers stood firmly side by side ; 
They faced the Marcian fury ; they tamed the Fabian pride : 
They drove the fiercest Quinctius an outcast forth from Rome , 
They sent the haughtiest Claudius with shivered fasces home. 
But what their care bequeathed us our madness flung away : 
All the ripe fruit of threescore years was blighted in a day. 
Exult, ye proud Patricians ! The hard-fought fight is o'er. 
We strove for honours — 'twas in vain : for freedom — 'tis no more. 
No crier to the polling, summons the eager throng; 

No Tribune breathes the word of might that guards the weak from wrong 
Our very hearts, that were so high, sink down beneath your will. 
Riches, and lands, and power, and state — ye have them : — keep them sul? 
Still keep the holy fillets ; still keep the purple gown, 
The axes, and the curule chair, the car, and laurel crown : 
Still press us for your cohorts, and, when the fight is done, 
Still fill your garners from the soil which our good swords have won. 
Still, like a spreading ulcer, which leech-craft may not cure, 
Let your foul usance eat away the substance of the poor 
Still let your haggard debtors bear all their fathers bore ; 
Still let your dens of torment be noisome as of yore ; 
No fire when Tiber freezes ; no air in dog-star heat ; 
And store of rods for freeborn backs, and holes for freeborn feet 
Heap heavier still the fetters ; bar closer still the grate ; 
Patient as sheep we yield us up unto your cruel hate. 
But, by the Shades beneath us, and by the Gods above, 
Add not unto your cruel hate your yet more cruel lore ! 
Have ye not graceful ladies, whose spotless lineage springs 
From Consuls, and High Pontiffs, and ancient Alban kings 1 
Ladies, who deign not on our paths to set their tender feet, 
Who from their cars look dewn with scorn upon the wondering stress 
Who in Corinthian mirrors their own proud smiles behold, 
And breathe of Capuan odours, and shine with Spanish gold ? 
Then leave the poor Plebeian his single tie to life — 
The sweet, sweet love of daughter, of sister, and of wife, 
The gentle speech, the balm for all that his vexed soul endures, 
The kiss, in which he half forgets even such a yoke as yours. 
Still let the maiden's beauty swell the father's breast with pride ; 
Still let the bridegroom's arms enfold an unpolluted bride. 
Spare us the inexpiable wrong, the unutterable shame, 
That turns the coward's heart to steel, the sluggard's blood to flame. 
Lest, when our latest hope is fled, ye taste of our despair, 
And learn by proof, in some wild hour, how much the wretched dare. " 
• »»•**«»» 

Straightway Virginius led the maid a little space aside, 
To where the reeking shambles stood, piled up with horn and hide, 
Close to yon low dark archway, where, in a crimson flood, 
Leaps down to the great sewer the gurgling stream of blood. 
Hard by, a flesher on a block had laid his whittle down : 
Virginius caught the whittle up, and hid it in his gown. 
And then his eyes grew very dim, and his throat began to swell, 
And In a hoarse, changed voice he spake, " Farewell, sweet child ! FareweH 
Oh ! how I loved my darling ! Though stern I sometimes be, 
To thee, thou know'st, I was not so. Who could be so to thee ? 



VIRGINIA. 561 

And how my darting loved me ! How glad she was to hear 

My footsteps on the threshold when I came back last year ! 

And how she danced with pleasure to see my civic crown, 

And took my sword, and hung it up, and brought me forth my gowoi 

Now, all those things are over — yes, all thy pretty ways, 

Thy needlework, thy prattle, thy snatches of old lays ; 

And none will grieve when I go forth, or smile when I return, 

Or watch beside the old man's bed, or weep upon his urn. 

The house that was the happiest within the Roman walls, 

The house that envied not the wealth of Capua's marble halls, 

Now, for the brightness of thy smile, must have eternal gloom, 

And for the music of thy voice, the silence of the tomb. 

The time is come. See how he points his eager hand this way ! 

See how his eyes gloat on thy grief, like a kite's upon the prey ! 

With all his wit, he little deems, that, spurned, betrayed, bereft, 

Thy father hath in his despair one fearful refuge left. 

He little deems that in this hand I clutch what still can save 

Thy gentle youth from taunts and blows, the portion of the slave; 

Yea, and from nameless evil, that passeth taunt and blow — 

Foul outrage which thou know'st not, which thou shalt never know. 

Then clasp me round the neck once more, and give me one more kiss $ 

And now, mine own dear little girl, there is no way but this." 

With that he lifted high the steel, and smote her in the side, 

And in her blood she sank to earth, and with one sob she died. 

Then, for a little moment, all people held their breath ; 
And through the crowded Forum was stillness as of death ; 
And in another moment brake forth from one and all 
A cry as if the Volscians were coming o'er the wall. 
Some with averted faces shrieking fled home amain ; 
Some ran to call a leech •, and some ran to lift the slain : 
Some felt her lips and little wrist, if life might there be found ; 
And some tore up their garments fast, and strove to stanch the wound. 
In vain they ran, and felt, and stanched ; for never truer blow 
That good right arm had dealt in fight against a Volscian foe. 

When Appius Claudius saw that deed, he shuddered and sank down, 
And hid his face some little space with the corner of his gown, 
Till, with white lips and bloodshot eyes, Virginius tottered nigh, 
And stood before the judgment-seat, and held the knife on high. 
" Oh ! dwellers in the nether gloom, avengers of the slain, 
By this dear blood I cry to you, do right between us twain ; 
And even as Appius Claudius hath dealt by me and mine, 
Deal you by Appius Claudius and all the Claudian line !" 
So spake the slayer of his child, and turned, and went his way; 
But first he cast one haggard glance to where the body lay, 
And writhed, and groaned a fearful groan ; and then, with steadfast fee* 
Strode right across the market-place unto the Sacred Street. 

Then up sprang Appius Claudius : "Stop him ; alive or dead ! 
Ten thousand pounds of copper to the man who brings his head." 
He looked upon his clients, but none would work his will. 
He looked upon his lictors, but they trembled and stood still. 
And, as Virginius through the press his way in silence cleft, 
Ever the mighty multitude fell back to right and left. 
And he hath passed in safety unto his woful home, 
And there ta'en horse to tell the camp what deeds are done in Rome 

By this the flood of people was swollen from every side, 
And streets and porches round were filled with that o'erflowing tide 
And close around the body gathered a little train 
Of them that were the nearest and dearest to the slain. 
They brought a bier, and hung it with many a cypress crown, 
And gently they uplifted her, and gently laid her down. 
The face of Appius Claudius wore the Claudian scowl and sneer, 
And in the Claudian note he cried, "What doth this rabble here ? 
Have they no crafts to mind at home, that hitherward they stray f 
Ho ! lictors, clear the market-place, and fetch the corpse away !" 
Till then the voice of pity and fury was not loud, 
But a deep sullen murmur wandered among the crowd. 



562 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 

Like the moaning noise that goes before the whirlwind on the deep, 
Or the growl of a fierce watch-dog but half-aroused from sleep. 
But when the lictors at that word, tall yeomen all and strong, 
Each with his axe and sheaf of twigs, went down into the throng, 
Those old men say, who saw that day of sorrow and of sin, 
That in the Roman Forum was never such a dia. 
The wailing, hooting, cursing, the howls of grief and hate, 
Were heard beyond the Pincian hill, beyond the Latin gate. 
But close around the body, where stood the little train 
Of them that were the nearest and dearest to the slain, 
No cries were there, but teeth set fast, low whispers, and black frowns, 
And breaking up of benches, and girding up of gowns. 
'Twas well the lictors might not pierce to where the maiden lay, 
Else surely had they been all twelve torn limb from limb that day. 
Right glad they were to struggle back, blood streaming from their heads, 
With axes all in splinters, and raiment all in shreds. 
Then Appius Claudius gnawed his lip, and the blood left his cheek ; 
And thrice he beckoned with his hand, and thrice he strove to speak ; 
And thrice the tossing Forum sent up a frightful yell — 
" See, see, thou dog ! what thou hast done ; and hide thy shame in hell ! 
Thou that wouldst make our maidens slaves, must first make slaves of mer 
Tribunes ! — Hurrah for Tribunes ! Down with the wicked Ten !" 
And straightway, thick as hailstones, came whizzing through the air 
Pebbles, and bricks, and potsherds, all round the curule chair : 
And upon Appius Claudius great fear and trembling came ; 
For never was a Claudius yet brave against aught but shame. 
Though the great houses love us not, we own, to do them right, 
That the great houses, all save one, have borne them well in fight. 
Still Caius of Corioli, his triumphs and his wrongs, 
His vengeance and his mercy, live in our camp-fire songs. 
Beneath the yoke of Furius oft have Gaul and Tuscan bowed ; 
And Rome may bear the pride of him of whom herself is proud. 
But evermore a Claudius shrinks from a stricken field, 
And changes colour like a maid at sight of sword and shield. 
The Claudian triumphs all were won within the City-towers ; 
The Claudian yoke was never pressed on any necks but ours. 
A Cossus, like a wild cat, springs ever at the face ; 
" A Fabius rushes like a boar against the shouting chase ; 
But the vile Claudian litter, raging with currish spite, 
Still yelps and snaps at those who run, still runs from those who smite. 
So now 'twas seen of Appius. When stones began to fly, 
He shook, and crouched, and wrung his hands, and smote upon his thigh 
"Kind clients, honest lictors, stand by me in this fray! 
Must I be torn in pieces 1 Home, home the nearest way !" 
While yet he spake, and looked around with a bewildered stare, 
Four sturdy lictors put their necks beneath the curule chair; 
And fourscore clients on the left, and fourscore on the right, 
Arrayed themselves with swords and staves, and loins girt up for fight. 
But, though without or staff or sword, so furious was the throng, 
That scarce the train with might and main could bring their lord along 
Twelve times the crowd made at him; five times they seized his gown; 
Small chance was his to rise again, if once they got him down : 
And sharper came the pelting; and evermore the yell — 
"Tribunes ! we will have Tribunes !" — rose with a louder swell : 
And the chair tossed as tosses a bark with tattered sail, 
When ra'. es the Adriatic beneath an eastern gale, 
When the Calabrian sea-marks are lost in clouds of spume, 
And the great Thunder-Cape has donned his veil of inky gloom. 
One stone hit Appius in the mouth, and one beneath the ear; 
And ere he reached Mount Palatine, he swooned with pain and fear. 
His cursed head, that he was wont to hold so high with pride, 
Now, like a drunken man's, hung down, and swayed from side to side ; 
And when his stout retainers had brought him to his door, 
His face and neck were all one cake of filth and clotted gore. 
As Appius Claudius was that day, so may his grandson be ! 
God send Rome one such other sight, and send me there to see ! 

• * t * • • a 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 



503 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 



It can hardly be necessary to remind any 
reader that, according to the popular tradition, 
Romulus, after he had slain his grand-uncle 
Amulius, and restored his grandfather Numi- 
tor, determined to quit Alba, the hereditary do- 
main of the Sylvian princes, and to found a 
new city. The gods, it was added, vouchsafed 
the clearest signs of the favour with which 
they regarded the enterprise, and of the high 
destinies reserved for the young colony. 

This event was likely to be a favourite theme 
of the old Latin minstrels. They would natu- 
rally attribute the project of Romulus to some 
divine intimation of the power and prosperity 
which it was decreed that his city should at- 
tain. They would probably introduce seers 
foretelling the victories of unborn Consuls and 
Dictators, and the last great victory would ge- 
nerally occupy the most conspicuous place in 
the prediction. There is nothing strange in the 
suppositi jn that the poet who was employed to 
celebrate the first great triumph of the Romans 
over the Greeks might throw his song of exulta- 
tion into this form. 

The occasion was one likely to excite the 
strongest feelings of national pride. A great 
outrage had been followed by a great retribu- 
tion. Seven years before this time, Lucius Pos- 
thumius Megellus, who sprang from one of the 
noblest houses of Rome, and had been thrice 
Consul, was sent ambassador to Tarentum, with 
charge to demand reparation for grievous in- 
juries. The Tarentines gave him audience in 
their theatre, where he addressed them in such 
Greek as he could command, which, we may 
well believe, was not exactly such as Cineas 
would have spoken. An exquisite sense of the 
ridiculous belonged to the Greek character; 
and closely connected with this faculty was a 
strong propensity to flippancy and imperti- 
nence. When Posthumius placed an accent 
wrong, his hearers burst into a laugh. When he 
remonstrated, they hooted him, and called him 
barbarian; and at length hissed him off the 
stage as if he had been a bad actor. As the 
grave Roman retired, a buffoon, who, from his 
constant drunkenness, was nicknamed the Pint- 
pot, came up with gestures of the grossest in- 
decency, and bespattered the senatorial gown 
with filth. Posthumius turned round to the 
multitude and held up the gown, as if appeal- 
ing to the universal law of nations. The sight 
only increased the insolence of the Tarentines. 
They clapped their hands, and set up a shout 
ol' laughter which shook the theatre. "Men 
of Tarentum," said Posthumius, "it will take 
aot a little blood to wash this gown."* 

Rome, in consequence of this insult, declared 
war against the Tarentines. The Tarentines 
Bought for allies beyond the Ionian sea. Py - 

• Dion. Hal. De Legatinnibus. 



rhus, King of Epirus, came to their help witn 
a large army; and, for the first time, the twe 
great nations of antiquity were fairly matched 
against each other. 

The fame of Greece in arms, as well as in 
arts, was then at the height. Half a century 
earlier, the career of Alexander had excited 
the admiration and terror of all nations from 
the Ganges to the Pillars of Hercules. Royal 
houses, founded by Macedonian captains, still 
reigned at Anticch and Alexandria. That bar- 
barian warriors, led by barbarian chiefs, should 
win a pitched battle against Greek valour guid- 
ed by Greek science, seemed as incredible as it 
would now seem that the Burmese or the Siam- 
ese should, in the open plain, put to flight an 
equal number of the best English troops. The 
Tarentines were convinced that their country- 
men were irresistible in war ; and this convic- 
tion had emboldened them to treat with the 
grossest indignity one whom they regarded as 
the representative of an inferior race. Of the 
Greek generals then living, Pyrrhus was in- 
disputably the first. Among the troops who 
were trained in the Greek discipline, his Epi- 
rotes ranked high. His expedition to Italy was 
a turning-point in the history of the world. He 
found there a people who, far inferior to the 
Athenians and Corinthians in the fine arts, in 
the speculative sciences, and in all the refine- 
ments of life, were the best soldiers on the face 
of the earth. Their arms, their gradations of 
rank, their order of battle, their method of in- 
trenchment, were all of Latian origin, and had 
all been gradually brought near to perfection, 
not by the study of foreign models, but by the 
genius and experience of many generations 
of great native commanders. The first words 
which broke from the king, when his practised 
eye had surveyed the Roman encampment, 
were full of meaning: — "These barbarians," 
he said, "have nothing barbarous in their mili 
tary arrangements." He was at first victori- 
ous ; for his own talents were superior to 
those of the captains who were opposed to 
him, and the Romans were not prepared for the 
onset of the elephants of the East, which were 
then for the first time seen in Italy — moving 
mountains, with long snakes for hands.* But 
the victories of the Epirotes were fiercely dis- 
puted, dearly purchased, and altogether unpro- 
fitable. At length Manius Curius Dentatus, 
who had in his first consulship won two tri- 
umphs, was again placed at the head of the 
Roman Commonwealth, and sent to encounter 
the invaders. A great battle was fought near 
Beneventum. Pyrrhus was completely defeat- 
ed. He repassed the sea; and the wcrld learned 
with amazement that a people had been dis 



* Aneruimanux is the old Latin epithet for an e'ephaii' 
Lucretius, ii. 538, v. 1302. 



064 



LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



noverea who, in fair fighting, were superior to 
the be=;t troops that had been drilled on the 
system ol Parmenio and Antigonus. 

The conquerors had a good right to exult 
in their success, for their glory was all their 
own. They had not learned from their enemy 
how to conquer him. It was with their own 
national arms, and in their own national battle- 
array, that they had overcome weapons and 
tactics long believed to be invincible. The 
pilum and the broadsword had vanquished the 
Macedonian spear. The legion had broken the 
Macedonian phalanx. Even the elephants, 
when the surprise produced by their first ap- 
pearance was over, could cause no disorder in 
the steady yet flexible battalions of Rome. 

It is said by Florus, and may easily be be- 
lieved, that the triumph far surpassed in mag- 
nificence any that Rome had previously seen. 
The only spoils which Papirius Cursor and 
Fabius Maximus could exhibit were flocks and 
herds, wagons of rude structure, and heaps of 
spears and helmets. But now, for the first 
time, the riches of Asia and the arts of Greece 
adorned a Roman pageant. Plate, fine stuff's, 
costly furniture, rare animals, exquisite paint- 
ings and sculptures, formed part of the pro- 
cession. At the banquet would be assembled 
a crowd of warriors and statesmen, among 
whom Manius Curius Dentatus would take the 
highest room. Caius Fabricius Luscinus, then, 
after two consulships and two triumphs, Cen- 
sor of the Commonwealth, would doubtless oc- 
cupy a place of honour at the board. In situa- 
tions less conspicuous probably lay some of 
those who were, a few years later, the terror 
of Carthage; Caius Duilius, the founder of the 
maritime greatness of his country; Marcus 
A-tilius Regulus, who owed'to defeat a renown 
far higher than that which he had derived from 
his victories ; and Caius Lutatius Catulus, who, 
while suffering from a grievous wound, fought 
the great battle of the iEgates, and brought the 



first Punic war to a triumphant close. It is 
impossible to recapitulate the names of these 
eminent citizens without reflecting that they 
were all, without exception, Plebeians, and 
would, but for the ever memorable struggle 
maintained by Caius Lucinius and Lucius 
Sextius, have been doomed to hide in obscu« 
rity, or to waste in civil broils, the capacity 
and energy which prevailed against Pyrrhus 
and Hamilcar. 

On such a day we may suppose that the 
patriotic enthusiasm of a Latin poet would 
vent itself in reiterated shouts of Io Iriumphe, 
such as were uttered by Horace on a far les3 
exciting occasion, and in boasts resembling 
those which Virgil, two hundred and fifty years 
later, put into the mouth of Anchises. The 
superiority of some foreign nations, and espe- 
cially of the Greeks, in the lazy arts of peace, 
would be admitted with disdainful candour; 
but pre-eminence in all the qualities which fit 
a people to subdue and govern mankind would 
be claimed for the Romans. 

The following lay* belongs to the latest age 
of Latin ballad-poetry. Nsevius and Livius 
Andronicus were probably among the children 
whose mothers held them up to see the chariot 
of Curius go by. The minstrel who sang on 
that day might possibly have lived to read the 
first hexameters of Ennius, and to see the first 
comedies of Plautus. His poem, as might be 
expected, shows a much wider acquaintance 
with the geography, manners, and production* 
of remote nations, than would have been four.«l 
in compositions of the age of Camillus. Be? 
he troubles himself little about dates; and 
having heard travellers talk with admiration 
of the Colossus of Rhodes, and of the struc- 
tures and gardens with which the Macedonian 
kings of Syria had embellished their residence 
on the banks of the Orontes, he has never 
thought of inquiring whether these thing's ex« 
isted in the asre of Romulus. 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 

* iiAV SUftG AT THE BANQUET IN THE CAPITOL, ON THE DAY WHEN MANIUS CURIUS DENTATUS, A 
SECOND TIME CONSUL, TRIUMPHED OVER KING PYRRHUS AND THE TARENTINES, IN THE YEAH 
OF THE CITV CCCCLXXIX. 



1. 

Now slain is King Amulius, 

Of the great Sylvian line, 
Who reigned in Alba Longa, 

Op Ihe throne of Aventine. 
Slam is the Pontiff Camers, 

Who spake the words of doom : 
"The children to the Tiber. 

The mother to the tomb." 



in Alba's lake no fisher 
His net to-day is flinging: 

On the dark rind of Alba's oaks 
To-day no axe is ringing: 

I he yoke hangs o'er the manger ; 
The sevthe lies in the hay: 



Through all the Alban villages 
No work is done to-day, 

3. 

And every Alban burgher 

Hath donned his whitest gown ; 
And every head in Alba 

Weareth a poplar crown ; 
And every Alban door-post 

With boughs and flowers is gay ; 
For to-day the dead are living ; 

The lost are found to-day. 



They were doomed by a bloody king : 
They were doomed by a lying priest 



THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 



56* 



They were cast on the raging flood: 
They were tracked by the raging beast. 

Raging beast and raging flood 
Alike have spared the prey; 

And to-day the dead are living 
The lost are found to-day. 



The troubled river knew them, 

And smoothed his yellow foam, 
And gently rocked the cradle 

That bore the fate of Rome. 
The ravening she-wolf knew them, 

And licked them o'er and o'er, 
And gave them of her own fierce milk, 

Rich with raw flesh and gore. 
Twenty winters, twenty springs, 

Since then have rolled away ; 
And to-day the dead are living, 

The lost are found to-day. 

6. 

Blithe it was to see the twins, 

Right g*bodly youths and tall, 
Marching from Alba Longa 

To their old grandsire's hall. 
Along their path fresh garlands 

Are hung from tree to tree : 
Before them stride the pipers, 

Piping a note of glee. 

7. 
On the right goes Romulus, 

With arms to the elbows red, 
And in his hand a broadsword, 

And on the blade a head — 
A head in an iron helmet, 

With horse hair hanging down, 
A shaggy head, a swarthy head, 

Fixed in a ghastly frown — 
The head of King Amulius 

Of the great Sylvian line, 
Who reigned in Alba Longa, 

On the throne of Aventine. 



On the left side goes Remus, 

With wrists and fingers red, 
And in his hand a boar-spear, 

And on the point a head — 
A wrinkled head and aged, 

With silver beard and hair, 
And holy fillets round it, 

Such as the pontiffs wear — 
The head of ancient Camers, 

Who spake the words of doom: 
"The children to the Tiber, 

The mother to the tomb." 

9. 

Two and two behind the twins 

Their trusty comrades go, 
Four-and-twenty valiant men, 

With club, and axe, and bow 
On each side every hamlet 

Pours forth its joyous crowd, 
Shouting lads, and baying dogs, 

And children laughing loud, 
And old men weeping fondly 

As Rhea's boys go by, 



And maids who shriek to see the heads, 
Yet, shrieking, press more nigh. 

10. 
So they marched along the lake ; 

They marched by fold and stall, 
By corn-field and by vineyard, 

Unto the old man's hall. 

11. 

In the hall-gate sate Capys, 

Capys, the sightless seer : 
From head to foot he trembled 

As Romulus drew near. 
And up stood stiff his thin white hair, 

And his blind eyes flashed fire : 
"Hail! foster child of the wondrous nurse ' 

Hail ! son of the wondrous sire ! 

12. 
"But thou — what dost thou here 
In the old man's peaceful hall 7 
What doth the eagle in the coop, 

The bison in the stall 1 
Our corn fills many a garner; 

Our vines clasp many a tree ; 
Our flocks are white on many a hill; 
But these are not for thee. 

13. 

"For thee no treasure ripens 

In the Tartessian mine : 
For thee no ship brings precious bales 

Across the Lybian brine : 
Thou- shalt not drink from amber; 

Thou shalt not rest on down ; 
Arabia shall not steep thy locks, 

Nor Sidon tinge thy gown. 

14. 
" Leave gold and myrrh and jewels, 
Rich table and soft bed, 
To them who of man's seed are born, 

Whom woman's milk hath fed. 
Thou wast not made for lucre, 

For pleasure, nor for rest ; [loins, 

Thou that art sprung from the War-godV 

And hast tugged at the 3he-wolf's brea*u 

15. 

"From sunrise until sunset 

All earth shall hear thy fame: 
A glorious city thou shalt build, 

And name it by thy name : 
And there, unquenched through ages, 

Like Vesta's sacred fire, 
Shall live the spirit of thy nurse, 

The spirit of thy sire 

16. 

" The ox toils through the furrow, 

Obedient to the goad ; 
The patient ass, up flinty paths, 

Plods with his weary load : 
With whine and bound the spaniel 

His master's whistle hears; 
And the sheep yields her patiently 

To the loud clashing shears. 

17. 
" But thy nurse will hear no master, 
Thy nurse will bear no load* 



5(56 



LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 



■And wo to them that shear her, 

And wo to them that goad ! 
When all the pack, loud baying, 

Her bloody lair surrounds, 
She dies in silence biting hard, 

Amidst the dying hounds. 

18. 
" Pomona loves the orchard; 
And Liber loves the vine ; 
And Pales loves the straw-built shed 

Warm with the breath of kine ; 
And Venus loves the whispers 
Of plighted youth and maid, 
In April's ivory moonlight 
Beneath the chestnut shade. 

19. 

"But thy father loves the clashing 

Of broadsword and of shield : 
He loves to drink the stream that reeks 

From the fresh battle-field : 
He smiles a smile more dreadful 

Than his own dreadful frown, [smoke 
When he sees the thick black cloud of 

Go up from the conquered town. 

20. 
" And such as is the War-god, 

The author of thy line, 
And such as she who suckled thee, 

Even such be thou and thine. 
Leave to the soft Campanian 

His baths and his perfumes ; 
Leave to the sordid race of Tyre 

Their dyeing-vats and looms ; 
Leave to the sons of Carthage 

The rudder and the oar : 
Leave to the Greek his marble Nymphs 

And scrolls of wordy lore. 

21. 
' Thine, Roman, is the pilum: 
Roman, the sword is thine, 
The even trench, the bristling mound, 

The legion's ordered line ; 
And thine the wheels of triumph, 

Which with their laurelled train 
Move slowly up the shouting streets 
To Jove's eternal fane. 

22. 
Beneath thy yoke the Volscian 

Shall veil his lofty brow : 
Soft Capua's curled revellers 

Before thy chair shall bow : 
The Lucumoes of Arnus 

Shall quake thy rods to see : 
And the proud Samnite's heart of steel 

Shall yield to only thee. 



"The Gaul shall come against thee 

From the land of snow and night ; 
Thou shalt give his fair-haired armies 
To the raven and the kite. 

24. 

- The Greek shall come against thee, 

The conqueror of the East. 
Bes?de him stalks to battle 
The huge earth-shaking beast, 



The beast on whom the castle 

With all its guards doth stand, 
The beast who hath between his eyes 

The serpent for a hand. 
First march the bold Epirotes, 

Wedged close with shield and spea? : 
And the ranks of false Tarentum 

Are glittering in the rear. 

25. 

"The ranks of false Tarentum 

Like hunted sheep shall fly : 
In vain the bold Epirotes 

Shall round their standards die : 
And Apennine's gray vultures 

Shall have a noble feast 
On the fat and on the eyes 

Of the huge earth-shaking beast. 

26. 
" Hurrah ! for the good weapons 
That keep the War-god's land. 
Hurrah ! for Rome's stout pilum 

In a stout Roman hand. 
Hurrah ! for Rome's short broadsword 

That through the thick array 
Of levelled spears and serried shields 
Hews deep its gory way. 

27. 
"Hurrah ! for the great triumph 
That stretches many a mile. 
Hurrah ! for the wan captives 

That pass in endless file. 
Ho ! bold Epirotes, whither 

Hath the Red King ta'en flight 1 
Ho ! dogs of false Tarentum, 
Is not the gown washed white 1 

28. 
"Hurrah ! for the great triumph 

That stretches many a mile. 
Hurrah ! for the rich dye of Tyre, 

And the fine web of Nile, 
The helmets gay with plumage 

Torn from the pheasant's wings, 
The belts set thick with starry gems 

That shone on Indian kings, 
The urns of massy silver, 

The goblets rough with gold, 
The many-coloured tablets bright 

With loves and wars of old, 
The stone that breathes and struggles 

The brass that seems to speak ; — 
Such cunning they who dwell on higi 

Have given unto the Greek. 

29. 

"Hurrah! for Manius Curius, 

The bravest son of Rome, 
Thrice in utmost need sent forth, 

Thrice drawn in triumph home. 
Weave, weave, for Manius Curius 

The third embroidered gown : 
Make ready the third lofty car, 

And twine the third green crowia 
And yoke the steeds of Rosea 

With necks like a bended bow ; 
And deck the bull, Mevania's bull, 

The bull as white as snow. 



THE PKOPHECY OF CAPYS. 



567 



30. 

* Blest and thrice blest the Roman 

Who sees Rome's brightest day, 
Who sees that long victorious pomp 

Wind down the Sacred Way, 
And through the bellowing Forum, 

A iid round the Suppliant's Grove, 
Up to the everlasting gates 

Of Capitolian Jove. 

31. 
"Then where, o'er two bright havens, 
The towers of Corinth frown ; 
Where the gigantic King of day 
On his own Rhodes looks down ; 



Where soft Orontes murmurs 

Beneath the laurel shades ; 
Where Nile reflects the endless lr nt.-U) 

Of dark-red colonnades ; 
Where in the still deep water, 

Sheltered from waves and blasts, 
Bristles the dusky forest 

Of Byrsa's thousand masts ; 
Where fur-clad hunters wander 

Amidst the Northern ice ; 
Where through the sand of morning-luiul 

The camel bears the spice ; 
Where Atlas flings his shadow 

Far o'er the Western foam, 
Shall be great fear on all who bear 

The mighty name of Rome." 



APPENDIX. 



POMPEII. 



k MEM WHICH OBTAINED THE CHANCELLOR'S MEDAL AT THE CAMBRIDGE COMMENCEMENT 

JULY, 1819. 



On ! land to Memory and to Freedom dear, 
Laud of the melting lyre and conquering spear, 
Land of the vine-clad hill, the fragrant grove, 
Of arts and arms, of Genius and of Love, 
Hear, fairest Italy. Though now no more 
The glittering-eagles awe the Atlantic shore, 
Nor at thy feet the gorgeous Orient flings 
The blood-bought treasures of her tawny Kings, 
Though vanished all that formed thine old renown, 
The laurel garland, and the jewelled crown, 
The avenging poniard, the victorious sword, 
Which reared thine empire, or thy rights restored, 
Yet still the constant Muses haunt thy shore, 
And love to linger where they dwelt of yore. 
If e'er of old they deigned, with favouring smile, 
To tread the sea-girt shores of Albion's isle, 
To smooth with classic arts our rugged tongue, 
And warm with classic glow the British song, 
Oh ! bid them snatch their silent harps which wave 
On the lone oak that shades thy Maro's grave,* 
And sweep with magic hand the slumbering strings, 
To fire the poet.— For thy clime he sings. 
Thy scenes of gay delight and wild despair, 
Thy varied forms of awful and of fair. _ 

How rich that climate's sweets, how wild its 
storms, 
What charms array it, and what rage deforms, 
Well have they mouldering walls, Pompeii, known, 
Decked in those charms, and by that rage o er- 

thrown. 
Sad City, gayly dawned thy latest day, 
And poured its radiance on a scene as gay. 
The leaves scarce rustled in the sighing breeze ; 
In azure dimples curled the sparkling seas, 
And as the golden tide of light they quaffed, 
Campania's sunny meads and vineyards laughed, 
While gleamed each lichened oak and giant pine 
On the far sides of swarthy Apennine. 

Then mirth and music through Pompeii rung ; 
Then verdant wreaths on all her portals hung ; 
Her sons with solemn rite and jocund lay, 
Hailed the glad splendours of that festal day. 
With fillets bound the hoary priests advance, 
And rosy virgins braid the choral dance. 
The rugged warrior here unbends awhile 
His iron front, and deigns a transient smile ; 
There, frantic with delight, the ruddy boy _ 

Scarce treads on earth, and bounds and laughs with 

joy. 
From every crowded altar perfumes rise 
In billowy clouds of fragrance to the skies. 
The milk-white monarch of the herd they lead, 
With gilded horns, at yonder shrine to bleed ; 
And while the victim crops the broideredplain, 
And frisks and gambols towards the destined fane, 
They little deem that like himself they stray 
To death, unconscious,. o'er a flowery way ; 



Heedless, like him, the impending stroke await, 
And sport and wanton on the brink of fate. 

What 'vails it that where yonder heights aspire 
With ashes piled, and scathed with rills of fire, 
Gigantic phantoms dimly seem to glide, 
In misty files, along the mountain s side, 
To view with threatening scowl your fated lands, 
And toward your city point their shadowy hands ? 
In vain celestial omens prompted fear, 
And nature's signal spoke the ruin near. 
In vain through many a night ye viewed from lar 
The meteor flag of elemental war 
Unroll its blazing folds from yonder height, 
In fearful sign of earth's intestine fight. 
In vain Vesuvius groaned with wrath supprest, 
And muttered thunder in his burning breast. 
Long since the Eagle from that flaminz peak 
Hath soared with screams a safer nest to seek. 
Awed by the infernal beacon's fitful glare, 
The howling fox hath left his wonted lair ; 
Nor dares the browsing goat in venturous leap 
To spring, as erst, from dizzy steep to steep.- 
Man only mocks the peril. ' Man alone 
Defies the sulphurous flame, the warning groan. , 
While instinct, humbler guardian, wakes and saves, 
Proud reason sleeps, nor knows the doom it braves, 

But see the opening theatre invites 
The fated myriads to its gay delights. 
In, in, they swarm, tumultuous as the roar 
Of foaming breakers on a rocky shore. . 

The enraptured throng in breathless transport viewn 
The gorgeous temple of the Tragic Muse. 
There, while her wand in shadowy pomp arrays 
Ideal scenes, and forms of other days. 
Fair as the hopes of youth, a radiant band, 
The sister arts around her footstool stand, 
To deck their Queen, and lend a milder grace 
To the stern beauty of that awful face. 
Far, far, around the ravished eye surveys 
The sculptured forms of Gods and heroes blaze. 
Above the echoing roofs the peal prolong 
Of lofty converse, or melodious song, 
While, as the tones of passion sink or swell, 
Admiring thousands own the moral spell, 
Melt with the melting strains of fancied wo, 
With terror sicken, or with transport glow. 

Oh ! for a voice like that which pealed ol old 
Through Salem's cedar courts and shrines ot gold, 
Aiid in wild accents round the trembling dome 
Proclaimed the havoc of avenging Rome ; 
While every palmy arch and sculptured tower 
Shook with the footsteps of the parting power. 
Such voice might checkyour tears, which idly stream 
For the vain phantoms of the poet s dream. 



* See Eustace's description of the Tomb of Virgil, on 
the Neaoolitan coast. 



* Dio Cassius relates that figures of ra an ' ,e "?£„,£' 
neared for some time previous to the destruction of Pom- 
pelTon tl« Summits of Vesuvius. This appearance was 
probably occasioned by the fantastic forms which the 
smoke from tic crater of the volcano assumed. 

DbS 



570 



APPENDIX. 



Might bid those terrors rise, those sorrows flow ; 
For other perils, and for nearer wo. [cloud 

The hour is come. Even now the sulphurous 
Involves the city in its funeral shroud, 
And far along Campania's azure sky 
Expands its dark and boundless canopy, [height, 
The Sun, though throned on heaven's meridian 
Burns red and rayless through that sickly night. 
Each bosom felt at once the shuddering thrill, 
At once the music stopped. The song was still. 
None in that cloud's portentous shade might trace 
The fearful changes of another's face. 
But through that horrid stillness each could hear 
His neighbour's throbbing heart beat high with fear. 

A moment's pause succeeds. Then wildly rise 
Grief's sobbing plaints and terror's frantic cries. 
The gates recoil ; and towards the narrow pass 
In wild confusion rolls the living mass. 
Death — when thy shadowy sceptre waves away 
From his sad couch the prisoner of decay, 
Though friendship view the close with glistening eye, 
And love's fond lips imbibe the parting sigh, 
By torture racked, by kindness soothed in vain, 
The soul still clings to being and to pain. 
But when have wilder terrors clothed thy brow, 
Or keener torments edged thy dart than now, 
When with thy regal horrors vainly strove 
The law of Naturo and the power of Love ? 
On mothers, babes in vain for mercy call, 
Beneath the feet of brothers, brothers fall. 
Behold the dying wretch in vain upraise 
Towards yonder well-known face the accusing gaze; 
See trampled to the earth the expiring maid 
Clings round her lover's feet, and shrieks for aid. 
Vain is the imploring glance, the frenzied cry ; 
All, all is fear ; — to succour is to die. — 
Saw ye how wild, how red, how broad a light 
Burst on the darkness of that mid-day night, 
As fierce Vesuvius scattered o'er the vale 
Her drifted flames and sheets of burning hail, 
Shook hell's wan lightnings from his blazing cone. 
And gilded heaven with meteors not its own ? 

The morn all blushing rose ; but sought in vain 
The snowy villas and the flowery plain, 
The purpled hills with marshalled vineyards gay, 
The domes that sparkled in the sunny ray. 
Where art or nature late hath deck'd the scene 
With blazing marble or with spangled green, 
There, streaked by many a fiery torrent's be:., 
A boundless waste of hoary ashes spread. 

Along that dreary waste where lately rung 
The festal lay which smiling virgins sung, 
Where rapture echoed from the warbling lute, 
And the gay dance resounded, all is mute. — 
Mute ! — Is it Fancy shapes that wailing sound 
Which faintly murmurs from the blasted ground, 
Or live there still, who, breathing in the tomb, 
Curse the dark refuge which delays their doom, 
In massive vaults, on which the incumbent plain 
And ruined city heap their weight in vain ? 

Oh! who may sing that hour of mortal strife, 
When Nature calls on Death, yet clings to life ? 
Who paint the wretch that draws sepulchral breath, 
A living prisoner in the house of Death ? 
Pale as the corpse which loads the funeral pile, 
With face convulsed that writhes a ghastly smile, 
Behold him speechless move with hurried pace, 
Incessant, round his dungeon's caverned space, 
Now shrink in terror, and now groan in pain, 
Gnaw his white lips and strike his burning brain, 
Till Fear o'erstrained in stupor dies away, 
And Madness wrests her victim from dismay. 
His arms sink down ; his wild and stony eye 
Glares without sight on blackest vacancy. 
He feels not, sees not: wrapped in senseless trance 
His soul is still and listless as his glance. 
One cheerless blank, one rayless mist is there, 
Thoughts, senses, passions, live not with despair. 

Haste, Famine, haste, to urge the destined close, 
A nd lull the horrid scene to stern repose. 



Yet ere, dire Fiend, thy lingering tortures cease. 
And all be hushed in still sepulchral peace, 
Those caves' shall wilder, darker deeds behold 
Than e'er the voice of song or fable told, 
Whate'er dismay may prompt., or madness dare, 
Feasts of the grave, and banquets of despair. — 
Hide, hide the scene ; and o'er the blasting sight 
Fling the dark veil of ages and of night. 

Go, seek Pompeii now: — with pensive tread 
Roam through the silent city of the dead. 
Explore each spot, where still, in ruin grand, 
Her shapeless piles and tottering columns stand, 
Where the pale ivy's clasping wreaths o'ershade 
The ruined temple's moss-clad colonnade, 
Or violets on the hearth's cold marble wave, 
And muse in silence on a people's grave. 

Fear not.— No sign of death thine eyes shall 
scare, 
No, all is beauty, verdure, fragrance there. 
A gentle slope includes the fatal ground 
With odorous shrubs and tufted myrtles crowned : 
Beneath, o'ergrown with grass, or wreathed win 

flowers, 
Lie tombs and temples, columns, baths, and towers. 
As if, in mockery, Nature seems to dress 
In all her charms the beauteous wilderness, 
And bids her ga*yest flowerets twine and bloom 
In sweet profusion o'er a city's tomb. 
With roses here she decks the untrodden path, 
With lilies fringes there the stately bath ; 
The acanthus'* spreading foliage here she weaves 
Round the gay capital which mocks its leaves ; 
There hangs the sides of every mouldering room 
With tapestry from her own fantastic loom, 
Wallflowers and weeds, whose glowing hues suppl* 
With simple grace the purple's Tyrian dye. 
The ruined city sleeps in fragrant shade, 
Like the pale corpse of some Athenian maid,t 
Whose marble arms, cold brows, and snowy neck 
The fairest flowers of fairest climates deck, 
Meet types of her whose form their wreaths array, 
Of radiant beauty, and of swift decay. 

Advance, and wander on through crumbling halls, 
Through prostrate gates and ivied pedestals, 
Arches, whose echoes now no chariots rouse, 
Tombs, on whose summits goats undaunted browse. 
See where yon ruined wall on earth reclines, 
Through weeds and moss the half-seen painting 

shines, 
Still vivid midst the dewy cowslips glows, 
Or blends its colours with the blushing rose. 

Thou lovely, ghastly scene of fair decay, 
In beauty awful, and midst horrors gay, 
Renown more wide, more bright shall gild thy name, 
Than thy wild charms or fearful doom could claim. 

Immortal spirits, in whose deathless song 
Latium and Athens yet their reign prolong, 
And from their thrones of fame and empire hurled, 
Still sway the sceptre of the mental world, 
You in whose breasts the flames of Pindus beamed, 
Whose copious lips with rich persuasion streamed, 
Whose minds unravelled nature's mystic plan, 
Or traced the mazy labyrinth of man: 
Bend, glorious spirits, from your blissful bowers, 
And broidered couches of unfading flowers, 
While round your locks the Elysian garlands blow, 
With sweeter odours, and with brighter glow. 
Once more, immortal shades, atoning Fame 
Repairs the honours of each glorious name. 
Behold Pompeii's opening vaults restore 
The long-lost treasures of your ancient lore, 
The vestal radiance of poetic fire, 
The stately buskin and the tuneful lyre, 



* The capital of the Corinthian pillar is carved, as Is 
well known, in imitation of the acanthus. Mons. d« 
Chateaubriand, as I have found since this Poem was 
written, has employed the same image in his Travels. 

t It is the custom of the modern Greeks to ador» 
corpses profusely with flowers 



THE BATTLE OF IVRY. 



571 



The wand of eloquence, whose magic sway 
The sceptres and the swords of earth obey, 
\nd every mighty spell, whose strong control 
Could nerve or melt, could fire or soothe the soul. 

And thou, sad city, raise thy drooping head, 
And share the honours of the glorious dead. 
Had Fate reprieved thee till the frozen North 
Poured in wild swarms its hoarded millions forth, 
Till blazing cities marked where Albion trod, ^ 
Or Europe quaked beneath the scourge of God, 
No lasting wreath had graced thy funeral pall, 
No fame redeemed the horrors of thy fall. 



Now shall thy deathless memory five entwined 
With all that conquers, rules, or charms the 

mind, 
Each lofty thought of Poet or of Sage, 
Each grace of Virgil's lyre or Tully's page. 
Like theirs whose Genius consecrates thy tomb, 
Thy fame shall snatch from time a greener bloom 
Shall spread where'er the Muse nas rear'd her 

throne, 
And live renowned in accents yet unknown , 
Earth's utmost bounds shall join the glad acclaim. 
And distant Camus bless Pompeii's name 



THE BATTLE OF IVRY. 

[Knight's Quarterly Magazine, 1824.] 



rHEHRY the Fourth, on his accession to the French crown, was opposed by a large part of his subjects, undej 
' the Duke of Maye'nne, with the assistance of Spain and Savoy. In March, 1590 he gained a decisive Victory 
over that party at Ivry. Before the battle, he addressed his troops, "My children, if you lose sight of your 
colours, ra P l^ -to my white plume-you will always find it in the path to honour and glory." His conduct wa. 
answerable to his promise! Nothing could resist his impetuous valour, and the leaguers underwent a total and 
bloody defeat. In the midst of the rout, Henry followed, crying, " Save the French!'; and his clemency addefl 
» number of the enemies to his own army. ^"i's Biographical Dictionary.] 



Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are ! 
And glory to our Sovereign Liege, King Henry of Navarre ! 
Now let there be the merry sound of music and the dance, 
Through thy cornfields green, and sunny vines, oh pleasant land of i ranee 
And thou, Rochelle, our own Rochelle, proud city of the waters, 
Again let rapture light the eyes of all thy mourning daughters. 
As thou wert constant in our ills, be joyous in our joy, 
For cold, and stiff, and still are they who wrought thy walls annoy. 
Hurrah! hurrah! a single field hath turned the chance of war; 
Hurrah ! hurrah . for Ivry and King Henry of Navarre. 

Oh ! how our hearts were beating, when at the dawn of day, 
We saw the army of the League drawn out in long array ; 
With all its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel peers, 
And Appenzel's stout infantry, and Egmont's Flemish spears. 
There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our land ! 
And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in his hand ; 
And, as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's empurpled flood, 
And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood ; 
And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate of war, 
To fight for his own holy name and Henry of Navarre. 

The king is come to marshal us, in all his armour drest, 
And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant crest : 
He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye ; 
He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and high. 
Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to wing, 
Down all our line, in deafening shout, " God save our lord, the King.' 
" And if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he may — 
For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray — 
Press where ye-see my white plume shine, amidst the ranks of war, 
And be your oriflamme, to-day, the helmet of Navarre." 

Hurrah ! the foes are moving ! Hark to the mingled din 
Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drum, and roaring culverin ! 
The fiery Duke is pricking fast across Saint Andre's plain, 
With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and Almayne. 
Nqw by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of France, 
Charge for the golden lilies now, upon them with the lance ! 
A thousand spurs are striking deep, u thousand spears in rest, 
A thousand knights ?re pressing close behind the snow-white crest ; 
And in they burst, and on they rushed, while, like a guiding star, 
Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of Navarre. 



• The well-known name of Attila 



67S APPENDIX. 

Now God be praised, the day is ours ! Mayenne hath turned his rein 
D'Aumale hath cried for quarter— the Flemisn Count is slain, 
Their ranks are breaking like thin clouds before a Biscay gale ; 
The field is heaped with bleeding steeds, and flags, and cloven mail ; 
And then we thought on vengeance, and all along our van, 
"Remember St. Bartholomew," was passed from man to man ; 
But out spake gentle Henry then, " No Frenchman is my foe ; 
Down, down with every foreigner ; but let your brethren go." 
Oh ! was there ever such a knight, in friendship or in war, 
As our sovereign lord, King Henry, the soldier of Navarre ! 

Ho '. maidens of Vienna ! Ho ! matrons of Lucerne ! 
Weep, weep, and rend your hair for those who never shall return: 
Ho ! Philip, send for charity, thy Mexican pistoles, 
That Antwerp monks may sing a mass for thy poor spearmen's souls* 
Ho ! gallant nobles of the League, look that your arms be bright ! 
Ho ! burghers of St. Genevieve, keep watch and ward to-night ! 
For our God hath crushed the tyrant, our God hath raised the slav*?, 
And mocked the counsel of the wise and the valour of the bravs. 
Thon glory to his holy name, from whom all glories are ; 
4rsd gfory to our sovereign lord, King Henry of Navarre. 



MADAME D'ARBLAY. 



678 



MADAME D'AHBLAY.* 



[Edinburgh Review, January, 1843.] 



Though the world saw and heard little of 
Madame D'Arblay during the last forty years 
of her life, and though that little did not add to 
her fame, there were thousands, we believe, 
who felt a singular emotion when they learned 
that she was no longer among us. The news 
of her death carried the minds of men back at 
one leap, clear over two generations, to the 
time when her first literary triumphs were 
won. All those whom we had been accus- 
tomed to revere as intellectual patriarchs, 
seemed children when compared with her ; for 
Burke had sat up all night to read her writ- 
ings, and Johnson had pronounced her supe- 
rior to Fielding when Rogers was still a school- 
boy, and Soufhey still in petticoats. Yet more 
strange did it seem that we should just have 
lost one whose name had been widely cele- 
brated before anybody had heard of some illus- 
trious men who, twenty, thirty, or forty years 
ago, were, after a long and splendid career, 
borne with honour to the grave. Yet so it 
was. Frances Burney was at the height of 
fame and popularity before Cowper had pub- 
lished his first, volume, before Porson had gone 
up to college, before Pitt had taken his seat in 
the House of Commons, before the voice of 
Erskine had been once heard in Westminster 
Hall. Since the appearance of her first work, 
sixty-two years had passed; and this interval 
had been crowded, not only with political, but 
also with intellectual revolutions. Thousands 
of reputations had, during that period, sprung 
up, bloomed, withered, and disappeared. New 
kiflds of composition had come into fashion, 
had gone out of fashion, had been derided, had 
been forgotten. The fooleries of Delia Crusca, 
and the fooleries of Kotzebue, had for a time 
bewitched the multitude, who had left no trace 
behind them ; nor had misdirected genius; been 
able to save from decay the once flourishing 
schools of Godwin, of Darwin, and of Rad- 
cliffe. Many books, written for temporary 
effect, had run through six or seven editions, 
and had then been gathered to the novels of 
Afra Behn, and the epic poems of Sir Richard 
Blackmore. Yet the early works of Madame 
D'Arbl?,/, in spite of the lapse of years, in 
spite of )ce change of manners, in spite of the 
popularity deservedly obtained by some of her 
rivals, continued to hold a high place in the 
public esteem. She lived to be a classic. Time 
set on her fame, before she went hence, that 
seal which is seldom set except on the fame 
of the departed. Like Sir Condy Rackrent in 
the tale, she survived her own wake, and over- 
heard the judgment of posterity. 

Having always felt a wa/-m and sincere, 
Jiough not a blind admiration for her talents, 
we rejoiced to learn that her Diary was about 



* Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay. 5 vols, 
evo. London. 1842 

37 



to be made public. Our hopes, it is true, wer* 
not unmixed with fears. We could not forget 
the fate of the Memoirs of Dr. Burney, which 
were published ten years ago. That unfortu- 
nate book contained much that was curious 
and interesting. Yet it was received with a 
cry of disgust, and was speedily consigned to 
oblivion. The truth is, that it deserved its 
doom. It was written in Madame D'Arblay's 
later style — the worst style that has ever been 
known among men. No genius, no informa- 
tion, could save from proscription a book so 
written. We, therefore, opened the Diary with 
no small anxiety, trembling lest we should light 
upon some of that particular rhetoric which 
deforms almost every page of the Memoirs, 
and which it is impossible to read without a 
sensation made up of mirth, shame and loath- 
ing. We soon, however, discovered to our 
great delight, that this Diary was kept before 
Madame D'Arblay became eloqtient. It is, for 
the most part, written in her earliest and best 
manner; in true woman's English, clear, na- 
tural, and lively. The two works are lying 
side by side before us, and we never turn from 
the Memoirs to the Diary without a sense of 
relief. The difference is as great as the differ- 
ence between the atmosphere of a perfumer's 
shop, fetid with lavender water and jasmine 
soap, and the air of a heath on a fine morning 
in May. Both works ought to be consulted by 
every person who wishes to be well acquainted 
with the history of our literature and our man 
ners. But to read the Diary is a pleasure ; to 
read the Memoirs will always be a task. 

We may, perhaps, afford some harmless 
amusement to our readers if we attempt, with 
the help of these two books, to give them an 
account of the most important years of Madame 
D'Arblay's life. 

She was descended from a family which boye 
the name of Macburney, and which, though 
probably of Irisn. origin, had been long settled 
in Shropshire, and was possessed of consider 
able estates in that county. Unhappily, man} 
years before her birth, the Macburneys began, 
as if of set purpose and in a spirit of deter- 
mined rivalry, to expose and ruin themselves. 
The heir-apparent, Mr. James Macburney, 
offended his father by making a runaway 
match with an actress from Goodman's Fields, 
The old gentleman could devise no more judi- 
cious mode of wreaking vengeance on iiis 
undutiful boy than by marrying the cook. 
The cook gave birth to a son named Joseph, 
who succeeded to all the lands of the family, 
while James was cut off with a shilling. The 
favorite son, however, was so extravagant, 
that he soon became as poor as his disin- 
herited brother. Both were forced to earn 
their bread by their labour. Joseph turned 
dancing-master, and settled in Norfolk. Jamea 
struck off the Mac from the beginning of b»s 



574 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 






name, and set up as a portrait-painter at 
Chester. Here he had a son named Charles, 
well -known as the author of the History of 
Music, and as the father of two remarkable 
children, of a son distinguished by learning, 
and of a daughter still more honourably dis- 
tinguished by genius. 

Charles early showed a taste for that art, of 
which, at a later period, he became the his- 
torian. He was apprenticed to a celebrated 
musician in London, and applied himself to 
study with vigour and success. He early 
found a kind and munificent patron in Fulk 
Greville, a high-born and high-bred man, who 
seems to have had in large measure all the 
accomplishments and all the follies, all the 
virtues and all the vices which, a hundred 
years ago, were considered as making up the 
character of a fine gentleman. Under such 
protection, the young artist had every prospect 
of a brilliant career in the capital. But his 
health failed. It became necessary for him to 
retreat from the smoke and river fog of Lon- 
don, to the pure air of the coast. He accepted 
the place of organist at Lynn, and settled at 
that town with a young lady who had recently 
become his wife. 

At Lynn, in June, 1752, Frances Burney 
was born. Nothing in her childhood indicated 
that she would, while still a young woman, 
have secured for herself an honourable and 
permanent place among English writers. She 
was shy and silent. Her brothers and sisters 
called her a dunce, and not altogether without 
some show of reason ; for at eight years old 
she did not know her letters. 

In 1760, Mr. Burney quitted Lynn for Lon- 
don, and took a house in Poland Street ; a 
situation which had been fashionable in the 
reign of Queen Anne, but which, since that 
time, had been deserted by most of its wealthy 
and noble inhabitants. He afterwards resided in 
St. Martin's Street, on the south side of Leices- 
ter Square. His house there is still well known, 
and will continue to be well known, as long as 
our island retains any trace of civilization ; for 
it was the dwelling of Newton, and the square 
turret which distinguishes it from all the sur- 
rounding buildings was Newton's observatory. 

Mr. Burney at once obtained as many pupils 
of the most respectable description as he had 
time to attend, and was thus enabled to sup- 
port his family, modestly indeed, and frugally, 
but in comfort and independence. His pro- 
fessional merit obtained for him the degree of 
Doctor of Music from the University of Ox- 
ford; and his works on subjects connected 
with his art gained for him a place, respect- 
able, though certainly not eminent, among 
men of letters. 

The progress of the mind of Frances Bur- 
ney, from her ninth to her twenty-fifth year, 
well deserves to be recorded. When her edu- 
cation had proceeded no further than the horn- 
oook, she lost her mother, and thenceforward 
she educated herself. Her father appears to 
have been as bad a fatner as a very honest, 
affectionate, and sweet-tempered man can well 
be. He loved his daughter dearly, but it never 
seems to have occurred to him that a parent 
has other duties to perform to children than 



that of fondling them. It would indeed, have 
been impossible for him to superintend theu 
education himself. His professional engage- 
ments occupied him all day. At seven in the 
morning he began to attend his pupils, and 
when London was full, was sometimes em- 
ployed in teaching till eleven at night. He 
was often forced to carry in his pocket a tin 
box of sandwiches, and a bottle of Avine and 
water, on which he dined in a hackney-coach 
while hurrying from one scholar to another. 
Two of his daughters he sent to a seminary at 
Paris; but he imagined that Frances would 
run some risk of being perverted from the 
Protestant faith if she were educated in a 
Catholic country, and he therefore kept her at 
home. No governess, no teacher of any art 
or of any language was provided for her. But 
one of her sisters showed her how to write, 
and, before she was fourteen, she began to find 
pleasure in reading. 

It was not, however, by reading that her in 
tellect was formed. Indeed, when her best 
novels were produced, her knowledge of books 
was very small. When at the height of hex 
fame, she was unacquainted with the most 
celebrated works of Voltaire and Moliere, 
and, what seems still more extraordinary, hao 
never heard or seen a line of Churchill, who, 
when she was a girl, was the most popular of 
living poets. It is particularly deserving of 
observation, that she appears to have been bj 
no means a novel-reader. Her father's library 
was large ; and he had admitted into it so 
many books which rigid moralists generally 
exclude, that he felt uneasy, as he afterwards 
owned, when Johnson began to examine the 
shelves. But in the whole collection there was 
only a single novel, Fielding's Amelia. 

An education, however, which to most girls 
would have been useless, but which suited 
Fanny's mind better than elaborate culture, 
was in constant progress during her passage 
from childhood to womanhood. The great 
book of human nature was turned over before 
her. Her father's social position was very 
peculiar. He belonged in fortune and station 
to the middle class. His daughters seem to 
have been suffered to mix freely with those 
whom butlers and waiting-maids call vulgar. 

We are told that they were in the habit of 
playing with the children of a wig-maker who 
lived in the adjoining house. Yet few nobles 
could assemble in the most stately mansions 
of Grosvenor Square or St. James's Square, 
a society so various and so brilliant as was 
sometimes to be found in Dr. Burney's cabin. 
His mind, though not very powerful or capa- 
cious, was restlessly active ; and, in the inter- 
vals of his professional pursuits, he had con- 
trived to lay up much miscellaneous informa- 
tion. His attainments, tht suavity of his tem- 
per, and the gentle simplicity of his manners, 
had obtained for him ready admission to the 
first literary circles. While he was still at 
Lynn, he had won Johnson's heart by sound- 
ing with honest zeal the praises of the English 
Dictionary. In London the two friends met 
frequently, and agreed most harmoniously. 
One tie, indeed, was wanting to their mutual 
attachment. Burney loved his *wn art pas 



MADAME D'ARBLAY. 



575 



g;onately; and Johnson just knew the bell of 
8t. Clement's Church from the organ. They 
naJ, however, many topics in common ; and on 
winter nights their conversations were some- 
times prolonged till the fire had gone out, and 
the candles had burned away to the wicks. 
Burney's admiration of the powers which had 
produced Rasselas and The Rambler, bordered 
on idolatry. He gave a singular proof of this 
at his first visit to Johnson's ill-furnished gar- 
ret. The master of the apartment was not at 
home. The enthusiastic visitor looked about 
for some relique which he might carry away ; 
but he could see nothing lighter than the chairs 
And the fire-irons. At last he discovered an 
old broom, tore some bristles from the stump, 
-vrapped them in silver paper, and departed as 
happy as Louis IX, when the holy nail of St. 
Denis was found. Johnson, on the other hand, 
condescended to growl out that Burney was 
an honest fellow, a man whom it was impossi- 
ble not to like. 

Garrick, .too, was a frequent visitor in Po- 
land Street and St. Martin's Lane. That won- 
derful actor loved the society of children, partly 
from good-nature, and partly from vanity. The 
ecstasies of mirth and terror which his ges- 
tures and play of countenance never failed to 
produce in a nursery, flattered him quite as 
much as the applause of mature critics. He 
often exhibited all his powers of mimicry for 
the amusement of the little Burneys, awed them 
by shuddering and crouching as if he saw a 
ghost, scared them by raving like a maniac in 
St. Luke's and then at once became an auc- 
tioneer, a chimney-sweeper, or an old woman, 
and made them laugh till the tears ran down 
their cheeks. 

But it would be tedious to recount the names 
of all the men of letters and artists whom Fran- 
ces Burney had an opportunity of seeing and 
hearing. Colman, Twining, Harris, Baretti, 
Hawkesworth, Reynolds, Barry, were among 
those who occasionally surrounded the tea- 
table and supper-tray at her father's modest 
dwelling. This was not all. The distinction 
which Dr. Burney had acquired as a musician, 
and as the historian of music, attracted to his 
house the most eminent musical performers of 
that age. The greatest Italian singers who 
visited England regarded him as the dispenser 
of fame in their art, and exerted themselves to 
obtain his suffrage. Pachieroti became his in- 
timate friend. The rapacious Agujari, who 
sang for nobody else under fifty pounds an air, 
sang her best for Dr. Burney without a fee; 
and in the company of Dr. Burney even the 
haughty and eccentric Gabrielli constrained 
herself to behave with civility. It was thus in 
his power to give, with scarcely any expense, 
concerts equal to those of the aristocracy. On 
such occasions the quiet street in which he 
lived was blocked up by coroneted chariots, 
and his little drawing-room was crowded with 
peers, peeresses, ministers, and ambassadors. 
On one evening, of which we happen to have 
a full account, there were present Lord Mul- 
grave, Lord Bruce, Lord and Lady Edgecumbe, 
Lcrd Barrington from the War-Office, Lord 
Sandwich from the Admiralty. Lord Ashburn- 
ham. with his gold key dangling frorr Vs 



pocket, and the French Ambassador, M. Da 
Guignes, renowned for his fine person and foi 
his success in gallantry. But the great show 
of the night was the Russiaa ambassador, 
Count Orloff, whose gigantic figure was all in 
a blaze with jewels and in whose demeanour 
the untamed ferocity of the Scythian might be 
discerned through a thin varnish of French po- 
liteness. As he stalked about the small par- 
lour, brushing the ceiling with his toupee, the 
girls whispered to each other, with mingled 
admiration and horror, that he was the favoured 
lover of his august mistress ; that he had borne 
the chief part in the revolution to which she 
owed her throne ; and that his huge hands, now 
glittering with diamond rings, had given the 
last squeeze to the windpipe of her unfortunate 
husband. 

With such illustrious guests as these were 
mingled all the most remarkable specimens of 
the race of lions — a kind of game which is 
hunted in London every spring with more than 
Meltonian ardour and perseverance. Bruce, 
who had washed down steaks cut from living 
oxen with water from the fountains of the Nile, 
came to swagger and talk about his travels. 
Omai lisped broken English, and made all the 
assembled musicians hold their ears by howl- 
ing Otaheitean love-songs, such as those with 
which Oberea charmed her Opano. 

With the literary and fashionable society 
which occasionally met under Dr. Burney's 
roof, Frances can scarcely be said to have 
mingled. She was not a musician, and could 
therefore bear no part in the concerts. She 
was shy almost to awkwardness, and scarcely 
ever joined in the conversation. The slightest 
remark from a stranger disconcerted her; and 
even the old friends of her father who tried to 
draw her out could seldom extract more than a 
Yes or a No. Her figure was small, her face 
not distinguished by beauty. She was there- 
fore suffered to withdraw quietly to the back- 
ground, and, unobserved herself, to observe all 
that passed. Her nearest relations were aware 
that she had good sense, but seemed not to 
have suspected, that under her demure and 
bashful deportment were concealed a fertile 
invention and a keen sense of the ridiculous. 
She had not, it is true, an eye for the fine shades 
of character. But every marked peculiarity 
instantly caught her notice and remained en- 
graven on her imagination. Thus, while still 
a girl, she had laid up such a store of materials 
for fiction as few of those who mix much in 
the world are able to accumulate during a long 
life. She had watched and listened to people 
of every class, from princes and great officers 
of state down to artists living in garrets, and 
poets familiar with subterranean cook-shops. 
Hundreds of remarkable persons had passed 
in review before her, English, French, Ger- 
man, Italian, lords and fiddlers, deans of cathe- 
drals, and managers of theatres, travellers lead- 
ing about newly caught savages, and singing 
women escorted by deputy-husbands. 

So strong was the impression made on th? 
mind of Frances by the society which she was 
in the habit of seeing and hearing, that she be- 
gan to write little fictitious narratives as soon 
as she could usc> her pen with ease, which, as 



676 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



we have said, was not very early. Her sisters 
were amused by her stories. But Dr. Burney 
knew nothing of their existence ; and in another 
quarter her literary propensities met with se- 
rious discouragement. When she was fifteen, 
her father took a second wife.' The new Mrs. 
Burney soon found out that her daughter-in- 
law was fond of scribbling, and delivered seve- 
ral good-natured lectures on the subject. The 
advice no doubt was well meant, and might 
have been given by the most judicious friend; 
for at that time, from causes to which we may 
hereafter advert, nothing could be more disad- 
vantageous to a young lady than to be known 
as a novel-writer. Frances yielded, relinquish- 
ed her favourite pursuit, and made a bonfire of 
all her manuscripts.* 

She now hemmed and stitched from break- 
fast to dinner with scrupulous regularity. But 
the dinners of that time were early; and the 
afternoon was her own. Though she had given 
up novel-writing, she was still fond of using 
her pen. She began to keep a diary, and she 
corresponded largely with a person who seems 
to have had the chief share in the formation of 
her mind. This was Samuel Crisp, an old 
friend of her father. His name, well known 
near a century ago, in the most splendid cir- 
cles of London, has long been forgotten. His 
history is, however, so interesting and instruc- 
ive, that it tempts us to venture on a digression. 

Long before Frances Burney was born, Mr. 
Crisp had made his entrance into the world 
ivith every advantage. He was well connected 
and well educated. His face and figure were 
conspicuously handsome ; his manners were 
polished ; his fortune was easy ; his character 
was without stain ; he lived in the best society; 
he had read much; he talked well ; his taste in 
literature, music, painting, architecture, sculp- 
ture, was held in high esteem. Nothing that 
the world can give seemed to be wanting to 
his happiness and respectability, except that 
he should understand the limits of his powers, 
and should not throw away distinctions which 
were within his reach, in the pursuit of dis- 
tinctions which were unattainable. 

"It is an uncontrolled truth," says Swift, 
" that no man ever made an ill figure who un- 
derstood his own talents, nor a good one who 
mistook them." Every day brings with it fresh 
illustrations of this weighty saying; but the 
best commentary that we remember is the his- 
tory of Samuel Crisp. Men like him have their 
proper place, and it is a most important one, 
in the Commonwealth of Letters. It is by the 
judgment of such men that the rank of authors 
is finally determined. It is neither to the mul- 
titude, nor to the few who are gifted with great 
creative genius, that we are to look for sound 
critical decisions. The multitude, unacquainted 
with the best models, are captivated by what- 
ever stuns and dazzles them. They deserted 
Mrs, Siddons to run after Master Betty; and 



* There is some difficulty here as to the chronology. 
"This sacrifice," says the editor of the Diary, "was 
made in the young authoress's fifteenth year." This 
eould not be ; for the sacrifice was the effect, accord- 
ing to the editor's own showing, of the remonstrances 
of the second Mrs. Burney ; and Frances was in her 
sixteenth year when her father's second marriage took 
Nice. 



they now prefer, we have no doubt, Jack Shep 
pard to Von Artevelde. A man of great origi 
nal genius, on the other hand, a man who hag 
attained to mastery in some high walk of art 
is by no means to be implicitly trusted as a 
judge of the performances of others. The cr 
roneous decisions pronounced by such men 
are without number. It is commonly supposed 
that jealousy makes them unjust. But a more 
creditable explanation may easily be found. 
The very excellence of a work shows that some 
of the faculties of the author have been devel- 
oped at the expense of the rest; for it is not 
given to the human intellect to expand itself 
widely in all directions at once, and to be at 
the same time gigantic and well-proportioned. 
Whoever becomes pre-eminent in any art, nay, 
in any style of art, generally does so by devot« 
ing himself with intense and exclusive enthu« 
siasm to the pursuit of one kind of excellence. 
His perception of other kinds of excellence is 
therefore too often impaired. Out of his own 
department he praises and blames at random, 
and is far less to be trusted than the mere con- 
noisseur, who produces nothing, and whose 
business is only to judge and enjoy. One 
painter is distinguished by his exquisite finish- 
ing. He toils day after day to bring the veins 
of a cabbage-leaf, the folds of a lace veil, the 
wrinkles of an old woman's face, nearer and 
nearer to perfection. In the time which he 
employs on a square foot of canvass, a master 
of a different order covers the walls of a palace 
with gods burying giants under mountains, or 
makes the cupola of a church alive with sera- 
phim and martyrs. The more fervent the pas- 
sion of each of these artists for his art, the 
higher the merit of each in his own line, the 
more unlikely it is that they will justly appre- 
ciate each other. Many persons who never 
handled a pencil, probably do far rrore justice 
to Michael Angelo than would have beoi done 
by Gerhard Douw, and far more justice to Ger 
hard Douw than would have been done by Mi 
chael Angelo. 

It is the same with literature. Thousand? 
who have no spark of the genius of Dryden 01 
Wordsworth, do to Dryden the justice whioh 
has never been done by Wordsworth, and tc 
Wordsworth the justice which, we suspect, 
would never have been done by Dryden. Gray, 
Johnson, Richardson, Fielding, are all highly 
esteemed by the great body of intelligent and 
well-informed men. But Gray could see no 
merit in Rasselas ; and Johnson could see no 
merit in the Bard. Fielding thought Richard- 
son a solemn prig ; and Richardson perpetually 
expressed contempt and disgust for Fielding's 
lowness. 

Mr. Crisp seems, as far as we can judge, to 
have been a man eminently qualified for the 
useful office of a connoisseur. His talents and 
knowledge fitted him to appreciate justly al 
most every species of intellectual superiority 
As an adviser he was inestimable. Nay, he 
might probably have held a respectable rant 
as a writer, if he would have confined himself 
to some department of literature in which no- 
thing more than sense, taste, and reading was 
required. Unhappily he set his heart on be« 
ing a great poet, wrote a tragedy in five act! 



MADAME D'ARBLAl 



an 



an the death of Virginia, and offered it to Gar- 
rick, who was his personal friend. Garrick 
read it, shook his head, and expressed a doubt 
whether it would be wise in Mr. Crisp to stake 
a reputation which stood high on the success 
of such a piece. But the author, blinded by- 
self-love, set in motion a machinery such as 
none could long resist. His intercessors were 
the most eloquent man and the most lovely 
woman of that generation. Pitt was induced 
to read Virginia, and to pronounce it excellent. 
Lady Coventry, with fingers which might have 
furnished a model to sculptors, forced the manu- 
script into the reluctant hand of the manager; 
and, in the year 1754, the play was brought 
forward. 

Nothing that skill or friendship could do was 
omitted. Garrick wrote both prologue and epi- 
logue. The zealous friends of the author filled 
every box ; and, by their strenuous exertions, 
the life of the play was prolonged during ten 
nights. But, though there was no clamorous 
reprobation? it was universally felt that the at- 
tempt had failed. When Virginia was printed, 
the public disappointment was even greater 
than at the representation. The critics, the 
Monthly Reviewers in particular, fell on plot, 
characters, and diction, without mercy, but, we 
fear, not without justice. We have never met 
with a copy of the play; but, if we may judge 
from the lines which are extracted in the Gen- 
tleman's Magazine, and which do not appear 
to have been malevolently selected, we should 
say that nothing but the acting of Garrick, and 
the partiality of the audience, could have saved 
so feeble and unnatural a drama from instant 
damnation. 

The ambition of the poet was still unsub- 
dued. When the London season closed, he 
applied himself vigorously to the work of re- 
moving blemishes. He does not seem to have 
suspected, what we are strongly inclined to 
suspect, that the whole piece was one blemish, 
and that the passages which were meant to be 
fine, were, in truth, bursts of that tame extra- 
vagance into which writers fall, when they set 
themselves to be sublime and pathetic in spite 
of nature. He omitted, added, retouched, and 
flattered himself with hopes of complete suc- 
cess in the following year; but, in the follow- 
ing year, Garrick showed no disposition to bring 
the amended tragedy on the stage. Solicitation 
and remonstrance were tried in vain. Lady 
Coventry, drooping under that malady which 
seems ever to select what is loveliest for its 
prey, could render no assistance. The mana- 
ger's language was civilly evasive, but his 
resolution was inflexible. 

Crisp had committed a great error ; but he 
had escaped with a very slight penance. His 
play had not been hooted from the boards. It 
had, on the contrary, been better received than 
many very estimable performances have been 
—than Johnson's Irene, for example, and Gold- 
smith's Good-Natured Man. Had Crisp been 
wise, he would have thought himself happy in 
having purchased self-knowledge so cheap. 
He would have relinquished without vain re- 
pinings the hope of poetical distinction, and 
would have turned to the many sources of 
nappiness which he still possessed. Had he 



been, on the other hand, an unfeeling and un 
blushing dunce, he would have gone on writ- 
ing scores of bad tragedies in defiance of cen- 
sure and derision. But he had too much sense 
to risk a second defeat, yet too little to bear his 
first defeat like a man. The fatal delusion that 
he was a great dramatist had taken firm pos- 
session of his mind. His failure he attributed 
to every cause except the true one. He com- 
plained of ihe ill-will of Garrick, who appears 
to have done every thing that ability and zeal 
could do ; and who, from selfish motives, would 
of course have been well pleased if Virginia 
had been as successful as the Beggar's Opera. 
Nay, Crisp complained of the languor of the 
friends whose partiality had given him three 
benefit-nights to which he had no claim. He 
complained of the injustice of the spectators, 
when, in truth, he ought to have been grateful 
for their unexampled patience. He lost his 
temper and spirits, and became a cynic and a 
hater of mankind. From London he retired to 
Hampton, and from Hampton to a solitary and 
long-deserted mansion, built on a common in 
one of the wildest tracts of Surrey. No road, 
not even a sheep-walk, connected his lonely- 
dwelling with the abodes of men. The place 
of his retreat was strictly concealed from his 
old associates. In the spring he sometimes 
emerged, and was seen at exhibitions and con- 
certs in London. But he soon disappeared and 
hid himself, Avith no society but his books, in 
his dreary hermitage. He survived his failure 
about thirty years. A new generation sprang 
up around him. No memory of his bad verses 
remained among men. How completely the 
world had lost sight of him, will appear from 
a single circumstance. We looked for his 
name in a copious Dictionary of Dramatic 
Authors, published while he was still alive, 
and we found only that Mr. Samuel Crisp, of 
the Custom-House, had written a play called 
Virginia, acted in 1754. To the last, however, 
the unhappy man continued to brood over the 
injustice of the manager and the pit, and tried 
to convince himself and others that he had 
missed the highest literary honours only be- 
cause he had omitted some fine passages in 
compliance with Garrick's judgment. Alas, 
for human nature ! that the wounds of vanity 
should smart and bleed so much longer than 
the wounds of affection ! Few people, we be- 
lieve, whose nearest friends and relaUcns died 
in 1754, had any acute feeling of the i«-ss in 
1782. Dear sisters and favourite daughters, 
and brides snatched away before the honey- 
moon was passed, had been forgotten, or were 
remembered only with a tranquil regret. But 
Samuel Crisp was still mourning for his tra 
gedy like Rachael weeping for her children, 
and would not be comforted. " Never," such 
was his language twenty-eight years after his 
disaster, "never give up or alter a title unless 
it perfectly coincides with your own inward 
feelings. I can say this to my sorrow and my 
cost. But, mum!" Soon after these words 
were written, his life — a life which might have 
been eminently useful and happy — ended in 
the same gloom in which, during more than a 
quarter of a century, it had been passed. We 
have thought it worth while to rescue from 



678 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



obliTion this curious fragment of literary his- 
tory. It seems to us at once ludicrous, melan- 
choly, and full of instruction. 

Crisp was an old and very intimate friend 
of ihe Burneys. To them alone was confided 
the name of the desolate old hall in which he 
hid himself like a wild beast in a den. For 
them were reserved such remains of his hu- 
manity as had survived the failure of his play. 
Frahces Burney he regarded as his daughter. 
He called her his Fannikin, and she in return 
called him her dear Daddy. In truth, he seems 
to have done much more than her real father 
for the development of her intellect ; for though 
he was a bad poet, he was a scholar, a thinker, 
and an excellent counsellor. He was particu- 
larly fond of Dr. Burney's concerts. They had, 
indeed, been commenced at his suggestion, and 
when he visited London he constantly attended 
them. But when he grew old, and when gout, 
brought on partly by mental irritation, confined 
him to his retreat, he was desirous of having a 
glimpse of that gay and brilliant world from 
which he was exiled, and he pressed Fannikin 
to send him full accounts of her father's even- 
ing parties. A few of her letters to him have 
been published; and it is impossible to read 
them without discerning in them all the powers 
which afterwards produced Evelina and Ceci- 
lia, the quickness in catching every odd pe- 
culiarity of character and manner, the skill 
in grouping, the humour, often richly comic, 
sometimes even farcical. 

Fanny's propensity to novel-writing had for a 
time been kept down. It now rose up stronger 
than ever. The heroes and heroines of the 
tales which had perished in the flames, were 
still present to the eye of her mind. One 
favourite stoiy, in particular, haunted her im- 
agination. It was about a certain Caroline 
Evelyn, a beautiful damsel who made an un- 
fortunate love match, and died, leaving an 
infant daughter. Frances began to imagine to 
herself the various scenes, tragic and comic, 
through which the poor motherless girl, highly 
connected on one side, meanly connected on 
the other, might have to pass. A crowd of 
unreal beings, good and bad, grave and ludi- 
crous, surrounded the pretty, timid, young or- 
phan ; a coarse sea-captain; an ugly insolent 
fop, blazing in a superb court-dress ; another 
fop, as ugly and as insolent, but lodged on 
Snow-Hill, and tricked out in second-hand 
finery for the Hampstead ball ; an old woman, 
all wrinkles and rouge, flirting her fan with 
the air of a Miss of seventeen, and screaming 
in a dialect made up of vulgar French and 
vulgar English; a poet lean and ragged, with 
a broad Scottish accent. By degrees these 
shadows acquired stronger and stronger con- 
sistence : the impulse which urged Frances to 
write became irresistible ; and the result was 
the history of Evelina. 

Then came, naturally enough, a wish, min- 
gled with many fears, to appear before the 
public; for, timid as Frances was, and bashful, 
and altogether unaccustomed to hear her own 
praises, it is clear that she wanted neither a 
strong passion for distinction, nor a just con- 
fidence in her own powers. Her scheme Avas 
(o become, if oossible, a candidate for fame 



without running any risk cf disgrace. Shi 
had not money to bear the expense of printing 
It was therefore necessary that some book* 
seller should be induced to take the risk ; and 
such a bookseller was not readily found. Dods- 
ley refused even to look at the manuscript 
unless he were trusted with the name of the 
author. A publisher in Fleet street, namec. 
Lowndes, was more complaisant. Some cor« 
respondence took place between this persoa 
and Miss Burney, who took the name of Graf- 
ton, and desired that the letters addressed to 
her might be left at the Orange Coffee-House. 
But, before the bargain was finally struck, Fan- 
ny thought it her duty to obtain her father's con- 
sent. She told him that she had written a book, 
that she wished to have his permission to pub- 
lish it anonymously, but that she hoped that he 
would not insist upon seeing it. What followec 
may serve to illustrate what we meant when 
we said that Dr. Burney was as bad a father as 
so good-hearted a man could possibly be. It 
never seems to have crossed his mind that 
Fanny was about to take a step on which the 
whole happiness of her life might depend, a 
step which might raise her to an honourable 
eminence, or cover her with ridicule and con 
tempt. Several people had already been trusted 
and strict concealment was therefore not io be 
expected. On so grave an occasion, it was 
surely his duty to give his best counsel to his 
daughter, to win her confidence, to prevent her 
from exposing herself if her book were a bad 
one, and, if it were a good one, to see that the 
terms which she made with the publisher were 
likely to be beneficial to her. Instead of this, 
he only stared, burst out a laughing, kissed her, 
gave her leave to do as she liked, and never 
even asked the name of her work. The con- 
tract with Lowndes was speedily concluded. 
Twenty pounds were given for the copyright, 
and were accepted by Fanny with delight. Her 
father's inexcusable neglect of his duty, hap-> 
pily, caused her no worse evil than the loss of 
twelve or fifteen hundred pounds. 

After many delays Evelina appeared in Janu- 
ary, 1778. Poor Fanny was sick with terror, 
and durst hardly stir out of doors. Some days 
passed before any thing was heard of the book. 
It had, indeed, nothing but its own merits to 
push it into public favour. Its author was un- 
known. The house by which it was published • 
was not, we believe, held in high estimation. 
No body of partisans had been engaged to 
applaud. The better class of readers expected 
little from a novel about a young lady's en- 
trance into the world. There was, indeed, at 
that time, a disposition among the most re- 
spectable people to condemn novels generally: 
nor was this disposition by any means without 
excuse ; for works of that sort were almost 
always silly, and very frequently wicked. 

Soon, however, the first faint accents of 
praise began to be heard. The keepers of the 
circulating libraries reported that everybody 
was asking for Evelina, and that some person 
had guessed Anstey to be the author. Then 
came a favourable notice in the London Re« 
view; then another still more favourable in 
the Monthly. And now the book found its 
way to tables which had seldom been polluted 



MADAME D'ARbLAY. 



6? a 



9y marble-covered volumes. Scholars and 
statesmen who contemptuously abandoned the 
crowd of romances to Miss Lydia Languish 
and Miss Sukey Saunter, were not ashamed to 
own that they could not tear themselves away 
from Evelina. Fine carriages and rich live- 
ries, not often seen east of Temple Bar, were 
attracted to the publisher's shop in Fleet 
street. Lowndes was daily questioned about 
the author, but was himself as much in the 
dark as any of his questioners. The mystery, 
however, could not remain a mystery long. 
It cvas known to brothers and sisters, aunts 
and cousins : and they were far too proud and 
too happy to be discreet. Dr. Burney wept 
over the book in rapture. Daddy Crisp shook 
his fist at Fannikin in affectionate anger at not 
having been admitted to her confidence. The 
truth was whispered to Mrs. Thrale, and then 
it began to spread fast. 

The book had been admired while it was 
ascribed to men of letters long conversant 
with the WDrld, and accustomed to composi- 
tion. But when it was known that a reserved, 
silent young woman had produced the best 
work of fiction that had appeared since the 
death of Smollett, the acclamations were re- 
doubled. What she had done was, indeed, 
extraordinary. But, as usual, several reports 
improved the story till it became miraculous. 
Evelina, it was said, was the work of a girl of 
seventeen. Incredible as this tale was, it con- 
tinued to be repeated down to our own time. 
Frances was too honest to confirm it. Proba- 
bly she was too much a woman to contradict 
it ; and it was long before any of her detractors 
thought of this mode of annoyance. Yet there 
was no want of low minds and bad hearts in 
the generation which witnessed her first ap- 
pearance. There was the envious Kenrick and 
the savage Wolcot, the asp George Steevens 
and the polecat John Williams. It did not, 
however, occur to them to search the parish- 
register of Lynn, in order that they might be 
able to twit a lady with having concealed her 
age. That truly chivalrous exploit was re- 
served for a bad writer of our own time, whose 
spite she had provoked by not furnishing him 
with materials for a worthless edition of Bos- 
well's Life of Johnson, some sheets of which 
our readers have doubtless seen round par- 
cels of better books. 

But we must return to our story. The tri- 
umph was complete. The timid and obscure 
girl found herself on the highest pinnacle of 
fame. Great men, on whom she had gazed at a 
distance with humble reverence, addressed her 
with admiration; tempted by the tenderness 
due to her sex and age. Burke, Windham, 
Gibbon, Reynolds, Sheridan, were among her 
most ardent eulogists. Cumberland acknow- 
ledged her merit, after his fashion, by biting 
his lips and wriggling in his chair whenever 
ber name was mentioned. But it was at Streat- 
hazn that she tasted, in the highest perfection, 
the sweets of flattery, mingled with the sweets 
of friendship. Mrs. Thrale, then at the height 
of prosperity and popularity — with gay spirits, 
quick wit, showy, though superficial acquire- 
ments, pleasing though not refined manners, a 



— felt toward Fanny as toward a younger sis 
ter. With the Thrales Johnson was domesti 
cated. He was an old friend of Dr. Burnev 
but he had probably taken little notice of Dr 
Burney's daughters, and Fanny, we imagine, 
had never in her life dared to speak to him, 
unless to ask whether he wanted a nineteenth 
or a twentieth cup of tea. He was charmed by 
her tale, and preferred it to ihe novels of Field- 
ing, to whom, indeed, he had always been 
grossly unjust. He did not indeed carry his 
partiality so far as to place Evelina by the side 
of Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison ; yet he 
said that his little favourite had done enough 
to have made even Richardson feel uneasy. 
With Johnson's cordial approbation of the 
book was mingled a fondness, half gallant, 
half paternal, for the writer; and this fondness 
his age and character entitled him to show 
without restraint. He began by putting her 
hand to his lips. But soon he clasped her 
in his huge arms, and implored her to be a 
good girl. She was his pet, his dear love, his 
dear little Burney, his little character-monger. 
At one time, he broke forth in praise of the 
good taste of her caps. At another time, he 
insisted on teaching her Latin. That, with all 
his coarseness and irritability, he was a man 
of sterling benevolence, has long been ac- 
knowledged. But how gentle and endearing 
his deportment could be, was not known till 
the Recollections of Madame D'Arblay were 
published. 

We have mentioned a few of the most emi- 
nent of those who paid their homage to. the 
author of Evelina. The crowd of inferior 
admirers would require a catalogue as long 
as that in the second book of the Iliad. In that 
catalogue would be Mrs. Cholmondeley, the 
sayer of odd things, and Seward, much given 
to yawning, and Baretti,who slew the man in 
the Haymarket, and Paoli, talking broken Eng- 
lish, and Langton, taller by the head than any 
other member of the club, a,.d Lady Millar, 
who kept a vase wherein fools were wont to 
put bad verses, and Jerningham, who wrote 
verses fit to be put into the vase of Lady 
Millar, and Dr. Franklin — not, as some have 
dreamed, the great Pennsylvania Dr. Franklin, 
who could not then have paid his respects 
to Miss Burney without much risk of being 
hanged, drawn and quartered, but Dr. Franklin 
the less — 

Aiaj 
/auuv, ovtt tooo; ys otfoj TfTia^wwoj Ataj, 



It would not have been surprising if such 
success had turned even a strong head, and 
corrupted even a generous and affectionate na- 
ture. But, in the Diary, we can find no trace 
of any feeling inconsistent with a truly modest 
and amiable disposition. There is, indeed, 
abundant proof that Frances enjoyed, with an 
intense, though a troubled joy, the honours 
which her genius had won; but it is equally 
clear that her happiness sprang from the hap« 
piness of her father, her sister, and her Daddy 
Crisp. While flattered by the great, the opu 



•ingularly amiable temper, and a loving heart | lent, the learned; w lile followed along th« 



580 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Bteyne at Brighton and the Pantiles at Tun- 
bndge Wells by the gaze of admiring crowds, 
her heart seems to have been still with the lit- 
tle domestic circle in St. Martin's street. If 
she recorded with minute diligence all the 
compliments, delicate and coarse, which she 
heard wherever she turned, she recorded them 
for the eyes of two or three persons who had 
loved her from infancy, who had loved her in 
obscurity, and to whom her fame gave the 
purest and most exquisite delight. Nothing 
can be more unjust than to confound these out- 
pourings of a kind heart, sure of perfect sym- 
pathy, with the egotism of a blue-stocking, who 
prates to all who come near her about her own 
iiovel or her own volume of sonnets. 

It was natural that the triumphant issue of 
Miss Burney's first venture should tempt her 
to try a second. Evelina, though it had raised 
her fame, had added nothing to her fortune. 
Some of her friends urged her to write for the 
stage. Johnson promised to give her his ad- 
vice as to the composition. Murphy, who was 
supposed to understand the temper of the pit 
as well as any man of his time, undertook to 
instruct her as to stage effect. Sheridan de- 
clared that he would accept a play from her 
without even reading it. Thus encouraged, 
she wrote a comedy named The Witlings. 
Fortunately, it was never acted or printed. We 
can, we think, easily perceive from the little 
which is said on the subject in the Diary, that 
The Witlings would have been damned, and 
that Murphy and Sheridan thought so, though 
they were too polite to say so. Happily Frances 
had a friend who was not afraid to give her 
pain. Crisp, wiser for her than he had been 
for himself, read the manuscript in his lonely 
retreat, and manfully told her that she had 
failed, that to remove blemishes here and there 
would be useless, that the piece had abundance 
of wit but no interest, that it was bad as a whole, 
that it would remind every reader of the Fem- 
mes Savantes, which, strange to say, she had 
never read, and that she could not sustain so 
close a comparison with Moliere. This opi- 
nion, in which Dr. Burney concurred, was sent 
to Frances in what she called " a hissing, groan- 
ing, cat-calling epistle." But she had too much 
sense not to know that it was better to be hissed 
and cat-called by her Daddy than by a whole 
sea of heads in the pit of Drury-lane Theatre ; 
and she had too good a heart not to be grateful 
for so rare an act of friendship. She returned 
an answer which shows how well she deserved 
to have a judicious, faithful and affectionate 
adviser. " I intend," she wrote, " to console 
myself for your censure by this greatest proof 
I have ever received of the sincerity, candour, 
and let me add, esteem of my dear daddy. And 
as I happen to love myself rather more than 
my play, this consolation is not a very trifling 
one. This, however, seriously I do believe, that 
when my two daddies put their heads together 
to concert that hissing, groaning, cat-calling 
epistle they sent me, they felt as sorry for poor 
little Miss Bayes as she could possibly do for 
herself. You see I do not attempt to repay 
your frankness with the air of pretended care- 
lessness. But, though somewhat disconcerted 
just now. I will promise not to let my vexation 



live out another day. Adieu, my dear daddy 
I wont be mortified, and I won't be drowned, bu 
I will be proud to find I have, out of my ow* 
family, as well as in it, a friend who loves mf 
well enough to speak plain truth to me." 

Frances now turned from her dramatic 
schemes to an undertaking far better suited tc 
her talents. She determined to write a new 
tale, on a plan excellently contrived for the dis 
play of the powers in which her superiority to 
other writers lay. It was in truth a grand and va- 
rious picture-gallery, which presented to the eye 
a long series of men and women, each marked 
by some strong peculiar feature. There were 
avarice and prodigality, the pride of blood and 
the pride of money, morbid restlessness and 
morbid apathy, frivolous garrulity, supercilious 
silence, a Democritus to laugh at every thing 
and a Heraclitus to lament over every thing 
The work proceeded fast, and in twelve months 
was completed. It wanted something of the 
simplicity which had been among the most at- 
tractive charms of Evelina ; but it furnished 
ample proof that the four years which had 
elapsed since Evelina appeared, had not been 
unprofitably spent. Those who saw Cecilia 
in manuscript pronounced it the best novel of 
the age. Mrs. Thrale laughed and wept over 
it. Crisp was even vehement in applause, and 
offered to insure the rapid and complete suc- 
cess of the book for half-a-crown. VVhat Miss 
Burney received for the copyright is not men- 
tioned in the Diary; but we have observed 
several expressions from which we infer that 
the sum was considerable. That the sale would 
be great nobody could doubt : and Frances now- 
had shrewd and experienced advisers, who 
would not suffer her. to wrong herself. We 
have been told that the publishers gave her two 
thousand pounds, and we have no doubt that 
they might have given a still larger sum with- 
out being losers. 

Cecilia was published in the summer of 
1782. The curiosity of the town was intense. 
We have been informed by persons who re- 
member those days, that no romance of Sir 
Walter Scott was more impatiently awaited, 
or more eagerly snatched from the counters of 
the booksellers. High as public expectation 
was, it was amply satisfied ; and Cecilia was 
placed, by general acclamation, among the 
classical novels of England. 

Miss Burney was now thirty. Her youth 
had been singularly prosperous ; but clouds 
soon began to gather over that clear and ra- 
diant dawn. Events deeply painful to a hear* 
so kind as that of Frances followed each other 
in rapid succession. She was first called upon 
to attend the death-bed of her best friend, Sam- 
uel Crisp. When she returned to St. Martin's 
street, after performing the melancholy duty, 
she was appalled by hearing that Johnson had 
been struck with paralysis ; and, not many 
months later, she parted from him for the last 
time with solemn tenderness. He wished tc 
look on her once more ; and on the day before 
his death she long remained in tears on the 
stairs leading to his bed-room, in the hope that 
she might be called in to receive his blessing. 
But he was then sinking fast, and though h*? 
sent her an affectionate message, was unable 



MADAME D'ARBLAY. 



581 



w, see her. But this was not the worst. There 
are separations far more cruel than those 
which are made by death. Frances might 
weep with proud affection for Crisp and John- 
son. She had to blush as well as to weep for 
Mrs. Thrale. 

Life, however, still smiled upon her. Domes- 
tic happiness, friendship, independence, lei- 
sure, letters, all these things were hers ; and 
she flung them all away. 

Among the distinguished persons to whom 
Miss Burney had been introduced, none ap- 
pears to have stood higher in her regard than 
Mrs. Delany. This lady was an interesting 
and venerable relic of a past age. She was the 
niece of George Granville Lord Lansdowne, 
who, in his youth, exchanged verses and com- 
pliments with Edmund Waller, and who was 
among the first to applaud the opening talents 
of Pope. She had married Dr. Delany, a man 
known to his contemporaries as a profound 
scholar and an eloquent preacher, but remem- 
bered in ouB»time chiefly as one of the small 
circle in which the fierce spirit of Swift, tor- 
tured by disappointed ambition, by remorse, 
and by the approaches of madness, sought for 
amusement and repose. Dr. Delany had long 
been dead. His widow, nobly descended, emi- 
nently accomplished, and regaining, in spite of 
the infirmities of advanced age, the vigour of 
her faculties and the serenity of her temper, 
enjoyed and deserved the favour of the royal 
family. She had a pension of three hundred 
a year ; and a house at Windsor, belonging to 
the crown, had been fitted up for her accommo- 
dation. At this house the king and queen some- 
times called, and found a very natural pleasure 
in thus catching an occasional glimpse of the 
private life of English families. 

In December, 1785, Miss Burney was on a 
visit to Mrs. Delany at Windsor. The dinner 
was over. The old lady was taking a nap. Her 
grandniece, a little girl of seven, was playing 
at some Christmas game with the visitors, 
when the door opened, and a stout gentleman 
entered unannounced, with a star on his breast, 
and "Whatl what? what!" in his mouth. A 
cry of "the king" was set up. A general 
scampering followed. Miss Burney owns that 
she could not have been more terrified if she 
had seen a ghost. But Mrs. Delany came for- 
ward to pay her duty to her royal friend, and 
the disturbance was quieted. Frances was 
then presented, and underwent a long exami- 
nation and cross-examination about all that 
she had written and all that she meant to write. 
The queen soon made her appearance, and his 
majesty repeated, for the benefit of his consort, 
the information which he had extracted from 
Miss Burney. The good-nature of the royal 
pair might have softened even the authors of 
the Probationary Odes, and could not but be 
delightful to a young lady who had been 
brought up a tory. In a few days the visit 
was repeated. Miss Burney was more at ease 
than before. His majesty, instead of seeking 
for information, condescended to impart it, and 
passed sentence on many great writers, Eng- 
lish and foreign. Voltaire he pronounced a 
monster. Rousseau he liked rather better. 
M But was there ever," he cried, " such stuff as 



great part of Shakspeare ? Only one must not 
say so. But what think you ? What? Is there 
not sad stuff? What? What?" 

The next day Frances enjoyed the privilege 
of listening to some equally valuable criticisms 
uttered by the queen touching Goethe &fA 
Klopstock, and might have learned an import- 
ant lesson of economy from the mode in which 
her majesty's library had been formed. "I 
picked the book up on a stall," said the queen. 
" Oh, it is amazing what good books there are 
on stalls !" Mrs. Delany, who seems to have 
understood from these words that her majesty 
was in the habit of exploring the booths of 
Moorfields and Holywell Street in person, 
could not suppress an exclamation of surprise. 
" Why," said the queen, "I don't pick them up 
myself. But I have a servant very clever; and, 
if they are not to be had at the booksellers, they 
are not for me more than for another." Miss 
Burney describes this conversation as delight- 
ful ; and, indeed, we cannot wonder that, with 
her literary tastes, she should be delighted at 
hearing in how magnificent a manner the great- 
est lady in the land encouraged literature. 

The truth is, that Frances was fascinated by 
the condescending kindness of the two great 
personages to whom she had been presented. 
Her father was even more infatuated than her- 
self. The result was a step of which we can- 
not think with patience, but which, recorded as 
it is, with all its consequences, in these vol- 
umes, deserves at least this praise, that it has 
furnished a most impressive warning. 

A German lady of the name of Haggerdorn, 
one of the keepers of the queen's robes, retired 
about this time ; and her majesty offered the 
vacant post to Miss Burney. When we con- 
sider that Miss Burney was decidedly the most 
popular writer of fictitious narrative then liv- 
ing, that competence, if not opulence, was with- 
in her reach, and that she was more than usu- 
ally happy in her domestic circle, and when we 
compare the sacrifice which she was invited to 
make with the remuneration which was held 
out to her, we are divided between laughter and 
indignation. 

What was demanded of her was, that she 
should consent to be almost as completely 
separated from her family and friends as if 
she had gone to Calcutta, and almost as close 
a prisoner as if she had been sent to jail for a 
libel; that with talents which had instructed 
and delighted the highest living minds, she 
should now be employed only in mixing snuff 
and sticking pins ; that she should be sum* 
moned by a waiting-woman's bell to a waiting- 
woman's duties ; that she should pass her 
whole life under the restraints of paltry eti- 
quette, should sometimes fast till she was ready 
to swoon with hunger, should sometimes stand 
till her knees gave way with fatigue ; that she 
should not dare to speak or move without con- 
sidering how her mistress might like her words 
and gestures. Instead of those distinguished 
men and women, the flower of all political par- 
ties, with whom she had been in the habit of 
mixing on terms of equal friendship, she was 
to have for her perpetual companion the chief 
keeper of the robes, an old hag from Germany 
of mean understanding, of insolent manners, 



582 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



and of temper which, naturally savage, had 
now been exasperated by disease. Now and 
then, indeed, poor Frances might console her- 
self for the loss of Burke's and Windham's 
society, by joining in the " celestial colloquy 
sublime" of his majesty's equerries. 

And what was the consideration for which 
she was to sell herself into this slavery] A 
peerage in her own right 1 A pension of two 
.housand a year for life 1 A seventy-four for 
ner brother in the navy 1 A deanery for her 
brother in the church 1 Not so. The price at 
which she was valued was her board, her lodg- 
ing, the attendance of a man-servant, and two 
hundred pounds a year. 

The man who, even when hard pressed by 
hunger, sells his birthright for a mess of pot- 
tage, is unwise. But what shall we say of him 
who parts with his birthright, and does not get 
even the pottage in return 1 It is not neces- 
sary to inquire whether opulence be an ade- 
quate compensation for the sacrifice of bodily 
and mental freedom ; for Frances Burney paid 
for leave to be a prisoner and a menial. It was 
evidently understood as one of the terms of her 
engagement, that, while she was a member of 
the royal household, she was not to appear 
before the public as an author : and, even had 
there been no such understanding, her avoca- 
tions were such as left her no leisure for any 
considerable intellectual effort. That her place 
was incompatible with her literary pursuits, 
was indeed frankly acknowledged by the king 
when she resigned. " She has given up," he 
said, " five years f her pen." That during 
those five jears she might, without painful 
exertion — without any exertion that would not 
have been a pleasure — have earned enough to 
buy an annuity for life much larger than the 
precarious salary which she received at court, 
is quite certain. The same income, too, which 
in St. Martin's Street would have afforded her 
every comfort, must have been found scanty 
at St. James's. We cannot venture to speak 
confidently of the price of millinery and jew- 
ellery ; but we are greatly deceived if a lady 
who had to attend Queen Charlotte on many 
public occasions, could possibly save a far- 
thing out of a salary of two hundred a year. 
The principle of the arrangement was, in 
short, simply this, that Frances Burney should 
become a slave, and should be rewarded by 
being made a beggar. 

For what object their majesties brought her 
to their palace, we must own ourselves unable 
to conceive. Their object could not be to en- 
courage her literary exertions ; for they took 
her from a situation in which it was almost 
certain that she would write, and put her into 
a situation in which it was impossible for her 
to write. Their object could not be to promote 
her pecuniary interest ; for they took her from 
a situation where she was likely to become 
rich, and put her into a situation in which she 
could not but continue poor. Their object 
could not be to obtain an eminently useful 
vvaiting-maid ; for it is clear that, though Miss 
Burney was the only woman of her time who 
could have described the death of Harrel, thou- 
sands might have been found more expert in 
tying ribbons and filling snuff-boxes. To grant 



her a pension on the civil lis would have been 
an act of judicious liberality, honourable to the 
court. If this was impracticable, the next best 
thing was to let her alone. That the king and 
queen meant her nothing but kindness we do 
not in the least doubt. But their kindness was 
the kindness of persons raised high above fhe 
mass of mankind, accustomed to be addressed 
with profound deference, accustomed to see ah 
who approach them mortified by their coldnesi 
and elated by their smiles. They fancied that 
to be noticed by them, to be near them, to serve 
them, was in itself a kind of happiness ; and 
that Frances Burney ought to be full of grati- 
tude for being permitted to purchase, by the 
surrender of health, wealth, freedom, domestic 
affection, and literary fame, the privilege of 
standing behind a royal chair, and holding a 
pair of royal gloves. 

And who can blame them 1 Who can won- 
der that princes should be under such a delu- 
sion, when they are encouraged in it by the 
very persons who suffer from it most cruelly ! 
Was it to be expected that George the Third 
and Queen Charlotte should understand the 
interest of Frances Burney better, or promote 
it with more zeal, than herself and her father ? 
No deception was practised. The conditions of 
the house of bondage were set forth with all 
simplicity. The hook was presented without 
a bait ; the net was spread in sight of the bird. 
And the naked hook was greedily swallowed; 
and the silly bird made haste to entangle her- 
self in the net. 

It is not strange, indeed, that an invitation to 
court should have caused a fluttering in the 
bosom of an inexperienced woman. But it 
was the duty of the parent to watch over the 
child, and to show her that on the one side were 
only infantine vanities and chimerical hopes, 
on the other liberty,, peace of mind, affluence, 
social enjoyments, honourable distinctions. 
Strange to say, the only hesitation was on the 
part of Frances. Dr. Burney was transported 
out of himself with delight. Not such are the 
raptures of a Circassian father who has sold 
his pretty daughter well to a Turkish slave- 
merchant. Yet Dr. Burney was an amiable 
man, a man of good abilities, a man who had 
seen much of the world. But he seems to 
have thought that going to- court was like going 
to heaven ; that to see princes and princesses 
was a kind of beatific vision ; that the exqui- 
site felicity enjoyed by royal persons was not 
confined to themselves, but was communicated 
by some mysterious efflux or reflection to all 
who were suffered to stand at their toilettes, or 
to bear their trains. He overruled all his 
daughter's objections, and himself escorted her 
to her prison. The door closed. The key was 
turned. She, looking back with tender regret 
on all she had left, and forward with anxiety 
and terror to the new life on which she was 
entering, was unable to speak or stand; and 
he went on his way homeward rejoicing in her 
marvellous prosperity. 

And now began a slavery of five years, of 
five years taken from the best part of life, and 
wasted in menial drudgery, or in recreations 
duller than even menial drudgery, under gall 
ing restraints and amid unfriendly or unintep 



MADAME D'ARBLAY. 



583 



»sting companions. The history of an ordinary 
day was this: Miss Burney had to rise and 
dress herself early, that she might be ready to 
answer the royal bell, which rung at half after 
seven. Till about eight she attended in the 
queen's dressing-room, and had the honour of 
lacing her august mistress's stays, and of put- 
ting on the hoop, gown, and neck-handkerchief. 
The morning was chiefly spent in rummaging 
drawers and laying fine clothes in their proper 
places. Then the queen was to be powdered 
and dressed for the day. Twice a week her 
majesty's hair was curled and craped; and 
this operation appears to have added a full 
hour to the business of the toilette. It was 
generally three before Miss Burney was at 
liberty. Then she had two hours at her own 
disposal. To these hours we owe great part 
of her Diary. At five she had to attend her 
colleague, Madame Schwellenberg, a hateful 
old toad-eater, as illiterate as a chamber-maid, 
as proud as a whole German chapter; rude, 
peevish, unable to bear solitude, unable to con- 
duct herself with common decency in society. 
With this delightful associate Frances Burney 
had to dine, and pass the evening. The pair 
generally remained together from five to eleven ; 
and often had no other company the whole 
time, except during the hour from eight to nine, 
when the equerries came to tea. If poor Fran- 
ces attempted to escape to her own apartment, 
and to forget her wretchedness over a book, the 
execracle old woman railed and stormed, and 
complained that she was neglected. Yet, when 
Frances stayed, she was constantly assailed 
with insolent reproaches. Literary fame was, 
in the eyes of the German crone, a blemish, a 
proof that the person who enjoyed it was 
meanly born, and out of the pale of good so- 
ciety. All her scanty stock of broken English 
was employed to express the contempt with 
which she regarded the auihoress of Evelina 
and Cecilia. Frances detested cards, and in- 
deed knew nothing about them, but she soon 
found the least miserable way of passing an 
evening with Madame Schwellenberg was at 
the card-table, and consented with patient sad- 
ness to give hours, which might have called 
forth the laughter and tears of many genera- 
tions, to the king of clubs and the knave of 
spades. Between eleven and twelve the bell 
rang again. Miss Burney had to pass twenty 
minutes or half an hour undressing the queen, 
and was then at liberty to retire, and dream that 
she was chatting with her brother by the quiet 
hearth in St. Martin's Street, that she was the 
centre of an admiring assemblage at Mrs. 
Crewe's, that Burke was calling her the first 
woman of the age, or that Dilly was giving 
ner a check for two thousand guineas. 

Men, we must suppose, are less patient than 
women ; for we are utterly at a loss to conceive 
how any human being could endure such a life, 
while there remained a vacant garret in Grubb 
Street, a crossing in want of a sweeper, a parish 
workhouse, or a parish vault. And it was for 
such a life that Frances Burney had given up 
liberty and peace, a happy fireside, attached 
friends, a wide and splendid circle of acquaint- 
ance, intellectual pursuits in which she was 



qualified to excel, and the sure hope of what 
to her would have been affluence. 

There is nothing new under the sun. The 
last great master of Attic eloquence and Attic 
wit, has left us a forcible and touching descrip- 
tion of the misery of a man of letters, who, lured 
by hopes similar to those of Frances, had en- 
tered the service of one of the magnates of 
Rome : " Unhappy that I am," cries the victim 
of his own childish ambition : " would nothing 
content me but that I must leave mine old pur- 
suits and mine old companions, and the life 
which was without care, and the sleep which had 
no limit save mine own pleasure, and the walks 
which I was free to take where I listed, and 
fling myself into the lowest pit of a dungeon 
like this 1 And, God, for what 1 Is this the 
bait which enticed me 1 Was there no way 
by which I might have enjoy&d in freedom 
comforts even greater than those which I now 
earn by servitude 1 ? Like a lion which has 
been made so tame that men may lead him 
about with a thread, I am dragged up and 
down, with broken and humbled spirit, at the 
heels of those to whom, in my own domain, I 
should have been an object of awe and wonder. 
And, worst of all, I feel that here I gain no cre- 
dit, that here I give no pleasure. The talents 
and accomplishments, which charmed a far 
different circle, are here out of place. I am 
rude in the arts of palaces, and can ill bear 
comparison with those whose calling, from 
their youth up, has been to flatter and to sue. 
Have I then two lives, that, after I have wasted 
one in the service of others, there may yet 
remain to me a second, which I may live unto 
myself!" 

Now and then, indeed, events occurred which 
disttibed the wretched monotony of Frances 
Burney's life. The court moved from Kew to 
Windsor, and from Windsor back to Kew. 
One dull colonel went out of waiting, and 
another dull colonel came into waiting. An 
impertinent servant made a blunder about tea, 
and caused a misunderstanding between the 
gentlemen and the ladies. A half-witted French 
Protestant minister talked oddly about conjugal 
fidelity. An unlucky member of the household 
mentioned a passage in the Morning Herald 
reflecting on the queen, and forthwith Madame 
Schwellenberg began to storm in bad English, 
and told him that he had made her "what you 
call perspire !" 

A more important occurrence was the royal 
visit to Oxford. Miss Burney went in the 
queen's train to Nuneham, was utterly neg- 
lected there in the crowd, and could with diffi- 
culty find a servant to show the way to her 
bed-room, or a hair-dresser to arrange her 
curls. She had the honour of entering Oxford 
in the last of a long string of carriages which 
formed the royal-procession, of walking after 
the queen all day through refectories and cha- 
pels, and of standing half dead with fatigue 
and hunger, while her august mistress was 
seated at an excellent cold collation. At Mag- 
dalene College, Frances was left for a moment 
in a parlour, where she sank down on a chair 
A good-natured equerry saw that she was ex 
hausted, and shared with her some apricot* 



584 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



and bread, which he had wisely put into his 
pockets. At that moment the door opened; 
the queen entered; the wearied attendants 
sprang up; the bread and fruit were hastily- 
concealed. " I found," says poor Miss Burney, 
"that our appetites were to be supposed anni- 
hilated, at the same moment that our strength 
was to be invincible." 

Yet Oxford, seen even under such disadvan- 
tages, " revived in her," to use her own words, 
" a consciousness to pleasure which had long 
lain nearly dormant." She forgot, during one 
moment, that she was a waiting-maid, and felt 
as a woman of true genius might be expected 
to feel amid venerable remains of antiquity, 
beautiful works of art, vast repositories of 
knowledge, and memorials of the illustrious 
dead. Had she still been what she was before 
her father induced her to take the most fatal 
*tep of her life, we can easily imagine what 
. pleasure she would have derived from a visit 
to the noblest of English cities. She might, 
indeed, have been forced to travel in a hack- 
chaise, and might not have worn so fine a 
gown of Chambery gauze as that in which she 
tottered after the royal party ; but with what 
delight would she then have paced the clois- 
ters of Magdalene, compared the antique gloom 
of Merton with the splendour of Christ Church, 
and looked down from the dome of the Rad- 
eliffe Library on the magnificent sea of turrets 
and battlements below ! How gladly would 
learned men have laid aside for a few hours 
Pindar's Odes and Aristotle's ethics to escort 
the authoress of Cecilia from college to col- 
lege"? What neat little banquets would she 
have found set out in their monastic cells? 
With what eagerness would pictures, medals, 
and illuminated missals have been brought 
forth from the most mysterious cabinets for 
her amusement? How much she would have 
had to hear and to tell about Johnson as she 
walked over Pembroke, and about Reynolds in 
the ante-chapel of New College ! But these 
indulgences were not for one who had sold 
herself into bondage. 

About eighteen months after the visit to Ox- 
ford, another event diversified the wearisome 
life which . Frances led at court. Warren 
Hastings was brought to the bar of the House 
of Peers. The queen and princesses were 
present when the trial commenced, and Miss 
Burney was permitted to attend. During the 
subsequent proceedings a day-rule for the same 
purpose was occasionally granted to her ; for 
the queen took the strongest interest in the 
trial, and, when she could not go herself to 
Westminster Hall, liked to receive a report of 
what passed from a person who had singular 
powers of observation, and who was, more- 
over, personally acquainted with some of the 
most distinguished managers. The portion of 
the Diary which relates to this celebrated pro- 
ceeding is lively and picturesque. Yet we 
read it, we own, with pain ; for it seems to us 
to prove that the fine understanding of Frances 
Burney was beginning to feel the pernicious 
influence of a mode of life which is as incom- 
patible with health of mind as the air of the 
romptine marshes is with health of body. 
From the first day she espouses the cause of 



Hastings with a presumptuous vehemence and 
acrimony quite inconsistent with the modesty 
and suavity of ner ordinary deportment. She 
shudders when Burke enters the Hall at the 
head of the Commons. She pronounces him 
the cruel oppressor of an innocent man. She 
is at a loss to conceive how the managers can 
look at the defendant, and not blush. Wind 
ham comes to her from the manager's box to 
offer her refreshment. "But," says she, "I 
could not break bread with him." Then, again, 
she exclaims — " Ah, Mr. Windham, how came 
you ever engaged in so cruel, so unjust a 
cause ?" " Mr. Burke saw me," she says, 
" and he bowed with the most marked civility 
of manner." This, be it observed, was just 
after his opening speech, a speech which had 
produced a mighty effect, and which certainly 
no other orator that ever lived could have 
made. " My curtsy," she continues, " was the 
most ungrateful, distant, and cold ; I could not 
do otherwise ; so hurt I felt to see him at the 
head of such a cause." Now, not only had 
Burke treated her with constant kindness, but 
the very last act which he performed on the 
day on which he was turned out of the Pay- 
Office, about four years before this trial, was 
to make Dr. Burney organist of Chelsea Hos- 
pital. When, at the Westminster election, Dr. 
Burney was divided between his gratitude for 
this favour and his tory opinions, Burke in the 
noblest manner disclaimed all right to exact a 
sacrifice of principle. "You have little or no 
obligations to me," he wrote ; " but if you had 
as many as I really wish it were in my power, 
as it certainly is my desire, to lay on you, I 
hope you do not think me capable of confer- 
ring them, in order to subject your mind or 
your affairs to a painful and mischievous ser- 
vitude." Was this a man to be uncivilly treated 
by a daughter of Dr. Burney, because she 
chose to differ from him respecting a vast and 
mcst complicated question, which he had stu- 
died deeply during many years, and which she 
had never studied at all ? It is clear from Mis.* 
Burney's own statement, that when she be 
haved so unkindly to Mr. Burke, she did no; 
even know of Tvhat Hastings was accused. 
One thing, however, she must have known,, 
that Burke had been able to convince a House 
of Commons, bitterly prejudiced against him, 
that the charges were well-founded; and that 
Pitt and Dundas had concurred with Fox and 
Sheridan in supporting the impeachment. 
Surely a woman of far inferior abilities to 
Miss Burney might have been expected to see 
that this never could have happened unless 
there had been a strong case against the late 
governor-general. And there was, as all rea- 
sonable men now admit, a strong case against 
him. That there" were great public services to 
be set off against his great crimes, is perfectly 
true. But his services and his crimes were 
equally unknown to the lady who so confidently 
asserted his perfect innocence, and imputed to 
his accusers, that is to say, to all the greatest 
men of all parties in the state, not merely 
error, but gross injustice and barbarity. 

She had, it is true, occasionally seen Mr. 
Hastings, and had found his manners and con- 
versation agreeable. But surely she could no! 



MADAME D'ARBLAY. 



685 



oe so weak as to infer from the gentleness of 
nis deportment in a drawing-room that he was 
incapable of committing a great state crime, 
under the influence of ambition and revenge. 
A silly Miss, fresh from a boarding-school, 
might 'fall into such a mistake ; but the woman 
who had drawn the character of Mr. Monck- 
ton should have known better. 

The truth is, that she had been too long at 
tourt. She was sinking into a slavery worse 
than that of the body. The iron was beginning 
to enter into the soul. Accustomed during 
many months to watch the eye of a mistress, 
to receive with boundless gratitude the slightest 
mark of royal condescension, to feel wretched 
at every symptom of royal displeasure, to asso- 
ciate only with spirits long tamed and broken 
in, she was degenerating into something fit for 
her place. Queen Charlotte was a violent par- 
tisan of Hastings ; mad received presents from 
him, and had so far departed from the severity 
of her virtue as to lend her countenance to his 
wife, whose *onduct had certainly been as re- 
prehensible as that of any of the frail beauties 
who were then rigidly excluded from the Eng- 
lish court. The king, it was well known, 
took the same side. To the king and queen 
all the members of the household looked sub- 
missively for guidance. The impeachment, 
therefore, was an atrocious persecution ; the 
managers were rascals ; the defendant was the 
most deserving and the worst used man in the 
kingdom. This was the cant of the whole 
palace, from gold stick in waiting, down to the 
table-deckers and yeomen of the silver scul- 
lery; and Miss Burney canted like the rest, 
though in livelier tones, and with less bitter 
feelings. 

The account which she has given of the 
king's illness, contains much excellent narra- 
tive and description, and will, we think, be 
more valued by the historians of a future age 
than any equal portion of Pepy's or Evelyn's 
Diaries. That account shows, also, how affec- 
tionate and compassionate her nature was. 
But it shows also, we must say, that her way 
of life was rapidly impairing her powers of 
reasoning, and her sense of justice. We do 
not mean to discuss, in this place, the question, 
whether the views of Mr. Pitt or those of Mr. 
Fox respecting the regency were the more cor- 
rect. It is, indeed, quite needless to discuss 
that question : for the censure of Miss Burney 
falls alike on Pitt and Fox, on majority and 
minority. She is angry with the House of 
Commons for presuming to inquire whether 
the king was mad or not, and whether there 
was a chance of him recovering his senses. 
"A melancholy day," she writes; "news bad 
both at home and abroad. At home the dear 
unhappy king still worse ; abroad new exam- 
inations voted of the physicians. Good hea- 
vens ! what an insult does this seem from par- 
liamentary power, to investigate and bring 
forth to the world every circumstance of such 
a malady as is ever held sacred to secrecy in 
the most private families ! How indignant we 
ail feel here no words can say." It is- proper 
to observe, that the motion which roused all 
this indignation at Kew was made by Mr. Pitt 
himself; ana chat, if withstood by Mr. Pitt, it 



would certainly have been rejected. We see, 
therefore, that the loyalty of the minister, who 
was then generally regarded as the most heroic 
champion of his prince, was lukewarm, indeed, 
when compared with the boiling zeal which 
filled the pages of the back-stairs and the wo- 
men of the hed-chamber. Of the regency bill, 
Pitt's own bill, Miss Burney speaks with hor- 
ror. " I shuddered," she says, " to hear it 
named." And again — " 0, how dreadful will 
be the day when that unhappy bill takes place ! 
I cannot approve the plan of it." The truth 
is, that Mr. Pitt, whether a w^se and upright 
statesman or not, was a statesman ; and what- 
ever motives he might have for imposing re- 
strictions on the regent, felt that in some way 
or other there must be some provision made 
for the execution of some part of the kingly 
office, or that no government would be left in 
the country. But this was a matter of which 
the household never thought. It never occurred, 
as far as we can see, to the exons and keepers 
of the robes, that it was necessary that there 
should be somewhere or other a power in the 
state to pass laws, to preserve order, to pardon 
criminals, to fill up offices, to negotiate with 
foreign governments, to command the army 
and navy. Nay, these enlightened politicians, 
and Miss Burney among the rest, seem to have 
thought that any person who considered the 
subject with reference to the public interest, 
showed himself to be a bad-hearted man. No- 
body wonders at this in a gentleman-usher; 
but it is melancholy to see genius sinking into 
such debasement. 

During more than two years after the king's 
recovery, Frances dragged on a miserable ex- 
istence at the palace. The consolations which 
had for a time mitigated the wretchedness of 
servitude, were one by one withdrawn. Mrs. 
Delany, whose society had been a great re- 
source when the court was at Windsor, was 
now dead. One of the gentlemen at the royal 
establishment, Colonel Digby, appears to have 
been a man of sense, of taste, of some read- 
ing, and of prepossessing manners. Agreeable 
associates were scarce in the prison-house, and 
he and Miss Burney were therefore naturally 
attached to each other. She owns that she 
valued him as a friend ; and it would not have 
been strange if his attentions had led her to 
entertain for him a sentiment warmer than 
friendship. He quitted the court, and married 
in a way which astonished Miss Burney greatly, 
and which evidently wounded her feelings, and 
lowered him more in her esteem. The palace 
grew duller and duller; Madame Schwellen 
berg became more and more savage and inso 
lent. And now the health of poor Frances 
began to give way ; and all who saw her pale 
face, her emaciated figure, and her feeble Avalk, 
predicted that her sufferings would soon be over. 

Frances uniformly speaks of her royal mis- 
tress and of the princesses with respect and 
affection. The princesses seem to have well 
deserved all the praise which is bestowed on 
them in the Diary. They were, we doubt notj 
most amiable women. But " the sweet queen," 
as she is constantly called in these volumes, is 
not by any means an object of admiration te 
us. She had undoubtedly sense enough tc 



586 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



fenow what kind of deportment suited her high 
station, and self-command enough to maintain 
that deportment invariably. She was, in her 
intercourse with Miss Burney, generally gra- 
cious and affable, sometimes, when displeased, 
cold and reserved, but never, under any cir- 
cumstances, rude, peevish, or violent. She 
knew how to dispense, gracefully and skillfully, 
those little civilities which, when paid by a 
sovereign, are prized at many times their in- 
trinsic value ; how to pay a compliment ; how 
to lend a book ; how to ask after a relation. 
But she seems to have been utterly regardless 
of the comfort, the health, the life of her at- 
tendants, when her own convenience was con- 
cerned. Weak, feverish, hardly able to stand, 
Frances had still to rise before seven, in order 
to dress the sweet queen, and sit up till mid- 
night, in order to undress the sAveet queen. 
The indisposition of the handmaid could not, 
and did not, escape the notice of her royal 
mistress. But the established doctrine of the 
court was, that all sickness was to be con- 
sidered as a pretence until it proved fatal. The 
only way in which the invalid could clear her- 
self from suspicion of malingering, as it is 
called in the army, was to go on lacing and 
unlacing till she dropped down dead at the 
royal feet. "This," Miss Burney wrote, when 
she was suffering cruelly from sickness, watch- 
ing, and labour, " is by no means from hardness 
jf heart; far otherwise. There is no hardness 
of heart in any one of them ; but it is preju- 
dice, and want of personal experience." 

Many strangers sympathized with the bodily 
and mental sufferings of this distinguished 
svoman. All who saw her saw that her frame 
was sinking, that her heart was breaking. The 
fast, it should seem, to observe the change was 
her father. At length, in spite of himself, his 
eyes were opened. In May 1790, his daughter 
had an interview of three hours with him, the 
only long interview which they had since he 
took her to Windsor in 1786. She told him 
that she was miserable, that she was worn 
with attendance and want of sleep, that she 
had no comfort in life, nothing to love, nothing 
to hope, that her family and friends were to her 
as though they were not, and were remembered 
by her as men remember the dead. From 
daybreak to midnight the same killing labour, 
the same recreations, more hateful than labour 
itself, 'allowed each other without variety, 
without any interval of liberty and repose. 

The doctor was greatly dejected by this 
news ; but was too good-natured a man not to 
say that, if she wished to resign, his house, and 
arms were open to her. Still, however, he 
could not bear to remove her from the court. 
His veneration for royalty amounted, in truth, 
to idolatry. It can be compared only to the 
grovelling superstition of those Syrian devo- 
tees who made their children pass through the 
fire to Moloch. When he induced his daughter 
to accept the place of keeper of the robes, he 
entertained, as she tells us, a hope that some 
worldly advantage or other, not set down in the 
contract of service, would be the result of her 
connection wifci the court. What advantage 
tic expected we do not know, nor did he proba- 
bly know himself. But, whatever he expected, 



he certainly got nothing. Miss Burney had 
been hired for board, lodging, and two hundred 
a year. Board, lodging, and two hundred a 
year she had duly received. Wc have looked 
carefully through the Diary, in the hope of 
finding some trace of those extraordinary be- 
nefactions on which the doctor reckoned. But 
we can discover only a promise, never per- 
formed, of a gown ; and for this promise Miss 
Burney was expected to return thanks such as 
might have suited the beggar with whom St 
Martin, in the legend, divided his cloak. The 
experience of four years was, however, insuffi- 
cient to dispel the illusion which had taken 
possession of the doctor's mind ; and between 
the dear father and the sweet queen there 
seemed to be little doubt that some day or other 
Frances would drop down a corpse. Six 
months had elapsed since the interview be- 
tween the parent and the daughter. The resig- 
nation was net sent in. The sufferer grew 
worse and worse. She took bark ; but it soon 
ceased to produce a beneficial effect. She was 
stimulated with wine ; she was soothed with 
opium, but in vain. Her breath began to fail. 
The whisper that she was in a decline spread 
through the court. The pains in her side be- 
came so severe that she was forced to crawl 
from the card-table of the old fury to whom 
she was tethered, three or four times in an 
evening, for the purpose of taking hartshorn. 
Had she been a negro slave, a humane planter 
would have excused her from work. But her 
majesty showed no mercy. Thrice a day the 
accursed bell still rang; the queen was still to 
be dressed for the morning at seven, and to be 
dressed for the day at noon, and to be undressed 
at eleven at night. 

But there had arisen in literary and fashion- 
able society, a general feeling of compassion 
for Miss Burney, and of indignation both 
against her father and the queen. "Is it pos- 
sible," said a great French lady to the doctor, 
" that your daughter is in a situation where she 
is never allowed a holiday V Horace Wal- 
poJe wrote to Frances to express his sympathy 
Boswell, boiling over with good-natured rage, 
almost forced an entrance into the palace to 
see her. " My dear ma'am, why do you stay 1 
It won't do, ma'am ; you must resign. We 
can put up with it no longer. Some very vio- 
lent measures, I assure you, will be taken. 
We shall address Dr. Burney in a body." 
Burke and Eeynolds, though less noisy, were 
zealous in the same ca«use. Windham spoke 
to Dr. Burney ; but found him still irresolute. 
" I will set the Literary Club upon him," cried 
Windham , " Miss Burney has some very true 
admirers there, and I am sure they will eagerly 
assist." Indeed, the Burney family seems to 
have been apprehensive that some public 
affront, such as the doctor's unpardonable folly, 
to use the mildest term, had richly deserved, 
would be put upon him. The medical men 
spoke out, and plainly told him that his daugh- 
ter must resign or die. 

At last paternal affection, medical authority, 
and the voice of all London crying shame, 
triumphed over Dr. Burney's love of courts. 
He determined that Frances should write a 
letter of resignation. It was with difficult* 



MADAME D'ARBLAY. 



587 



.hat, though her life was at stake, she mustered 
spirit to put the paper into the queen's hands. 
« I could not," so runs the Diary, " summon 
courage to present my memorial — my heart 
always failed, me from seeing the queen's en- 
tire freedom from such an expectation. For 
though I was frequently so ill in her presence 
that I could hardly stand, I saw she concluded 
me, while life remained, inevitably hers." 

At last with a trembling hand the paper was 
delivered. Then came the storm. Juno, as in 
the JDneid, delegated the work of vengeance 
to Alecto. The queen was calm and gentle ; 
but Madame Schwellenberg raved like a ma- 
niac in the incurable ward of Bedlam. Such 
insolence ! Such ingratitude ! Such folly ! 
Would Miss Burney bring utter destruction on 
herself and her family? Would she throw 
away the inestimable advantage of royal pro- 
tection! Would she part with privileges 
which, once relinquished, could never be re- 
gained 1 It was idle to talk of health and life. 
If people cojild not live in the palace, the best 
thing that could befall them was to die in it. 
The resignation was not accepted. The lan- 
guage of the medical men became stronger and 
stronger. Dr. Burney's parental fears were 
fully roused; and he explicitly declared, in a 
letter meant to be shown to the queen, that his 
daughter must retire. The Schwellenberg 
raged like a wild-cat. "A scene almost horri- 
ble ensued," says Miss Burney. " She was too 
much enraged for disguise, and uttered the 
most furious expressions of indignant contempt 
at our proceedings. I am sure she would 
gladly have confined us both in the Bastile, 
had England such a misery, as a fit place to 
bring us to ourselves, from a daring so out- 
rageous against imperial wishes." This pas- 
sage deserves notice, as being the only one in 
the Diary, as far as we have observed, which 
shows Miss Burney to have been aware that 
she was a native of a free country, that she 
could not be pressed for a waiting-maid against 
her will, and that she had just as good a right 
to live, if she chose, in St. Martin's street, as 
Queen Charlotte had to live at St. James's. 

The queen promised that, after the next 
birth-day, Miss Burney should be set at liberty. 
But the promise was ill kept ; and her majesty 
showed displeasure at being reminded of it. 
At length Frances was informed that in a fort- 
night her attendance should cease. " I heard 
this," she says, " with a fearful presentiment 
I should surely never go through another fort- 
night, in so weak and languishing and painful 
a state of health. . . . As the time of separation 
approached, the queen's cordiality rather di- 
minished, and traces of internal displeasure 
appeared, sometimes arising from an opinion I 
ought rather to have struggled on, live or die, 
than to quit her. Yet I am sure she saw how 
poor was my own chance, except by a change 
in the mode of life, and at least ceased to won- 
der, though she could not approve." Sweet 
queen ! What noble candour to admit that 
the undutifulness of people who did not think 
the honour of adjusting her tuckers worth the 
sacrifice of their own lives, was, though highly 
eriminal, not altogether unnatural ! 

We perfectly understand her majesty's con- 



tempt for the lives of others where her own 
pleasure was concerned. But what pleasure 
she can have found in having Miss Burney 
about her, it is not so easy to comprehend. That 
Miss Burney was an eminently skilful keeper 
of the robes is not very probable. Few wo 
men, indeed, had paid less attention to dress. 
Now and then, in the course of five years, she 
had been asked to read aloud or to write a 
copy of verses. But better readers might 
easily have been found : and her verses were 
worse than even the poet-laureate's birth-day 
odes. Perhaps that economy which was among 
her majesty's most conspicuous virtues, had 
something to do with her conduct on this occa- 
sion. Miss Burney had never hinted that she 
expected a retiring pension ; and indeed would 
gladly have given the little that she had for 
freedom. But her majesty knew what the 
public thought, and what became her dignity. 
She could not for very shame suffer a woman 
of distinguished genius, who had quitted a lu- 
crative career to wait on her, who had served 
her faithfully for a pittance during five years, 
and whose constitution had been impaired by 
labour and watching, to leave the court without 
some mark of royal liberality. George the 
Third, who, on all occasions where Miss Bur- 
ney was concerned, seems to have behaved 
like an honest, good-natured gentleman, felt 
this, and said plainly that she was entitled to a 
provision. At length, in return for all the 
misery which she had undergone, and for the 
health which she had sacrificed, an annuity of 
one hundred pounds was granted to her, de 
pendent on the queen's pleasure. 

Then the prison was opened, and Frances 
was free once more. Johnson, as Burke ob- 
served, might have added a striking page to 
his poem on the Vanity of Human Wishes, if 
he had lived to see his little Burney as she 
went into the palace and as she came out of it. 

The pleasures, so long untasted, of liberty, 
of friendship, of domestic affection, were al- 
most too acute for her shattered frame. But 
happy days and tranquil nights soon restored 
the health which the queen's toilette and Ma- 
dame Schwellenberg's card-table had impaired. 
Kind and anxious faces surrounded the invalid. 
Conversation the most polished and brilliant 
revived her spirits. Travelling was recom- 
mended to her ; and she rambled by easy jour- 
neys from cathedral to cathedral, and from 
watering-place to watering-place. She crossed 
the New Forest, and visited Stonehenge and 
Wilton, the cliffs of Lyme, and the beautiful 
valley of Sidmouth. Thence she journeyed 
by Powderham Castle, and by the ruins of 
Glastonbury Abbey, to Bath, and from Bath 
when the winter was approaching, returned 
well and cheerful to London. There she visited 
her old dungeon, and found her successor al- 
ready far on the way to the grave, and kept to 
strict duty, from morning till midnight, with a 
sprained ankle and a nervous fever. 

At this time England swarmed with French 
exiles, driven from their country by the Revo- 
lution. A colony of these refugees settled ai 
Juniper Hall, in Surrey, not far from Norbury 
Park, where Mr. Lock, an intimate friend of 
the Burney family resided. Frances visited 



688 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Norbury, and was introduced to the strangers. 
She had strong prejudices against them; for 
her toryism was far beyond, we do not say that 
of Mr. Pitt, but that of Mr. Reeves ; and the 
inmates of Juniper Hall were all attached to 
the constitution of 1791, and were therefore 
more detested by the royalists of the first emi- 
gration than Petion or Marat. But such a 
woman as Miss Burney could not long resist 
the fascination of that remarkable society. 
She had lived with Johnson and Windham, 
with Mrs. Montague and Mrs. Thrale. Yet she 
was forced to own that she had never heard 
conversation before. The most animated 
eloquence, the keenest observation, the most 
sparkling wit, the most courtly grace, were 
united to charm her. For Madame de Stae'l 
was there, and M. de Talleyrand. There, too, 
was M. de Narbonne, a noble representative of 
French aristocracy ; and with M. de Narbonne 
was his friend and follower, General D'Arblay, 
an honourable and amiable man, with a hand- 
some per? yn, frank, soldier-like manners, and 
some taste for letters. 

The prejudices which Frances had conceived 
against the constitutional royalists of France 
rapidly vanished. She listened with rapture 
to Talleyrand and Madame de Stael, joined 
with M. D'Arblay in execrating the Jacobins, 
and in weeping for the unhappy Bourbons, 
took French lessons from him, fell in love with 
him, and married him on no better provision 
than a precarious annuity of one hundred 
pounds. 

Here the Diary stops for the present. We 
will, therefore, bring our narrative to a speedy 
close, by rapidly recounting the most impor- 
tant events which we know to have befallen 
Madame D'Arblay during the latter part of her 
life. 

M. D'Arblay's fortune had perished in the 
general wreck of the French Revolution ; and 
in a foreign country his talents, whatever they 
may have been, could scarcely make him rich. 
The task of providing for the family devolved 
on his wife. In the year 1796, she published 
by subscription her third novel, Camilla. It 
was impatiently expected by the public ; and 
the sum which she obtained by it was, we be- 
lieve, greater than had ever at that time been 
received for a novel. We have heard that she 
cleared more than three thousand guineas. 
But we give this merely as a rumour. Camil- 
la, however, never attained popularity like that 
which Evelina and Cecilia had enjoyed; and 
it must be allowed that there was a perceptible 
falling off, not indeed in humour, or in power 
of portraying character, but in grace and pu- 
rity of style. 

We have heard that, about this time, a tragedy 
by Madame D'Arblay was performed without 
success. We do not know whether it was ever 
printed ; nor indeed have we had time to make 
any researches into its history or merits. 

During the short time which followed the 
treaty of Amiens, M. D'Arblay visited France. 
Lauriston and La Fayette represented his claims 
to the French government, and obtained a pro- 
mise that he should be reinstated in his military 
rank. M. D'Arblay, however, insisted that he 
should nevei be required to serve against the 



countrymen of his wife. The First Consul, o 
course, would not hear of such a condition 
and ordered the general's commission to be hi 
stantly revoked. 

Madame D'Arblay joined her husband at 
Paris a short time before the war of 1803 broke 
out ; and remained in France ten years, cut of! 
from almost all intercourse with the land of her 
birth. At length, when Napoleon was on his 
march to Moscow, she with great difficulty ob- 
tained from his ministers permission to visit 
her own country, in company with her son, 
who was a native of England. She returned 
in time to receive the last blessing of her father, 
who died in his eighty-seventh year. In 1814 
she published her last novel, The Wanderer, a 
book which no judicious friend to her memory 
will attempt to draw from the oblivion into 
which it has justly fallen. In the same year 
her son Alexander was sent to Cambridge. He 
obtained an honourable place among the wran- 
glers of his year, and was elected a fellow of 
Christ's College. But his reputation at the 
University was higher than might be inferred 
from his academical contests. His French 
education had not fitted him for the examina- 
tions of the Senate-House ; but in pure mathe- 
matics, we have been assured by some of his 
competitors that he had very few equals. He 
went into the church, and it was thought likely 
that he would attain high eminence as a preach- 
er ; but he died before his mother. All that we 
have heard of him leads us to believe that he 
was such a son as such a mother deserved to 
have. In 1832, Madame D'Arblay published 
the " Memoirs of her Father," and, on the 6th 
of January, 1840, she died, in her eighty-eighth 
year. 

We now turn from the life of Madame 
D'Arblay to her writings. There can, we ap- 
prehend, be little difference of opinion as to 
the nature of her merit, whatever differences 
may exist as to its degree. She was emphati- 
cally what Johnson called her, a character- 
monger. It was in the exhibition of human 
passions and whims that her strength lay ; and 
in this department of art she had, we think, 
very distinguished skill. 

But in order that we may, according to our 
duty as kings-at-arms, versed in the laws of 
literary precedence, marshal her to the exact 
seat in which she is entitled, we must carry our 
examination somewhat further. 

There is, in one respect, a remarkable ana- 
logy between the faces and the minds of men. 
No two faces are alike ; and yet very few faces 
deviate very widely from the common standard. 
Among the eighteen hundred thousand human 
beings who inhabit London, there is not one 
who could be taken by his acquaintance for 
another ; yet we may walk from Paddington to 
Mile-end without seeing one person in whom 
any feature is so overcharged that we turn 
around to stare at it. An infinite number of 
varieties lies between limits which are not very 
far asunder. The specimens which pass those 
limits on either side, form a very smaL mino< 
rity. 

It is the same with the characters of men. 
Here, too, the variety passes all enumeration. 
But the cases in which the deviation from tbe 



MADAME D'ARBLAY. 



688 



•ommon standard is striking and grotesque, are 
very few. In one mind avarice predominates ; 
in another, pride ; in a third, love of pleasure 
— just as in one countenance the nose is the 
most marked feature, Avhile in others the chief 
expression lies in the brow, or in the lines of 
the mouth. But there are very few counte- 
nances in which nose, brow, and mouth do not 
contribute, though in unequal degrees, to the 
general effect ; and so there are few characters 
in which one over-grown propensity makes all 
others utterly insignificant, 

It is evident that a portrait-painter, who was 
able only to represent faces and figures such as 
those which we pay money to see at fairs, 
would not, however spirited his execution 
might be, take rank among the highest artists. 
He must always be placed below those who 
have the skill to seize peculiarities which do 
not amount to deformity. The slighter those 
peculiarities the greater is the merit of the 
limner who can catch them and transfer them 
to his canvass. To paint Daniel Lambert or 
the Living Skeleton, the Pig-faced lady or the 
Siamese Twins, so that nobody can mistake 
them, is an exploit within the reach of a sign- 
painter. A third-rate artist might give us the 
squint of Wilkes, and the depressed nose and 
protuberant cheeks of Gibbon. It would re- 
quire a much higher degree of skill to paint 
two such men as Mr. Canning and Sir Thomas 
Lawrence, so that nobody who had ever seen 
them could for a moment hesitate to assign 
each picture to its original. Here the mere 
caricaturist would be quite at fault. He would 
find in neither face any thing on which he could 
lay hold for the purpose of making a distinc- 
tion. Two ample bald foreheads, two regular 
profiles, two full faces of the same oval form, 
would baffle his art; and he would be reduced 
to the miserable shift of writing their names 
at the foot of his picture. Yet there was a great 
difference ; and a person who had seen them 
once, would no more have mistaken one of 
them for the other than he would have mis- 
taken Mr. Pitt for Mr. Fox. But the difference 
lay in delicate lineaments and shades, reserved 
for pencils of a rare order. 

This distinction runs through all the imita- 
tive arts. Foote's mimicry was exquisitely 
ludicrous, but it was all caricature. He could 
take off only some strange peculiarity, a stam- 
mer or a lisp, a Northumbrian burr or an Irish 
brogue, a stoop or a shuffle. " If a man," said 
Johnson, " hops on one leg, Foote can hop on 
one leg." Garrick, on the other hand, could 
seize those diffei^nces of manner and pronun- 
ciation, which, though highly characteristic, 
are yet too slight to be described. Foote, we 
have no doubt, could have made the Haymar- 
ket theatre shake with laughter by imitating a 
dialogue between a Scotchman and a Somer- 
setshireman. But Garrick could have imitated 
a dialogue between two fashionable men, both 
models of the best breeding, Lord Chesterfield 
for example, and Lord Albemarle ; so that no 
person could doubt which was which, although 
no person could say that in any point either 
Lord Chesterfield or Lord Albemarle spoke or 
moved otherwise than, in conformity with the 
«sages of the best society. 
38 



The same distinction is found in the drama 
and in fictitious narrative. Highest among 
those who have exhibited human nature by 
means of dialogue, stands Shakspeare. His 
variety is like the variety of nature, endless 
diversity, scarcely any monstrosity. The cha- 
racters of which he has given us an impression 
as vivid as that which we receive from the 
characters of our own associates, are to be reck- 
oned by scores. Yet in all these scores hardly 
one character is to be found which deviates 
widely from the common standard, and which 
we should call very eccentric if we met it in 
real life. 

The silly notion that every man has one rul- 
ing passion, and that this clue, once known, 
unravels all the mysteries of his conduct, finds 
no countenance in the plays of Shakspeare. 
There man appears as he is, made up of a 
crowd of passions, which contend for the mas- 
tery over him, and govern him in turn. What 
is Hamlet's ruling passion t Or Othello's 1 Or 
Harry the Fifth's 1 Or Wolsey's 1 Or Lear's 1 
OrShylock's? Or Benedick's ? Or Macbeth's ? 
Or that of Cassius ? Or that of Falconbridge ? 
But we might go on for ever. Take a single 
example — Shylock. Is he so eager for money 
as to be indifferent to revenge 1 Or so eager 
for revenge as to be indifferent to money 1 Or 
so bent on both together as to be indifferent tc 
the honour of his nation and the law of Moses 1 
All his propensities are mingled with each 
other ; so that, in trying to apportion to each its 
proper part, we find the same difficulty which 
constantly meets us in real life. A superficial 
critic may say, that hatred is Shylock's ruling 
passion. But how many passions have amal- 
gamated to form that hatred ? It is partly the 
result of wounded pride : Antonio has called 
him dog. It is partly the result of covetous- 
ness : Antonio has hindered him of half a mil- 
lion, and, when Antonio is gone, there will be 
no limit to the gains of usury. It is partly the 
result of national and religious feeling: Anto- 
nio has spit on the Jewish gaberdine ; and the 
oath of revenge has been sworn by the Jewish 
Sabbath. We might go through all the char- 
acters which we have mentioned, and through 
fifty more in the same way ; for it is the con- 
stant manner of Shakspeare to represent the 
human mind as lying, not under the absolute 
dominion of one domestic propensity, but under 
a mixed government, in which a hundred pow- 
ers balance each other. Admirable as he was 
in all parts of his art, we most admire him for 
this, that, while he has left us a greater num- 
ber of striking portraits than all other drama- 
tists put together, he has scarcely left us a 
single caricature. 

Shakspeare has had neither equal nor second, 
But among the writers who, in the point which 
we have noticed, have approached nearest to 
the manner of the great master, we have no 
hesitation in placing Jane Austen, a woman of 
whom England is justly proud. She has given 
us a multitude of characters, all, in a certain 
sense, commonplace, all such as we meet every 
day. Yet they are all as perfectly discriminal 
ed from each other as if they were the most 
eccentric of human beings. There are, for 
example, four clergymen, none of whom w 



690 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



«hould be surprised to find in any parsonage in 
the kingdom, Mr. Edward Ferrars, Mr. Henry 
Tilney, Mr. Edmund Bertram, and Mr. Elton. 
They are all specimens of the upper part of the 
middle class. They have all been liberally 
educated. They all lie under the l-estraints of 
the same sacred profession. They are all 
young. They are all in love. Not one of them 
has any hobby-horse, to use the phrase of 
Sterne. Not one has a ruling passion, such as 
we read of in Pope. Who would not have ex- 
pected them to be insipid likenesses of each 
other ? No such thing. Harpagon is not more 
unlike to Jourdain, Joseph Surface is not more 
unlike to Sir Lucius O'Trigger, than every one 
of Miss Austen's young divines to all his re- 
verend brethren. And almost all this is done 
by touches so delicate, that they elude analysis, 
that they defy the powers of description, and 
that we know them to exist only by the general 
effect to which they have contributed. 

A line must be drawn, we conceive, between 
artists of this class, and those poets and novel- 
ists whose skill lies in the exhibiting of what 
Ben Jonson called humours. The words of 
Ben are so much to the purpose, that we will 
quote them : — 

" When some one peculiar quality 
Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw 
All his effects, his spirits, and his powers, 
In their confluxions all to run one way, 
This may be truly said to be a humour." 

There are undoubtedly persons, in whom 
humours such as Ben describes have attained 
a complete ascendency. The avarice of Elwes, 
the insane desire of Sir Egerton Brydges for a 
barony to which he had no more right than to 
the crown of Spain, the malevolence which 
long meditation on imaginary wrongs gene- 
rated in the gloomy mind of Bellingham, are 
instances. The feeling which animated Clark- 
son and other virtuous men against the slave- 
trade and slavery, is an instance of a more 
honourable kind. 

Seeing that such humours exist, we cannot 
deny that they are proper subjects for the imi- 
tations of art. But Ave conceive that the imita- 
tion of such humours, however skilful and 
amusing, is not an achievement of the high- 
est order ; and, as such humours are rare in 
real life, they ought, we conceive, to be sparing- 
ly introduced into works which profess to be 
pictures of real life. Nevertheless, a writer 
may show so much genius in the exhibition of 
these humours, as to be fairly entitled to a dis- 
tinguished and permanent rank among classics. 
The chief seats of all, however, the places on 
the dais and under the canopy, are reserved for 
the few who have excelled in the difficult art 
of portraying characters in which no single 
feature is extravagantly overcharged. 

If we have expounded the law soundly, we 
can have no difficulty in applying it to the par- 
ticular case before us. Madame D'Arblay has 
Left us scarcely any thing but humours. Al- 
most every one of her men and women has 
some one propensity developed to a morbid 
degree. In Cecilia, for example, Mr. Delvile 
never opens his lips without some allusion to 
his own birth and station ; or Mr. Briggs, with- 



out some allusion to the hoarding of money 
or Mr. Hobson, without betraying the self-in« 
dulgence and self-importance of a purse-proud 
upstart ; or Mr. Simkins, without uttering some 
sneaking remark for the purpose of currying 
favour with his customers ; or Mr. Meadows, 
without expressing apathy and weariness ol 
life ; or Mr. Albany, without declaiming about 
the vices of the rich and the misery of the 
poor; or Mrs. Belfield, without some inde- 
licate eulogy on her son ; or Lady Margaret, 
without indicating jealousy of her husband. 
Morrice is all skipping, officious impertinence, 
Mr. Gosport all sarcasm, Lady Honoria all 
lively prattle, Miss Larolles all silly prattle. 
If ever Madame D'Arblay aimed at more, as in 
the character of Monckton, we do not think 
that she succeeded well. 

We are, therefore, forced to refuse Madame 
D'Arblay a place in the highest rank of art; 
but we cannot deny that, in the rank to which 
she belonged, she had few equals, and scarcely 
any superior. The variety of humours which 
is to be found in her novels is immense ; and 
though the talk of each person separately is 
monotonous, the general effect is not monotony, 
but a very lively and agreeable diversity. Her 
plots are rudely constructed and improbable, 
if we consider them in themselves. But they 
are admirably framed for the purpose of ex- 
hibiting striking groups of eccentric characters, 
each governed by his own peculiar whim, each 
talking his own peculiar jargon, and each 
bringing out by opposition the peculiar oddU 
ties of all the rest. We will give one exam- 
ple out of many which occur to us. All pro- 
bability is violated in order to bring Mr. Del- 
vile, Mr. Briggs, Mr. Hobson, and Mr. Albany 
into a room together. But when Ave have 
them there, we soon forget probability in the 
exquisitely ludicrous effect which is produced 
by the conflict of four old fools, each raging 
Avith a monomania of his own, each talking a 
dialect of his own, and each inflaming all the 
others anew every time he opens his mouth. 

Madame D'Arblay was most successful in 
comedy, and indeed in comedy which bordered 
on farce. But we are inclined to infer from 
some passages, both in Cecilia and Camilla, 
that she might have attained equal distinction 
in the pathetic. We have formed this judg- 
ment less from those ambitious scenes of* dis- 
tress which lie near the catastrophe of each of 
those novels than from some exquisite strokes 
cf natural tenderness Avhich take us here and 
there by surprise. We would mention as ex- 
amples, Mrs. Hill's account of her little boy's 
death in Cecilia, and the parting of Sir Hugh 
Tyrold and Camilla, when the honest baronet 
thinks himself dying. 

It is melancholy to think that the whole fame 
of Madame D'Arblay rests on what she did dur- 
ing the early half of her life, and that every 
thing which she published during the forty- 
three years Avhich preceded her death, lowered 
her reputation. Yet we have no reason to 
think that at the time when her faculties o aght 
to have been in their maturity, they were smitten 
Avith any blight. In the Wanderer, we catch 
noAV and then a gleam of her genius. Even in 
the Memoirs of her Father, there is no trace of 



MADAME D'ARBLAY. 



531 



dotage. They are very bad ; but they are so, 
as it seems to us, not from a decay of power, 
but from a total perversion of power. 

The truth is, that Madame D'Arblay's style 
underwent a gradual and most pernicious 
change — a change which, in degree at least, 
we believe to be unexampled in literary his- 
tory, and of which it may be useful to trace 
the progress. 

When she wrote her letters to Mr. Crisp, 
her early journals, and the novel of Evelina, 
her style was not indeed brilliant or energetic ; 
but it was easy, clear, and free from all offen- 
sive faults. When she wrote Cecilia she aim- 
ed higher. She had then lived much in a cir- 
cle of which Johnson was the centre; and she 
was herself one of his most submissive wor- 
shippers. It seems never to have crossed her 
mind that the style even of his best writings 
was by no means faultless, and that even had 
il been faultless, it might not be wise in her to 
imitate it. Phraseology which is proper in a 
disquisition on the Unities, or in a preface to a 
dictionary, may be quite out of place in a tale 
of fashionable life. Old gentlemen do not criti- 
cise the reigning modes, nor do young gentle- 
men make love with the balanced epithets and 
sonorous cadences which, on occasions of 
great dignity, a skilful writer may use with 
happy eifect. 

In an evil hour the authoress of Evelina took 
the Rambler for her model. This would not 
have been wise even if she could have imitated 
her pattern as well as Hawkesworth did. But 
such imitation was beyond her power. She 
had her own style. It was a tolerably good 
one ; one which might, without any violent 
change, have been improved into a very good 
one. She determined to throw it away, and to 
adopt a style in which she could attain excel- 
lence only by achieving an almost miraculous 
victory over nature and over habit. She could 
cease to be Fanny Burney ; it was not so easy 
to become Samuel Johnson. 

In Cecilia the change of manner began to 
appear. But in Cecilia the imitation of John- 
son, though not always in the best taste, is 
sometimes eminently happy ; and the passages 
which are so verbose as to be positively otTen 
sive, are few. There were people who whis- 
pered that Johnson had assisted his young 
friend, and that the novel owed all its finest 
passages to his hand. This was merely a fa- 
brication of envy. Miss Burney's real excel- 
lences were as much beyond the reach of 
Johnson as his real excellences were beyond 
her reach. He could no more have written 
the masquerade scene, or the Vauxhall scene, 
than she could have written the Life of Cowley 
or the Review of Soame Jenyns. But we have 
not the smallest doubt that he revised Cecilia, 
and that he retouched the style of many pass- 
ages. We know that he was in the habit 
of giving assistance of this kind most free- 
ly. Goldsmith, Hawkesworth, Boswell, Lord 
Hailes, Mrs. Williams, were among those who 
obtained his help. Nay, he even corrected the 
poetry of Mr. Crabbe, whom, we believe, he had 
never seen. When Miss Burney thought of 
writing a corned}', he promised to give her his 
best counsel, though he owned that he was not 



particularly well qualified to advise on matteri 
relating to the stage. We therefore think it in 
the highest degree improbable that his little 
Fanny, when living in habits of the most affec 
tionate intercourse with him, would hav<"< 
brought out an important work without con 
suiting him; and, when we look into Cecilia 
we see such traces of his hand in the gravt 
and elevated passages as it is impossible tc 
mistake. Before we conclude this article, we 
will, give two or three examples. 

When next Madame D'Arblay appeared be- 
fore the world as a writer, she was in a very dif- 
ferent situation. She would not content herself 
with the simple English in which Evelina had 
been written. She had no longer the friend who, 
we are confident, had polished and strengthened 
the style of Cecilia. She had to write in John- 
son's manner without Johnson's aid. The con- 
sequence was, that in Camilla every passage 
which she meant to be fine is detestable ; and 
that the book has been saved from condemna- 
tion only by the admirable spirit and force of 
those scenes in which she was content to be 
familiar. 

But there was to be a still deeper descent. 
After the publication of Camilla, Madame 
D'Arblay resided ten years at Paris. During 
those years there was scarcely any intercourse 
between France and England. It was with 
difficulty that a short letter could occasionally 
be transmitted. All Madame D'Arblay's com 
panions were French. She must have written, 
spoken, thought, in French. Ovid expressed 
his fear that a shorter exile might have affected 
the purity of his Latin. During a shorter exile, 
Gibbon unlearned his native English. Madame 
D'Arblay had carried a bad style to France. 
She brought back a style which we are really 
at a loss to describe. It is a sort of broken 
Johnsonese, a barbarous patois, bearing the 
same relation to the language of Rasselas 
which the gibberish of the negroes of Jamaica 
bears to the English of the House of Lords. 
Sometimes it reminds us of the finest, that is 
to sav, the vilest parts, of Mr. Gait's novels ; 
sometimes of the perorations of Exeter Hall ; 
sometimes of the leading articles of the Morn- 
ing Post. But it most resembles the puffs of 
Mr. Rowland and Dr. Gross. It matters not 
what ideas are clothed in such a style. The 
genius of Shakspeare and Bacon united would 
not save a work so written from general deri« 
sion. 

It is only by means of specimens that we 
can enable our readers to judge how widely 
Madame D'Arblay's three styles differ from 
each other. 

The following passage was written before 
she became intimate with Johnson. It is from 
Evelina: 

" His son seems weaker in his understand- 
ing, and more gay in his temper ; but his gayety 
is that of the foolish overgrown schoolboy, 
whose mirth consists in noise and disturbance, 
He disdains his father for his close attention 
to business and love of money, though he seems 
himself to have no talents, spirit, or generosity 
to make him superior to either. His chief de 
light appears to be in tormenting and ridiculing 
his sisters. Avho in return most corJiallv d* 



538 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



gpise him Miss Branghton, the eldest daugh- 
ter, is by no means ugiy : but looks proud, ill- 
tempered, and conceited. She hates the city, 
though without knowing why ; for it is easy to 
discover she has lived no where else. Miss 
Polly Branghton is rather pretty, very foolish, 
very giddy, and, I believe, very good-natured." 

This is not a fine style, but simple, perspicu- 
ous, and agreeable. We now come to Cecilia, 
written during Miss Burney's intimacy with 
Johnson; and we leave it to our readers to 
judge whether the following passage was not 
at least corrected by his hand : 

"It is. rather an imaginary than an actual 
evil, and, though a deep wound to pride, no 
offence to morality. Thus have I laid open to 
you my whole heart, confessed my perplexi- 
ties, acknowledged my vain-glory, and exposed 
with equal sincerity the sources of my doubts 
and the motives of my decision. But now, in- 
deed, how to proceed I know not. The diffi- 
culties which are yet to encounter I fear to 
enumerate, and the petition I have to urge I 
have scarce courage to mention. My family, 
mistaking ambition for honour, and rank for 
dignity, have long planned a splendid connec- 
tion for me, to which, though my invariable 
repugnance has stopped any advances, their 
wishes and their views immovably adhere. But 
I am too certain they will now listen to no 
other. I dread, therefore, to make a trial where 
I despair of success. I know not how to risk 
a prayer with those who may silence me by a 
command." 

Take now a specimen of Madame D'Arblay's 
later style. This is the way in which she tells 
us that her father, on his journey back from the 
continent, caught the rheumatism: 

" He was assaulted, during his precipitated 
return, by the rudest fierceness of wintry ele- 
mental strife ; through which, with bad accom- 
modations and innumerable accidents, he be- 
came a prey to the merciless pangs of the 
acutest spasmodic rheumatism, which barely 
suffered him to reach his home, ere, long and 
piteously, it confined him, a tortured prisoner, 
to his bed. Such was the check that almost 
instantly curbed, though it could not subdue, 
the rising pleasure of his hopes of entering 
upon a new species of existence — that of an 
approved man of letters ; for it was on the bed 
of sickness, exchanging the light wines of 
France, Italy, and Germany, for the black and 
loathsome potions of the Apothecaries' Hall, 
writhed by darting stitches, and burning with 
fiery fever, that he felt the full force of that 
sublunary equipoise that seems evermore to 
hang suspended over the attainment of long 
sought and uncommon felicity, just as it is 
ripening to burst forth with enjoyment!" 

Here is a second passage from Evelina : 

" Mrs. Selwyn is very kind and attentive to 
me. She is extremely clever. Her understand- 
ing, indeed, may be called masculine ; but 
unfortunately her manners deserve the same 
epithet. For, in studying to acquire the know- 
'edge of the other sex, she has lost all the soft- 
ness of her own. In regard to myself, how- 
ever, as I have neither courage nor inclination 
to argue with her, I have never been personally 
hurt at her want of gentleness — a virtue which. 



nevertheless, seems so essential a part of the 
female character, that I find myself more awk« 
ward and less at ease with a woman who wants 
it than I do with a man." 

This is a good style of its kind ; and the fol- 
lowing passage from Cecilia is also in good 
style, though not in a faultless one. We say 
with confidence — Either Sam Johnson or the 
Devil. 

" Even the imperious Mr. Delvile was more 
supportable here than in London. Secure in 
his own castle, he looked round him with a 
pride of power and possession which softened 
while it swelled him. His superiority was un- 
disputed; his will was without control. He 
was not, as in the great capital of the king- 
dom, surrounded by competitors. No rival 
disturbed his peace ; no equality mortified his 
greatness. All he saw were either vassals of 
his power, or guests bending to his pleasure. 
He abated, therefore, considerably the stern 
gloom of his haughtiness, and soothed his 
proud mind by the courtesy of condescension." 

We will stake our reputation for critical 
sagacity on this, that no such paragraph as 
that which we have last quoted, can be found 
in any of Madame D'Arblay's works except 
Cecilia. Compare with it the following sample 
of her later style : 

" If beneficence be judged by the happiness 
which it diffuses, whose claim, by that proof, 
shall stand higher than that of Mrs. Montagu, 
from the munificence with which she cele- 
brated her annual festival for those hapless 
artificers who perform the most abject offices 
of any authorized calling, in being the active 
guardians of our blazing hearths 1 Not to 
vain-glory, then, but to kindness of heart, 
should be adjudged the publicity of that superb 
charity which made its jetty objects, for one 
bright morning, cease to consider themselves 
as degraded outcasts from all society." 

We add one or two shorter samples. Sheri- 
dan refused to permit his lovely wife to sing in 
public, and was warmly praised on this ac- 
count by Johnson. 

" The last of men," says Madame D'Arblay, 
" was Doctor Johnson to have abetted squan- 
dering the delicacy of integrity by nullifying 
the labours of talents." 

The club, Johnson's club, did itself no honour 
by rejecting on political grounds two distin- 
guished men, the one a tory, the other a whig. 
Madame D'Arblay tells the story thus: "A 
similar ebullition of political rancour with that 
which so difficultly had been conquered for Mr. 
Canning, foamed over the ballot-box tc the ex- 
clusion of Mr. Rogers." 

An offence punishable with imprisonment 
is, in this language, an offence "which pro- 
duces incarceration." To be starved to death 
is, "to sink from inanition into nonentity." 
Sir Isaac Newton is, "the developer of the 
skies in their embodied movements ;" and Mrs. 
Thrale, when a party of clever people sat 
silent, is said to have been " provoked by the 
dulness of a taciturnity that, in the midst of 
such renowned interlocutors, produced as nar- 
cotic a torpor as could have been caused by a 
dearth the most barren of all human faculties." 
In truth, it is impossible to look in any page 



MADAME DARBLAY. 



593 



t»f Madame D'Arblay's later works, without 
finding flowers of rhetoric like these. Nothing 
in the language of those jargonists at whom 
Mr. Gosport laughed, nothing in the language 
of Sir Sedley Clarendel, approaches this new 
euphuism. 

It is from no unfriendly feeling to Madame 
D'Arblay's memory that we have expressed 
ourselves so strongly on the subject of her 
style. On the contrary, we conceive that we 
have really rendered a service to her reputa- 
tion. That her later works were complete fail- 
ures is a fact too notorious to be dissembled ; 
and some persons, we believe, have conse- 
quently taken up a notion that she was from 
the first an overrated writer, and that she had 
not the powers which were necessary to main- 
tain her on the eminence on which good-luck 
and fashion had placed her. We believe, on 
the contrary, that her early popularity was no 
more than the just reward of distinguished 
merit, and would never have undergone an 
eclipse, if she had only been content to go on 
writing in her mother-tongue. If she failed 
when she quitted her own province, and at- 
tempted to occupy one in which she had nei- 
ther part nor lot, this reproach is common to 
her with a crowd of distinguished men. New- 
ton failed when he turned from the courses of 
the stars, and the ebb and flow of the ocean, to 
apocalyptic seals and vials. Benlley failed 
when he turned from Homer and Aristophanes 
to edit Paradise Lost. Inigo failed when he 
attempted to rival the Gothic churches of the 
fourteenth century. Wilkie failed when he 
took into his head that the Blind Fiddler and 
the Rent-Day were unworthy of his powers, 
and challenged competition with Lawrence as 
a portrait painter. Such failures should be 
noted for the instruction of posterity ; but they 
detract little from the permanent reputation of 
those who have really done great things. 

Yet one word more. It is not only on ac- 
count of the intrinsic merit of Madame D'Ar- 
blay's early works that she is entitled to hon- 
ourable mention. Her appearance is an 
important epoch in our literary history. Eve- 
lina was the first tale written by a woman, and 
purporting to be a picture of life and manners, 
that lived or deserved to live. The Female 
Quixote is no exception. That work has un- 
doubtedly great merit when considered as a 



wild satirical harlequinade; but, if we con 
sider it as a picture of life and manner:!, we 
must pronounce it more absurd than any of the 
romances which it was designed to ridicule. 

Indeed, most oi the popular novels which 
preceded Evelina were such as no lady would 
have written ; and many of them were such 
as no lady could without confusion cwn that 
she had read. The very name of ncvel was 
held in horror among religious people. In 
decent families which did not profess extra- 
ordinary sanctity, there was a strong feeling 
against all such works. Sir Anthony Absolute, 
two or three years before Evelina appeared, 
spoke the sense of the great body of sober 
fathers and husbands, when he pronounced the 
circulating library an evergreen tree of dia- 
bolical knowledge. This feeling, on the part 
of the grave and reflecting, increased the evil 
from which it had sprung. The novelist, hav 
ing little character to lose, and having few 
readers among serious people, took without 
scruple liberties which in our generation seem 
almost incredible. 

Miss Burney did for the English novel what 
Jeremy Collier did for the English drama ; and 
she did it in a better way. She first showed 
that a tale might be written in which both the 
fashionable and the vulgar life of London 
might be exhibited with great force, and with 
broad comic humour, and which yet shoula 
not contain a single line inconsistent with rigid 
morality, or even with virgin delicacy. She 
took away the reproach which lay on a most 
useful and delightful species of composition. 
She vindicated the right of her sex to an equal 
share in a fair and noble province of letters. 
Several accomplished women have followed 
in her track. At present, the novels which we 
owe to English ladies form no small part of 
the literary glory of our country. No class of 
works is more honourably distinguished by 
fine observation, by grace, by delicate wit, by 
pure moral feeling. Several among the suc- 
cessors of Madame D'Arblay have equalled 
her ; two, we think, have surpassed her. But 
the fact that she has been surpassed gives her 
an additional claim to our respect and grati- 
tude ; for in truth we owe to her, not only Eve- 
lina, Cecilia, and Camilla, but also Mansfieid 
Park and the Absentee. 



S&l 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 1 



(Edinburgh Review, July, 1843.J 



Some reviewers are of opinion that a lady 

ho dares to publish a book renounces by that 
act the franchises appertaining to her sex, and 
can claim no exemption from the utmost rigour 
of critical procedure. From that opinion we 
dissent. We admit, indeed, that in a country 
which boasts of many female writers, eminently 
qualified by their talents and acquirements to 
influence the public mind, it would be of most 
pernicious consequence that inaccurate history 
or unsound philosophy should be suffered to 
pass uncensured, merely because the offender 
chanced to be a lady. But we conceive that, 
on such occasions, a critic would do well to 
imitate that courteous knight who found him- 
self compelled by duty to keep the lists against 
Bradamante. He, we are told, defended suc- 
cessfully the cause of which he was the cham- 
pion; but, before the fight began, exchanged 
Balisarda for a less deadly sword, of which he 
carefully blunted the point and edge.f 

Nor are the immunities of sex the only im- 
munities which Miss Aikin may rightfully 
plead. Several of her works, and especially 
the very pleasing Memoirs of the Reign of 
James the First, have fully entitled her to the 
privileges enjoyed by good writers. One of 
those privileges we hold to be this, that such 
writers, when, either from the unlucky choice 
of a subject, or from the indolence too often 
produced by success, they happen to fail, shall 
not be subjected to the severe discipline which 
it is sometimes necessary to inflict upon dunces 
and impostors ; but shall merely be reminded 
by a gentle touch, like that with which the La- 
putan flapper roused his dreaming lord, that it 
is high time to wake. 

Our readers will probably infer from what 
we have said that Miss Aikin's book has dis- 
appointed us. The truth is, that she is not well 
acquainted with her subject. No person who 
:s not familiar with the political and literary 
history of England during the reigns of William 
III., of Anne, and of George I., can possibly 
write a good life of Addison. Now, we mean 
no reproach to Miss Aikin, and many will 
think that we pay her a compliment, when we 
say that her studies have taken a different di- 
rection. She is better acquainted with Shaks- 
peare and Raleigh, than with Congreve and 
Prior ; and is far more at home among the ruffs 
and peaked beards of Theobald's than among 
the Steenkirks and flowing periwigs which sur- 
rounded Queen Anne's tea-table at Hampton. 
She seems to have written about the Elizabethan 
Age, because she had read much about it ; she 
seems, on the other hand, to have read a little 
about the age of Addison, because she had de- 
termined to write about it. The consequence 



* Tlie Life of Joseph Addison. By Lucy Aikin. 2 vols. 
*o. London. 1843. 
i Orlando Furioso, xlv. 68. 



is, that she has had to describe men and thinga 
without having either a correct or a vivid idea 
of them, and that she has often fallen into er- 
rors of a very serious kind. Some of these 
errors we may, perhaps, take occasion to point 
out. But we have not time to point out one 
half of those which we have observed; and it 
is but too likely that we may not have ob- 
served all those which exist. The reputation 
which Miss Aikin has justly earned stands so 
high, and the charm of Addison's letters is so 
great, that a second edition of this work may 
probably be required. If so, we hope that 
every paragraph will be revised, and that every 
date and statement of fact about which there 
can be the smallest doubt will be carefully veri- 
fied. 

To Addison himself we are bound by a sen- 
timent as much like affection as any sentiment 
can be which is inspired by one who has been 
sleeping a hundred and twenty years in West- 
minster Abbey. We trust, however, that this 
feeling will not betray us into that abject idola 
try which we have often had occasion to repre- 
hend in others, and which seldom fails to make 
both the idolater and the idol ridiculous. A 
man of genius and virtue is but a man. All 
his powers cannot be equally developed; nor 
can we expect fromjiim perfect self-knowledge. 
We need not, therefore, hesitate to admit that 
Addison has left us some compositions which 
do not rise above mediocrity, some heroic 
poems hardly equal to Parnell's, some criticism 
as superficial as Dr. Blair's, and a tragedy not 
very much better than Dr. Johnson's. It is 
praise enough to say of a writer, that, in a high 
department of literature, in which many emi- 
nent writers have distinguished themselves, he 
has had no equal ; and this may with strict 
justice be said of Addison. 

As a man he may not have deserved the ado- 
ration which he received from those, who, be- 
witched by his fascinating society, and indebted 
for all the comforts of life to his generous and 
delicate friendship, worshipped him nightly in 
his favourite temple at Button's. But, after full 
inquiry and impartial reflection, we have long 
been convinced, that he deserved as much love 
and esteem as can be justly claimed by any of our 
infirm and erring race. Some blemishes may 
undoubtedly be detected in his character; but the 
more carefully it is examined, the more will it ap- 
pear, tousethephraseof the oldanatomists,sound 
in the noble parts — free from all taint of perfidy, 
of cowardice, of cruelty, of ingratitude, of envy. 
Men may easily be named in whom some par- 
ticular good disposition has been more con- 
spicuous than in Addison. But the just har- 
mony of qualities, the exact temper between the 
stern and the humane virtues, the habitual ob« 
servance of every law, not only of moral rec« 
titude, but of moral grace and dignity, distin- 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 



598 



guish him from all men who have heen tried by 
equally full information. 

His father was the Reverend Lancelot Ad- 
dison, who, though eclipsed by his more cele- 
brated son, made some figure in the world, and 
occupies with credit two folio pages in the 
" Biographia Britannica." Lancelot was sent 
up, as a poor scholar, from Westmoreland to 
Queen's College, Oxford, in the time of the 
Commonwealth; made some progress in learn- 
ing; became, like most of his fellow-students, 
a violent royalist ; lampooned the heads of the 
university, and was forced to ask pardon on his 
bended knees. When he had left college, he 
earned an humble subsistence by reading the 
liturgy of the fallen church to the families of 
those sturdy squires whose manor-houses were 
scattered over the Wild of Sussex. After the 
restoration, his royalty was rewarded with the 
post of chaplain to the garrison of Dunkirk. 
When Dunkirk was sold to France, he lost his 
employment. But Tangier had been ceded by 
Portugal to England as part of the marriage 
portion of the Infanta Catharine ; and to Tan- 
gier Lancelot Addison was sent. A more mise- 
rable situation can hardly be conceived. It was 
difficult to say whether the unfortunate settlers 
were more tormented by the heats or by the 
rains; by the soldiers within the wall or the 
Moors without it. One advantage the chaplain 
had. He enjoyed an excellent opportunity of 
studying the history andmanners of the Jews and 
Mohammedans; and of this opportunity he ap- 
pears to have made excellent use. On his return 
to England, after some years of banishment, he 
published an interesting volume on the polity 
and religion of Barbary; and another on the 
Hebrew customs, and the state of rabbinical 
learning. He rose to eminence in his profes- 
sion, and became one of the royal chaplains, a 
doctor of divinity, archdeacon of Salisbury and 
dean of Litchfield. It is said that he would 
have been made a bishop after the Revolution, 
if he had not given offence to the government 
by strenuously opposing the convocation of 
1689, the liberal policy of William and Tillotson. 

In 1672, not long after Dr. Addison's return 
from Tangier, his son Joseph was born. Of 
Joseph's childhood we know little. He learned 
his rudiments at schools in his father's neigh- 
bourhood, and was then sent to the Charter 
House. The anecdotes which are popularly 
related about his boyish tricks do not harmo- 
nize very well with what we know of his riper 
years. There remains a tradition that he was 
the ringleader in a barring-out; and another 
tradition that he ran away from school, and hid 
himself in a wood, where he fed on berries and 
slept in a hollow tree, till after a long search 
he was discovered and brought home. If these 
stories be true, it would be curious to know 
by what moral discipline so mutinous and en- 
terprising a lad was transformed into the gen- 
tlest and most modest of men. 

We have abundant proof that, whatever Jo- 
seph's pranks may have been, he pursued his 
studies vigorously and successfully. At fifteen 
he was not only fit for the university, but car- 
ried thither a classical taste, and a stock of 
learning which would have done honour to a 
master of arts. He was entered at Queen's 



College, Oxford; but he had not been many 
months there, when some of his Latin verses 
fell by accident into the hands of Dr. Lancas- 
ter, dean of Magdalene College. The young 
scholar's diction and Versification were already 
such as veteran professors might envy. Dr 
Lancaster was desirous to serve a boy of such 
promise; nor was an opportunity long want- 
ing. The Revolution had just taken place; 
and nowhere had it been hailed with more de- 
light than at Magdalene College. That great 
and opulent corporation had been treated by 
James, and by his chancellor, with an insolence 
and injustice which, even in such a prince and 
in such a minister, may justly excite amaze- 
ment ; and which had done more than even the 
prosecution of the bishops to alienate the 
Church of England from the throne. A pre 
sident, duly elected, had been violently expelled 
from his dwelling. A papist had been set ovei 
the society by a royal mandate : the Fellows, 
who, in conformity with their oaths, refused to 
submit to this usurper, had been driven forth 
from their quiet cloisters and gardens, to die 
of want or to live on charity. But the day of 
redress and retribution speedily came. The 
intruders were ejected ; the venerable house 
was again inhabited by its old inmates : learn- 
ing flourished under the rule of the wise and 
virtuous Hough ; and with learning was united 
a mild and liberal spirit, too often wanting in 
the princely colleges of Oxford. In conse- 
quence of the troubles through which the so- 
ciety had passed, there had been no election of 
new members during the year 1688. In 1689, 
therefore, there was twice the ordinary number 
of vacancies ; and thus Dr. Lancaster found it 
easy to procure for his young friend admittance 
to the advantages of a foundation then generally 
esteemed the wealthiest in Europe. 

At Magdalene, Addison resided during ten 
years. He was, at first, one of those scholars 
who are called demies ; but was subsequently 
elected a fellow. His college is still proud of 
his name ; his portrait still hangs in the hall; 
and strangers are still told that his favourite 
walk was under the elms which fringe the 
meadow on the banks of the Cherwell. It is 
said, and is highly probable, that he was dis- 
tinguished among his fellow-students by the 
delicacy of his feelings, by the shyness of his . 
manners, and by the assiduity with which he 
often prolonged his studies far into the night. . 
It is certain that his reputation for ability and 
learning stood high. Many years later the 
ancient doctors of Magdalene continued to 
talk in their common room of boyish com 
positions, and expressed their sorrow that no 
copy of exercises so remarkable had been 
preserved. 

It is proper, however, to remark, that Miss 
Aikin has committed the error, very pardon- 
able in a lady, of overrating Addison's classi- 
cal attainments. In one department of learn- 
ing, indeed, his proficiency was such as it is 
hardly possible to overrate. His knowledge 
of the Latin poets, from Lucretius and Ca- 
tullus down to Claudian and Prudentius, was 
singularly exact and profound. Ho understood 
them thoroughly, entered into their spirit, and 
had the finest and most discriminating percep* 



590 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



tion of all their peculiarities of style and 
melody; nay, he copied their manner with 
admirable skill, and surpassed, we think, all 
their British imitators who had preceded him, 
Buchanan and Milton alone excepted. This is 
high praise ; and beyond this we cannot with 
justice go. It is clear that Addison's serious 
attention, during his residence at the univer- 
sity, was almost entirely concentrated on Latin 
poetry ; and that, if he did not wholly neglect 
other provinces of ancient literature, he vouch- 
safed to them only a cursory glance. He does 
not appear to have attained more than an or- 
dinary acquaintance with the political and 
moral writers of Rome ; nor was his own 
Latin prose by any means equal to his Latin 
verse. His knowledge of Greek, though doubt- 
less such as was, in his time, thought respect- 
able at Oxford, was evidently less than that 
which many lads now carry away every year 
from Eton and Rugby. A minute examination 
of his work, if we had time to make such an 
examination, would fully bear out these re- 
marks. We will briefly advert to a few of the 
facts on which our judgment is grounded. 

Great praise is due to the notes which Ad- 
dison appended to his version of the second 
and third books of the Metamorphoses. Yet 
these notes, while they show him to have been, 
in his own domain, an accomplished scholar, 
show also how confined that domain was. 
They are rich in apposite references to Virgil, 
Statius, and Claudian ; but they contain not a 
single illustration drawn from the Greek poets. 
Now if, in the whole compass of Latin litera- 
ture, there be a passage. which stands in need 
of illustration drawn from the Greek poets, it 
is the story of Pentheus in the third book of 
the Metamorphoses. Ovid was indebted for 
that story to Euripides and Theocritus, both 
of whom he has sometimes followed minutely. 
But neither to Euripides nor to Theocritus 
does Addison make the faintest ailusion ; and 
we, therefore, believe that we do not wrong 
him by supposing that he had little or no know- 
ledge of their works. 

His travels in Italy, again, bound with clas- 
sical quotations, happily introduced; but his 
quotations, with scarcely a single exception, 
are taken from Latin verse. He draws more 
illustrations from Ausonius and Manilius than 
from Cicero. Even his notions of the political 
and military affairs of the Romans seem to be 
derived from poets and poetasters. Spots made 
memorable by events which have changed the 
destinies of the world, and have been worthily 
recorded by great historians, bring to his mind 
only scraps of some ancient Pye or Hayley. 
In the gorge of the Appennines he naturally 
remembers the hardships which Hannibal's 
army endured, and proceeds to cite, not the 
authentic narrative of Polybius, not the pic- 
turesque narrative of Livy, but the languid 
hexameters of Silius Italicus. On the banks 
of the Rubicon he never thinks of Plutarch's 
lively description ; or of the stern conciseness 
of the commentaries; or of those letters to 
Atticus which so forcibly express the alterna- 
tions of hope and fear in a sensitive mind at a 
great crisis. His only authority for the events 

f the civil war is Lucan 



All the best ancient works of art at Rome 
and Florence are Greek. Addison saw them, 
however, without recalling one single verse 
of Pindar, of Callimachus, or of the Attic 
dramatists ; but they brought to his recollec« 
tion innumerable passages in Horace, Juvenal, 
Statius, and Ovid. 

The same may be said of the "Treatis* on 
Medals." In that pleasing work we find about 
three hundred passages extracted with great 
judgment from the Roman poets ; but we do 
not recollect a single passage taken from any 
Roman orator or historian ; and we are confi- 
dent that not a line is quoted from any Greek 
writer. No person who had derived all his 
information on the subject of medals from Ad- 
dison, would suspect that the Greek coins were 
in historical interest equal, and in beauty of 
execution far superior to those of Rome. 

If it were necessary to find any further proof 
that Addison's classical knowledge was con- 
fined within narrow limits, that proof would be 
furnished by his " Essay on the Evidences of 
Christianity." The Roman poets throw little 
or no light on the literary and historical ques- 
tions which he is under the necessity of ex- 
amining in that essay. He is, therefore, left 
completely in the dark ; and it is melancholy 
to see how helplessly he gropes his way from 
blunder to blunder. He assigns as grounds for 
his religious belief, stories as absurd as that 
of the Cock-lane ghost, and forgeries as rank 
as Ireland's " Vortigern ;" puts faith in the lie 
about the thundering legion ; is convinced that 
Tiberius moved the senate to admit Jesus 
among the gods ; and pronounces the letter of 
Agbarus, king of Edessa, to be a record of 
great authority. Nor were these errors the 
effects of superstition ; for to superstition Ad- 
dison was by no means prone. The truth is, 
that he was writing about what he did not un 
derstand. 

Miss Aikin Has discovered a letter Irom 
which it appears that, while Addison resided 
at Oxford, he was one of several writers whom 
the booksellers engaged to make an English 
version of Herodotus; and she infers that he 
must have been a good Greek scholar. We 
can allow very little weight to this argument, 
when we consider that his fellow-labourers 
were to have been Boyle and Blackmore. 
Boyle is remembered chiefly as the nomina. 
author of the worst book on Greek history and 
philology that ever was printed; and this book, 
bad as it is, Boyle was unable to produce with- 
out help. Of Blackmore's attainments in the 
ancient tongues, it may be sufficient to say 
that, in his prose, he has confounded an apho- 
rism with an apophthegm, and that when, in 
his verse, he treats of classical subjects, his 
habit is to regale his readers with four false 
quantities to a page ! 

It is probable that the classical acquirements 
of Addison were of as much service to him as 
if they had been more extensive. The world 
generally gives its admiration, not to the man 
who does what nobody else even attempts to 
do, but to the man who does best what multi- 
tudes do well. Bentley was so immeasurably 
superior to all the other scholars of his time 
that very few among them could discover his 



LIFE AND WHITINGS OF ADDISON. 



697 



superiority. But the accomplishment in which 
Addison excelled his contemporaries was then, 
as it is now, highly valued and assiduously 
cultivated at all English seats of learning. 
Everybody who had been at a public school 
had written Latin verses ; many had written 
such verses w;th tolerable success ; and were 
quite able to appreciate, though by no means 
able to rival, the skill with which Addison 
imitated Virgil. His lines on the Barometer, 
and the Bowling-Green, were applauded by 
hundreds to whom the "Dissertation on the 
EpisLes of Phalaris" was as unintelligible as 
the hieroglyphics on an obelisk. 

Purity of style, and an easy flow of num- 
bers, are common to all Addison's Latin poems. 
Our favourite piece is the Battle of the Cranes 
and Pygmies ; for in that piece we discern a 
gleam of the fancy and humour which many 
years later enlivened thousands of breakfast 
tables. Swift boasted that he was never known 
to steal a hint : and he certainly owed as little 
to his predecessors as any modern writer. 
Yet we cannot help suspecting that he bor- 
rowed, perhaps unconsciously, one of the hap- 
piest touches in his Voyage to Lilliput from 
Addison's verses. Lei our readers judge. 

"The Emperor," says Gulliver, " is taller by 
about the breadth of my nail than any of his 
court, which alone is enough to strike an awe 
into the beholders." 

About thirty years before Gulliver's Travels 
appeared, Addison wrote these lines : — 

" Jamque acies inter medias sese arduus infert 
Pygmeadum ductor, qui, majestate verendus, 
Incessuque gravis, reliquos supereminet omnes 
Mole gigantea, mediamque exsurgit in ulnam." 

The Latin poems of Addison were greatly 
and justly admired both at Oxford and Cam- 
bridge before his name had ever been heard by 
the wits who thronged the coffee-houses round 
Drury-Lane theatre. In his twenty-second 
year, he ventured to appear before the public 
as a writer of English verse. He addressed 
some complimentary lines to Dryden, who, 
after many triumphs and many reverses, had 
at length reached a secure and lonely eminence 
among the literary men of that age. Dryden ap- 
pears to have been much gratified by the young 
scholar's praise ; and an interchange of civili- 
ties and good offices followed. Addison was 
probably introduced by Dryden to Congreve, 
and was certainly presented by Congreve to 
Charles Montagu, who was then chancellor of 
tb.3 exchequer, and leader of the whig party 
in the House of Commons. 

At this time Addison seemed inclined to de- 
vote himself to poetry. He published a trans- 
lation of part of the fourth Georgic, Lines to 
King William, and other performances of equal 
ralue ; that is to say, of no value at all. But 
in those days the public were in the habit of 
receiving with applause pieces which would 
now have little chance of obtaining the New- 
digate prize, or the Seatonian prize. And the 
reason is obvious. The heroic couplet was 
then the favourite measure. The art of arrang- 
ing words in that measure, so that the lines 
may flow smoothly, that the accents may fall 
correctly, that the rhymes may strike the ear 
strongly, and that there may be a pause at the 



end of every distich, is an art as mechanic^ 
as that of mending a kettle, or shoeing a horse 
and may be learned by any human being who 
has sense enough to learn any thing. But, lik* 
other mechanical arts, it was gradually im- 
proved by means of many experiments and 
many failures. It was reserved for Pope t« 
discover the trick, to make himself complete 
master of it, and to teach it to everybody else. 
From the time when his " Pastorals" appeared, 
heroic versification became matter of rule and 
compass ; and, before long, all artists were on 
a level. Hundreds of dunces who never blun- 
dered on one happy thought or expression were 
able to write reams of couplets which, as far 
as euphony was concerned, could not be dis- 
tinguished from those of Pope himself, and 
which very clever writers of the reign of Charles 
the Second — Rochester, for example, or Marvel, 
or Oldham — would have contemplated with 
admiring despair. 

Ben Jonson was a great man, Hoole a very 
small man. But Hoole, coming after Pope, 
had learned how to manufacture decasyllable 
verses ; and poured them forth by thousands 
and tens of thousands, all as well turned, as 
smooth, and as like each other as the blocks 
which have passed through Mr.Brunell's mill, 
in the dockyard at Portsmouth. Ben's heroic 
couplets resemble blocks rudely hewn out by 
an unpractised hand, with a blunt hatchet. 
Take as a specimen his translation of a cele- 
brated passage in the iEneid: — . 

"This child our parent earth, stirred up with spite 
Of all the gods, brought forth, and, as some write, 
She was last sister of that giant race 
That sought to scale Jove's court, right swift of pee©, 
And swifter far of wing, a monster vast 
And dreadful. Look, how many plumes are placed 
On her huge corpse, so many waking eyes 
Stick underneath, and, which may stranger rise 
In the report, as many tongues she wears." 

Compare with these jagged misshapen dis- 
tichs the neat fabric which Hoole's machine 
produces in unlimited abundance. We take 
the first lines on which we open in his version 
of Tasso. They are neither better nor worse 
than the rest: — 

" O thou, whoe'er thou art, whose steps are led 
By choice or fate, these lonely shores to tread, 
No greater wonders east or west can boast 
Than yon small island on the pleasing coast. 
If e'er thy sight would blissful scenes explore, 
The current pass, and seek the further shore." 

Ever since the time of Pope there has ueen 
a glut of lines of this sort ; and we are now as 
little disposed to admire a man for being able 
to write them as for being able to write his 
name. But in the days of William the Third 
such versification was rare ; and a rhymer who 
had any skill in it passed for a great poet ; just 
as in the dark ages a person who could write 
his name passed for a great clerk. Accord- 
ingly, Duke, Stepney, Granville, Walsh, and 
others, whose only title to fame was that they 
said in tolerable metre what might have been 
as well said in prose, or what was not worth 
saying at all, were honoured with marks of 
distinction- which ought to be reserved for ge- 
nius. With these Addison must have ranked, 
if he had not earned true and lasting glory by 
performances which very little resembled his 
juvenile poems. 



588 



MAC AUL AY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Dryden was now busied with Virgil, and ob- 
tained from Addison a critical preface to the 
Georgics. la return for this service, and for 
other services of the same kind, the veteran 
poet, in the postscript to the translation of the 
^Eneid, complimented his young friend with 
great liberality, and indeed with more liberality 
than sincerity. He affected to be afraid that 
his own performance would not sustain a com- 
parison with the version of the fourth Georgic, 
by " the most ingenious Mr. Addison of Ox- 
ford." "After his bees," added Dryden, " my 
latter swarm is scarcely worth the hiving."* 

The time had now arrived when it was ne- 
cessary for Addison to chose a calling. Every 
thing seemed to point his coarse toward the 
clerical profession. His habits were regular, 
his opinions orthodox. His college had large 
ecclesiastical preferment in its gift, and boasts 
that it has given at least one bishop to almost 
every see in England. Dr. Lancelot Addison 
held an honourable place in the church, and 
had set his heart on seeing his son a clergy- 
man. It is clear, from some expressions in the 
young man's rhymes, that his intention was to 
take orders. But Charles Montagu interfered. 
Montagu first brought himself into notice by 
verses, well-timed and not contemptibly writ- 
ten, but never, we think, rising above medioc- 
rity. Fortunately for himself and for his 
tountry, he early quitted poetry, in which he 
could never have obtained a rank as high as 
that of Dorset or Roscommon, and turned his 
mind to official and parliamentary business. 
It is written that the ingenious person who un- 
dertook to instruct Rasselas, prince of Abys- 
sinia, in the art of flying, ascended an eminence, 
waved his wings, sprang into the air, and in- 
stantly dropped into the lake. But it is added 
that the wings which were unable to support 
him through the sky, bore him up effectually as 
soon as he was in the water. This is no bad 
type of the fate of Charles Montagu, and of 
men like him. When he attempted to soar 
into the regions of poetical invention, he alto- 
gether failed ; but as soon as he had descended 
from his ethereal elevation into a lower and 
grosser element, his talents instantly raised him 
above the mass. He became a distinguished 
financier, debater, courtier, and party leader. 
He still retained his fondness for the pursuits 
of his early days ; but he showed that fondness, 
not by wearying the public with his own feeble 
performances, but by discovering and encou- 
raging literary excellence in others. A crowd 
of wits and poets, who would easily have 
vanquished him as a competitor, revered him 
as a judge and a patron. In his plans for the 
encouragement of learning, he was cordially 
supported by the ablest and most virtuous of his 
colleagues, the lord keeper Somers. Though 
both these great statesmen had a sincere love of 
letters, it was not solely from a love of letters 
that they were desirous to enlist youths of high 
intellectual qualifications in the public service. 
The Revolution had altered the whole system of 
government. Before that event, the press had 
seen controlled by censors, and the Parliament 



* Miss Aikin makes this compliment altogether un- 
meaning, by saying that it was paid to a translation of 
Hie second Georgic, (i. 30.) 



had sat only two months in eight years. Now 
'he press was free, and had begun to exercise 
unprecedented influence on the public mind, 
Parliament met annually and sat long. The 
chief power in the state had passed to the 
House of Commons. At such a conjuncture, 
it was natural that literary* and oratorical 
talents should rise in value. There was dan- 
ger that a government which neglected such 
talents might be subverted by them. It was, 
therefore, a profound and enlightened policy 
which led Montagu and Somers to attach such 
talents to the whig party, by the strongest ties 
both of interest and of gratitude. 

It is remarkable that, in a neighbouring 
country, we have recently seen similar effects 
from similar causes. The Revolution of July, 
1830, established representative government ia 
France. The men of letters instantly rose to 
the highest importance in the state. At the 
present moment, most of the persons whom 
we see at the head both of the administration 
and of the opposition have been professors, 
historians, journalists, poets. The influence 
of the literary class in England, during the 
generation which followed the Revolution was 
great, but by no means so great as it has lately 
been in France. For, in England, the aristo- 
cracy of intellect had to contend with a power- 
ful and deeply rooted aristocracy of a very 
different kind. France has no Somersets and 
Shrewsburies to keep down her Addisons and 
Priors. 

It was in the year 1699, when Addison had 
just completed his twenty-seventh year, that the 
course of his life was finally determined. Both 
the great chiefs of the ministry were kindly 
disposed towards him. In political opinions he 
already was, what he continued to be through 
life, a firm, though moderate whig. He had 
addressed the most polished and vigorous of 
his early English lines to Somers ; and had 
dedicated to Montagu a Latin poem, truly Vir- 
gilian, both in style and rhythm, on the peace 
of Ryswick. The wish of the young poet's 
great friends was, it should seem, to employ 
him in the service of the crown abroad. But 
an intimate knowledge of the French language 
was a qualification indispensable to a diplo- 
matist ; and this qualification Addison had not 
acquired. It was, therefore, thought desirable 
that he should pass some time on the Continent 
in preparing himself for official employment. 
His own means were not such as would enable 
him to travel ; but a pension of £300 a year 
was procured for him by the interest of the 
lord keeper. It seems to have been appre- 
hended that some difficulty might be started by 
the rulers of Magdalene College. But the 
chancellor of the exchequer wrote in the strong- 
est terms to Hough. The state — such was the 
purport of Montagu's letter — could not, at that 
time, spare to the church such a man as Addi- 
son. Too many high posts were already occu- 
pied by adventurers, who, destitute of every 
liberal art and sentiment, at once pillaged and 
disgraced the country which they pretended to 
serve. It had become necessary to recruit for the 
public service from a very different class, from 
that class of which Addison was the representa- 
tive. The close of the minister's letter wa* re- 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 



599 



markable. " I am called," he said, " an enemy 
of the church. But I will never do it any other 
injury than keeping Mr. Addison out of it." 

This interference was successful ; and in the 
summer of 1699, Addison, made a rich man 
by his pension, and still retaining his fellow- 
ship, quitted his beloved Oxford, and set out 
on his travels. He crossed from Dover to 
Calais, proceeded to Paris, and was received 
there with great kindness and politeness by a 
kinsman of his friend Montagu, Charles Earl 
of Manchester, who had just been appointed 
ambassador to the court of France. The 
countess, a whig and a toast, was probably as 
gracious as her lord ; for Addison long retained 
an agreeable recollection of the impression 
which she at this time made on him, and, in 
some lively lines written on the glasses of the 
Kit-Cat club, described the envy which her 
cheeks, glowing with the genuine bloom of 
England, had excited among the painted beau- 
ties of Versailles. 

Louis XJV. was at this time expiating the 
vices of his youth by a devotion which had no 
root in reason, and bore no fruit in charity. 
The servile literature of France had changed 
its character to suit the changed character of 
the prince. No book appeared that had not an 
air of sanctity Racine, who was just dead, 
had passed the close of his life in writing sa- 
cred dramas ; and Dacier was seeking for the 
Athanasian mysteries of Plato. Addison de- 
scribed this state of things in a short but lively 
and graceful letter to Montagu. Another letter, 
written about the same time to the lord keeper, 
conveyed the stiongest assurances of gratitude 
and attachment. " The only return I can make 
to your lordship," said Addison, "will be to 
apply myself entirely to my business." With 
this view he quitted Paris and repaired to Blois ; 
a place where it was supposed that the French 
language was spoken in its highest purity, and 
where not a single Englishman could be found. 
Here he passed some months pleasantly and 
profitably. Of his way of life at Blois, one of 
his associates, an abbe named Philippeaux, 
gave an account to Joseph Spence. If this 
account is to be trusted, Addison studied much, 
mused much, talked little, had fits of absence, 
and either had no love affairs, or was too dis- 
creet to confide them to the abbe. A man who, 
even when surrounded by fellow-countrymen 
and fellow-students, had always been remark- 
ably shy and silent, was not likely to be loqua- 
cious in a foreign tongue, and among foreign 
companions. But it is clear from Addison's 
letters, some of which were long after publish- 
ed in the " Guardian," that while he appeared 
to be absorbed in his own meditations, he was 
really observing French society with that keen 
and sly, yet not ill-natured side-glance which 
was peculiarly his own. 

From Blois he returned to Paris ; and hav- 
ing now mastered the French language, found 
great pleasure in the society of French philo- 
sophers and poets. He gave an account, in a 
letter to Bishop Hough, of two highly interest- 
ing conversations, one with Malebranche, the 
other with Boileau. Malebranche expressed 
fjreat partiality for the English, and extolled 
the genius of Newton, but shook his head when 



Hobbes was mentioned, and was indeed so 
unjust as to call the author of the " Leviathan" 
a poor silly creature. Addison's modesty re- 
strained him from fully relating, in his letter, 
the circumstances of his introduction to Boi- 
leau. Boileau, having survived the friends 
and rivals of his youth, old, deaf, and melan- 
choly, lived in retirement, seldom went either 
to court or to the academy, and was almost in 
accessible to strangers. Of the English and 
of English literature he knew nothing. He 
had hardly heard the name of Dryden. Somt 
of our countrymen, in the warmth of theii 
patriotism, have asserted that this ignorance 
must have been affected. We own that we see 
no ground for such a supposition. English 
literature was to the French of the age of Louis 
XIV. what German literature was to our own 
grandfathers. Very few, we suspect, of the 
accomplished men who, sixty or seventy years 
ago, used to dine in Leicester Square with Sir 
Joshua, or at Streatham with Mrs. Thrale, had 
the slightest notion that Wieland was one of 
the first wits and poets, and Lessing, beyond 
all dispute, the first critic in Europe. Boileau 
knew just as little about the " Paradise Lost," 
and about "Absalom and Ahitophel ;" but he 
had read Addison's Latin poems, and admired 
them greatly. They had given him, he said, 
quite a new notion of the state of learning and 
taste among the English. Johnson will have 
it that these praises were insincere. "No- 
thing," says he, "is better known of Boileau 
than that he had an injudicious and peevish 
contempt of modern Latin ; and therefore his 
profession of regard was probably the effect 
of his civility rather than approbation." Now, 
nothing is better known of Boileau than that 
he was singularly sparing of compliments. 
We do not remember that either friendship or 
fear ever induced him to bestow praise on any 
composition which he did not approve. On 
literary questions, his caustic, disdainful, and 
self-confident spirit rebelled against that au- 
thority to which every thing else in France 
bowed down. He had the spirit to tell Louis 
XIV. firmly, and even rudely, that his majesty 
knew nothing about poetry, and admired verses 
which were detestable. What was there in 
Addison's position that could induce the sa- 
tirist, whose stern and fastidious temper had 
been the dread of two generations, to turn sy- 
cophant for the first and last time ? Nnr was 
Boileau's contempt of modern Latin either .n- 
judicious or peevish. He thought, indeed, that 
no poem of the first order would ever be 
written in a dead language. And did he think 
amiss ] Has not the experience of centuries 
confirmed his opinion 1 Boileau also thought 
it probable that, in the best modern Latin, a 
writer of the Augustan age would have de 
tected ludicrous improprieties. And who can 
think otherwise ? What modern scholar can 
honestly declare that he sees the smallest im- 
purity in the style of Livy 1 Yet is it not cer- 
tain that, in the style of Livy,Pollio, whose taste 
had been formed on the banks of the Tiber, 
detected the inelegant idiom of the Po 1 Has 
any modern scholar understood Latin better 
than Frederick the Great understood French ! 
Yet is it not notorious that Frederick the Great, 



600 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



after reading, speaking, writing French, and 
nothing but French, during more than half a 
century — after unlearning his mother tongue 
in order to learn French, after living familiarly 
during many years with French associates — 
could not, to the last, compose in French, with- 
out imminent risk of committing some mistake 
which would have moved a smile in the literary 
circles of Paris 1 Do we believe that Erasmus 
and Fracastorius wrote Latin as well as Dr. 
Robertson and Sir Walter Scott wrote English 1 
And are there not in the Dissertation on India, 
(the last of Dr. Robertson's works,) in Waver- 
ley, in Marmion, Scotticisms at which a Lon- 
don apprentice would laugh! But does it 
follow, because we think thus, that we can find 
nothing to admire in the noble alcaics of Gray, 
or in the playful elegiacs of Vincent Bourne 1 
Surely not. Nor was Boileau so ignorant or 
tasteless as to be incapable of appreciating 
good modern Latin. In the very letter to which 
Johnson alludes, Boileau says — "Ne croyez 
pas pourtant que je veuille par la blamer les 
vers Latins que vous m'avez envoyes d'un de 
vos illustres academiciens. Je les ai trouves 
fort beaux, et dignes de Vida et de Sannazar, 
siiais non pas d'Horace et de Virgile." Several 
poems, in modern Latin, have been praised by 
Boileau quite as liberally as it was his habit to 
praise any thing. He says, for example, of 
Pere Fraguier's epigrams, that Catullus seems 
to have come to life again. But the best proof 
that Boileau did not feel the undiscerning con- 
tempt for modern Latin verses which has been 
imputed to him, is, that he wrote and published 
Latin verses in several metre..' Indeed, it 
happens, curiously enough, that the most severe 
censure ever pronounced by him on moden 
Latin, is conveyed in Latin hexameters. We 
allude to the fragment which begins — 

"Quid numeris iterum me balbutire Latinis, 
Longe Alpes citra natum de patre Sicambro, 
Musa, jubes"?" 

For these reasons we feel assured that the 
praise which Boileau bestowed on the Machine 
Gesticulantes, and the Gerano-Pygmceomachia, was 
sincere. He certainly opened himself to Ad- 
dison with a freedom which was a sure indica- 
tion of esteem. Literature was the chief subject 
of conversation. The old man talked on his 
favourite theme much and well ; indeed, as his 
young hearer thought, incomparably well. Boi- 
leau had undoubtedly some of the qualities of a 
great critic. He wanted imagination ; but he 
ha 1 strong sense. His literary code was formed 
:*i narrow principles; but in applying it, he 
showed great judgment and penetration. In 
mere style, abstracted from the ideas of which 
style is the garb, his taste was excellent. He 
was well acquainted with the great Greek writ- 
ers ; and, though unable fully to appreciate their 
creative genius, admired the majestic simpli- 
city of their manner, and had learned from 
them to despise bombast and tinsel. It is easy, 
we think, to discover, in the " Spectator" and 
the " Guardian," traces of the influence, in part 
salutary and in part pernicious, which the mind 
of Boileau had on the mind of Addison. 

While Addison was at Paris, an event took 
place whicn made that capital a disagreeable 
'esidence for an Englishman and a whisr. 



Charles, second of the name, King of Spam 
died ; and bequeathed his dominions to Philip 
Duke of Anjou, a younger son of the dauphin. 
The King of France, in direct violation of his 
engagements both with Great Britain and with 
the states-general, accepted the bequest on be 
half of his grandson. The house of Bourbon 
was at the summit of human grandeur. Eng- 
land had been outwitted, and found herself in 
a situation at once degrading and perilous. 
The people of France, not presaging the cala- 
mities by which they were destined to expiate 
the perfidy of their sovereign, went mad with 
pride and delight. Every man looked as if a 
great estate had just been left him. "The 
French conversation," said Addison, "begins 
to grow insupportable ; that which was before 
the vainest nation in the world, is now worse 
than ever." Sick of the arrogant exultation of 
the Parisians, and probably foreseeing that the 
peace between France and England could not 
be of long duration, he set off for Italy. 

In December, 1700,* he embarked at Mar- 
seilles. As he glided along the Ligurian coast, 
he was delighted by the sight of myrtles and 
olive-trees, which retained their verdure under 
the winter solstice. Soon, however, he en- 
countered one of the black storms of the Me- 
diterranean. The captain of the ship gave up 
all for lost, and confessed himself to a capuchin 
who happened to be on board. The English 
heretic, in the mean time, fortified himself 
against the terrors of death with devotions of 
a very different kind. How strong an impres- 
sion this perilous voyage made on him, appears 
from the ode — "How are thy servants blest, 
Lord !" which was long after published in 
the Spectator. After some days of discomfort 
and danger, Addison was glad to land at Savo- 
na, and to make his way, over mountains 
where no road had yet been hewn out by art, 
to the city of Genoa. 

At Genoa, still ruled by her own doge, and 
by the nobles whose names were inscribed on 
her book of gold, Addison made a short stay. 
He admired the narrow streets overhung by 
long lines of towering palaces, the walls rich 
with frescoes, the gorgeous temple of the An- 
nunciation, and the tapestries whereon were 
recorded the long glories of the house of Doria. 
Thence he hastened to Milan, where he con- 
templated the Gothic magnificence of the cathe- 
dral with more wonder than pleasure. He 
passed lake Benacus while a gale was blow- 
ing, and saw the waves raging as they raged 
when Virgil looked upon them. At Venice, 
then the gayest spot in Europe, the traveller 
spent the carnival, the gayest season of the 
year, in the midst of masques, dances, and se- 
renades. Here he was at once diverted and 
provoked by the absurd dramatic pieces which 
then disgraced the Italian stage. To one of 
those pieces, however, he was indebted for a 
valuable hint. He was present when a ridi- 
culous play on the death of Cato was perform- 
ed. Cato, it seems, was in love with a daughter 



* It is strange that Addison should, in the first line of hia 
travels, have misdated his departure from Marseilles by 
a whole year, and still more strange that this slip of the 
pen, which throws the whole narrative into inextricable 
confusion, should have been repeated in a succession of 
editions, and never detected bv Tickell or by Hurd 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 



601 



of Scipio. The lady had given her heart to 
Caesar. The rejected lover determined to 
destroy himself. He appeared seated in his 
library, a dagger in his hand, a Plutarch and 
a Tasso before him ; and, in this position he 
pronounced a soliloquy before he struck the 
blow. We are surprised that so remarkable a 
circumstance as this should have escaped the 
notice of all Addison's biographers. There 
cannot, we conceive, be the smallest doubt that 
this scene, in spite of its absurdities and ana- 
chronisms, struck the traveller's imagination, 
and suggested to him the thought of bringing 
Cato on the English stage. It is well known 
that about this time he began his tragedy, and 
that he finished the first four acts before he re- 
turned to England. 

On his way from Venice to Rome, he was 
drawn some miles out of the beaten road, by a 
wish to see the smallest independent state in 
Europe. On a rock where the snow still lay, 
though the Italian spring was now far ad- 
vanced, was perched the little fortress of San 
Marino. The roads which led to the secluded 
town were so bad that few travellers had ever 
visited it, and none had ever published an ac- 
count of it. Addison could not suppress a 
good-natured smile at the simple manners and 
institutions of this singular community. Eut 
he observed, with the exultation of a whig, that 
the rude mountain tract which formed the terri- 
tory of the republic, swarmed with an honest, 
healthy, contented peasantry: while the rich 
plain which surrounded the metropolis of civil 
and spiritual' tyranny, was scarcely less deso- 
late than the uncleared wilds of America. 

At Rome, Addison remained on his first visit 
only long enough to catch a glimpse of St. 
Peter's, and of the Pantheon. His haste is the 
more extraordinary, because the holy week was 
close at hand. He has given no hint which can 
enable us to pronounce why he chose to fly 
from a spectacle which every year allures from 
distant regions persons of far less taste and 
sensibility than his. Possibly, travelling, as he 
did, at the charge of a government distinguished 
by its enmity to the church of Rome, he may 
have thought that it would be imprudent in 
him to assist at the most magnificent rite of 
that church. Many eyes would be upon him ; 
and he might find it difficult to behave in such 
a manner as to give offence neither to his pa- 
trons in England, nor to those among whom he 
resided. Whatever his motives may have 
been, he turned his back on the most august 
and affecting ceremony which is known among 
men, and posted along the Appian way to 
Naples. 

Naples was then destitute of what are now, 
perhaps, its chief attractions. The lovely bay 
and the awful mountain were indeed there. 
But a farm house stood on the theatre of Her- 
culaneum, and rows of vines grew over the 
streets of Pompeii. The temples of Psestum 
had not indeed been hidden from the eye of 
man by any great convulsion of nature ; but, 
strange to say, their existence was a secret 
even to artists and antiquaries. Though si- 
tuated within a few hours' journey of a great 
capital, where Salvator had not long before 
painted, 'and where Vico was then lecturing, 



those noble remains were as litt.e known tu 
Europe as the ruined cities overgrown by the 
forests of Yucatan. What was to be seen ai 
Naples, Addison saw. He climbed Vesuvius, 
explored the tunnel of Posilipo, and wandered 
among the vines and almond-trees of Caprese. 
But neither the wonders of nature nor those 
of art could so occupy his attention as to pre- 
vent him from noticing, though cursorily, the 
abuses of the government and the misery of 
the people. The great kingdom which had 
just descended to Philip V. was in a state of 
paralytic dotage. Even Castile and Arragon 
were sunk in wretchedness. Yet, compared 
with the Italian dependencies of the Spanish 
crown, Castile and Arragon might be called 
prosperous. It is clear that all the observa- 
tions which Addison made in Italy tended to 
confirm him in the political opinions which he 
had adopted at home. To the last he always 
spoke of foreign travel as the best cure for 
Jacobitism. In his Freeholder, the tory fox- 
hunter asks what travelling is good for, except 
to teach a man to jabber French, and to talk 
against passive obedience. 

From Naples Addison returned to Rome by 
sea, along the coast which his favourite Virgil 
had celebrated. The felucca passed the head- 
land where the oar and trumpet were placed 
by the Trojan adventurers on the tomb of Mi- 
senus, and anchored at night under the shelter 
of the fabled promontory of Circe. The voy- 
age ended in the Tiber, still overhung with 
dark verdure, and still turbid with yellow sand, 
as when it met the eyes of J3neas. From the 
ruined port of Ostia, the stranger hurried to 
Rome; and at Rome he remained during those 
hot and sickly months when, even in the Au- 
gustan age, all who could make their escape 
fled from mad dogs and from streets black with 
funerals, to gather the first figs of the season 
in the country. It is probable that when he, 
long after, poured forth in verse his gratitude 
to the Providence which had enabled him to 
breathe unhurt in tainted air, he was thinking 
of the August and September which he passed 
at Rome. 

It was not till the latter end of October thai 
he tore himself away from the masterpieces 
of ancient and modern art, which are collected 
in the city so long the mistress of the world. 
He then journeyed northward, passed through 
Sienna, and for a moment forgot his prejudices 
in favour of classic architecture as he looked 
on the magnificent cathedral. At Florence he 
spent some days with the Duke of Shrewsbury, 
who, cloyed with the pleasures of ambition, 
and impatient of its pains, fearing both parties, 
and loving neither, had determined to hide in 
an Italian retreat, talents and accomplishments 
which, if they had been united with fixed prin- 
ciples and civil courage, might have made him 
the foremost man of his age. These days, we 
are told, passed pleasantly ; and we can easily 
believe it. For Addison was a delightful com- 
panion when he was at his ease; and the duke, 
though he seldom forgot that he was a Talbot, 
had the invaluable art of putting at ease all 
who came near him. 

Addison gave some time to Florence, and 
especially *c the sculptures in the Museum, 



003 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



which he preferred even to those of the Va- 
tican. He then pursued his journey through 
a country in which the ravages of the last war 
were still discernible, and in which all men 
were looking forward with dread to a still fiercer 
conflict. Eugene had already descended from 
the Rhsetian Alps, to dispute with Catinat the 
rich plain of Lombardy. The faithless ruler 
of Savoy was still reckoned among the allies 
of Louis. England had not yet actually de- 
clared war against France. But Manchester 
had left Paris ; and the negotiations which 
produced the grand alliance against the house 
of Bourbon were in progress. Under such 
circumstances, it was desirable for an English 
traveller to reach neutral ground without de- 
lay. Addison resolved to cross Mont Cenis. 
It was December ; and the road was very dif- 
ferent from that which now reminds the stran- 
ger of the power and genius of Napoleon. 
The winter, however, was mild, and the pas- 
sage was, for those times, easy. To this jour- 
nev Addison alluded, when, in the ode which 
we have already quoted, he said that for him 
the Divine goodness had "warmed the hoary 
Alpine hills." 

It was in the midst of the eternal snow that 
f»c composed his Epistle to his friend Montagu, 
now Lord Halifax. That Epistle, once widely 
renowned, is now known only to curious read- 
ers ; and will hardly be considered by those to 
whom it is known as in any perceptible degree 
heightening Addison's fame. It is, however, 
decidedly superior to any English composition 
which he had previously published. Nay, we 
ihinlc it quite as good as any poem in heroic 
metre which appeared during the interval be- 
tween the death of Dryden and the publication 
of the "Essay on Criticism." It contains pas- 
sages as good as the second rate passages of 
Pope, tind would have added to the reputation 
of Parnell or Prior. 

But, whatever be the literary merits or de- 
fects of the Epistle, it undoubtedly docs honour 
to the principles and spirit of the author. 
Halifax had now nothing to give. He had 
fallen from power, had been held up to oblo- 
quy, had been impeached by the House of 
Commons ; and, though his peers had dismissed 
the impeachment,* had, as it seemed, 'little 
chance of ever again filling high office. The 
Epistle, written at such a time, is one among 
many proofs that there was no mixture of 
cowaidice or meanness in the suavity and 
moderation which distinguished Addison from 
all the other public men of those stormy times. 

At Geneva, the traveller learned that a par- 
tial change of ministry had taken place in 
England, and that the Earl of Manchester had 
become secretary of state.f Manchester ex- 
erted himself to serve his young friend. It 
was thought advisable that an English agent 
should be near the person of Eugene in Italy; 
and Addison, whose diplomatic education was 

w finished, was the man selected. He was 



* Miss Aikin says, (i. 121,) that the Epistle was writ- 
ten before Halifax was justified by the Lords. This is a 
mistake. The Epistle was written in December, 1701 ; 
(he impeachment had been dismissed in the preceding 
inne. 

t Miss Aikin misdates this event by a year, (i. 93.) 



preparing to enter on his honourable functions^ 
when all his prospects were for a t>me dark 
ened by the death of William III. 

Anne had long felt a s tron g aversion, personal, 
pcJitical, and religious, to the whig party. That 
aversion appeared in the first measures of her 
reign. Manchester was deprived of the seals 
after he had held them only a few weeks. 
Neither Somers nor Halifax was sworn cf the 
Privy Council. Addison shared the fate of his 
three patrons. His hopes of employment in the 
public service were at an end ; his pension was 
stopped ; and it was necessary for him to sup- 
port himself by his own exertions. He became 
tutor to a young English traveller ; and appears 
to have rambled with his pupil over great part 
of Switzerland and Germany. At this time he 
wrote his pleasing treatise on " Medals." It 
was not published till after his death ; but seve- 
tal distinguished scholars saw the manuscript, 
and gave just praise to the grace of the style, 
and to the learning and ingenuity evinced by 
the quotations. 

From Germany Addison repaired to Holland, 
where he learned the news of his father's death 
After passing some months in the United Pro- 
vinces he returned about the close of the year 
1703 to England. He was there cordially re- 
ceived by his friends, and introduced by them 
into the Kit-Cat Club — a society in which were 
collected all the various talents and accom- 
plishments which then gave lustre to the Avhig 
party. 

Addison was, during some months after his 
return from the Continent, hard pressed by pe- 
cuniary difficulties. But it was soon in the 
power of his noble patrons to serve him effect- 
ually. A political change, silent and gradual, 
but of the highest importance, was in daily 
prcgress.* The accession of Anne had been 
hailed by the tories with transports of joy and 
hope; and for a time it seemed that the whigs 
had fallen never to rise again. The throne was 
surrounded by men supposed to be attached to 
the prerogative and to the church ; and among 
these none stood so high in the favour of the 
sovereign as the lord-treasurer Godolphin and 
the captain-general Marlborough. 

The country gentlemen and country clergy- 
men had fully expected that the policy of these 
ministers would be directly opposed to that 
which had been almost constantly followed by 
William ; that the landed interest would be 
favoured at the expense of trade ; that no addi- 
tion would be made to the funded debt ; that the 
privileges conceded to dissenters by the late 
king would be curtailed, if not withdrawn ; that 
the war with France, if there must be such a 
war, would, on our part, be almost entirely na- 
val; and that the government would avoid 



* We are sorry to say that in the account which Misi 
Aikin gives of the politics of this period, there are moro 
errors than sentences. Rochester was the queen's uncle ; 
Miss Aikin calls him the queen's cousin. The battle of 
Blenheim was fought in Marlborough's third campaign ; 
Miss Aikin says that it was fought in Marlborough's 
second campaign. She confounds the dispute which 
arose in 1703, between the two Houses, about Lord Hali- 
fax, with the dispute about the Aylesbury men, whicb 
was terminated by the dissolution of 1705. These mis- 
takes, and four or five others, will be found within th« 
space of about two pages, (i. 165, 166, 167.) 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 



603 



close connections with foreign powers, and, 
above all, with Holland. 

But the country gentlemen and country cler- 
gymen were fated to be deceived, not for the 
last time. The prejudices and passions which 
raged without control in vicarages, in cathedral 
closes, and in the manor-houses of fox-hunting 
squires, were not shared by the chiefs of the 
ministry. Those statesmen saw that it was 
both for the public interest, and for their own 
interest, to adopt a whig policy ; at least as re- 
spected the alliances of the country and the 
conduct of the war. But if the foreign policy 
of the whigs were adopted, it was impossible 
to abstain from adopting also their financial 
policy. The natural consequences followed. 
The rigid tories were alienated from the govern- 
ment. The votes of the whigs became neces- 
sary to it. The votes of the whigs could be 
secured only by further concessions ; and fur- 
ther concessions the queen was induced to 
make. 

At the beginning of the year 1704, the state 
of parties bore a close analogy to the state of 
parties in 1826. In 1826, as in 1704, there was 
a tory ministry divided into two hostile sections. 
The position of Mr. Canning and his friends 
in 1826, corresponded to that which Marlbo- 
rough and Godolphin occupied in 1704. Not- 
tingham and Jersey were, in 1704, what Lord 
Eldon and Lord Westmoreland were in 1826. 
The whigs of 1704 were in a situation resem- 
bling that in which the whigs of 1826 stood. 
In 1704, Sorners, Halifax, Sunderland, Cowper, 
were not in office. There was no avowed co- 
alition between them and the moderate tories. 
It is probable that no direct communication 
tending to such a coalition had yet taken place ; 
yet all men saw that such a coalition was in- 
evitable, nay, that it was already half formed. 
Such, or nearly such, was the state of things 
when tidings arrived of the great battle fought 
at Blenheim on the 13th August, 1704. By the 
whigs the news was now hailed with transports 
of joy and pride. No fault, no cause of quar- 
rel, could be remembered by them against the 
commander whose genius had, in one day, 
changed the face of Europe, saved the impe- 
rial throne, humbled the House of Bourbon, 
andsecured the act of settlement against foreign 
hostility. The feeling of the tories was very 
different. They could not, indeed, without im- 
prudence, openly express regret at an event so 
glorious to their country; but their congratula- 
tions were so cold and sullen as to give deep dis- 
gust to the victorious general and his friends. 

Godolphin was not a reading man. What- 
ever time he could spare from business he 
was in the habit of spending at Newmarket or 
at the card-table. But he was not absolutely 
indifferent to poetry ; and he was too intelli- 
gent an observer not to perceive that literature 
was a formidable engine of political warfare ; 
and that the great whig leaders had strength- 
ened their party, and raised their character, by 
extending a liberal and judicious patronage to 
good writers. He was mortified, and not with- 
out reason, by the exceeding badness of the 
poems which appeared in honour of the battle 
of Blenheim. One of these poems has been 



rescued from oblivion by the exquisite ab- 
surdity of three lines: 

"Think of two thousand gentlemen at least, 
And each man mounted on his capering boast ; 
Into the Danube they were pushed by shoals.'' 

Where to procure better verses the treasurer 
did not know. He understood how to negotiate 
a loan, or remit a subsidy. He was also well 
versed in the history of running horses and 
fighting cocks; but his acquaintance among 
the poets was very small. He consulted Hali- 
fax ; but Halifax affected to decline the offic* 
of adviser. He had, he said, done his best, 
when he had power, to encourage men whose 
abilities and acquirements might do honour to 
their country. Those times were over. Other 
maxims had prevailed. Merit was suffered to 
pine in obscurity; the public money was 
squandered on the undeserving. " I do know," 
he added, " a gentleman who would celebrate 
the battle in a manner worthy of the subject. 
But I will not name him." Godolphin, who 
was expert at the soft answer which turneth 
away wrath, and who was under the necessity 
of paying court to the whigs, gently replied, 
that there was too much ground for Halifax's 
complaints, but that what was amiss should in 
time be rectified ; and that in the mean time 
the services of a man such as Halifax had 
described should be liberally rewarded. Hali- 
fax then mentioned Addison, but, mindful of 
the dignity as well as of the pecuniary inte- 
rest of his friend, insisted that the minister 
should apply in the most courteous manner to 
Addison himself; and this Godolphin promised 
to do. 

Addison then occupied a garret up thre« 
pair of stairs, over a small shop in ,the Hay 
market. In this humble lodging he was sur- 
prised, on the morning which followed the 
conversation between Godolphin and Halifax, 
by a visit from no less a person than the Righ' 
Honourable Henry Boyle, then chancellor of 
the exchequer, and afterwards Lord Carleton.* 
This high-born minister had been sent by the 
lord-treasurer as ambassador to the needy 
poet. Addison readily undertook the proposed 
task, a task which, to so good a whig, was 
probably a pleasure. When the poem was 
little more than half finished, he showed it to 
Godolphin, who was delighted with it, and par- 
ticularly with the famous similitude of the 
angel. Addison was instantly appointed to a 
commissionership, with about two hundred: 
pounds a year, and was assured that this ap- 
pointment was only an earnest of greater fa- 
vours. 

The "Campaign" came forth, and was as 
much admired by the public as by the minis- 
ter. It pleases us less on the whole than the 
"Epistle to Halifax." Yet it undoubtedly 
ranks high among the poems which appeared 
during the interval between the death of Dry- 
den and the dawn of Pope's genius. The 
chief merit of the "Campaign," we th Jik„is 
that which was noticed by Johnson — the manly 
and rational rejection of fiction. The first great 
poet whose works have come down to us sang 



* Miss Aikin says that he was afterwards Lord Orrery, 
This is a mistake, (i. 170.) 



804 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



of war long before war became a science or a 
trade. If, in his time, there was enmity be- 
tween two little Greek towns, each poured 
forth its crowd of citizens, ignorant of disci- 
pline, and armed with implements of labour 
rudely turned into weapons. On each side ap- 
peared conspicuous a few chiefs, whose wealth 
had enabled them to procure good armour, 
horses, and chariots, and whose leisure had 
enabled them to practise military exercises. 
One such chief, if he were a man of great 
strength, agility, and courage, would probably 
be more formidable than twenty common men; 
and the force and dexterity with which he 
hurled his spear might have no inconsiderable 
share in deciding the event of the day. Such 
were probably the battles with which Homer 
was familiar. But Homer related the actions 
of men of a former generation — of men who 
sprang from the gods, and communed with the 
gods face to face — of men, one of whom could 
with ease hurl rocks which two sturdy hinds 
of a later period would be unable even to lift. 
He therefore naturally represented their mar- 
tial exploits as resembling in kind, but far sur- 
passing in magnitude, those of the stoutest and 
most expert combatants of his own age. Achil- 
les, clad in celestial armour, drawn by celes- 
tial coursers, grasping the spear which none 
but himself could raise, driving all Troy and 
Lycia before him, and choking the Scamander 
with dead, was only a magnificent exaggera- 
tion of the real hero, who, strong, fearless, ac- 
customed to the use of weapons, guarded by a 
shield and helmet of the best Sidonian fabric, 
and whirled along by horses of Thessalian 
breed, struck down with his own right arm 
foe after foe. In all rude societies similar no- 
tions are found. There are at this day coun- 
tries where the life-guardsman Shaw wcsald be 
considered as a much greater warrior than the 
Duke of Wellington. Bonaparte loved to de- 
scribe the astonishment with which the Mame- 
lukes looked at his diminutive figure. Mourad 
Bey, distinguished above all his fellows by his 
bodily strength, and by the skill with which 
he managed his horse and his sabre, could not 
believe that a man who was scarcely five feet 
high, and rode like a butcher, was the greatest 
soldier in Europe. 

Homer's descriptions of war had therefore 
as much truth as poetry requires. But truth 
was altogether wanting to the performances 
of those who, writing about battles which had 
scarcely any thing in common with the battles 
of his times, servilely imitated his manner. 
The folly of Silius Italicus, in particular, is 
positively nauseous. He undertook to record 
in verse the vicissitudes of a great struggle 
between generals of the first order; and his 
narrative is made up of the hideous wounds 
which these generals inflicted with their own 
hands. Asdrubal flings a spear which grazes 
the shoulder of consul Nero ; but Nero sends 
his spear into Asdrubal's side. Fabius slays 
Thuris, and Butes, and Maris, and Arses, and 
the long-haired Adherbes, and the gigantic 
Thylis, and Sapharus, and Monaesus, and the 
trumpeter Morinus. Hannibal runs Perusinus 
through the groin with a stake, and breaks the 
hip bone of Telesinus with a huge stone. This 



detestable fashion was copied in modern times 
and continued to prevail down to the age of 
Addison. Several versifiers had described 
William turning thousands to flight by hia 
single prowess, and dyeing the Boyne with 
Irish blood. Nay, so estimable a writer as 
John Philips, the author of the "Splendid Shill- 
ing," represented Marlborough as having won 
the battle of Blenheim merely by strength of 
muscle and skill in fence. The following lines 
may serve as an example : — 

" Churchill, viewing where 
The violence of Tallard most prevailed, 
Came to oppose his slaughtering arm. With speed 
Precipitate he rode, urging his way 
O'er hills of gasping heroes, and fallen steeds 
Rolling in death. Destruction, grim with blood, 
Attends his furious course. Around his head 
The glowing balls play innocent, while he 
With dire impetuous sway deals fatal blows 
Among the flying Gauls. In Gallic blood 
He dyes his reeking sword, and strews the ground 
With headless ranks. What can they do 1 Or how 
Withstand his wide-destroying sword 1" 

Addison, with excellent sense and taste, de- 
parted from this ridiculous fashion. He re- 
served his praise for the qualities which made 
Marlborough truly great, energy, sagacity, mi- 
litary science. But, above all, the poet extolled 
the firmness of that mind which, in the midst 
of confusion, uproar, and slaughter, examined 
and disposed every thing with the serene wis- 
dom of a higher intelligence. 

Here it was that he introduced the famous 
comparison of Marlborough to an angel guid- 
ing the whirlwind. We will not dispute the 
general justice of Johnson's remarks on this 
passage. But we must point out one circum- 
stance which appears to have escaped all the 
critics. The extraordinary effect which this 
simile produced when it first appeared, and 
which to the following generation seemed in- 
explicable, is doubtless to be chiefly attributed 
to a line which most readers now regard as a 
feeble parenthesis — 

" Such as of late, o'er pale Britannia pass'd." 

Addison spoke, not of a storm, but of the storm. 
The great tempest of November, 1703, the 
only tempest which in our latitude has equalled 
the rage of a tropical hurricane, had left a 
dreadful recollection in the minds of all men. 
No other tempest was ever in this country the 
occasion of a parliamentary address or of a 
public fast. Whole fleets had been cast away. 
Large mansions had been blown down. One 
prelate had been buried beneath the ruins of 
his palace. London and Bristol had presented 
the appearance of cities just sacked. Hun- 
dreds of families were still in mourning. The 
prostrate trunks of large trees, and the ruins 
of houses, still attested, in all the southern 
counties, the fury of the blast. The popularity 
which the simile of the angel enjoyed among 
Addison's contemporaries, has always seemed 
to us to be a remarkable instance of the ad- 
vantage which, in rhetoric and poetry, the par- 
ticular has over the general. 

Soon after the Campaign, was published 
Addison's Narrative of his Travels in Italy. 
The first effect produced by this narrative was 
disappointment. The crowd of readers who 
expected politics and scandal, speculations on 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 



605 



the projects of Victor Amadeus, and anecdotes 
about the jollities of convents and the amours 
of cardinals and nuns, were confounded by 
finding that the writer's mind was much more 
occupied by the war between the Trojans and 
Rutulians than by the war between France and 
Austria ; aod that he seemed to have heard no 
scanda. of later date than the gallantries of 
the Empress Faustina. In time, however, the 
judgment of the many was overruled by that 
of the few ; and before the book was reprinted, 
it was so eagerly sought that it sold for five 
times the original price. It is still read with 
pleasure : the style is pure and flowing ; the 
classical quotations and allusions are numerous 
and happy ; and we are now and then charmed 
by that singularly humane and delicate humour 
in which Addison excelled all men. Yet this 
agreeable work, even when considered merely 
as the history of a literary tour, may justly be 
censured on account of its faults of omission. 
We have already said that, though rich in ex- 
tracts from the Latin poets, it contains scarcely 
any references to the Latin orators and his- 
torians. We must add that it contains little, 
or rather no information, respecting the history 
and literature of modern Italy. To the best of 
our remembrance, Addison does not mention 
Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Boiardo, Berni, 
Lorenzo de' Medici, Machiavelli. He coldly 
tells us, that at Ferrara he saw the tomb of 
Ariosto, and lhat at Venice he heard the gon- 
doliers sing verses of Tasso. But for.Tasso 
and Ariosto he cared far less than for Valerius 
Flaccus and Sidonius Apollinaris. The gentle 
flow of the Ticin brings a line of Silius to his 
mind. The sulphurous stream of Albula sug- 
gests to him several passages of Martial. But 
he has not a word to say of the illustrious dead 
of Santa Croce ; he crosses the wood of Ra- 
venna without recollecting the Spectre Hunts- 
man ; and wanders up and down Rimini with- 
out one thought of Francesca. At Paris, he 
eagerly sought an introduction to Boileau ; but 
he seems net to have been at all aware, that at 
Florence he was in the vicinity of a poet with 
whom Boileau could not sustain a comparison, 
of the greatest lyric poet of modern times, of 
Vincenzio Filicaja. This is the more remark- 
able, because Filicaja was the favourite poet 
of the all-accomplished Somers, under whose 
protection Addison travelled, and to whom the 
account of the Travels is dedicated. The 
truth is, that Addison knew little, and cared 
less, about the literature of modern Italy. His 
favourite models were Latin. His favourite 
critics were French. Half the Tuscan poetry 
that he had read seemed to him monstrous, 
and the other half tawdry. 

His Travels were followed by the lively 
opera of "Rosamond." This piece was ill set 
to music, and therefore failed on the stage ; but 
it completely succeeded in print, and is indeed 
excellent in its kind. The smoothness with 
which the verses glide, and the elasticity with 
which they bound, is, to our ears at least, very 
pleasing. We are inclined to think that if 
Addison had left heroic couplets to Pope, 
and blank verse to Rowe, and had employed 
himself in writing airy and spirited songs, his 
reputation as a noet would have stood far higher 



than it now does. Some years after his death, 
" Rosamond" was set to new music by Doctor 
Arne ; and was performed with complete sue- 
cess. Several passages long retained their po- 
pularity, and were daily sung, during the latter 
part of George the Second's reign, at all the 
harpsichords in England. 

While Addison thus amused himself, his 
prospects, and the prospects of his party were 
constantly becoming brighter and brighter. In 
the spring of 1705, the ministry were freed 
from the restraint imposed by a House of Com- 
mons, in which tories of the most perverse class 
had the ascendancy. The elections were fa- 
vourable to the whigs. The coalition which 
had been tacitly and gradually formed was now 
openly avowed. The great seal was given to 
Cowper. Somers and Halifax were sworn of 
the council. Halifax was sent in the following 
year to carry the decorations of the garter to 
the electoral prince of Hanover, and was ac- 
companied on this honourable mission by Ad- 
dison, who had just been made under-secretary 
of state. The secretary of state under whom 
Addison first served was Sir Charles Hedges, a 
tory. But Hedges was soon dismissed to make 
room for the most vehement of whigs, Charles, 
Earl of Sunderland. In every department of the 
state,indeed,thehigh churchmen werecompelled 
to give place to their opponents. At the close 
of 1707, the tories who still remained in office 
strove to rally, with Harley at their head. But 
the attempt, though favoured by the queen, who 
had always been a tory at heart, and who had 
now quarrelled with the duchess of Marlbo- 
rough, was unsuccessful. The time was not 
yet. The captain-general was at the height ot 
popularity and glory. The low-church party 
had a majority in Parliament. The country 
squires and rectors, though occasionally utter- 
ing a savage growl, were for the most part in 
a state of torpor, which lasted till they were 
roused into activity, and indeed into madness, 
by the prosecution of Sacheverell. Harley and 
his adherents were compelled to retire. The 
victory of the whigs was complete. At the 
general election of 1708, their strength in the 
House of Commons became irresistible ; and, 
before the end of that year, Somers was made 
lord-president of the council, and Wharton 
lord-lieutenant of Ireland.* 

Addison sat for Malmsbury in the House of 
Commons which was elected in 170S. But 
the House of Commons was not the field for 



* Miss Aikin has not informed herself accurately as 
to the politics of that time. We give a single specimen. 
We could easily give many. " The Earl of Sunderland," 
she says, "was not suffered long to retain his hard-won 
secretaryship. In the last month of 1708 he was dis- 
missed to make room for Lord Dartmouth, who ranked 
with the tories. Just at this time the Earl of Wharton, 
being appointed Lord-lieutenant of Ireland, named Mr. 
Addison his chief secretary." (i. 235.) Sunderland wag 
not dismissed to make room for Dartmouth till June, 
1710; and most certainly Wharton would never have 
been appointed lord-lieutenant at all, if he had not been ap- 
pointed long before Sunderland's dismissal. Miss Aikin'g 
mistake exactly resembles that of a person who should 
relate the history of our times as follows : " Lord John 
Russell was dismissed in 1839 from the Home-Office, to 
make room for Sir James Graham, who ranked with the 
tories ; but just at this time Earl Fortescue was appoint- 
ed lord-lieutenant of Ireland, with Lord Morpeth for bia 
secretary." Such a narrative would give to posterity 
rather a strange notion of the ministerial revolution* of 
Queen Victoria's days. 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Uim. The bashfulness of his nature made his 
wit and eloquence useless in debate. He once 
rose, but could not overcome his diffidence, and 
ever after remained silent. Nobody can think 
it strange that a great writer should fail as a 
speaker. But many, probably, will think it 
strange that Addison's failure as a speaker 
should have had no unfavourable effect on his 
success as a politician. In our time, a man of 
high rank and great fortune might, though 
speaking very little and very ill, hold a consi- 
derable post. But it is inconceivable that a 
mere adventurer, a man who, when out of of- 
fice, must live by his pen, should in a few 
years become successively under-secretary of 
state, chief secretary for Ireland, and secretary 
of state, without some oratorical talent. Addi- 
son, without high birth, and with little property, 
rose to a post which dukes, the heads of the 
great houses of Talbot, Russell, and Bentinck, 
have thought it an honour to fill. Without 
opening his lips in debate, he rose to a post the 
highest that Chatham or Fox ever reached. 
And this he did before he had been nine years 
in Parliament. We must look for the explana- 
tion of this seeming miracle to the peculiar 
circumstances in which that generation was 
placed. During the interval which elapsed be- 
tween the time when the censorship of the 
press ceased and the time when parliamentary 
proceedings began to be freely reported, literary 
talents were, to a public man, of much more 
importance, oratorical talents of much less im- 
portance, than in our time. At present, the 
best way of giving rapid and wide publicity to 
a statement or an argument, is to introduce 
that statement or argument into a speech made 
in Parliament. If a political tract were to ap- 
pear superior to the conduct of the Allies, or to 
the best numbers of the Freeholder, the circu- 
lation of such a tract would be languid indeed 
when compared with the circulation of every 
remarkable word uttered in the deliberations of 
the legislature. A speech made in the 
House of Commons at four in the morning, 
is on thirty thousand tables before ten. A 
speech made on the Monday is read on the 
Wednesday by multitudes in Antrim and Aber- 
deenshire. The orator, by the help of the 
short-hand writer, has to a great extent super- 
seded the pamphleteer. It was not so in the 
reign of Anne. The best speech could then 
produce no effect except on those who heard it. 
It was only by means of the press that the 
opinion of the public without doors could be 
influenced ; and the opinion of the public with- 
out doors could not but be of the highest im- 
portance in a country governed by parliaments ; 
and indeed at that time governed by triennial 
parliaments. The pen was, therefore, a more 
formidable political engine than the tongue. 
Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox contended only in Parlia- 
ment. But Walpole and Pulteney, the Pitt and 
Fox of an earlier period, had not done half of 
what wa3 necessary, when they sat down 
amidst the acclamations of the House of Com- 
mons. They had still to plead their cause be- 
fore the country, and this they could do only 
by means of the press. Their works are now 
forgotten. But it is certain that there were in 
Qrub street few more assiduous scribblers of 



thoughts, letters, answers, remarks, than thes« 
two great chiefs of parties. Pulteney, when 
leader of the opposition, and possessed of 
£30,000 a year, edited the "Craftsman." 
Walpole, though not a man of literary habits, 
was the author of at least ten pamphlets, 
and retouched and corrected many more. 
These facts sufficiently show of how great im- 
portance literary assistance then was to the 
contending parties. St. John was, certainly, in 
Anne's reign, the best tory speaker; Cowper 
was probably the best whig speaker. But it 
may well be doubted whether St. John did so 
much for the tories as Swift, and whether Cow« 
per did so much for the whigs as Addison, 
When these things are duly considered, it will 
not be thought strange that Addison should have 
climbed higher in the state than any other En- 
glishman has ever, by means merely of literary 
talents, been able to climb. Swift would, in all 
probability, have climbed as high, if he had 
not been encumbered by his cassock and his 
pudding-sleeves. As far as the homage of the 
great went, Swift had as much of it as if he 
had been lord-treasurer. 

To the influence which Addison derived from 
his literary talents, was added all the influence 
which arises from character. The world, 
always ready to think the worst of needy po- 
litical adventurers, was forced to make one 
exception. Restlessness, violence, audacity, 
laxity of principle, are the vices ordinarily 
attributed to that class of men. But faction 
itself could not deny that Addison had, through 
all changes of fortune, been strictly faithful to 
his early opinions, and to his early friends ; 
that his integrity was without stain ; that his 
whole deportment indicated a fine sense of the 
becoming ; that, in the utmost heat of contro- 
versy, his zeal was tempered by a regard for 
truth, humanity, and social decorum; that no 
outrage could ever provoke him to retaliation 
unworthy of a Christian and a gentleman ; and 
that his only faults were a too sensitive deli 
cacy, and a modesty which amounted to bash- 
fulness. 

He was undoubtedly one of the most popular 
men of his time ; and much of his popularity 
he owed, we believe, to that very timidity which 
his friends lamented. That timidity often pre- 
vented him from exhibiting his talents to the 
best advantage. But it propitiated Nemesis. 
It averted that envy which would otherwise 
have been excited by fame so splendid, and by 
so rapid an elevation. No man is so great a 
favourite with the public, as he who is at once 
an object of admiration, of respect, and of pity ; 
and such were the feelings which Addison in- 
spired. Those who enjoyed the privilege of 
hearing his familiar conversation, declared 
with one voice that it was superior even to his 
writings. The brilliant Mary Montagu said 
that she had known all the wits, and that Ad 
dison was the best company in the world. The 
malignant Pope was forced to own, that there 
was a charm in Addison's talk which could be 
found nowhere else. Swift, when burning 
with animosity against the whigs, could not 
but confess to Stella, that, after all, he had 
never known any associate so agreeable as 
Addison. Steele, an excellent judge of lively 



LIFE \ND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 



607 



conversation, said, that the conversation of 
Addison was at once the most polite, and the 
most mirthful, that could be imagined ; — that 
it was Terence and Catullus in one, heightened 
by an exquisite something which was neither 
Terence nor Catullus, but Addison alone. Young, 
an excellent judge of serious conversation, 
said, that when Addison was at his ease, he 
went on in a noble strain of thought and lan- 
guage, so as to chain the attention of every 
hearer. Nor were his great colloquial powers 
more admirable than the courtesy and softness 
of heart which appeared in his conversation. 
At the same time, it would be too much to say 
that he was wholly devoid of the malice which 
is, perhaps, inseparable from a keen sense of 
the ludicrous. He had one habit which both 
Swift and Stella applauded, and which we 
hardly know how to blame. If his first at- 
tempts to set a presuming dunce right were ill 
received, he changed his tone, " assented with 
civil leer," and lured the nattered coxcomb 
deeper and deeper into absurdity. That such 
was his practice we should, we think, have 
guessed from his works. The Tatler's criti- 
cisms on Mr. Softly's sonnet, and the Specta- 
tor's dialogue with the politician, who is so 
.zealous for the honour of Lady Q — p — t — s, 
are excellent specimens of this innocent mis- 
chief. 

Such were Addison's talents for conversation. 
But his rare gifts were not exhibited to crowds 
or to strangers. As soon as he entered a large 
company, as soon as he saw an unknown face, 
his lips were sealed, and his manners became 
constrained. None who met him only in great 
assemblies, would have been able to believe 
that he was the same man who had often kept 
a few friends listening and laughing round a 
table, from the time when the play ended, till 
the clock of St. Paul's in Covent-Garden struck 
four. Yet, even at such a table, he was not 
seen to the best advantage. To enjoy his con- 
versation in the highest perfection, it was ne- 
cessary to be alone with him, and to hear him, 
in his own phrase, think aloud. " There is no 
such thing," he used to say, " as real conversa- 
tion, but between two persons." 

This timidity, a timidity surely neither un- 
graceful nor unamiable, led Addison into the 
two most serious faults which can with justice 
be imputed to him. He found that wine broke 
the spell which lay on his fine intellect, and 
was therefore too easily seduced into convivial 
excess. Such excess was in that age regarded, 
even by grave men, as the most venial of all 
peccadilloes ; and was so far from being a 
mark of ill-breeding that it was almost essen- 
tial to the character of a fine gentleman. But 
the smallest speck is seen on a white ground; 
and almost all the biographers of Addison have 
said something about this failing. Of any 
other statesman or writer of Queen Anne's 
reign, we should no more think of saying that 
he sometimes took too much wine, than that he 
wore a long wig and a sword. 

To the excessive modesty of Addison's na- 
ture, we must ascribe another fault which 
generally arises from a very different cause. 
He became a little too fond of seeing himself 
surrounded by a small circle of admirers, to 



whom he was as a king or rather as a god 
All these men were far inferior to him in abi 
lity, and some of them had very serious faults 
Nor did those faults escape his observation 
for, if ever there was an eye which saw through 
and through men, it was the eye of Addison. 
But with the keenest observation, and the finest 
sense of the ridiculous, he had a large charity. 
The feeling with which he looked on most of 
his humble companions was one of benevo« 
lence, slightly tinctured with contempt. He 
was at perfect ease in their company ; he was 
grateful for their devoted attachment ; and he 
loaded them with benefits. Their veneratior 
for him appears to have exceeded, that with 
which Johnson was regarded by Boswell, or 
Warburton by Hurd. It was not in the power 
of adulation to turn such a head, or deprave 
such a heart as Addison's. But it must in 
candour be admitted, that he contracted some 
of the faults which can scarcely be avoided by 
any person who is so unfortunate as to be the 
oracle of a small literary coterie. 

One member of this little society was Eu- 
stace Budgell, a young templar of some litera- 
ture, and a distant relation of Addison. There 
was at this time no stain on the character of 
Budgell, and it is not improbable that his ca- 
reer would have been prosperous and honour- 
able, if the life of his cousin had been pro- 
longed. But when the master was laid in the 
grave, the disciple broke loose from all re- 
straint ; descended rapidly from one degree of 
vice and misery to another ; ruined his fortune 
by follies ; attempted to repair it by crimes ; and 
at length closed a wicked and unhappy life by 
self-murder. Yet, to the last, the wretched 
man, gambler, lampooner, cheat, forger, as he 
was, retained his affection and veneration for 
Addison ; and recorded those feelings in the 
last lines which he traced before he hid him- 
self from infamy under London Bridge. 

Another of Addison's favourite companions 
was Ambrose Phillipps, a good whig and a mid- 
dling poet, who had the honour of bringing 
into fashion a species of composition which 
has been called after his name, Namby-Pamby 
But the most remarkable members of the little 
senate, as Pope long afterwards called it, were 
Richard Steele and Thomas Tickell. 

Steele had known Addison from childhood 
They had been together at the Charter House 
and at Oxford; but circumstances had then, 
for a time, separated them widely. Steele had 
left college without taking a degree, had been 
disinherited by a rich relation, had led a va- 
grant life, had served in the army, had tried to 
find the philosopher's stone, and had written 
a religious treatise and several comedies. He 
was one of those people whom it is impossible 
either to hate or to respect. His temper was 
sweet, his affections warm, his spirits lively, 
his passions strong, and his principles weak. 
His life was spent in sinning and repenting, 
in inculcating what was right, and doing what 
was wrong. In speculation, he was a man of 
piety and honour; in practice, he was much 
of the rake and a litt.e of the swindler. He 
was, however, so good-natured that it was not 
easy to be seriously angry with him, and that 
even rigid moralists felt more inclined to pitv 



60S 



MAC AUL AY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



than to blame him, -when he diced himself into 
a spunging-house, or drank himself into a 
fever. Addison regarded Steele with kindness 
not unmingled with scorn, — tried, with little 
success, to keep him out of scrapes, intro- 
ducing him to the great, procured a good place 
for him, corrected his plays, and, though by no 
means rich, lent him large sums of money. 
One of these loans appears, from a letter dated 
m August, 1708, to have amounted to a thou- 
sand pounds. These pecuniary transactions 
probably led to frequent bickerings. It is said 
that, on one occasion, Steele's negligence, or 
dishonesty, provoked Addison to repay him- 
self by the help of a bailiff. We cannot join 
with Miss Aikin in rejecting this story. John- 
son heard it from Savage, who heard it from 
Steele. Few private transactions which took 
place a hundred and twenty years ago are 
proved by stronger evidence than this. But 
we can by no means agree with those who 
condemn Addison's severity. The most ami- 
able of mankind may well be moved to indig- 
nation, when what he has earned hardly, and 
lent with great inconvenience to himself, for 
the purpose of relieving a friend in distress, 
is squandered with insane profusion. We will 
illustrate our meaning by an example, which 
is not the less striking because it is taken from 
fiction. Dr. Harrison, in Fielding's "Amelia," 
is represented as the most benevolent of hu- 
man beings ; yet he takes in execution, not 
only the goods, but the person of his friend 
Booth. Dr. Harrison resorts to this strong 
measure because he has been informed that 
Booth, while pleading poverty as an excuse 
for not paying just debts, has been buying fine 
jewellery, and setting up a coach. No person 
who is well acquainted with Steele's life and 
correspondence, can doubt that he behaved 
quite as ill to Addison as Booth was accused 
of behaving to Dr. Harrison. The real his- 
tory, we have little doubt, was something like 
this: — A letter comes to Addison, imploring 
help in pathetic terms, and promising reforma- 
tion and speedy repayment. Poor Dick de- 
clares that he has not an inch of candle, or a 
bushel of coals, or credit with the butcher for 
a shoulder of mutton. Addison is moved. He 
determines to deny himself some medals which 
are wanting to his series of the Twelve Caesars ; 
to put off buying the new edition of " Bayle's 
Dictionary " and to wear his old sword and 
buckles another year. In this way he manages 
to send a hundred pounds to his friend. The 
next day he calls on Steele, and finds scores 
of gentlemen and ladies assembled. The 
fiddles are playing. The table is groaning 
under Champagne, Burgundy, and pyramids 
of sweetmeats. Is it strange that a man whose 
kindness is thus abused, should send sheriff's 
officers to reclaim what is due to him ? 

Tickell was a young man, fresh from Ox- 
ford, who had introduced himself to public 
notice by writing a most ingenious and grate- 
ful little poem in praise of the opera of "Rosa- 
mond." He deserved, and at length attained, 
the first place in Addison's friendship. For a 
time Steele and Tickell were on good terms. 
But they loved Addison too much to love each 



other ; and at length became as bitter enemies 
as the rival bulls in Virgil. 

At the close of 1708, Wharton became lord* 
lieutenant of Ireland, and appointed Addison 
chief secretary. Addison was consequently 
under the necessity of quitting London for 
Dublin. Besides the chief secretaryship, 
which was then worth about two thousand 
pounds a year, he obtained a patent appoint- 
ing him keeper of the Irish records for life, 
with a salary of three or four hundred a year. 
Budgell accompanied his cousin in the capa- 
city of private secretary. 

Wharton and Addison had nothing in com- 
mon but whiggism. The lord-lieutenant was 
not only licentious and corrupt, but was dis- 
tinguished from other libertines and jobbers 
by a callovi? impudence which presented the 
strongest contrast to the secretary's gentleness 
and delicacy. Many parts of the Irish admi- 
nistration at this time appear to have deserved 
serious blame. But against Addison there was 
not a murmur. He long afterwards asserted, 
what all the evidence which we have ever 
seen tends to prove, that his diligence and in- 
tegrity gained the friendship of all the most 
considerable persons in Ireland. 

The parliamentary career of Addison in Ire-* 
land has, we think, escaped the notice of all 
his biographers. He was elected member for 
the borough of Cavan in the summer of 1709; 
and in the journals of two sessions his name 
frequently occurs. Some of the entries appear 
to indicate that he so far overcame his timidity 
as to make speeches. Nor is this by any 
means improbable ; for the Irish House of 
Commons was a far less formidable audience 
than the English house ; and many tongues 
which were tied by fear in the greater assem- 
bly became fluent in the smaller. Gerard Ha- 
milton, for example, who, from fear of losing 
the fame gained by his "single speech," sat 
mute at Westminster during forty years, spoke 
with great effect at Dublin when he was secre- 
tary to Lord Halifax. 

While Addison was in Ireland, an event oc- 
curred to which he owes his high and perma- 
nent rank among British writers. As yet his 
fame rested on performances which, though 
highly respectable, were not built for duration, 
and would, if he had produced nothing else, 
have now been almost forgotten, on some ex- 
cellent Latin verses, on some English verses 
which occasionally rose above mediocrity, and 
on a book of travels, agreeably written, but not 
indicating any extraordinary powers of mind. 
These works showed him to be a man of taste, 
sense, and learning. The time had come when 
he was to prove himself a man of genius, and 
to enrich our literature with compositions 
which will live as long as the English lan- 
guage. 

In the spring of 1709, Steele formed a literary 
project, of which he was far indeed from fore- 
seeing the consequences. Periodical papers 
had during many years been published in Lon- 
don. Most of these were political ; but in some 
of them questions of morality, taste, and love- 
casuistry had been discussed. The literary 
merit of these works was small indeed; and 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 



609 



even their names are now known only to the 
curious. 

Steele had been appointed gazetteer by Sun- 
derland, at the request, it is said, of Addison ; 
and thus had access to foreign intelligence 
earlier and more authentic than was in those 
times within the reach of an ordinary news- 
writer. This circumstance seems to have 
suggested to him the scheme of publishing a 
periodical paper on a new plan. It was to ap- 
pear on the days on which the post left London 
for the country, which were, in that generation, 
the Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. It 
was to contain the, foreign news, accounts of 
theatrical representations, and the literary gos- 
sip of Will's and of the Grecian. It was also 
to contain remarks on the fashionable topics 
of the day, compliments to beauties, pasqui- 
nades on noted sharpers, and criticisms on po- 
pular preachers. The aim of Steele does not 
appear to have been at first higher than this. 
He was not ill qualified to conduct the work 
which be had planned. His public intelligence 
he drew from the best sources. He knew the 
town, and had paid dear for his knowledge. 
He had read much more than the dissipated 
men of that time were in the habit of reading. 
He was a rake among scholars, and a scholar 
among rakes. His style was easy and not in- 
correct; and though his wit and humour were 
of no higher order, his gay animal spirits im- 
parted to his compositions an air of vivacity 
which ordinary readers could hardly distin- 
guish from comic genius. His writings have 
been well compared to those light wines, which, 
though deficient in body and flavour, are yet a 
pleasant small drink, if not kept too long, or 
iarried too far. 

Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer, was 
an imaginary person, almost as well known in 
that age as Mr. Paul Pry or Mr. Pickwick in 
ours. Swift had assumed the name of Bicker- 
ttaff in a satirical pamphlet against Partridge, 
the almanac-maker. Partridge had been fool 
ercugh to publish a furious reply. Bickerstaff 
had rejoined in a second pamphet still more 
diverting than the first. All the wits had com- 
bined to keep up the joke, and the town was 
long in convulsions of laughter. Steele de- 
termined to employ the name which this con- 
tioversy had made popular ; and, in April, 1709, 
it was announced that Isaac Bickerstaff, Es- 
quire, Astrologer, was about to publish a paper 
called the "Tatler." 

Addison had not been consulted about this 
scneme ; but as soon as he heard of it, he de- 
termined to give it his assistance. The effect 
of that assistance cannot be better described 
than in Steele's own words. " I fared," he 
said, " like a distressed prince who calls in a 
pcwerful neighbour to his aid. I was undone 
by my auxiliary. When I had once called him 
in, I could not subsist without dependence on 
him." " The paper," he says elsewhere, " was 
advanced indeed. It was raised to a greater 
thing than I intended it." 

It is probable that Addison, when he sent 
across St. George's Channel his first contribu- 
tions to the Tatler, had no notion of the extent 
'and variety of his own powers. He was the 
possessor of a vast mine, rich with a hundred 



ores. But he had been acquainted only with 
the least precious part of his treasures ; and 
had hitherto contented himself with producing 
sometimes copper and sometimes lead, inter- 
mingled with a little silver. All at once, and 
by mere accident, he had lighted on an inex- 
haustible vein of the finest gold. The mere 
choice and arrangement of his words would 
have sufficed to make his essays classical. 
For never, not even by Dryden, not even by 
Temple, had the English language been written 
with such sweetness, grace, and facility. But 
this was the smallest part of Addison's praise. 
Had he clothed his thoughts in the half French 
style of Horace Walpole, or in the half Latin 
style of Dr. Johnson, or in the half German 
jargon of the present day, his genius would 
have triumphed over all faults of manner. 

As a moral satirist, he stands unrivalled. If 
evef the best Tatlers and Spectators were 
equalled in their own kind, we should be in- 
clined to guess that it must have been by the 
lost comedies of Menander. 

In wit, properly so called, Addison was not 
inferior to Cowley or Butler. No single ode 
of Cowley contains so many happy analogies 
as are crowded into the lines to Sir Godfrey 
Kneller; and we would undertake to collect 
from the " Spectators" as great a number of 
ingenious illustrations as can be found in " Hu- 
dibras." The still higher faculty of invention 
Addison possessed in still larger measure. 
The numerous fictions, generally original, often 
wild and grotesque, but always singularly 
graceful and happy, which are found in his 
essays, fully entitle him to the rank of a great 
poet — a rank to which his metrical composi- 
tions give him no claim. As an observer of 
life, of manners, of all the shades of human 
character, he stands in the first class. And 
what he observed hi had the art of communi- 
cating in two wideiy different ways. He could 
describe virtues, vices, habits, whims, as well 
as Clarendon. But he could do something 
better. He could call human beings into ex- 
istence, and make them exhibit themselves. 
If we wish to find any thing more vivid than 
Addison's best portraits, we must go either to 
Shakspeare or to Cervantes. 

But what shall we say of Addison's humour, 
of his sense of the ludicrous, of his power of 
awakening that sense in others, and of drawing 
mirth from incidents which occur every day, 
and from little peculiarities of temper and 
manner, such as may be found in every man 1 
We feel the charm. We give ourselves up to 
it. But we strive in vain to analyze it. 

Perhaps the best way of describing Addison's 
peculiar pleasantry, is to compare it with the 
pleasantry of some other great satirist. The 
three most eminent masters of the art of ridi- 
cule, during the eighteenth century, were, Ave 
conceive, Addison, Swift, and Voltaire. Whicn 
of the three had the greatest power of moving 
laughter may be questioned. But each of them, 
within his own domain, was supreme. Vol- 
taire is the prince of buffoons. His merrimeni 
is. without disguise or restraint. He gambols , 
he grins; he shakes his sides; he points the 
finger ; he turns up the nose ; he shoots oui 
the tongue. The manner of Swift is the verv 



610 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



opposite to this. He moves laughter, but never 
joins in it. He appears in his works such as 
he appeared in society. All the company are 
convulsed with merriment, while the dean, the 
author of all the mirth, preserves an invincible 
gravity, and even sourness of aspect ; and 
gives utterance to the most eccentric and ludi- 
crous fancies, with the air of a man reading 
the commination-service. 

The manner of Addison is as remote from 
that of Swift as from that of Voltaire. He 
neither laughs out like the French wit, nor, 
like the Irish wit, throws a double portion of 
ssverity into his countenance while laughing 
inly ; but preserves a look peculiarly his own, 
a look of demure serer.ity, disturbed only by 
an arch sparkle of the eye, an almost imper- 
ceptible elevation of the brow, an almost im- 
perceptible curl of the lip. His tone is never 
that either of a Jack Pudding or of a cynic. It 
is that of a gentleman, in whom the quickest 
sense of the ridiculous is constantly tempered 
by good nature and good breeding. 

We own that the humour of Addison is, in 
our opinion, of a more delicious flavour than 
the humour of either Swift or Voltaire. Thus 
much, at least, is certain, that both Swift and 
Voltaire have been successfully mimicked, and 
that no man has yet been able to mimic Addi- 
son. The letter of the Abbe Coyer to Pan- 
sophe is Voltaire all over, and imposed, dur- 
ing a long time, on the academicians of Paris. 
There are passages in Arbuthnot's satirical 
works, which we, at least, cannot distinguish 
from Swift's best writing. But of the many 
eminent men who have made Addison their 
model, though several have copied his mere 
diction with happy effect, none has been able 
to catch the tone of his pleasantry. In the 
.World, in the Connoisseur, in the Mirror, in 
the Lounger, there are numerous papers writ- 
ten in obvious imitation of his Tatlers and 
Spectators. Most of these papers have some 
merit ; many are very lively and amusing ; but 
there is not a single one which could be passed 
off as Addison's on a critic of the smallest per- 
spicacity. 

But that which chiefly distinguishes Addison 
from Swift, from Voltaire, from almost all the 
other great masters of ridicule, is the grace, 
the nobleness, the moral purity, which we find 
even in his merriment. Severity, gradually 
hardening and darkening into misanthropy, 
characterizes toe works of Swift. The nature 
of Voltaire was, indeed, not inhuman ; but he 
venerated nothing. Neither in the master- 
pieces of art nor in the purest examples of 
virtue, neither in the Great First Cause nor in 
the awful enigma of the grave, could he see 
any thing but subjects for drollery. The more 
solemn and august the theme, the more monkey- 
like was his grimacing and chattering. The 
mirth of Swift is the mirth of Mephistophiles ; 
the mirth of Voltaire is the mirth of Puck. If, 
as Soame Jennings oddly imagined, a portion 
of the happiness of seraphim and just men 
made perfect be derived from an exquisite per- 
ception of the ludicrous, their mirth must 
surely be none other than the mirth of Addi- 
son;— a mirth consistent with tender compas- 
n. for all that is frail, and with profound 



reverence for all that is sublime. Nothing 
great, nothing amiable, no moral duty, no doc« 
trine of natural or revealed religion, has ever 
been associated by Addison with any degrading 
idea. His humanity is without a parallel in 
literary history. The highest proof of human 
virtue is to possess boundless power without 
abusing it. No kind of power is more formi- 
dable than the power of making men ridicu* 
lous; and that power Addison possessed in 
boundless measure. How grossly that power 
was abused by Swift and Voltaire is well 
known. But of Addison it may be confidently 
affirmed that he has blackened no man's cha- 
racter, nay, thatit would be difficult, if not im- 
possible, to find in all the volumes which he 
has left us a single taunt which can be called 
ungenerous or unkind. Yet he had detractors, 
whose malignity might have seemed to justify 
as terrible a revenge as that which men, not 
superior to him in genius, wreaked on Bettes- 
worth and on Franc de Pompignan. He was 
a politician ; he was the best writer of his 
party; he lived in times of fierce excitement — 
in times when persons of high character and 
station stooped to scurrility such as is now 
practised by the basest of mankind. Yet no 
provocation and no example could induce him 
to return railing for railing. 

Of the service which his essays rendered to 
morality it is difficult to speak too highly. It 
is true that, when the Tatler appeared, that 
age of outrageous profaneness and licentious- 
ness which followed the Restoration had passed 
away. Jeremy Collier had shamed the theatres 
into something which, compared with the ex- 
cesses of Etherege and Wycherley, might be 
called decency. Yet there still lingered in the 
public mind a pernicious notion that there was 
some connection between genius and profli- 
gacy — between the domestic virtues and the 
sullen formality of the Puritans. That error 
it is the glory of Addison to have dispelled. He 
taught the nation that the faith and the morali- 
ty of Hale and Tillotson might be found in 
company with wit more sparkling than the wit 
of Congreve, and with humour richer than the 
aumour of Vanbrugh. So effectually, indeed, 
did he retort on vice the mockery which had 
recently been directed against virtue, that, since 
his time, the open violation of decency has 
always been considered among us as the sure 
mark of a fool. And this revolution, the great- 
est and most salutary ever effected by any sa- 
tirist, he accomplished, be it remembered, 
without writing one personal lampoon. 

In the early contributions of Addison to the 
Tatler, his peculiar powers were not fully ex- 
hibited. Yet from the first his superiority to 
all his coadjutors was evident. Some of his 
later Tatlers are fully equal to any thing that 
he ever wrote. Among the portraits, we most 
admire Tom Folio, Ned Softly, and the Politi- 
cal Upholsterer. The proceedings of the Court 
of Honour, the Thermometer of Zeal, the story 
of the Frozen Words, the Memoirs of the Shill- 
ing, are excellent specimens of that ingenious 
and lively species of fiction in which Addison 
excelled all men. There is one still bettef 
paper, of the same class, but though that pa« 
per, a hundred and thirty-three years ago, was 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 



611 



probably thought as edifying as one of Smal- 
ridge's sermons, we dare not indicate it to the 
squeamish readers of the nineteenth century. 

During the session of parliament which 
commenced in November, 1709, and which the 
impeachment of Sacheverell has made memo- 
rable, Addison appears to have resided in Lon- 
don. The Tatler was now more popular than 
any periodical paper had ever been ; and his 
connection with it was generally known. It 
was not known, however, that almost every 
thing good in the Tatler was his. The truth 
is, that the fifty or sixty numbers which we 
owe to him were not merely the best, but so 
decidedly the best, that any five of them are 
more valuable than all the two hundred num- 
hers in which he had no share. 

He required, at this time, all the solace which 
he could derive from literary success. The 
queen had always disliked the whigs. She had 
during some years disliked the Marlborough 
family. But, reigning by a disputed title, she 
could act venture directly to oppose herself to 
a majority of both Houses of Parliament; and, 
engaged as she was in a war, on the event of 
which her own crown was staked, she could 
not venture to disgrace a great and successful 
general. But at length, in the year 1710, the 
causes which had restrained her from showing 
her aversion to the low church party ceased to 
operate. The trial of Sacheverell produced an 
outbreak of public feeling scarcely less violent 
than those which we can ourselves remember 
in 1820, and in 1831. The country gentlemen, 
the country clergymen, the rabble of the towns, 
were all, for once, on the same side. It was 
clear that, if a general election took place 
before the excitement abated, the tories would 
have a majority. The services of Marlbo- 
rough had been so splendid, that they were no 
longer necessary. The queen's throne was 
secure from all attack on the part of Louis. 
Indeed, it seemed much more likely that the 
English and German armies would divide the 
spoils of Versailles and Marli, than that a 
marshal of France would bring back the Pre- 
tender to St. James's. The queen, acting by 
the advice of Harley, determined to dismiss 
her servants. In June the change commenced. 
Sunderland was the first who fell. The tories 
exulted over his fall. The whigs tried, during 
a few weeks, to persuade themselves that her 
majesty had acted only from personal dislike 
to the secretary, and that she meditated no 
further alteration. But, early in August, Go- 
dolphin was surprised by a letter from Anne, 
which directed him to break his white staff. 
Even after this event, the irresolution or dis- 
simulation of Harley kept up the hopes of the 
whigs during another month; and then the 
ruin became rapid and violent. The Parlia- 
ment was dissolved. The ministers were 
turned out. The tories were called to office. 
The tide of popularity ran violently in favour 
of the high church party. That party, feeble 
in the late House of Commons, was now irre- 
sistible. The power which the tories had thus 
suddenly acquired, they used with blind and 
stupid ferocity. The howl which the whole 
pack set up for prey and for blood, appalled 
even him who had roused and unchained them. 



When at this distance of time, Ti« calml) 
review the conduct of the discarded ministers, 
we cannot but feel a movement of indignation 
at the injustice with which they were treated. 
No body of men had ever administered the 
government with more energy, ability, and 
moderation; and their success had been pro- 
portioned to their wisdom. They had saved 
Holland and Germany. They had humbled 
France. They had, as it seemed, all but torn 
Spain from the house of Bourbon. They had 
made England the first power in Europe. A| 
home they had united England and Scotland, 
They had respected the rights of conscience 
and the liberty of the subject. They retired, 
leaving their country at the height of pros- 
perity and glory.* And yet they were pursued 
to their retreat by such a roar of obloquy as 
was never raised against the government which 
threw away thirteen colonies ; or against the 
government which sent a gallant army tc 
perish in the ditches of Walcheren. 

None of the whigs suffered more in the 
general wreck than Addison. He had just sus- 
tained some heavy pecuniary losses, of the 
nature of which we are imperfectly informed, 
when his secretaryship was taken from him. 
He had reason to believe that he should also 
be deprived of the small Irish office which he 
held by patent. He had just resigned his fel- 
lowship. It seems probable that he had already 
ventured to raise his eyes to a great lady; and 
that, while his political friends were all-power- 
ful, and while his own fortunes were rising, he 
had been, in the phrase of the romances which 
were then fashionable, permitted to hope. But 
Mr. Addison, the ingenious writer, and Mr. Ad- 
dison, the chief secretary, were, in her lady- 
ship's opinion, two very different persons. All 
these calamities united, however, could not 
disturb the serene cheerfulness of a mind con- 
scious of innocence, and rich in its own wealthy 
He told his friends, with smiling resignation, 
that they ought to admire his philosophy, that 
he had lost at once his fortune, his place, his 
fellowship, and his mistress, that he must think 
of turning tutor again, and yet that his spirits 
were as good as ever. 

He had one consolation. Of the unpopu- 
larity which his friends had incurred, he had 
no share. Such was the esteem with which 
he was regarded, that while the most violent 
measures were taken for the purpose of forcing 
tory members on whig corporations, he was 
returned to Parliament without even a contest. 
Swift, who was now in London, and who had 
already determined on quitting the whigs, wrote 
to Stella in these words: — "The tories carry it 
among the new members six to one. Mr. Addi- 
son's election has passed easy and undisputed ; 
and I believe if he had a mind to be king, he 
would hardly be refused." 

The good-will with which the tories regarded 
Addison is the more honourable to him, because 
it had not been purchased by any concession 
on his part. During the general election he 



* Miss Aikin attributes the unpopularity of the whigs, 
and the change of government to the surrender of Stan- 
hope's army. (ii. 13.) The fact is, that the ministry wai 
changed, and the new House of Commons elected, befor 
that surrender took place. 



613 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, 



published a political journal, entitled the 
"Whig Examiner." Of that journal it may 
be sufficient to say that Johnson, in spite of his 
strong political prejudices, pronounced it to be 
superior in wit to any of Swift's writings on 
the other side. When it ceased to appear, 
Swift, in a letter to Stella, expressed his exulta- 
tion at the death of so formidable an antagonist. 
"He might well rejoice," says Johnson, "at the 
death of that which he could not have killed." 
"On no occasion," he adds, "was the genius 
of Addison more vigorously exerted, and in 
none did the superiority of his powers more 
evidently appear." 

The only use which Addison appears to have 
made of the favour with which he was regarded 
by the tories, was to save some of his friends 
from the general ruin of the whig party. He 
felt himself to be in a situation which made it 
his duty to take a decided part in politics. But 
the case of Steele andof Ambrose Phillipps was 
different. For Phillipps, Addison even conde- 
scended to solicit; with what success we have 
not ascertained.* Steele held two places. He 
was gazetteer, and he was also a commissioner 
of stamps. The gazette was taken from him. 
But he was suffered to retain his place in the 
stamp-office, on an implied understanding that 
he should not be active against the new govern- 
ment; and he was, during more than two years, 
induced by Addison to observe this armistice 
with tolerable fidelity. 

Isaac Bickerstaff accordingly became silent 
upon politics, and the article of news, which 
had once formed about one-third of his paper, 
altogether disappeared. The Tatler had com- 
pletely changed its character. It was now no- 
thing but a series of essays on books, morals, 
and manners. Steele, therefore, resolved to 
bring it to a close, and to commence a new 
work on an improved plan. It was announced 
that this new work would be published daily. 
The undertaking was generally regarded as 
bold, or rather rash ; but the event amply justi- 
fied the confidence with which Steele relied on 
the fertility of Addison's genius. On the 2d 
of January, 1711, appeared the last Tatler. On 
the 1st of March following, appeared the first 
of an incomparable series of papers, containing 
observations on life and literature by an imagi- 
nary spectator. 

The Spectator himself was conceived and 
drawn by Addison ; and it is not easy to doubt 
that the portrait was meant to be in some fea- 
tures a likeness of the painter. The Spectator 
is a gentleman who, after passing a studious 
youth at the university, has travelled on classic 
ground, and has bestowed much attention on 
curious points of antiquity. He has, on his 
return, fixed his residence in London, and has 
observed all the forms of life which are to be 
found in that great city ;— has daily listened to 
the wits of Will's, has smoked with the phi- 
losophers of the Grecian, and has mingled with 



* Miss Aikin mentions the exertions which Addison 
made in 1710, before the change of ministry, to serve 
Phillipps, and adds that "Phillipps appears some time 
afterwards to have obtained a mission to Copenhagen, 
which enabled him to gratify the world with his poetical 
description of a frozen shower." (ii. 14.) This is all 
wrong. The poem was written in March, 1709, and 
urinted u: 'he Tatler ?f the 6th of May following. 



the parsons at Child's, and with the politician! 
at the St. James's. In the morning he often 
listens to the hum of the Exchange; in the 
evening his face is constantly to be seen in 
the pit of Drury-lane theatre. But an insur- 
mountable bashfulness prevents him from 
opening his mouth, except in a small circle of 
intimate friends. 

These friends were first sketched by Steele. 
Four of the club, the templar, the clergyman, 
the soldier, and the merchant, were uninterest- 
ing figures, fit only for a background. But the 
other two, an old country baronet, and an old 
town rake, though not delineated with a very 
delicate pencil, had some good strokes. Addi- 
son took the rude outlines into his own hands, 
retouched them, coloured them, and is in truth 
the creator of the Sir Roger de Coverley and 
the Will Honeycomb with whom we are all 
familiar. 

The plan of the Spectator must be allowed 
to be both original and eminently happy. 
Every valuable essay in the series may be 
read with pleasure separately ; yet the five 
or six hundred essays form a whole, and a 
whole which has the interest of a novel. It 
must be remembered, too, that at that time, no 
novel, giving a lively and powerful picture of 
the common life and manners of England had 
appeared. Richardson was working as a com- 
positor. Fielding was robbing bird's nests. 
Smollett was not yet born. The narrative, 
therefore, which connects together the Spec- 
tator's essays, gave to our ancestors their first 
taste of an exquisite and untried pleasure. 
That narrative was indeed constructed with no 
art or labour. The events were such events as 
occur every day. Sir Roger comes up to town 
to see Eugenio, as the worthy baronet always 
calls Prince Eugene, goes with the Spectator 
on the water to Spring Gardens, walks among 
the tombs in the abbey, is frightened by the 
Mohawks, but conquers his apprehension so 
far as to go to the theatre, when the " Distressed 
Mother" is acted. The Spectator pays a visit 
in the summer to Coverley Hall, is charmed 
with the old house, the old butler, and the old 
chaplain, eats a Jack caught by Will Wimble, 
rides to the assizes, and hears a point of law 
discussed by Tom Touchy. At last a letter 
from the honest butler brings to the club the 
news that Sir Roger is dead. Will Honeycomb 
marries and reforms at sixty. The club breaks 
up ; and the Spectator resigns his functions. 
Such events can hardly be said to form a plot, 
yet they are related with such truth, such grace, 
such wit, such humour, such pathos, such 
knowledge of the human heart, such know- 
ledge of the ways of the world, that they 
charm us sn the hundredth perusal. We have 
not the least -doubt that, if Addison had writ- 
ten a novel, on an extensive plan, it would 
have been superior to any that we possess. As 
it is, he is entitled to be considered, not only as 
the greatest of the English essayists, but as 
the forerunner of the great English novelists. 

We say this of Addison alone ; for Addison 
is the Spectator. About three-sevenths of the 
work are his ; and it is no exaggeration to say, 
that his first essay is as grod as the best essay 
of any of his coadjutors. His best essays ap 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 



613 



proach near to absolute perfection ; nor is their 
excellence more wonderful than their variety. 
His invention never seems to flag; nor is he 
ever under the necessity of repeating himself, 
or of wearing out a subject. There are no 
dregs in his wine. He regales us after the 
fashion of that prodigal nabob who held that 
there was only one good glass in a bottle. As 
soon as we have tasted the first sparkling foam 
of a jest, it is withdrawn, and a fresh glass of 
nectar is at our lips. On the Monday we have 
an allegory as lively and ingenious as Lucian's 
Auction of Lives; on the Tuesday an eastern 
apologue as richly coloured as the Tales of 
Sc.ierezade ; on the Wednesday, a character 
described with the skill of La Bruyere ; on the 
Thursday, a scene from common life equal to 
the best chapters in the Vicar of Wakefield ; on 
the Friday, some sly Horatian pleasantry on 
the fashionable follies — on hoops, patches, or 
puppet-shows ; and on the Saturday a religious 
meditation which will bear a comparison with 
the finest passages in Massillon. 

It is dangerous to select where there is so 
much that deserves the highest praise. We 
will venture, however, to say, that any persons 
who wish to form a just notion of the extent 
and variety of Addison's powers, will do well 
to read at one sitting the following papers ; — 
the two Visits to the Abbey, the Visit to the 
Exchange, the Journal of the Retired Citizen, 
'he Vision of Mirza, the Transmigrations of 
Pug the Monkey, and the Death of Sir Roger 
ie Coverley.* 

The least valuable of Addison's contributions 
to the Spectator are, in the judgment of our 
age, his critical papers. Yet his critical pa- 
pers are always luminous, and often ingenious. 
The very worst of them must be regarded as 
creditable to him, when the character of the 
school in which he had been trained is fairly 
«onsidered. The best of them were much too 
good for his readers. In truth, he was not so 
far behind our generation as he was before 
his own. No essays in the Spectator were 
more censured and derided than those in which 
he raised his voice against the contempt with 
which our fine old ballads were regarded; and 
showed the scoffers that the same gold which, 
burnished and polished, gives lustre to the 
JBneid and the Odes of Horace, is mingled 
with the rude dross of Chevy Chace. 

It is not strange that the success of the 
Spectator should have been such as no similar 
work has ever obtained. The number of co- 
pies daily distributed was at first three thou- 
sand. It subsequently increased, and had risen 
to near four thousand when the stamp-tax was 
imposed. That tax was fatal to a crowd of 
journals. The Spectator, however, stood its 
ground, doubled its price, and though its circu- 
lation fell off, still yielded a large revenue both 
to the state and to the authors. For particular 
papers, the demand was immense ; of some, it 
is said twenty thousand copies were required. 
But this was not all. To have the Spectator 
served up every morning with the bohea and 



* Nos. 26, 329, 69, 317, 1S9, 343, 517. These papers are 
all in the first seven volumes The eighth must be con- 
•idered as a separate work. 



rolls, was a luxury for the few; the majcritt 
were content to wait till essays enough had ap 
peared to form a volume. Ten thousand copies 
of each volume were immediately taken off, and 
new editions were called for. It must be re- 
membered, that the population of England was 
then hardly a third of what it now is. The 
number of Englishmen who were in the habit 
of reading, was probably not a sixth of what it 
now is. A shopkeeper or a farmer who found 
any pleasure in literature, was a rarity. Nay, 
there was doubtless more than one knight of the 
shire whose country-seat did not contain ten 
books — receipt-books, and books on farriery in- 
cluded. Under these circumstances, the sale 
of the Spectator must be considered as indicate 
ing a popularity quite as great as that of the 
most successful works of Sir Walter Scott and 
Mr. Dickens in our own time. 

At the close of 1712, the Spectator ceased to 
appear. It was probably felt that the short- 
faced gentleman and his club had been long 
enough before the town ; and that it was time 
to withdraw them, and to replace them by anew 
set of characters. In a few weeks the first num- 
ber of the "Guardian" was published.* But 
the Guardian was unfortunate both in its birth 
and in its death. It began in dullness, and dis- 
appeared in a tempest of faction. The origi- 
nal plan was bad. Addison contributed no- 
thing till sixty-six numbers had appeared; and 
it was then impossible even for him to make 
the Guardian what the Spectator had been. 
Nestor Ironside and the Miss Lizards were peo- 
ple to whom even he could impart no interest. 
He could only furnish some excellent little es- 
says, both serious and comic ; and this he did. 

Why Addison gave no assistance to the 
Guardian during the first two months of its 
existence, is a question which has puzzled 
the editors and biographers, but which seems 
to us to admit of a very easy solution. He 
was then engaged in bringing his Cato on the 
stage. 

The first four acts of this drama had been 
lying in his desk since his return from Italy. 
His modest and sensitive nature shrank from 
the risk of a public and shameful failure; and, 
though all who saw the manuscript were loud 
in praise, some thought it possible that an au- 
dience might become impatient even of very 
good rhetoric; and advised Addison to print 
the play without hazarding a representation. 
At length, after many fits of apprehension, the 
poet yielded to the urgency of his politica. 
friends, who hoped that the public would dis« 
cover some analogy between the followers of 
Ca?sar and the tories, between Sempronius and 
the apostate whigs, between Cato, struggling 
to the last for the liberties of Rome, and the 
band of patriots who still stood firm round 
Halifax and Wharton. 

Addison gave the play to the managers of 
Drury-lane theatre, without stipulating for any 
advantage to himself. They, therefore, thought 
themselves bound to spare no cost in scenery 
and dresses. The decorations, it is true, would 



* Miss Aikin says that the Guardian was launched in 
November, 1713. (ii. 106.) I» was launched in March, 
1713, and was given over in the following September. 



€14 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



not have pleased the skilful eye of Mr. Mac- 
ready. Juba's waistcoat blazed with gold lace ; 
Marcia's hoop was worthy of a duchess on the 
birthday; and Cato wore a wig worth fifty 
guineas. The prologue was written by Pope, 
and is undoubtedly a dignified and spirited 
composition. The part of the hero was excel- 
lently played by Booth. Steele undertook to 
pack a house. The boxes were in a blaze 
with the stars of the peers in opposition. The 
pit was crowded with attentive and friendly 
listeners from the inns of court and the lite- 
rary coffee-houses. Sir Gilbert Heathcote, go- 
vernor of the Bank of England, was at the 
head of a powerful body of auxiliaries from 
the city; — warm men and true whigs, but bet- 
ter known at Jonathan's and Garrowy's than 
in the haunts of wits and critics. 

These precautions were quite superfluous. 
The tories, as a body, regarded Addison with 
no unkind feelings. Nor was it for their inte- 
rest, — professing, as they did, profound reve- 
rence for law and prescription, and abhorrence 
both of popular insurrections and of standing 
armies — to appropriate to themselves reflec- 
tions thrown on the great military chief and 
demagogue, who, with the support of the legions 
and of the common people, subverted all the 
ancient institutions of his country. Accord- 
ingly, every shout that was raised by the mem- 
bers of the Kit-Cat was re-echoed by the high 
churchmen of the October; and the curtain at 
length fell amidst thunders of unanimous ap- 
plause. 

The delight and admiration of the town were 
described by the Guardian in terms which we 
might attribute to partiality, were it not that 
the Examiner, the organ of the ministry, held 
similar language. The tories, indeed, found 
much to sneer at"in the conduct of their oppo- 
nents. Steele had on this, as on other occa- 
sions, shown more zeal than taste or judgment. 
The honest citizens who marched under the 
orders of Sir Gibby, as he was facetiously 
called, probably knew better when to buy and 
when to sell stock than when to clap and when 
to hiss at a play ; and incurred some ridicule 
by making the hypocritical Sempronius their 
favourite, and by giving to his insincere rants 
louder plaudits than they bestowed on the tem- 
perate eloquence of Cato. Wharton, too, who 
had the incredible effrontery to applaud the 
lines about flying from prosperous vice and 
from the power of impious men to a private 
station, did not escape the sarcasms of those 
who justly thought that he could fly from no- 
thing more vicious or impious than himself. 
The epilogue, which was written by Garth, a 
zealous whig, was severely and not unreasona- 
bly censured as ignoble and out of place. But 
Addison was described, even by the bitterest 
lory writers, as a gentleman of wit and virtue, 
in whose friendship many persons of both par- 
ties were happy, and whose name ought not to 
be mixed up with factious squabbles. 

Of the jests by which the triumph of the 
whig party was disturbed, the most severe and 
bappy was Bolingbroke's. Between two acts, 
ae sent for Booth to his box, and presented 
him, before the whole theatre, with a purse of | 



fifty guineas, for defending the cause of liberty 
so well against a perpetual dictator.* 

It was April ; and in April, a hundred ana 
thirty years ago, the London season was thoughl 
to be far advanced. During a whole month, how- 
ever, Cato was performed to overflowing houses, 
and brought into the treasury of the theatre 
twice the gains of an ordinary spring. In the 
summer, the Drury Lane company went down 
to act at Oxford, and there, before an au- 
dience which retained an affectionate remem- 
brance of Addison's accomplishments and vir- 
tues, his tragedy was acted during several 
days. The gownsmen began to besiege the 
theatre in the forenoon, and by one in the after- 
noon all the seats were filled. 

About the merits of the piece which had ssj 
extraordinary an effect, the public, we sup- 
pose, has made up its mind. To compare it 
with the masterpieces of the Attic stage, with 
the great English dramas of the time of Eliza 
beth, or even with the productions of Schiller's 
manhood, would be absurd indeed. Yet it 
contains excellent dialogue and declamation; 
and, among plays fashioned on the French 
model, must be allowed to rank high ; not in- 
deed with Athalie, Zaire, or Saul, but, we think, 
not below Cinna; and certainly above any 
other English tragedy of the samt school, above 
many of the plays of Corneille, above many 
of the plays of Voltaire and Alfieri, and above 
some plays of Racine. Be this as it may, we 
have little doubt that Cato did as much as the 
Tatlers, Spectators, and Freeholders united, to 
raise Addison's fame among his contempo- 
raries. 

The modesty and good nature of the success- 
ful dramatist had tamed even the malignity of 
faction. But literary envy, it should seem, is 
a fiercer passion than party spirit. It was by 
a zealous whig that the fiercest attack on the 
whig tragedy was made. John Dennis pub- 
lished Remarks on Cato, which were written 
with some acuteness and with much coarse- 
ness and asperity. But Addison neither defend • 
ed himself nor retaliated. On many points h& 
had an excellent defence ; and nothing would 
have been easier than to retaliate ; for Dennis 
had written bad odes, bad tragedies, bad come- 
dies : he had, moreover, a larger share than 
most men of those infirmities and eccentrici- 
ties which excite laughter; and Addison's 
power of turning either an absurd book or an 
absurd man into ridicule was unrivalled. Ad- 
dison, however, serenely conscious of his su- 
periority, looked with pity on his assailant, 
whose temper, naturally irritable and gloomy, 
had been soured by want, by controversy, and 
by literary failures. 

But among the young candidates for Addi- 
son's favour there was one distinguished by 
talents above the rest, and distinguished, we 
fear, not less by malignity and insincerity. 
Pope was only twenty-five. But his powers 



* "The long sway of the Duke of Marlborough," say* 
Miss Aikin, "was here glanced at." Under favour, if 
Bolingbroke had meant no more than this, his sarcasm 
would have been pointless. The allusion was to the at- 
tempt which Marlborough had made to convert the cap- 
tain-generalship into a patent office, to be held by him- 
self for life. The patent was stopped by Lord Cowper. 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 



615 



had expanded to their full maturity ; and his 
best poem, ihe "Rape of the Lock," had re- 
cently been published. Of his genius, Addison 
had always expressed high admiration. But 
Addison had clearly discerned, what might in- 
deed have been discerned by an eye less pene- 
trating than his, that the diminutive, crooked, 
sickly boy was eager to revenge himself on 
society for the unkindness of nature. In the 
Spectator, the Essay on Criticism had been 
praised with cordial warmth ; but a gentle hint 
had been added, that the writer of so excellent 
a poem would have done well to avoid ill-na- 
tured personalities. Pope, though evidently 
more galled by the censure than gratified by 
the praise, returned thanks for the admonition, 
and promised to profit by it. The two writers 
continued to exchange civilities, counsel, and 
small good offices. Addison publicly extolled 
Pope's miscellaneous pieces, and Pope fur- 
nished Addison with a prologue. This did not 
last long. Pope hated Dennis, whom he had 
injured without provocation. The appearance 
of the Remarks on Cato, gave the irritable 
poet an opportunity of venting his malice un- 
der the show of friendship ; and such an op- 
portunity could not but be welcome to a nature 
which was implacable in enmity, and which 
always prefe'rred the tortuous to the straight 
path. He published, accordingly, the "Narra- 
tive of the Frenzy of John Dennis." But Pope 
had mistaken his powers. He was a great 
master of invective and sarcasm. He could 
dissect a character in terse and sonorous 
couplets, brilliant with antithesis. But of dra- 
matic talent he was altogether destitute. If he 
had written a lampoon on Dennis, such as that 
on Atticus, or that on Sporus, the old grumbler 
would have been crushed. But Pope writing 
dialogue resembled — to borrow Horace's ima- 
gery and his own — a wolf which, instead of 
biting, should take *:■ kicking, or a monkey 
which should try to sting. The Narrative is 
utterly contemptible. Of argument there is 
not even the show; and the jests are such as, 
if they were introduced into a farce, would 
call forth the hisses of the shilling gallery. 
Dennis raves about the drama ; and the nurse 
thinks that he is calling for a dram. "There 
is," he cries, " no peripetia in the tragedy, no 
change of fortune, no change at all." " Pray, 
good sir, be not angry," said the old woman ; 
"I'll fetch change." This is not exactly the 
pleasantry of Addison. 

There can be no doubt that Addison saw 
through this officious zeal, and felt himself deeply 
aggrieved by it. So foolish and spiteful a 
pamphlet could do him no good, and, if he 
were thought to have any hand in it, must do 
him harm. Gifted with incomparable powers 
of ridicule, he had never, even in self-defence, 
osed those powers inhumanly or uncourteous- 
ly ; and he was not disposed to let others make 
his fame and his interests a pretext under 
whicn they might commit outrages from which 
he had himself constantly abstained. He ac- 
cordingly declared that he had no concern in 
the "Narrative," that he disapproved of it, and 
that, if he answered the "Remarks," he would 
answer them like a gentleman ; and he took 
sare to communicate this to Dennis. Pope 



was bitterly mortified ; and to this transaction 
we are inclined to ascribe the hatred with 
which he ever after regarded Addison. 

In September, 1713, the Guardian ceased to 
appear. Steele had gone mad about politics. 
A general election had just taken place ; he 
had been chosen member for Stockbridge, and 
fully expected to play a first part in Parlia- 
ment. The immense success of the Tatler and 
Spectator had turned his head. He had been 
the editor of both those papers ; and was no* 
aware how entirely they owed their influencfi 
and popularity to the genius of his friend. His 
spirits, always violent, were now excited by 
vanity, ambition and faction, to such a pitch 
that he every day committed some offence 
against good sense and good taste. All the 
discreet and moderate members of his own 
party regretted and condemned his folly. "I 
am in a thousand troubles," Addison wrote, 
" about poor Dick, and wish that his zeal for 
the public may not be ruinous to himself. 
But he has sent me word that he is determined 
to go on, and that any advice I may give him 
in this particular will have no weight with 
him." 

Steele set up a political paper called " The 
Englishman," which, as it was not supported 
by contributions from Addison, completely 
failed. By this work, by some other writings 
of the same kind, and by the airs which he gave 
himself at the first meeting of the new Parlia- 
ment, he made the tories so angry that they 
determined to expel him. The whigs stood by 
him gallantly ; but were unable to save him. 
The vote of expulsion was regarded by all 
dispassionate men as a tyrannical exercise of 
the power of the majority. But Steele's vio 
lence and folly, though they by no means jus 
tified the steps which his enemies took, had 
completely disgusted his friends; nor did he 
ever regain the place which he had held in the 
public estimation. 

Addison about this time conceived the design 
of adding an eighth volume to the Spectator. 
In June, 1714, the first number of the new 
series appeared, and during about six months 
three papers were published weekly. Nothing 
can be more striking than the contrast between 
the Englishman and the eighth volume of the 
Spectator — between Steele without Addison, 
and Addison without Steele. The "English- 
man" is forgotten ; the eighth volume of the 
Spectator contains, perhaps, the finest essays, 
both serious and playful, in the English lan- 
guage. 

Before this volume was completed, the death 
of Anne produced an entire change in the ad- 
ministration of public affairs. The blow fell 
suddenly. It found the tory party distracted by 
internal feuds, and unprepared for any great 
effort. Harley had just been disgraced. Bo- 
lingbroke, it was supposed, would be the chief 
minister. But the queen was on her deathbed 
before the white staff had been given, and her 
last public act was to deliver it with a feeble 
hand to the Duke of Shrewsbury. The emer- 
gency produced a coalition between all sec- 
tions of public men who were attached to the 
Protestant succession. George the First wai 
proclaimed without opposition. A council, i* 



618 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



winch the leading whigs had seats, took the 
direction of affairs till the new king should 
arrive. The first act of the lords justices was 
to appoint Addison their secretary. 

There is an idle tradition that he was di- 
rected to prepare a letter to the king, that he 
could not satisfy himself as to the style of this 
composition, and that the lords justices called 
i a clerk who at once did what was wanted. 
It is not strange that a story so flattering to 
mediocrity should be popular; and we are 
sorry to deprive dunces of their consolation. 
But the truth must be told. It was well ob- 
served by Sir James Mackintosh, whose know- 
ledge of these times was unequalled, that Ad- 
dison never, in any official document, affected 
wit or eloquence ; and that his despatches are, 
withcrut exception, remarkable for unpretend- 
ing simplicity. Everybody who knows with 
what ease Addison's finest essays were pro- 
duced, must be convinced that if well-turned 
phrases had been wanted he would have had 
no difficulty in finding them. We are, how- 
ever, inclined to believe that the story is not 
absolutely without a foundation. It may well 
be that Addison did not know, till he had con- 
sulted experienced clerks, who remembered the 
times when William was absent on the Con- 
tinent, in what form a letter from the council 
of regency to the king ought to be drawn. We 
think it very likely that the ablest statesmen 
of our time, Lord John Russell, Sir Robert 
Peel, Lord Palmerston, for example, would, in 
similar circumstances, be found quite as igno- 
rant. Every office has some little mysteries 
which the dullest man may learn with a little 
attention, and which the greatest man cannot 
possibly know by intuition. One paper must 
be signed by the chief of the department, 
another by his deputy. To a third the royal 
sign-manual is necessary. One communica- 
tion is to be registered, and another is not. 
One sentence must be in black ink and another 
in red ink. If the ablest secretary for Ireland 
were moved to the India board, if the ablest 
president of the India board were moved to the 
War Office, he would require instruction on 
points like these ; and we do not doubt that 
Addison required such instruction when he 
became, for the first time, secretary to the 
lords justices. 

George the First took possession of his king- 
dom without opposition. A new ministry was 
formed, and a new Parliament favourable to 
the whigs chosen. Sunderland was appointed 
lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and Addison again 
went to Dublin as chief secretary. 

At Dublin Swift resided, and there was much 
speculation about the way in which the dean 
and the secretary would behave towards each 
other. The relations which existed between 
these remarkable men form an interesting and 
pleasing portion of literary history. They had 
early attached themselves to the same political 
party and to the same patrons. While Anne's 
whig ministry was in power, the visits of Swift 
to London and the official residence of Addison 
in Ireland had given them opportunities of 
knowing each otner. They were the two 
shrewdest observers of their age. But their 
observations on each other had led them to 



favourable conclusions. Swift did full justice 
to the rare powers of conversation which were 
latent under the bashful deportment of Addison. 
Addison, on the other hand, discerned much 
good nature under the severe look and manner 
of Swift; and, indeed, the Swift of 1708 and 
the Swift of 1738 were 'two very different men. 

But the paths of the two friends diverged 
widely. The whig statesmen loaded Addison 
with solid benefits. They praised Swift, asked 
him to dinner, and did nothing more for him. 
His profession laid them under a difficulty. In 
the state they could not promote him ; and they 
had reason to fear that, by bestowing prefer- 
ment in the church on the author of the Tale 
of a Tub, they might give scandal to the public, 
which had no high opinion of their orthodoxy. 
He did not make fair allowance for the difficul- 
ties which prevented Halifax and Somers from 
serving him ; thought himself an ill-used man; 
sacrificed honour and consistency to revenge ; 
joined the tories, and became their most formi- 
dable champion. He soon found, however, 
that his old fr>nds were less to blame than he 
had supposed. The dislike with which the 
queen and the heads of the church regarded 
him was insurmountable ; and it was with the 
greatest difficulty that he obtained an eccle- 
siastical dignity of no great value, on condition 
of fixing his residence in a country which he 
detested. 

Difference of political opinion had produced, 
not, indeed, a quarrel, but a coolness between 
Swift and Addison. They at length ceased 
altogether to see each other. Yet there was 
between them a tacit compact like that between 
the hereditary guests in the Iliad. 

"Eyxsa S'a\\f]\o}v dXecoiieOa /cat St bpiiXov 
TloWol jilv yap ipoi Tpcotj /cXftroi r' In'iKovpoi., 
Kt£ivclv, 6v ks -S-£oc, yc nopy Kal norrci xixei'o), 
IIoXXoi 5' av c-ol 'Axaioi, ivaipsjxtv, Sv ks Svvjjai 

It is not strange that Addison, who calum- 
niated and insulted nobody, should not have 
calumniated or insulted Swift. But it is re- 
markable that Swift, to whom neither genius 
nor virtue was sacred, and who generally 
seemed to find, like most other renegades, a 
peculiar pleasure in attacking old friends, 
should have shown so much respect and ten- 
derness to Addison. 

Fortune had now changed. The accession 
of the house of Hanover had secured in Eng- 
land the liberties of the people, and in Ireland 
the dominion of the Protestant caste. To that 
caste Swift was more odious than any other 
man. He was hooted and even pelted in the 
streets of Dublin; and could not venture to ride 
along the Strand for his health without the 
attendance of armed servants. Many whom 
he had formerly served now libelled and in- 
sulted him. At this time Addison arrived. He 
had been advised not to show the smallest 
civility to the dean of St. Patrick's. But he 
answered with admirable spirit, that it might 
be necessary for men whose fidelity to their 
party was suspected to hold no intercourse with 
political opponents ; but that one who had been 
a steady whig in the worst times might venture, 
when the good cause was triumphant, to shake 
hards with an old friend who was one of th« 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 



617 



vanquished tories. His kindness was soothing 
to the proud and cruelly wounded spirit of 
Swift; and the two great satirists resumed 
their habits of friendly intercourse. 

Those associates of Addison, whose political 
opinions agreed with his, shared his good for- 
tune. He took Tickell with him to Ireland. 
He procured for Budgell a lucrative place in 
the same kingdom. Ambrose Phillipps was 
provided for in England. Steele had injured 
himself so much by his eccentricity and per- 
verseness, that he obtained but a very small 
part of what he thought his due. He was, 
however, knighted. He had a place in the 
household; and he subsequently received other 
marks of favour from the court. 

Addison did not i-emain long in Ireland. In 
1715 he quitted his secretaryship for a seat 
at the Board of Trade. In the same year his 
comedy of the Drummer was brought on the 
stage. The name of the author was not an- 
nounced ; the piece was coldly received ; and 
some critics have expressed a doubt whether 
it were really Addison's. To us the evidence, 
both external and internal, seems decisive. It 
is not in Addison's best manner; but it con- 
tains numerous passages which no other writer 
known to us could have produced. It was 
again performed after Addison's death, and, 
being known to be his, was loudly applauded. 

Towards the close of the year 1715, while 
the Rebellion was still raging in Scotland,* 
Addison published the first number of a paper 
called the "Freeholder." Among his political 
works the Freeholder is entitled to the first 
place. Even in the Spectator there are few 
serious papers nobler than the character of his 
friend Lord Somers ; and certainly no satiri- 
cal papers superior to those in which the tory 
fox-hunter is introduced. This character is the 
original of Squire Western, and is drawn with 
all Fielding's force, and with a delicacy of 
which Fielding was altogether destitute. As 
none of Addison's works exhibits stronger 
marks of his genius than the Freeholder, so 
none does more honour to his moral character. 
It is difficult to extol too highly the candour 
and humanity of a political writer, whom even 
the excitement of civil war cannot hurry into 
unseemly violence. Oxford, it is well known, 
was then the stronghold of toryism. The High 
street had been repeatedly lined with bayonets 
in order to keep down the disaffected gowns- 
men ; and traitors pursued by the messengers 
of the government had been concealed in the 
garrets of several colleges. Yet the admoni- 
tion which, even under such circumstances, 
Addison addressed to the university, is singu- 
larly gentle, respectful, and even affectionate. 
Indeed, he could not find it in his heart to deal 
harshly even with imaginary persons. His 
fox-hunter, though ignorant, stupid, and vio- 
lent, is at heart a good fellow, and is at last 
reclaimed by the clemency of the king. Steele 
was dissatisfied with his friend's moderation, 



» Miss Aikin has been most unfortunate in her account 
of this Rebellion. We will notice only two errors which 
occur in one page. She says that the Rebellion was un- 
dertaken in favour of James II., who had been fourteen 
years dead, and that it was headed by Charles Edward, 
who was not born. (ii. 172.) 



and though he acknowledged that the Free« 
holder was excellently written, complained that 
the ministry played on a lute when it was ne 
cessary to blow the trumpet. He accordingly 
determined to execute a nourish after his own 
fashion ; and tried to rouse the public spirit of 
the nation by means of a paper called the Town 
Talk, which is now as utterly forgotten as his 
Englishman, as his Crisis, as his Letter to the 
Bailiff of Stockbridge, as his Reader — in short, 
as every thing that he wrote without the help 
of Addison. 

In the same year in which the Drummer was 
acted, and in which the first numbers of the 
Freeholder appeared, the estrangement of Pope 
and Addison became complete. Addison had 
from the first seen that Pope was false and ma- 
levolent. Pope had discovered that Addison 
was jealous. The discovery was made in a 
strange manner. Pope had written the Rape 
of the Lock, in two cantos, without supernatu- 
ral machinery. These two cantos had been 
loudly applauded, and by none more loudly 
than by Addison. Then Pope thought of the 
Sylphs and Gnomes, Ariel, Momentilla, Cris- 
pissa, and Umbriel ; and resolved to interweave 
the Rosicrucian mythology with the original 
fabric. He asked Addison's advice. Addison 
said that the poem as it stood was a delicious 
little thing, and entreated Pope not to run the 
risk of marring what was so excellent in try- 
ing to mend it. Pope afterwards declared that 
this insidious counsel first opened his eyes to 
the baseness of him who gave it. 

Now there can be no doubt that Pope's plan 
was most ingenious, and that he afterwards 
executed it with great skill and success. Bu 
does it necessarily follow that Addison's advi 
was bad 1 And if Addison's advice was ba 
does it necessarily follow that it was given from 
bad motives 1 If a friend were to ask us whe- 
ther we would advise him to risk a small com- 
petence in a lottery of which the chances were 
ten to one against him, we should do our best 
to dissuade him from running such a risk. 
Even if he were so lucky as to get the thirty 
thousand pound prize, we should not admit that 
we had counselled him ill; and we should cer- 
tainly think it the height of injustice in him to 
accuse us of having been actuated by malice. 
We think Addison's advice good advice. It 
rested on a sound principle, the result of long 
and wide experience. The general rule un- 
doubtedly is, that, when a successful work of 
imagination has been produced, it should not 
be recast. We cannot at this moment call to 
mind a single instance in which this rule has 
been transgressed with happy effect, except the 
instance of the Rape of the Lock. Tasso re- 
cast his Jerusalem. Akenside recast his Plea- 
sures of the Imagination, and his Epistle to 
Curio. Pope himself, emboldened no doubt by 
the success with which he had expanded and 
remodelled the Rape of the Lock, made the 
same experiment on the Dunciad. All these 
attempts failed. Who was to foresee that Pope 
would, once in his life, be able to do what he 
could not himself do twice, and what nobody 
else has ever done 1 

Addison's advice was good. But had it been 
bad, why should we pronounce it dishonest 1 



618 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Scott tells us that one of his best friends pre- 
dicted the failure of Waverley. Herder adjured 
Gothe not to take so unpromising a subject as 
Faust. Hume tried to dissuade Robertson from 
writing the History of Charles V. Nay, Pope 
himself was one of those who prophesied that 
Cato would never succeed on the stage ; and 
advised Addison to priut it without risking a 
representation. But Scott, Gothe, Robertson, 
Addison, had the good sense and generosity to 
give their advisers credit for the best inten- 
tions. Pope's heart was not of the same kind 
with theirs. 

In 1715, while he was engaged in translating 
the Iliad, he met Addison at a coffee-house. 
Phillipps and Budgell were there. But their 
sovereign got rid of them, and asked Pope to 
dine with him alone. After dinner, Addison 
said that he lay under a difficulty which he had 
for some time wished to explain. "Tickell," 
he said, " translated some time ago the first 
book of the Iliad. I have promised to look it 
over and correct it. I cannot, therefore, ask to 
see yours; for that would be double-dealing." 
Pope made a civil reply, and begged that his 
second book might have the advantage of Addi- 
son's revision. Addison readily agreed, looked 
over the second book, and sent it back with 
warm commendations. 

Tickell's version of the first book appeared 
soon after this conversation. In the preface 
all rivalry was earnestly disclaimed. Tickell 
declared that he should not go on with the Iliad. 
That enterprise he should leave to powers 
which he admitted to be superior to his own. 
His only view, he said, in publishing this spe- 
cimen was to bespeak the favour of the public 
to a translation of the Odyssey, in which he 
had made some progress. 

Addison, and Addison's devoted followers, 
pronounced both the versions good, but main- 
tained that Tickell's had more of the original. 
The town gave a decided preference to Pope's. 
We do not think it worth while to settle such 
a question of precedence. Neither of the rivals 
can be said to have translated the Iliad, unless, 
indeed, the word translation be used in the 
sense which it bears in the Midsummer Night's 
Dream. When Bottom makes his appearance 
with an ass's head instead of his own, Peter 
Quince exclaims, "Bless thee! Bottom, bless 
thee ! thou art translated." In this sense, un- 
doubtedly, the readers of either Pope or Tickell 
may very properly exclaim, " Bless thee ! Ho- 
mer ; thou art translated indeed." 

Our readers will, we hope, agree with us in 
thinking that no man in Addison's situation 
could have acted more fairly and kindly, both 
towards Pope and towards Tickell, than he 
appears to have done. But an odious suspi- 
cion had sprung up in the mind of Pope. He 
fancied, and he soon firmly believed that there 
was a deep conspiracy against his fame and 
his fortunes. The work on which he had 
staked his reputation was to be depreciated. 
The subscription, on which rested his hopes 
of a competence, was to be defeated. With 
this view Addison had made a rival transla- 
tion ; Tickell had consented to father it ; and 
the wits of Button's had united to puff it. 



Is there any external evidence to support 
this grave accusation 1 The answer is short 
There is absolutely none. 

Was there any internal evidence which 
proved Addison to be the author of this ver- 
sion 1 Was ft a work which Tickell was in- 
capable of producing 1 ? Surely not. Tickell 
was a fellow of a college at Oxford, and must 
be supposed to have been able to construe ths 
Iliad; and he was a better versifier than his 
friend. We are not aware that Pope pretend- 
ed to have discovered any turns of expression 
peculiar to Addison. Had such turns of ex- 
pression been discovered, they would be suffi- 
ciently accounted for by supposing Addison to 
have corrected his friend's lines, as he owned 
that he had done. 

Is there any thing in the character of the ac- 
cused persons which makes the accusation 
probable 1 We answer confidently — nothing. 
Tickell was long after this time described by 
Pope himself as a very fair and worthy man. 
Addison had been, during many years, before 
the public. Literary rivals, political opponents, 
had kept their eyes on him. But neither envy 
nor faction, in their utmost rage, had ever im- 
puted to him a single deviation from the laws 
of honour and of social morality. Had he 
been indeed a man meanly jealous of fame, 
and capable of stooping to base and wicked 
arts for the purpose of injuring his competi- 
tors, would his vices have remained latent so 
long] He was a writer of tragedy; had he 
ever injured Rowe 1 He was a writer of co- 
medy : had he not done ample justice to Con- 
greve, and given valuable help tc Steele * He 
was a pamphleteer : have not his good-nature 
and generosity been acknowledged by Swift, 
his rival in fame and his adversary in poli- 
ties'? 

That Tickell should have been guilty of a 
villany seems to us highly improbable. That 
Addison should have been guilty of a villany 
seems to us highly improbable. But that these 
two men should have conspired together to 
commit a villany seems to us improbable in a 
tenfold degree. All that is known to us of 
their intercourse tends to prove that it was 
not the intercourse of two accomplices in 
crime. These are some of the lines in which 
Tickell poured forth his sorrow over the coffia 
of Addison: — 

" Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind, 
A task well suited to thy gentle mind? 
Oh, if sometimes thy spotless form descend, 
To me thine aid, thou guardian genius, lend, 
When rage misguides ine, or when fear alarms, 
When pain distresses, or when pleasure charms, 
In silent whisperings purer thoughts impart, 
And turn from ill a frail and feeble heart ; 
Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before, 
Till bliss shall join, nor death can part us more." 

In what words, we should like tc know, did 
this guardian genius invite his pupil to join in 
a plan such as the editor of the Satirist would 
hardly dare to propose to the editor of tha 
Age! 

We do not accuse Pope of bringing an ac- 
cusation which he knew to be false. We hav« 
not the smallest doubt that he believed it to b« 
true ; and the evidence on which he belieYed 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 



619 



it he found in his own bad heart. His own 
life was one long series of tricks, as mean 
and as malicious as that of which he suspect- 
ed Addison and Tickell. He was all stiletto 
and mask. To injure, to insult, to save him- 
self from the consequence of injury and insult 
by lying and equivocating, was the habit of 
his life. He published a lampoon on the Duke 
of Chandos ; he was taxed with it; and he lied 
and equivocated. He published a lampoon on 
Aaron Hill ; he was taxed with it ; and he lied 
and equivocated. He published a still fouler 
lampoon on Lady Mary Wortley Montagu ; he 
was taxed with it ; and he lied with more than 
usual effrontery and vehemence. He puffed 
himself and abused his enemies under feigned 
names. He robbed himself of his own letters, 
and then raised the hue and cry after them. 
Besides his frauds of malignity y of fear, of in- 
terest, and of vanity, there were frauds which 
he seems to have committed from love of fraud 
alone. He had a habit of stratagem — a plea- 
sure in outwitting all who came near him. 
Whatever his object might be, the indirect 
road to it was that which he preferred. For 
Botingbroke Pope undoubtedly felt as much 
love and veneration as it was in his nature to 
feel for any human being. Yet Pope was 
scarcely dead when it was discovered that, 
from no motive except the mere love of arti- 
fice, he had been guilty of an act of gross per- 
fidy to Bolingbroke. 

Nothing was more natural than that such a 
man as this should attribute to others that 
which he felt within himself. A plain, proba- 
ble, coherent explanation is frankly given to 
him. He is certain that it is all a romance. A 
line of conduct scrupulously fair, and even 
friendly, is pursued towards him. He is con- 
vinced that it is merely a cover for a vile in- 
trigue by which he is to be disgraced and 
ruined. It is vain to ask him for proofs. 
He has none, and wants none, except those 
which he carries in his own bosom. 

Whether Pope's malignity at length pro- 
voked Addison to retaliate for the first and 
last time, cannot now be known with certain- 
ty. We have only Pope's story, which runs 
thus. A pamphlet appeared containing some 
reflections which stung Pope to the quick. 
What those reflections were, and whether they 
were reflections of which he had a right to 
complain, we have now no means of deciding. 
The Earl of Warwick, a foolish and vicious 
.ad, who regarded Addison with the feelings 
with which such lads generally regard their 
best friends, told Pope, truly or falsely, that 
this pamphlet had been written by Addison's 
direction. When we consider what a tendency 
stories have to grow, in passing even from 
one honest man to another honest man, and 
when we consider that to the name of honest 
man neither Pope nor the Earl of Warwick 
had a claim, we are not disposed to attach 
much importance to this anecdote. 

It is certain, however, that Pope was furious. 
He had already sketched the character of Atti- 
cus in prose. In his anger he turned this 
prose into the brilliant and energetic lines 
which everybody knows by heart, or ought to 



know by heart, and sent them to Addison. One 
charge which Pope has enforced with grea« 
skill is probably not without foundation. Ad- 
dison was, we are inclined to believe, too fond 
of presiding over a circle of humble friends. 
Of the other imputations which these famous 
lines are intended to convey, scarcely one has 
ever been proved to be just, and some are cer 
tainly false. That Addison was not in the 
habit of "damning with faint praise," appears 
from innumerable passages in his writings; 
and from none more than from those in which 
he mentions Pope. And it is not merely un- 
just, but ridiculous, to describe a man who 
made the fortune of almost every one of his 
intimate friends, as " so obliging that he ne'ei 
obliged." 

That Addison felt the sting of Pope's satir* 
keenly, we cannot doubt. That he was con 
scious of one of the weaknesses with which 
he was reproached, is highly probable. Bui 
his heart, we firmly believe, acquitted him of 
the gravest part of the accusation. He acted 
like himself. As a satirist he was, at his own 
weapons, more than Pope's match ; and he 
would have been at no loss for topics. A dis- 
torted and diseased body, tenanted by a yet 
more distorted and diseased mind — spile and 
envy thinly disguised by sentiments as benevo- 
lent and noble as those which Sir Peter Teazle 
admired in Mr. Joseph Surface — a feeble, sickly 
licentiousness — an odious love of filthy and 
noisome images — these were things which a 
genius less powerful than that to which we 
owe the Spectator could easily have held up to 
the mirth and hatred of mankind. Addison 
had, moreover, at his command other means 
of vengeance which a bad man would not have 
scrupled to use. He was powerful in the state. 
Pope was a Catholic ; and, in those times, a 
minister would have found it easy to harass 
the most innocent Catholic by innumerable 
petty vexations. Pope, near twenty years later, 
said, that " through the lenity of the govern- 
ment alone he could live with comfort." " Con- 
sider," he exclaimed, " the injury that a man 
of high rank and credit may do to a private 
person, under penal laws and many other dis- 
advantages." It is pleasing to reflect that the 
only revenge which Addison took was to insert 
in the Freeholder a warm encomium on the 
translation of the Iliad; and to exhort all 
lovers of learning to put down their names as 
subscribers. There could be no doubt, he 
said, from the specimens already published, 
that the masterly hand of Pope would do as 
much for Homer as Dryden had done for Vir- 
gil. From that time to the end of his life, he 
always treated Pope, by Pope's own acknow- 
ledgment, with justice. Friendship, was, of 
course, at an end. 

One reason which induced the Earl of War 
wick to play the ignominious part of the tale- 
bearer on this occasion, may have been his 
dislike of the marriage which was about to 
take place between his mother and Addison 
The countess-dowager, a daughter of the old 
and honourable family of the Myddletons of 
Chirk, a family which, in any country but ours, 
would be called noble, resided at Holland 



0VU) 



MAIUULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



House. Addison had, during soma yews, oo« 
eupied :n Chelsea a small dwelling, onoe the 
abode of Neli Ghvyn< Chelsea Is now a dis« 
inri of London, an d Holland Mouse may be 
oalled r lowa residence* But, in the days of 
Anne and George 1.. milkmaids and sportsmen 
wandered, between green hedges and over 
fields bright with daisies, from Kensington 
almost to tin" shore of ill" Thames. Addison 
and Lady Warwiob were country neighbours, 
and became intimate friends* The great wit 
and scholar tried to allure the young lord from 
the fashionable amusements of beating watch* 
men, breaking windows, and rolling women in 
hogsheads down Holbora Hill, to the study o( 
letters and the praotice of virtue. These well 
meant exertions did little good, however, either 
to the disciple or to the master. Lord War- 

;vu up a rake, and Addison fell in love. 
The mature beauty ot' the countess has been 

ited by poets in language which, after a 
very targe allowance has been made for flat- 
tery, would lead us to believe that shew-as a 

tine woman ; and her rank doubtless heighten- 

id her attractions. The courtship was long. 

f*he hopes of the lover appear to have risen 
ami fallen with the fortunes of his party. His 
attachment was at length matter of such noto- 
riety that, when he visited Ireland tor the last 
tune, Rowe addressed some consolatory verses 

to the Ohloe Of Holland House. It strikes us 
as a little strange that, in these verses, Addi- 
son should be eall< as; a name of sin- 

gularly evil omen tor a swam just about to 
cross 5*t. George's Channel. 

At length Chloe capitulated; Addison was 
indeed able to treat with her on equal terms. 
He had reason to expeot preferment oven 
higher than that which he had attained.. He 
had inherited the t'ortnne of a brother who died 
governor of Madras. He had purchased an 
estate in Warwickshire, and had. been wel- 
comed to his domain in very tolerable verse 
by one of the neighbouring squires, the poeti- 
, \ hunter, William Somervile, in August, 
1710, the newspapers announced that Joseph 

".'., Esquire, famous for many ex» 
works both inverse and prose, had espoused 

ess dov. agar of War\t ick. 

He ROW fixed his abode at Holland House — 
r house which can boast of a greater number 
Of inmates distinguished in political and literary 
history than any other private dwelling in 
England. His portrait nou hangs there. The 
features are pleasing; the complexion is re- 
markably fair ; but, lathe expression, we ace 
rather the gentleness of his t>n than 

the fov. -.ess of his intellect. 

Not long alter his marriage he reached the 
height of civil greatness. The whig govern- 
ment had. during a by in- 
ternal dissensions. I ord t'ewnsheiul led one 
I of the* cabinet; Lord Sunderland the 
.Mher. At length, in the spring of 1717, Si 
ilerland triumphed. Towns 
office, and v . > ... . bj Walpole and I 
Gov. per. Sunderland proceeded to reconstruct : 
the nunism 

NOtary of State. It is certain that the seals 
were pressed open hitu. and were at first de-| 



dined by him. Men equally versed in t fticia 
business might easily have been found; ani 
his oollegues knew that (hey could not expect 

assistance from him in debate. He owed his 
elevation to his popularity; to his stainless 

probity, and to Ins literary fame. 

Hut scarcely had Addison entered the cabi- 
net when las health began to fail. From OHC 
serious attack he recovered in the autumn; 

and his recovery wascelebrated in Latin verses. 

worthy o( his own pen. by Vincent Bourne, 
who was then at Trinity College, Cambridge. 
A relapse soon took place; and. in the follow- 
ing spring, Addison was prevented by a seven* 
asthma from discharging the duties of his post. 
He resigned it, ami was succeeded by his 
fViend Craggs; a young man whose natural 
parts, though little improved by cultivation, 
were quick and showy, whose graceful person 
and winning manners had made him generally 

acceptable in society, and who. if he had lived, 
would probably have been the most formidable 
of all the rivals <■'( Walpole. 

As vet there was no Joseph Hume. The 
ministers therefore, were able to bestow on 
Addison a retiring pension of £1500 a year. 
In what form this pension was given we are 
no: told by his biographers, and have not time 
to inquire. But it is certain that Addison did 
not vacate his seat in the House of Com- 
mons. 

Rest of mind and body seemed to have re- 
established his health; and he thanked God, 
with cheerful piety, lor having set him free 
both from his v>tfice and from his asthma. 
Many years seemed to be before him, ana he 
meditated many works — a tragedy on the death 
of Socrates, a translation of the Psalms, a 
treatise on the evidences of Christianity. Of 
this last performance a part, which we could 
well spare, has come down to us. 

But the fatal complaint soon returned, and 
gradually prevailed against all the resources 
of medicine. It is melancholy that the last 
months ot such a life should have been over- 
clouded both by domestic and by p. 

■-s. A tradition which began early, 
which has been generally received, and tc 
which we have nothing to oppose, has repre- 
sented his w i fe - an arrogant and imperious 
It is said that till his health failed 
him he was glad to escape from the countess- 
dowager and her magnificent dining-room, 
a with the gilded devices of the house of 
Rich, to some tavern where he could enjoy a 
laugh, to talk about Virgil and Boileau, and a 

ct, with the friends of his h 
days. A'.'. :':■ ..however, were not leti 

to him. Sir Richard Steele had been gradually 
.d by various causes. He considered 

himself as one who, in evil times, had b 

.'em for his principles, and de- 

manded, when the was triumphant, 

..: he had suffered 
when it was militant. The whig leaders took 
a very different view of his claims. They 
thought that he had, by his own petnlanc. 
folly, brought them as well as himself intc 
trouble ; and though they did not absolute!,? 
him. doled out favours to him with a 



■ ii c \NP WRITING ,. OP \ I 



m\ 



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40 



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autlioi suppoiei " 



622 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



dismissed his physicians, and calmly prepared 
himself to die. 

His works he intrusted to the care of Tickell; 
and dedicated them a very few days before his 
death to Craggs, in a letter written with the 
sweet and graceful eloquence of a Saturday's 
Spectator. In this, his last composition, he 
alluded to his approaching end in words so 
manly, so cheerful, and so tender, that it is dif- 
ficult to read them without tears. At the same 
time he earnestly recommended the interests 
of Tickell to the care of Craggs. 

Within a few hours of the time at which this 
dedication was Avritten, Addison sent to beg 
Gay, who was then living by his wits about 
town, to come to Holland House. Gay went 
and was received with great kindness. To his 
amazement his forgiveness was implored by 
the dying man. Poor Gay, the most good- 
natured and simple of mankind, could not 
imagine what he had to forgive. There was, 
however, some wrong, the remembrance of 
which weighed on Addison's mind, and which 
he declared himself anxious to repair. He 
was in a state of extreme exhaustion ; and the 
parting was doubtless a friendly one on both 
sides. Gay supposed that some plan to serve 
him had been in agitation at court, and had 
been frustrated by Addison's influence. Nor 
is this improbable. Gay had paid assiduous 
court to the royal family. But in the queen's 
days he had been the eulogist of Bolingbroke, 
and was still connected with many tories. It 
is not strange that Addison, while heated by 
conflict, should have thought himself justified 
in obstructing the preferment of one whom he 
might regard as a political enemy. Neither is 
it strange that, when reviewing his whole life, 
and earnestly scrutinizing all his motives, he 
should think that he had acted an unkind and 
ungenerous part, in using his power against a 
distressed man of letters, who was as harmless 
and as helpless as a child. 

One inference may be drawn from this anec- 
dote. It appears that Addison, on his death- 
bed, called himself to a strict account ; and was 
not at ease till he had asked pardon for an in- 
jury which it was not even suspected that he 
had committed — for an injury which would 
have caused disquiet only to a very tender 
conscience. Is it not then reasonable to infer 
that, if he had really been guilty of forming a 
base conspiracy against the fame and fortunes 
of a rival, he would have expressed some re- 
morse for so serious a crime 1 But it is unne- 
cessary to multiply arguments and evidence 
for the defence, when there is neither argument 
nor evidence for the accusation. 

The last moments of Addison were perfectly 
Berene. His interview with his son-in-lav; is 
universally known. "See," he said, "how a 
Christian can die!" The piety of Addison 
was, in truth, of a singularly cheerful charac- 
ter. The feeling which predominates in all 
his devotional writings, is gratitude. God was 
to him the all-wise and all-powerful friend, 
who had watched over his cradle with more 
man maternal tenderness ; who had listened to 
his cries before they could form themselves in 
prayer; who had preserved his youth from the 



snares of vice; Who had made h-s cup rut 
over with worldly blessings ; who had doubled 
the value of those blessings, by bestowing a 
thankful heart to enjoy them, and dear friends 
to partake them ; who had rebuked the waves 
of the Ligurian gulf, had purified the autumnal 
air of the Campagna, and had restrained the 
avalanches of Mont Cenis. Of the Psalms, his 
favourite was that which represents the Ruler 
of all things under the endearing image of a 
shepherd, whose crook guides the flock safe, 
through gloomy and desolate glens, to mea- 
dows well watered and rich with herbage. On 
that goodness to which he ascribed all the hap- 
piness of his life, he relied in the hour of death 
with the love which casteth out fear. He died 
on the 17th of June, 1719. He had just entered 
on his forty-eighth year. 

His body lay in state in the Jerusalem Cham- 
ber, and was borne thence to the Abbey at dead 
of night. The choir sang a funeral hymn. 
Bishop Atterbury, one of those tories who had 
loved and honoured the most accomplished of 
the whigs, met the corpse, and led the proces- 
sion by torch-light, round the shrine of Saint 
Edward and the graves of the Plantagenets, to 
the chapel of Henry the Seventh. On the north 
side of that chapel, in the vault of the house of 
Albemarle, the coffin of Addison lies next to the 
coffin of Montagu. Yet a &w months — and the 
same mourners passed again along the same 
aisle. The same sad anthem was again chant- 
ed. The same vault was again opened ; and 
the coffin of Craggs was placed close to the 
coffin of Addison. 

Many tributes were paid to the memory of 
Addison. But one alone is now remembered. 
Tickell bewailed his friend in an elegy which 
would do honour to the greatest name in our 
literature ; and which unites the energy and 
magnificence of Dryden to the tenderness and 
purity of Cowper. This fine poem was pre- 
fixed to a superb edition of Addison's works, 
which was published in 1721, by subscription. 
The names of the subscribers proved how 
widely his fame had been spread. That his 
countrymen should be eager to possess his 
writings, even in a costly form, is not wonder- 
ful. But it is wonderful that, though English 
literature was then little studied on the Conti- 
nent, Spanish grandees, Italian prelates, mar- 
shals of France, should be found in the list. 
Among the most remarkable names are those 
of the Queen of Sweden, of Prince Eugene, of 
the Grand Duke of Tuscany, of the Dukes of 
Parma, Modena, and Guastalla, of the Doge of 
Genoa, of the Regent Orleans, and of Cardinal 
Dubois. We ought to add, that this edition, 
though eminently beautiful, is in some impor- 
tant points defective : nor, indeed, do we yet 
possess a complete collection of Addison's 
writings. 

It is strange that neither his opulent and 
noble widow, nor any of his powerful and at- 
tached friends, should have thought of placing 
even a simple tablet, inscribed with his name, 
on the walls of the Abbey. It was not till 
three generations had laughed and wept over 
his pages that the omission was supplied by 
the public veneration. At length, in our own 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 



023 



lime, his image, skilfully graven, appeared in 
Poet's Corner. It represents him, as we can 
conceive him, clad in his dressing-gown, and 
freed from his wig, stepping from his parlour 
at Chelsea into his trim little garden, with the 
account of the Everlasting Club, or the Loves 
of Hilpa. and Shalum, just finished for the next 
day's Spectator, in his hand. Such a mark 
of national respect was due to the unsullied 
Htattsman, to the accomplished scholar, to the 



master of pure English eloquence, to the con- 
summate painter of life and manners. It was 
due, above all, to the great satirist, who alone 
knew how to use ridicule without abusing it, 
who, without inflicting a wound, effected a 
great social reform, and who reconciled wit 
and virtue, after a long and disastrous separa- 
tion, during which wit had been led astray by 
profligacy, and virtue by fanaticism 



dM 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



BAEEEE'S MEMOIES.* 



[Edinburgh Review, April, 1844.] 



This book has more than one title to our 
serious attention. It is an appeal, solemnly 
made to posterity by a man who played a con- 
spicuous part in great events, and who repre- 
sents himself as deeply aggrieved by the rash 
and malevolent censure of his contemporaries. 
To such an appeal we shall always give ready 
audience. We can perform no duty more use- 
ful to society, or more agreeable to our own 
feelings, than that of making, as far as our 
power extends, reparation to the slandered and 
persecuted benefactors to mankind. We there- 
fore promptly took into our consideration this 
copious apology for the life of Bertrand Barere. 
We have made up our minds; and we now 
propose to do him, by the blessing of God, full 
and signal justice. 

It is to be observed that the appellant in this 
case does not come into court alone. He is 
attended to the bar of public opinion by two 
compurgators who occupy highly honourable 
stations. One of these is M. David of Angers, 
member of the Institute, an eminent sculptor, 
And, if we have been rightly informed, a favour- 
ite pupil, though not kinsman, of the painter 
who bore the same name. The other, to whom 
we owe the biographical preface, is M. Hippo- 
lyte Carnot, member of the Chamber of Depu- 
ties, and son of the celebrated Director. In the 
judgment of M. David, and of M, Hippolyte 
Carnot, Barere was a deserving and an ill-used 
man, a man who, though by no means faultless, 
must yet, when due allowance is made for the 
force of circumstances and the infirmity of 
human nature, he considered as on the whole 
entitled to our esteem. It will be for the public 
to determine, after a full hearing, whether the 
editors have, by thus connecting their names 
with that of Barere, raised his character or 
lowered their own. 

We are not conscious that, when we opened 
this book, we were under the influence of any 
feeling likely to pervert our judgment. Un- 
doubtedly we had long entertained a most 
unfavourable opinion of Barere ; but to this 
opinion we were not tied by any passion or by 
any interest. Our dislike was a reasonable 
dislike, and might have been removed by reason. 
Indeed, our expectation was, that these Me- 
moirs would in some measure clear Barere's 
fame. That he could vindicate himself from 
all the charges which had been brought against 
him, we knew to be impossible : and his editors 
admit that he has not done so. But we thought 
it highly probable that some grave accusations 
would be refuted, and that many offences to 
which he would have been forced to plead 
guilty would be greatly extenuated. We were 
not disposed to be severe. We were fully 

* Mimoires de Bertrand Berire ; publics par MM. 
Hippolyte Carnot, Membre de la Chambre des T>&- 
put6s, 'et David d'Angers, Membre de l'Institut : pr6- 
«£des d'une Notice Historique par H. Carnot. 4 
tomes. Paris : 1843. 



aware that temptations such as those to which 
the members of the Convention and of the 
committee of public safety were exposed, musl 
try severely the strength of the firmest virtue, 
Indeed, our inclination has always been to 
regard with an indulgence, which to some rigid 
moralists appears excessive, those faults into 
which gentle and noble spirits are sometimes 
hurried by the excitement of conflict, by the 
maddening influence of sympathy, and by ill- 
regulated zeal for a public cause. 

With such feelings we read this book, and 
compared it with other accounts of the events 
in which Barere bore a part. It is now our 
duty to express the opinion to which this in« 
vestigation has led us. 

Our opinion then is this, that Barere ap- 
proached nearer than any person mentioned 
in history or fiction, whether man or devil, to 
the idea of consummate and universal deprav- 
ity. In him the qualities which are the proper 
objects of hatred, and the qualities which are the 
proper objects of contempt, preserve an exqui- 
site and absolute harmony. In almost every 
particular sort of wickedness he has had rivals. 
His sensuality was immoderate ; but this was a 
failing common to him with many great and 
amiable men. There have been many men as 
cowardly as he, some as cruel, a few as mean, 
a few as impudent. There may also have been 
as great liars, though we never met with them 
or read of them. But when we put every 
thing together, sensuality, poltroonery, baseness, 
effrontery, mendacity, barbarity, the result is 
something which in a novel we should con- 
demn as caricature, and to which we venture 
to say, no parallel can be found in history. 

It would be grossly unjust, we acknowledge, 
to try a man situated as Barere was by a severe 
standard. Nor have we done so. We have 
formed our opinion of him by comparing him, 
not with politicians of stainless character, not 
with Chancellor D'Aguesseau, or General Wash 
ington, or Mr. Wilberforce, or Earl Gray, but 
with his own colleagues of the Mountain. That 
party included a considerable number of the 
worst men that ever lived; but we see in it 
nothing like Barere. Compared with him 
Fouchl seems honest ; Billaud seems humane ; 
Hebert seems to rise into dignity. Every other 
chief of a party, says M. Hippolyte Carnot, 
has found apologists ; one set of men exalts 
the Girondists ; another set justifies Danton; a 
third deifies Robespierre ; but Barere remains 
without a defender. We venture to suggest a 
very simple solution of this phenomenon. AH 
the other chiefs of parties had some good 
qualities, and Barere had none. The genius, 
courage, patriotism, and humanity of the Giron- 
dist statesmen, more than atoned for what was 
culpable in their conduct, and should have 
protected them from the insult of beiDg com- 
pare* 3 with such a thing as Barere. Danton 



BARERE'S MEMOIRS. 



635 



and Robespierre were, indeed, bad men; but in 
both of them some important parts of the mind 
remained sound. Danton was brave and re- 
solute, fond of pleasure, of power, and of dis- 
tinction, with vehement passions, with lax 
principles, but with some kind and manly 
feelings, capable of great crimes, but capable 
also of friendship and of compassion. He, 
therefore, naturally finds admirers among per- 
sons of bold and sanguine dispositions. Robes- 
pierre was a vain, envious, and suspicious 
man, with a hard heart, weak nerves, and a 
gloomy temper. But we cannot with truth 
deny that he was, in the vulgar sense of the 
word, disinterested, that his private life was 
correct, or that he was sincerely zealous for 
his own system of politics and morals. He 
therefore naturally finds admirers among honest 
but moody and bitter democrats. If no class 
has taken the reputation of Barere under its 
patronage, the reason is plain : Barere had 
not a single virtue, nor even the semblance 
of one. 

It is true that he was not, as far as we are 
able to judge, originally of a savage disposi- 
tion ; but this circumstance seems to us only 
to aggravate his guilt. There are some un- 
happy men constitutionally prone to the darker 
passions, men all whose blood is gall, and to 
whom bitter words and harsh actions are as 
natural as snarling and biting to a ferocious 
dog. To come into the world with this wretched 
mental disease is a greater calamity than to be 
born blind or deaf. A man who, having such" 
a temper, keeps it in subjection, and constrains 
himself to behave habitually with justice and 
humanity towards those who are in his power, 
seems to us worthy of the highest admiration. 
There have been instances of this self-com- 
mand ; and they are among the most signal 
triumphs of philosophy and religion. On the 
other hand, a man who, having been blessed 
by nature with a bland disposition, gradually 
brings himself to inflict misery on his fellow- 
creatures with indifference, with satisfaction, 
and at length with a hideous rapture, deserves 
to be regarded as a portent of wickedness ; and 
such a man was Barere. The history of his 
downward progress is full of instruction. Weak- 
ness, cowardice, and fickleness were born with 
him ; the best quality which he received from 
nature was a good temper. These, it is true, 
are not very promising materials ; yet out of 
materials as unpromising, high sentiments of 
piety and of honour have sometimes made 
martyrs and heroes. Rigid principles often do 
for feeble minds what stays do for feeble bodies. 
But Barere had no principles at all. His cha- 
racter was equally destitute of natural and of 
acquired strength. Neither in the commerce 
of life, nor in books, did we ever become ac- 
quainted with any mind so unstable, so utterly 
destitute of tone, so incapable of independent 
thought and earnest preference, so ready to take 
impressions and so ready to lose them. He 
resembled those creepers which must lean on 
something, and which as soon as their prop is 
removed, fall down in utter helplessness. He 
could no more stand up, erect andself-supporl- 
ed, in any cause, than the ivy can rear itself 
like the oak, or the wild vine shoot to heaven 



like the cedar of Lebanon. It is barely possible 
that, under good guidance and in favourable 
circumstances, such a man might have slipped 
through life without discredit. But the unsea- 
worthy craft, which even in still water would 
have been in danger of going down from its 
own rottenness, was launched on a raging 
ocean, amidst a storm in which a whole armada 
of gallant ships were cast away. The weakest 
and most servile of human beings found himself 
on a sudden an actor in a Revolution which 
convulsed the whole civilized world. At first 
he fell under the influence of humane and 
moderate men, and talked the language of 
humanity and moderation. But he soon found 
himself surrounded by fierce and resolute 
spirits, scared by no danger and restrained by 
no scruple. He had to choose whether he would 
be their victim or their accomplice. His choice 
was soon made. He tasted blood, and felt no 
loathing : he tasted it again, and liked it well. 
Cruelty became with him, first a habit, then a 
passion, at last a madness. So complete and 
rapid was the degeneracy of his nature, that 
within a very few months after the time when 
he passed for a good-natured man, he had 
brought himself to look on the despair and 
misery of his fellow-creatures with a glee 
resembling that of the fiends whom Dante saw 
watching the pool of seething pitch in Male- 
bolge. He had many associates in guilt; but 
he distinguished himself from them all by the 
Bacchanalian exultation which he seemed to 
feel in the work of death. He was drunk with 
innocent and noble blood, laughed and shouted 
as he butchered, and howled strange songs and 
reeled in strange dances amidst the carnage. 
Then came a sudden and violent turn of fortune. 
The miserable man was hurled down from the 
height of power to hopeless ruin and infamy. 
The shock sobered him at once. The fumes 
of his horrible intoxication passed away. But 
he was now so irrecoverably depraved, that the 
discipline of adversity only drove him further 
into wickedness. Ferocious vices, of which he 
had never been suspected, had been developed 
in him by power. Another class of vices, less 
hateful, perhaps, but more despicable, was now 
developed in him by poverty and disgrace. 
Having appalled the whole world by great 
crimes perpetrated under the pretence of zeal 
for liberty, he became the meanest of all the 
tools of despotism. It is not easy to settle the 
order of precedence among his vices ; but we 
are inclined to think that his baseness was, on 
the whole, a rarer and more marvellous thing 
than his cruelty. 

This is the view which we have long taken 
of Barere's character ; but, till we read thesu 
Memoirs, we held our opinion with the diffi- 
dence which becomes a judge who has heard 
only one side. The case seemed strong, and in 
parts unanswerable ; yet we did not know what 
the accused party might have to say for him, 
self; and, not being much inclined to take our 
fellow-creatures either for angels of light or 
for angels of darkness, we could not but feet 
some suspicion that his offences had bnen ex- 
aggerated. That suspicion is now at an end 
The vindication is before us. It occupies lour 
volumes. It was the work of forty years. •) 



633 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



would be absurd to suppose that it does not 
refute every serious charge which admitted of 
refutation. How many serious charges, then, 
are here refuted ? Not a single one. Most of 
the imputations which have been thrown on 
Barere he does not even notice. In such cases, 
of course, judgment must go against him by 
default. The fact is, that nothing can be more 
meagre and uninteresting than his account of 
the great public transactions in which he was 
engaged. He gives us hardly a word of new 
information respecting the proceedings of the 
Committee of Public Safety; and, by way of 
compensation, tells us long stories about things 
which happened before he emerged from ob- 
scurity, and after he had again sunk into it. 
Nor is this the worst. As soon as he ceases 
to write trifles, he begins to write lies ; and 
such lies ! A man who has never been within 
the tropics does not know what a thunder-storm 
means ; a man who has never looked on Nia- 
gara has but a faint idea of a cataract ; and he 
who has not read Barere's Memoirs may be 
said not to know what it is to lie. Among the 
numerous classes which make up the great 
genus Mendacium, the Mendacium Vasconicum, or 
Gascon lie, has, during some centuries, been 
highly esteemed as peculiarly circumstantial 
and peculiarly impudent; and among the Men- 
dacia Vasconica, the Mendacium Barerianum is, 
without doubt, the finest species. It is, indeed, 
a superb variety, and quite throws into the 
shade some Mendacia which we were jsed to 
regard with admiration. The Mendacium Wrax- 
allianurj, for example, though by no means to 
be despised, will not sustain the comparison 
for a moment. Seriously, we think that M. 
Hippolyte Carnot is much to blame in this 
matter. We can hardly suppose him to be 
worse read than ourselves in the history of the 
Convention, a history which must interest him 
deeply, not only as a Frenchman, but also as a 
son. He must, therefore, be perfectly aware that 
many of the most important statements which 
these volumes contain are falsehoods, such 
as Corneille's Dorante, or Moliere's Scapin, 
or Colin d'Harleville's Monsieur de Crac would 
have been ashamed to utter. We are far, in- 
deed, from holding M. Hippolyte Carnot an- 
swerable for Barere's want of veracity. But 
M. Hippolyte Carnot has arranged these Me- 
moirs, has introduced them to the world by a 
laudatory preface, has described them as docu- 
ments of great historical value, and has illus- 
trated them by notes. We cannot but think 
that, by acting thus, he contracted some obli- 
gations of which he does not seem to have 
been at all aware ; and that he ought not to 
have suffered any monstrous fiction to go forth 
under the sanction of his name, without adding 
a line at the foot of the page for the purpose of 
cautioning the reader. 

We will content ourselves at present with 
pointing out two instances of Barere's wilful 
and deliberate mendacity ; namely, his account 
of the death of Marie Antoinette, and his ac- 
count of the death of the Girondists. His ac- 
count of the death of Marie Antoinette is as 
follows : — " Robespierre in his turn proposed 
that the members of the Capet family should 
sse banished, and that Marie Antoinette should 



be brought to trial before the Revc^utionarj 
Tribunal. He would have been better em 
ployed in concerting military measures which 
might have repaired our disasters in Belgium, 
and might have arrested the progress of the 
enemies of the Revolution in the west." — (Vol. 
ii. p. 312.) 

Now it is notorious that Marie Antoinette 
was sent before the Revolutionary Tribunal, 
not at Robespierre's instance, but in direct op- 
position to Robespierre's wishes. We will 
cite a single authority, which is quite decisive. 
Buonaparte, who had no conceivable motive 
to disguise the truth, who had the best oppor- 
tunities of knowing the truth, and who, after 
his marriage with the Archduchess, naturally 
felt an interest in the fate of his wife's kins- 
woman, distinctly affirmed that Robespierre 
opposed the trying bf the queen.* Who, then, 
was the person who really did propose that the 
Capet family should be banished, and that 
Marie Antoinette should be tried! Full infor- 
mation will be found in the Moniteur.-\ From 
that valuable record it appears that, on the first 
of August 1793, an orator deputed by the Com- 
mittee of Public Safety addressed the Conven- 
tion in a long and elaborate discourse. He 
asked, in passionate language, how it happened 
that the enemies of the Republic still continued 
to hope for success. "Is it," he cried, "be- 
cause we have too long forgotten the crimes 
of the Austrian woman? Is it because we 
have shown so strange an indulgence to the 
race of our ancient tyrants 1 It is time that 
this unwise apathy should cease ; it is time to 
extirpate from the soil of the Republic ihe last 
roots of royalty. As for the children of Louis 
the conspirator, they are hostages for the Re- 
public. The charge of their maintenance shall 
be reduced to what is necessary for the food 
and keep of two individuals. The public 
treasure shall no longer be lavished on crea- 
tures who have too long been considered as 
privileged. But behind them lurks a woman 
who has been the cause of all the disasters of 
France, and whose share in every project ad- 
verse to the Revolution has long been known. 
National justice claims its right over her. It is 
to the tribunal appointed for the trial of con- 
spirators that she ought to be sent. It is only 
by striking the Austrian woman that you can 
make Francis and George, Charles and Wil- 
liam, sensible of the crimes which their minis- 
ters and their armies have committed." The 
speaker concluded by moving that Marie An- 
toinette should be brought to judgment, and 
should, for that end, be forthwith transferred 
to the Conciergerie ; and that all the members 
of the house of Capet, with the exception of 
those who were under the sword of the law, 
and of the two children of Louis, should be 
banished from the French territory. The mo- 
tion was carried without debate. 

Now, who was the person who made this 
speech and this motion ? It was Barere him- 
self. It is clear, then, that Barere attributed his 
own mean insolence and barbarity to one who. 
whatever his crimes may have been, was is 



* O'Mear i's Voice from St. Helena, ii. 170. 
+ Moniteur, 2d, 7th, and 9th, of August, 1793. 



BARERE'S MEMOIRS. 



62? 



this matter innocent. The only question re- 
maining is, whether Barere was misled by his 
memory, or wrote a deliberate falsehood. 

We are convinced that he wrote a deliberate 
falsehood. His memory is described by editors 
as remarkably good, and must have been bad 
indeed if he could not remember such a fact 
as this. It is true that the number of murders 
in which he subsequently bore a part was so 
great, that he might well confound one with 
another, that he might well forget what part of 
the daily hecatomb was consigned to death by 
himself, and what part by his colleagues. But 
two circumstances make it quite incredible 
that the share which he took in the death of 
Marie Antoinette should have escaped his re- 
collection. She was one of his earliest vic- 
tims. She was one of his most illustrious 
victims. The most hardened assassin remem- 
bers the first time that he shed blood; and the 
widow of Louis was no ordinary sufferer. If 
the question had been about some milliner 
butchered for hiding in her garret her brother 
who haft* let drop a word against the Jacobin 
club — if the question had been about some old 
nun, dragged to death for having mumbled 
what were called fanatical words over her 
beads — Barere's memory might well have de- 
ceived him. It would be as unreasonable to 
expect him to remember all the wretches whom 
he slew, as all the pinches of snuff that he 
took. But though Barere murdered many 
hundreds of human beings, he murdered only 
one queen. That he, a small country lawyer, 
who, a few years before, would have thought 
himself honoured by a glance or a word from 
the daughter of so many Caesars, should call 
her the Austrian woman, should send her from 
jail to jail, should deliver her over to the exe- 
cutioner, was surely a great event in his life. 
Whether he had reason to be proud of it or 
ashamed of it, is a question on which we may 
perhaps differ from his editors ; but they will 
admit, we think, that he could not have forgot- 
ten it. 

We, therefore, confidently charge Barere 
with having written a deliberate falsehood; 
and we have no hesitation in saying that we 
never, in the course of any historical re- 
searches that we have happened to make, fell 
in with a falsehood so audacious, except only 
the falsehood which we are about to expose. 

Of the proceeding against the Girondists, 
Barere speaks with just severity. He calls it 
an atrocious injustice perpetrated against the 
legislators of the Republic. He complains 
that distinguished deputies, who ought to have 
been re-admitted to their seats in the Conven- 
tion, were sent to the scaffold as conspirators. 
The day, he exclaims, was a day of mourning 
for France. It mutilated the national repre- 
sentation ; it weakened the sacred principle, 
thai the delegates of the people were inviola- 
ble. He protests that he had no share in the 
guilt. "I have had," he says, "the patience 
to go through the Moniteur, extracting all the 
charges brought against deputies, and all the 
decrees for arresting and impeaching deputies. 
Nowhere will you find my name. I never 
brought a charge against any of my colleagues, 



or made a report against any, or drew up ax 
impeachment against any."* 

Now, we affirm that this is a lie. We affirm 
that Barere himself took the lead in the pro- 
ceedings of the convention against the Giron- 
dists. W~e affirm that he, on the twenty -eighth 
of July, 1793, proposed a decree for bringing 
nine Girondist deputies to trial, and for putting 
to death sixteen other Girondist deputies with- 
out any trial at all. We affirm that, when the 
accused deputies had been brought to trial, and 
when some apprehension arose that their elo- 
quence might produce an effect even on the re- 
voluntary tribunal, Barere did, on the 8th of 
Brumaire, second a motion for a decree au- 
thorizing the tribunal to decide without hearing 
out the defence ; and, for the truth of every one 
of these things so affirmed by us, we appeal to 
that very Moniteur to which Barere has dared 
to appeal.f 

What M. Hyppolyte Carnot, knowing, as he 
must know, that this book contains such false- 
hoods as those which we have exposed, can 
have meant, when he described it as a valuable 
addition to our stock of historical information, 
passes our comprehension. When a man is 
not ashamed to tell lies about events which 
took place before hundreds of witnesses, and 
which are recorded in well-known and acces- 
sible books, what credit can we give to his ac- 
count of things done in corners 1 Nohistorian 
who does not wish to be laughed at will ever 
cite the unsupported authority of Barere as 
sufficient to prove any fact whatever. The only 
thing, as far as we can see, on which these 
volumes throw any light, is the exceeding base- 
ness of the author. 

So much for the veracity of the Memoirs. In 
a literary point of view, they are beneath criti- 
cism. They are as shallow, flippant and af- 
fected as Barere's oratory in the convention. 
They are also, what his oratory in the conven- 
tion was not, utterly insipid. In fact, they are 
the mere dregs and rinsings of a bottle, of which 
even the first froth was but of very question- 
able flavour. 

We will now try to present our readers with 
a sketch of this man's life. We shall, of course, 
make very sparing use, indeed, of his own 
memoirs; and never without distrust, except 
where they are confirmed by other evidence. 

Bertrand Barere was born in the year 1755, 
at Tarbes in Gascony. His father was the 
proprietor of a small estate at Vieuzac, in the 
beautiful vale of Argeles. Bertrand always 
loved to be called Barere de Vieuzac, and flat- 
tered himself with the hope that, by the help of 
this feudal addition to his name, he might pass 
for a gentleman. He was educated for the bar 
at Toulouse, the seat of one of the most cele- 
brated parliaments of the kingdom, practised 
as an advocate with considerable success, and 
wrote some small pieces, which he sent to the 
principal literary societies in the south of 
France. Among provincial towns, Toulouse 
seems to have been remarkably rich in indiffe. 
rent versifiers and critics. It gloried especially 

* Vol. ii. 407. 

f Mumtcur, 31st of July, 1793, and Nonidi, first Decade 
of Brumaire, in the year 2. 



628 



MACAULATS MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



m one venerable institution, called the Acade- 
my of the Floral Games. This body held every 
year a grand meeting, which was a subject of 
intense interest to the whole city, and at which 
flowers of gold and silver were given as prizes 
for odes, for idyls, and for something that was 
called eloquence. These bounties produced of 
course the ordinary effect of bounties, and turn- 
ed people who might have been thriving attor- 
neys and useful apothecaries into small wits 
and bad poets. Barere does not appear to have 
been so lucky as to obtain any of these preci- 
ous flowers ; but one of his performances was 
mentioned with honour. At Montauban he 
was more fortunate. The academy of that 
town bestowed on him several prizes, one for 
a panegyric on Louis the Twelfth, in which the 
blessings of monarchy and the loyalty of the 
French nation were set forth ; and another for 
a panegyric on poor Franc de Pompignan, in 
which, as may easily be supposed, the philo- 
sophy of the eighteenth century was sharply 
assailed. Then Barere found an old stone in- 
scribed with three Latin words, and wrote a 
dissertation upon it, which procured him a seat 
in a learned assembly, called the Toulouse 
Academy of Sciences, Inscriptions, and Polite 
Literature. At length the doors of the Acade- 
my of the Floral Games were opened to so 
much merit. Barere, in his thirty-third year, 
took his seat as one of that illustrious brother- 
hood, and made an inaugural oration which 
was greatly admired. He apologizes for re- 
counting these triumphs of his youthful genius. 
We own that we cannot blame him for dwell- 
ing long on the least disgraceful portion of his 
existence. To send in declamations for prizes 
effered by provincial academies, is indeed no 
very useful or dignified employment for a 
bearded man ; but it would have been well if 
Barere had always been so employed. 

In 1785 he married a young lady of conside- 
rable fortune. Whether she was in other re- 
spects qualified to make a home happy, is a 
point respecting which we are imperfectly in- 
formed. In a little work, entitled Melancholy 
Pages, which was written in 1797, Barere avers 
that his marriage .was one of mere conveni 
ence, that at the altar his heart was heavy with 
sorrowful forebodings, that he turned pale as 
he pronounced the solemn " Yes," that unbid- 
den tears rolled down his cheeks, that his mo- 
ther shared his presentiment, and that the evil 
omen was accomplished. " My marriage," he 
says, "was one of the most unhappy of mar- 
riages." So romantic a tale, told by so noted a 
liar, did not command our belief. We were, 
therefore, not much surprised to discover that, 
in his Memoirs, he calls his wife a most amia- 
ble woman, and declares that, after he had been 
united to her six years, he found her as amiable 
as ever. He complains, indeed, that she was 
too much attached to royalty and to the old su- 
perstition ; but he assures us that his respect 
lor her virtues induced him to tolerate her pre- 
judices. Now Barere, at the time of his mar- 
riage, was himself a royalist and a Catholic. 
He had gained one prize by flattering the 
throne, and another by defending the church. 
It is hardly possible, therefore, that disputes 
about politics or religion should have embitter- 



ed his domestic life till some time after he be 
came a husband. Our own guess is, that hi> 
wife was, as he says, a virtuous and amiable 
woman, and that she did her best to make hira 
happy during some years. It seems clear that, 
when circumstances developed the latent atro- 
city of his character, she could no longer en 
dure him, refused to see him, and sent back his 
letters unopened. Then it was, we imagine, 
that he invented the fable about his distress on 
his wedding-day. 

In 1788, Barere paid his first visit to Paris, 
attended reviews, heard Laharpe at the Lycae- 
urn, and Condorcet at the Academy of Sciences, 
stared at the envoys of Tippoo Saib, saw the 
royal family dine at Versailles, and kept a jour- 
nal in which he noted down adventures and 
speculations. Some parts of this journal are 
printed in the first volume of the work before 
us, and are certainly most characteristic. The 
worst vices of the writer had not yet shown 
themselves ; but the weakness which was the 
parent of those vices appears in every line. 
His levity, his inconsistency, his servility, were 
already what they were to the last. All his 
opinions, all his feelings, spin round and round 
like a weathercock in a whirlwind. Nay, the 
very impressions which he receives through 
his senses are not the same two days together- 
He sees Louis the Sixteenth, and is so much 
blinded by loyalty as to find his majesty hand- 
some. " I fixed my eyes," he says, " with a 
lively curiosity on his fine countenance, which 
I thought open and noble." The next time that 
the king appears, all is altered. His majesty's 
eyes are without the smallest expression ; he 
has a vulgar laugh which seems like idiocy, 
an ignoble figure, an awkward gait, and the 
look of a big boy ill brought up. It is the same 
with more important questions. Barere is for 
the parliaments on the Monday and against the 
parliaments on the Tuesday, for feudality in 
the morning and against feudality in the after- 
noon. One day he admires the English consti- 
tution : then he shudders to think that, in the 
struggles by which that constitution had been 
obtained, the barbarous islanders had murder- 
ed a king, and gives the preference to the con- 
stitution of Beam. Beam, he says, has a sub- 
lime constitution, a beautiful constitution. 
There the nobility and clergy meet in one house 
and the commons in another. If the houses 
differ, the king has the casting vote. A few 
weeks later we find him raving against the 
principles of this sublime and beautiful consti- 
tution. To admit deputies of the nobility and 
clergy into the legislature is, he says, neither 
more or less than to admit enemies of the na- 
tion into the legislature. 

In this state of mind, without one settled pur- 
pose or opinion, the slave of the last word. 
royalist, aristocrat, democrat, according to the 
prevailing sentiment of the coffee-house or 
drawing-room into which he had just looked, 
did Barere enter into public life. The states- 
general had been summoned. Barere went 
down to his own province, was there elected 
one of the representatives of the Third Estate, 
and returned to Paris in May 1 789. 

A great crisis, often predicted, had at last 
arrived. In no country, we conceive, have in 



BARERE'S MEMOIRS. 



6J» 



tellectua. freedom and political servitude ex- 
isted together so long as in France, during the 
seventy or eighty years which preceded the 
last convocation of the orders. Ancient abuses 
and new theories flourished in equal vigour 
side by side. The people, having no constitu- 
tional means of checking even the most flagi- 
tious misgovernment, were indemnified for op- 
pression by being suffered to luxuriate in 
anarchical speculation, and to deny or ridicule 
every principle on which the institutions of the 
state reposed. Neither those who attribute the 
downfall of the old French institutions to the 
public grievances, nor those who attribute it to 
the doctrines of the philosophers, appear to us 
have taken into their view more than one- 
half of the subject. Grievances as heavy 
have often been endured without producing a 
revolution ; doctrines as bold have often been 
propounded without producing a revolution. 
The question, whether the French nation 
was alienated from its old polity by the fol- 
lies and vices of the viziers and sultanas 
who pillaged and disgraced it, or by the writ- 
ings of Voltaire and Rousseau, seems to us as 
idle as the question whether it was fire or gun- 
powder that blew up the mills at Hounslow. 
Neither cause would have sufficed alone. Ty- 
ranny may last through ages where discussion 
is suppressed. Discussion may safely be left 
free by rulers who act on popular principles. 
But combine a press like that of London with 
a government like that of St. Petersburg, and 
the inevitable effect will be an explosion that 
will shake the world. So it was in France. 
Despotism and license, mingling in unblessed 
union, engendered that mighty Revolution in 
which the lineaments of both parents were 
strangely blended. The long gestation was ac- 
complished ; and Europe saw, with mixed hope 
and terror, that agonizing travail and that por- 
tentous birth. 

Among the crowd of legislators which at this 
conjuncture poured from all the provinces of 
France into Paris, Barere made no contempti- 
ble figure. The opinions which he for the mo- 
ment professed were popular, yet not extreme. 
His character was fair; his personal advan- 
tages are said to have been considerable ; and, 
from the portrait which is prefixed to these 
Memoirs, and which represents him as he ap- 
peared in the Convention, we should judge that 
his features must have been strikingly hand- 
some, though we think that we can read in them 
cowardice and meanness very legibly written 
by the hand of God. His conversation was 
lively and easy ; his manners remarkably good 
for a country lawyer. Women of rank and 
wit said that he was the only man who, on his 
first arrival from a remote province, had that 
indescribable air which it was supposed that 
Paris alone could give. His eloquence, in- 
ieed, was by no means so much admired in 
me capital as it had been by the ingenious 
academicians of Montauban and Toulouse. 
His style was thought very bad ; and very bad, 
if a foreigner may venture to judge, it con- 
tinued to the last. It would, however, be un- 
just to deny that he had some talents for 
speaking and writing. His rhetoric, though 
deformed by every imaginable fault of taste, 



from bombast down to buffocnry, was not 
wholly without force and vivacity. He hatf 
also one quality which, in active life, often 
gives fourth-rate men an advantage over first- 
rate men. Whatever he could do, he could do 
without effort, at any moment, in any abun- 
dance, and on any side of any question. There 
was, indeed, a perfect harmony between his 
moral character and his intellectual character. 
His temper was that of a slave; his abilities 
were exactly those which qualified him to be a 
useful slave. Of thinking to purpose, he was 
utterly incapable ; but he had wonderful readi 
ness in arranging and expressing thoughts fur- 
nished by others. 

In the National Assembly he had no oppor- 
tunity of displaying the full extent either of his 
talents or of his vices. He was indeed eclipsed 
by much abler men. He went, as was his 
habit, with the stream, spoke occasionally 
with some success, and edited a journal called 
the Point du Jour, in which the debates of the 
Assembly were reported. 

He at first ranked by no means among the 
violent reformers. He was not friendly to 
that new division of the French territory 
which was among the most important changes 
"introduced by the Revolution, and was espe- 
cially unwilling to see his native province dis- 
membered. He was entrusted with the task 
of framing reports on the woods and forests. 
Louis was exceedingly anxious about this 
matter; for his majesty was a keen sports- 
man, and would much rather have gone with- 
out the veto, or the prerogative of making 
peace and war, than without his h' rating and 
shooting. Gentlemen of the royal household 
were sent to Barere, in order to intercede for 
the deer and pheasants. Nor was this inter- 
cession unsuccessful. The reports were so 
drawn, that Barere was afterwards accused of 
having dishonestly sacrificed the interests ef 
the public to the tastes of the court. To one 
of these reports he had the inconceivable folly 
and bad taste to prefix a punning motto from Vir- 
gil, fit only for such essays as he had been in 
the habit of composing for the Floral Games — 

" Si canimus sylvas, sylvffi sint Consule dignse." 

This literary foppery was one of the few things 
in which he was consistent. Royalist or Gi- 
rondist, Jacobin or Imperialist, he was always 
a Trissotin. 

As the monarchical party became weaker 
and weaker, Barere gradually estranged him- 
self more and more from it, and drew closer 
and closer to the republicans. It would seem 
that, during this transition, he was for a time 
closely connected with the family of Orleans 
It is certain that he was entrusted with the 
guardianship of the celebrated Pamela, after- 
wards Lady Edward Fitzgerald; and it was 
asserted that he received during some years a 
pension of twelve thousand francs from the 
Palais Royal. 

At the end of September 1791, the labouis 
of the National Assembly terminated, and 
those of the first and last Legislative Assem- 
bly commenced. 

It had been enacted that no member ef the 
National Assembly should sit in the Iegis 



630 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Ialivc Assembly; a preposterous and mis- 
chievous regulation, to which the disasters 
which followed must in part he ascribed. In 
England, what would be thought of a parlia- 
ment which did not contain one single person 
who had ever sat in parliament before 1 Yet 
it may safely be affirmed, that the number of 
Englishmen who, never having taken any 
share in public affairs, are yet well qualified, 
by knowledge and observation, to be members 
of the legislature, is at least a hundred times as 
great as the number of Frenchmen who were 
so qualified in 1791. How, indeed, should it 
have been otherwise 1 In England, centuries 
of representative government have made all 
educated people in some measure statesmen. 
In France, the National Assembly had pro- 
bably been composed of as good materials as 
were then to be found. It had undoubtedly 
removed avast mass of abuses; some of its 
members had read and thought much about 
theories of government; and others had shown 
great oratorical talents. Hut that kind of skill 
which is required for the constructing, launch- 
ing, and steering of a polity was lamentably 
wanting; for it is a kind of skill to which 
practice contributes more than books. Hooks 
are indeed useful to the politician, as they are 
useful to the navigator and to the surgeon. 
But the real navigator is formed by the 
waves; the real surgeon is formed at bedsides; 
and the conflicts of free states are the real 
school of constitutional statesmen. The Na- 
tional Assembly had, however, now served an 
apprenticeship of two laborious and eventful 
years. It had, indeed, by no means finished 
its education ; but it was no longer, as on the 
day when it hum, altogether rude to political 
functions. Its later proceedings contain abun- 
dant proof that the members had profited by 
their experience. Beyond all doubt, there was 
not in France any equal number of persons 
possessing in an equal degree the qualities ne- 
cessary for the judicious direction of public 
affairs ; and, just at this moment, these legisla- 
tors, misled by a childish wish to dispJay their 
own disinterestedness, deserted the duties which 
they had naif learned, and which nobody else 
had learned at all, and left their hall to a se- 
cond crowd of novices, who had still to master 
the first rudiments of political business. When 
Barere wrote his Memoirs, the absurdity of 
this self-denying ordinance had been proved 
by events, and was, we believe, acknowledged 
by all parties. He accordingly, with his usual 
mendacity, speaks of it in terms implying that 
he had opposed it. There was, he tells us, no 
good citizen who did not regret this fatal vote. 
Nay, all wise men, he says, wished the Na- 
tional Assembly to continue its sittings as the 
first Legislative Assembly. But no attention 
was paid to the wishes of the enlightened friends 
of liberty; and the generous but fatal suicide 
was perpetrated. Now the fact is, that Barere, 
far from opposing this ill-advised measure, 
was one of those who most eagerly supported 
it; that he described it from the tribune as wise 
and magnanimous; and that he assigned, as 
nis reasons for taking this view, some of those 
phrascu in which orators of his class delight, 
and which, on all men who have the smallest 



insight into politics, produce an effect verj 
similar to that of ipecacuanha. "Those," he 
said, " who have framed a constitution for their 
country, are, so to speak, out of the pale of 
that social state of which they are the authors; 
for creative power is not in the same sphere 
with that which it has created." 

M. Hippolyte Carnothas noticed this untruth, 
and attributes it to mere forgetfulness. We 
leave it to him to reconcile his very charitable 
supposition with what he elsewhere says of the 
remarkable excellence of Barcre's memory. 

Many members of the National Assembly 
wore indemnified for the sacrifice of legislative 
power, by appointments in various departments 
of the public service. Of these fortunate per- 
sons Barere was one. A high Court of Appeal 
bad just been instituted. The court was to sit 
at Paris ; but its jurisdiction was to extend ever 
the whole realm, and the departments were to 
choose the judges. Barere was nominated by 
the department of the Upper Pyrenees, and 
took his seat in the Palace of Justice. He 
asserts, and our readers may, if they choose, 
believe, that it was about this time in contem- 
plation to make him minister of the interior, 
and that, in order to avoid so grave a responsi- 
bility, he obtained permission to pay a visit to 
his native place. It is certain that he left Paris 
early in the year 1792, and passed some months 
in the south of France. 

In the mean time, it became elear that the 
constitution of 1791 would not work. It was, 
indeed, not to be expected that a constitution 
new both in its principles and its details would 
at first work easily. Had the chief magistrate 
enjoyed the entire confidence of the people, 
had he performed his part with the utmost 
zeal, fidelity and ability, had the representative 
body included all the wisest statesmen of 
France, the difficulties might still have been 
found insuperable But, in fact, the experi- 
ment was made under every disadvantage. 
The king, very naturally, hated the constitu- 
tion. In the Legislative Assembly were men 
of genius and men of good intentions, but not 
a single man of experience. Nevertheless, if 
France had been suffered to settle her own 
affairs without foreign interference, it is possi- 
ble that the calamities which followed might 
have been averted. The king who, with many 
good qualities, was sluggish and sensual, might 
have found compensation for his lost preroga- 
tives in his immense civil list, in his palaces 
and hunting-grounds, in soups, Perigord pies, 
and Champagne. The people, finding them- 
selves secure in the enjoyment of the valuable 
reforms which the National Assembly had, in 
the midst of all its errors, effected, would not 
have been easily excited by demagogues to 
cicts of atrocity; or, if acts of atrocity had 
been committed, those acts would probably 
have produced a speedy and violent reaction. 
Had tolerable quiet been preserved during a 
few years, the constitution of 1791 might, per- 
haps, have taken root, might have gradually 
acquired the strength which time alone can 
vivo, and might, with some modifications 
which were undoubtedly needed, have lasted 
down to the present time. The European 
coalition against the Revolution extinguished 



BARERE'8 MEMOIRS. 



031 



nil hope of such a result. The deposition of 
Louis was, in our opinion, the necessary eon* 
sequence of that coalition. The question was 
now no longer, whether the king should have 

an absolute veto or ;i r ; 1 1 • : I . < ■ 1 1 ; , i v < i veto, whether 

there should be one chamber or two chambers, 
whether the members of ii"' representative 
body should be re>eliglble or nol ; but whether 
franoe should belong to the French. The In- 
dependence of the nation, the Integrity of ihe 
territory, were at stoke) and we must say 
plainly, that we cordially approve of the eon* 
duct of those Frenchmen who, ai thai conjunc- 
ture rcsolvt'il, like our own Wake, to play I In- 

men for their country, under whatever form of 
government their country might fall. 
n seems to us dear that the war with the con- 

i 1 1 1. 1 1 coalition was, on the side of France, at 

in, i a defensive war, and therefore a |ust war. 
ii was not a war for small objects, or against 
di ptoable enemies. <>n the event were staked 
all the dearei I Interests of the French people. 
Foremost among the threatening powers . 1 1 > - 
peared two great and martial monarchies, 
either of which, situated as France then was, 
might be regarded as a formidable assailant. 
ii is evidont that, under such circumstances, 
the French could not, without extreme Impru- 
dence, entrust the supreme administration of 
their affairs to .'my person whose attachment 
to the national cause admitted of doubt. Now, 
it is no reproach to the memory of Louis to 
say, that he was not attached to the national 
oause. Had he been so, he would have been 
something more than man. Ho had held abso- 
lute power, not by usurpation, but i»y the acci- 
dent of birth and by the ancient polity of the 
kingdom. That power in- had, on the whole, 
used wiiii lenity. Me had meant well by his 
people. He had been willing to main- to them, 
id' his own mere motion, concessions such as 
scarcely any other sovereign has ever made 
except under duress. He had paid the penalty 
of faults not inn own, of tin: haughtiness and 
ambition or some of in:, predecessors, of the 
dissoluteness ami baseness or other:;, n, had 
been vanquished, taken captive, led m triumph, 

put in waul. He hail e:;e.aped; he had heen 

caught; lie had been dragged back like a run- 
away galley-slave to tin- oar. Me was still a 
state prisoner. His quiet was broken by dally 

affronts ami lampoon:;. AccnMomeil from the 

cradle to be treated with profound reverence, 

he was now forced tO command hi:; feelings, 
while men, who, a lew month:; he lore, had heen 
hackney writers or country attorney;, sal in 
his presence with covered head;, and addressed 
him in the easy tone of equality. Conscious 

of lair intentions, sensible of hard usam;, lie 
doubtless detested the /{evolution; and, while 
charged with the conduct of the war against 

the confederates, pined in secret lor the sighl 
of the German eagles and the sound of the 

Barman drums, vVe do not blame him for 

Ihis. Hut can we Maine thoSfl who, being re- 
solved to defend the work id' the National 

Assembly against the interference of strangers, 
were not disposed to have him at tinir head in 
the fearful struggle winch nras approaching! 

We have nothing tO Say 01 defence or extenua- 
tion of the insolence, injustice, and cruelly, 



with which, after the victory of the republl 

can:,, he anil In;, family weie treated. Kill thiS 

we say, that tin- French had only ohn alterna- 
tive, to deprive hi, ii of Hie poweis of In .1 

magistrate, or to •■round their arms ami sub- 
mit patiently to foreign dictation. The events 
of the tenth of August sprang Inevitably from 
the league of Pllnitz. The king's palaoe was 

.stormed; In:; munis weie :,la i r - 1 1 1 < ■ I ed. lie 

n .1 uspended from his regal functions ; ami 
tin- Legislative Assembly invited the" nation t< 
eh-ei. an extraordinary Convention, with full 
powers winch the conjuncture required. To 

this Convention the members of the National 

Assembly wen- eligible) ami Barere was 

chosen bV his own depai Imeiil. 

The Convention nul mi the I went y (ii :,| of 

September, 1709. The first proceedings wert 
unanimous. Royalty was abolished by accla- 
mation. No objections were made i,, this 

•■real, 0hang0| and no icasons wen- a sse m-d 
for it. for Certainly we cannot honour with 
the name of icnsnns such apophthegms, Bl 
thai kingS are in the moral woi Id what inon. 

sters are In the physical world) and that the 

history of kings IS the mnrlyrohe-y of nation .. 

itut though the discussion was worthy only of 
a debating-club of school hoys, the resolution 
to which the Convention came seems to have 

heen that which sound policy dictated. Ii- 
saying tins we do not mean to express an 
opinion that, a republic is. either in the abstract 

tie- best ioi in of government, or Is, under ordi* 
naiy circumstances, the form of government 
best suited to the French people. Our own 

opinion is, that Ihe |)0S| gOVOI iimenls which 

have ever existed In the world have been 

limited monarchies | and that fiance, in par- 

tlcular, has never enjoyed so much prosperity 

and freedom as under a limited monarchy. 

Nevertheless, we approve of the vote of the 
Convention winch abolished kingly govern* 
im-iii. The Interference of foreign powers had 

brought On a Crisis Which made extraordinary 

measures necessary. Hereditary monarchy 

may he, and we heheve that it is, a very use- 
fill Institution in a country like fiance. And 
masts are very useful parts of a. ship. Hut, if 

ihe :.iup is on her beam-ends, it may he neces* 

s.'iiy to cut. the masts aw;iy. When once she 
has righted, She may come sale into poll under 

jury rigging, and there he completely repaired, 

DUt, in Hie mean time, she must, he hacked 

with unsparing hand, icst thai winch, under 

ordinary circumstance:;, i . :,n eSSl nlinl pai I of 

her fabric, should, m her extreme distress, sii h 
her to the bottom. Even so there are p< lltleal 
emergencies In which it Is neces ary that 
governments should be mutilated of then fail 

proportions for g time, lest they he casl away 
for ever; and with such an emergency the 

Convention had to deal. The first objeel of •« 
good Frenchman should have been to save 

fiance from Ihe fate of Poland. The first 

requisite of a government was enure devotion 

tO the national cause. That requisite WBS 
Wanting In Louis ; and such a. want, at such a 
moment, could not. he supplied hy any public, 
or private virtues. If the luir were let aside, 

ihe abolition of kingship necessarily followed. 

In tin: stale in which the jmblic mind then wai 



083 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



it would hare been idle to think of doing what 
our ancestors did in 1688, and what the French 
Chamber of Deputies did in 1830. Such an 
attempt would have failed amidst universal 
derision and execration. It would have dis- 
gusted all zealous men of all opinions ; and 
there were then few men who were not zeal- 
ous. Parties fatigued by long conflict, and 
instructed by the severe discipline of that 
school in which alone mankind will learn, 
are disposed to listen to the voice of a me- 
diator. But when they are in their first heady 
youth, devoid of experience, fresh for exertion, 
flushed with hope, burning with animosity, they 
agree only in spurning out of their way the 
daysman who strives to take his stand between 
them and to lay his hand upon them both. 
Such was in 1792 the state of France. On 
one side was the great name of the heir of 
Hugh Capet, the thirty-third king of the third 
race ; on the other side was the great name of 
the Republic. There was no rallying-point 
save these two. It was necessary to make a 
choice ; and those, in our opinion, judged well 
who, waiving for the moment all subordinate 
puestions, preferred independence to subjuga- 
tion, the natal soil to the emigrant camp. 

As to the abolition of royalty, and as to the 
vigorous prosecution of the war, the whole 
Convention seemed to be united as one man. 
But a deep and broad gulf separated the repre- 
sentative body into two great parties. 

On one side were those statesmen who are 
called, from the name of the department which 
some of them represented, the Girondists, and, 
from the name of one of their most conspicuous 
leaders, the Brissotines. In activity and prac- 
tical ability, Brissot and Gensonne were the 
most conspicuous among them. In parliamen- 
tary eloquence, no Frenchman of that time can 
be considered as equal to Vergniaud. In a 
foreign country, and after the lapse of half a 
century, some parts of his speeches are still 
read with mournful admiration. No man, we 
are inclined to believe, ever rose so rapidly to 
such a height of oratorical excellence. His 
whole public life lasted barely two years. This 
is a circumstance which distinguishes him 
from our own greatest speakers, Fox, Burke, 
Pitt, Sheridan, Windham, Canning. Which 
of these celebrated men would now be remem- 
bered as an orator, if he had died two years 
after he first took his seat in the house of Com- 
mons 1 Condorcet brought to the Girondist 
party a different kind of strength. The public 
regarded him with justice as an eminent mathe- 
matician, and, with less reason, as a great 
master of ethical and political science; the 
philosophers considered him as their chief, as 
the rightful heir, by intellectual descent, and by 
solemn adoption, of their deceased sovereign 
D'Alembert. In the same ranks were found 
Guadet, Isnard, Barbaroux, Buzot, Louvet, too 
well known as the author of a very ingenuous 
and very licentious romance, and more honour- 
aBly distinguished by the generosity with which 
he pleaded for the unfortunate, and by the in- 
trepidity with which he defied the wicked and 
powerful. Two persons whose talents were 
not brilliant, but who enjoyed a high reputation 
for probity and public spirit, Petion and Roland, 



lent the whole weight of their names to tha 
Girondist connection. The wife of Roland 
brought to the deliberations of her husband's 
friends masculine courage and force of thought, 
tempered by womanly grace and viv acity. Nor 
was the splendour of a great military reputa- 
tion wanting to this celebrated party. Dumou- 
rier, then victorious over the foreign invaders, 
and at the height of popular favour, must be 
reckoned among the allies of the Gironde. 

The errors of the Brissotines were undoubt- 
edly neither few nor small ; but when we 
fairly compare their conduct with the conduct of 
any other party which acted 6r suffered during 
the French Revolution, we are forced 1o admit 
their superiority in every quality except that 
single quality which, in such times, prevails 
over every other — decision. They were zeal- 
ous for the great social reform which had been 
effected by the National Assembly ; and they 
were right. For though that reform was, in 
some respects, carried too far, it was a blessing 
well worth even the fearful price which has been 
paid for it. They were resolved to maintain 
the independence of their country against for- 
eign invaders ; and they were right. For the 
heaviest of all yokes is the yoke of the stranger. 
They thought that, if Louis remained at their 
head they could not carry on with the requisite 
energy the conflict against the European coali- 
tion. They therefore concurred in establishing 
a republican government; and here, again, 
they were right. For in that struggle for life 
and death, it would have been madness to trust 
a hostile or even a half-hearted leader. 

Thus far they went along with the revolu- 
tionary movement. At this point they stopped; 
and, in our judgment, they were right in stop- 
ping, as they had been right in moving. For 
great ends, and under extraordinary circum- 
stances, they had concurred in measures which, 
together with much good, had necessarily pro- 
duced much evil; which had unsettled the 
public mind ; which had taken away from 
government the sanction of prescription ; which 
had loosened the very foundations of property 
and law. They thought that it was now their 
duty to prop what it had recently been their duty 
to batter. They loved liberty, but liberty associ- 
ated with order, with justice, with mercy, and 
with civilization. They were republicans ; but 
they were desirous to adorn their Republic with 
all that had given grace and dignity to the fallen 
monarchy. They hoped that the humanity, the 
courtesy, the taste, which had done much in 
old times to mitigate the slavery of France, 
would now lend additional charms to her free- 
dom. They saw with horror crimes exceeding 
in atrocity those which had disgraced the 
infuriated religious factions of the sixteenth 
century, perpetrated in the name of reason 
and philanthropy. They demanded, with elo. 
quent vehemence, that the authors of the lawless 
massacre which, just before the meeting of the 
Convention, had been committed in the prisons 
of Paris, should be brought to condign punish- 
ment. They treated with just contempt the 
pleas which have been set up for that great 
crime. They admitted that the public danger 
was pressing ; but they denied that it justified 
a violation of those principles of morality cm 



BARERE'S MEMOIRS. 



633 



which aJ society rests. The independence and 
honour of France were indeed to be vindicated, 
but to be vindicated by triumphs and not by 
murders. 

Opposed to the Girondists was a party which, 
having been long execrated throughout the 
civilized world, has of late— such is the ebb and 
flow of opinion — found not only apologists, but 
even eulogists. We are not disposed to deny 
that some members of the Mountain were sin- 
cere and public-spirited men. But even the 
best of them, Carnot, for example, and Cambon, 
were far too unscrupulous as to the means 
which they employed for the purpose of attain- 
ing great ends. In the train of these enthusiasts 
followed a crowd, composed of all who, from 
sensual, sordid or malignant motives, wished 
for a period of boundless license. 

When the Convention met, the majority was 
with the Girondists, and Barere was with the 
majority. On the king's trial, indeed, he quit- 
ted the party with which he ordinarily acted, 
voted with the Mountain, and spoke against 
the prisoner with a violence such as few mem- 
bers even of the Mountain showed. 

The conduct of the leading Girondists on 
that occasion was little to their honour. Of 
cruelty, indeed, we fully acquit them ; but it is 
impossible to acquit them of criminal irreso- 
lution and disingenuousness. They were far, 
indeed, far from thirsting for the blood of Louis ; 
on the contrary, they were most desirous to 
protect him. But they were afraid that, if they 
went straight forward to their object, the sin- 
cerity of their attachment to republican insti- 
tutions would be suspected. They wished to 
save the king's life, and yet to obtain all the 
credit of having been regicides. Accordingly, 
they traced out for themselves a crooked 
course, by which they hoped to attain both 
their objects. They first voted the king guilty. 
They then voted for referring the question re- 
specting his fate to the whole body of the people. 
Defeated in this attempt to rescue him, they 
reluctantly, and with ill-suppressed shame and 
concern, voted for the capital sentence. Then 
they made a last attempt in his favour, and 
voted for respiting the execution. These zig- 
zag politics produced the effect which any man 
conversant with public affairs might have fore- 
seen. The Girondists, instead of attaining 
both their ends, failed of both. The Mountain 
justly charged them with having attempted to 
save the king by underhand means. Their 
own consciences told them, with equal justice, 
that their hands had been dipped in the blood 
of the most inoffensive and most unfortunate 
of men. The direct path was here, as usual, 
the path not only of honour but of safety. The 
principle on which the Girondists stood as a 
party was, that the season for revolutionary 
violence was over, and that the reign of law 
and order ought now to commence. But the 
proceeding against the king was clearly revo- 
lutionary in its nature. It was not in confor- 
mity with the laws. The only plea for it was, 
that all ordinary rules of jurisprudence and 
morality were suspended by the extreme public 
danger. This was the very plea which the 
Mountain urged in defence of the massacre of 
September, and to which, when so urged, the 



Girondists refused to listen. They therefore, 
by voting for the death of the king, conceded 
to the Mountain the chief point at issue be- 
tween the two parties. Had they given a 
manful vote against the capital sentence, the 
regicides would have been in a minority. It 
is probable that there would have been an im- 
mediate appeal to force. The Girondists might 
have been victorious. In the worst event, 
they would have fallen with unblemished 
honour. Thus much is certain, that their 
boldness and honesty could not possibly have 
produced a worse effect than was actually pro- 
duced by their timidity and their stratagems. 

Barere, as we have said, sided with the 
Mountain en this occasion. He voted against 
the appeal to the people, and against the re- 
spite. His demeanour and his language also 
were widely different from those of the Giron- 
dists. Their hearts were heavy, and their de- 
portment was that of men oppressed by sorrow. 
It was Vergniaud's duty to proclaim the result 
of the roll-call. His face was pale, and he 
trembled with emotion, as in a low and broken 
voice he announced that Louis was condemned 
to death. Barere had not, it is true, yet at- 
tained to full perfection in the art of mingling 
jests and conceits with words of death ; but 
he already gave promise of his future excel- 
lence in this high department of Jacobin ora- 
tory. He concluded his speech with a sentence 
worthy of his head and heart. " The tree of 
liberty," he said, " as an ancient author re- 
marks, flourishes when it is watered with the 
blood of all classes of tyrants." M. Hippolyte 
Carnot has quoted this passage, in order, as 
we suppose, to do honour to his hero. We 
wish that a note had been added to inform us 
from what ancient author Barere quoted. In 
the course of our own small reading among 
the Greek and Latin writers, we have not hap- 
pened to fall in with trees of liberty and wa- 
tering-pots full cf blood ; nor can we, such is 
our ignorance of classical antiquity, even 
imagine an Attic or Roman orator employing 
imagery of that sort. In plain words, when 
Barere talked about an ancient author, he was 
lying, as he generally was when he asserted 
any fact, great or small. Why he lied on this 
occasion we cannot guess, unless, indeed, it 
was to keep his hand in. 

It is not improbable that, but for one circum- 
stance, Barere would, like most of those with 
whom he ordinarily acted, have voted for the 
appeal to the people and for the respite. But, 
just before the commencement of the trial, 
papers had been discovered which proved that, 
while a member of the National Assembly, he 
had been in communication with the court re- 
specting his reports on the woods and forests. 
He was acquitted of all criminality by the 
Convention ; but the fiercer republicans con 
sidered him as a tool of the fallen monarch , 
and this reproach was long repeated in the 
journal of Marat, and in the speeches at the 
Jacobin club. It was natural that a man like 
Barere should, under such circumstances, try 
to distinguish himself among the crowd of re* 
gicides by peculiar ferocity. It was because 
he had been a royalist that he was one of the 
foremost in shedding blood. 



634 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



The king was no more. The leading Giron- 
dists had, by their conduct towards him, lowered 
their character in the eyes both of friends and 
foes. They still, however, maintained the con- 
test against the Mountain, called for vengeance 
on the assassins of September, and protested 
against the anarchical and sanguinary doc- 
trines of Marat. For a time they seemed likely 
to prevail. As publicists and orators they ha<! 
no rivals in the Convention. They had with 
them, beyond all doubt, the great majority both 
of the deputies and of the French nation. 
These advantages, it should seem, ought to 
have decided the event of the struggle. But 
the opposite party had compensating advanta- 
ges of a different kind. The chiefs of the 
Mountain, though not eminently distinguished 
by eloquence or knowledge, had great audacity, 
activity, and determination. The Convention 
and France were against them; but the mob 
of Paris, the clubs of Paris, and the municipal 
government of Paris, were on their side. 

The policy of the Jacobins, in this situation, 
was to subject France to an aristocracy in- 
finitely worse than that aristocracy which 
had emigrated with the Count of Artois — 
to an aristocracy not of birth, not of wealth, 

not of education, but of mere locality 

They would not hear of privileged orders ; but 
they wished to have a privileged city. That 
twenty-five millions of Frenchmen should 
be ruled by a hundred thousand gentlemen 
and clergymen was insufferable ; but that 
twenty-five millions of Frenchmen should be 
ruled by a hundred thousand Parisians, was as 
it should be. The qualification of a member 
of the new oligarchy was simply that he should 
live near the hall where the Convention met, 
and should be able to squeeze himself daily 
into the gallery during a debate, and now and 
then to attend with a pike for the purpose of 
blockading the doors. It was quite agreeable 
to the maxims of the Mountain, that a score 
of draymen from Santerre's brewery, or of 
devils from Hebert's printing-house, should be 
permitted to drown the voices of men commis- 
sioned to speak the sense of such cities as 
Marseilles, Bordeaux, and Lyons ; and that a 
rabble of half-naked porters from the Faubourg 
St. Antoine, should have power to annul de- 
crees for which the representatives of fifty or 
sixty departments had voted. It was necessary 
to find some pretext for so odious and absurd 
a tyranny. Such a pretext was ftmnd. To the 
old phrases of liberty and equality were added 
the sonorous watchwords, unity and indivisi- 
bility. A new crime was invenled, and called 
by the name of federalism. The object of the 
Girondists, it was asserted, was to break up 
the great nation into little independent com- 
monwealths, bound together only by a league 
like that which connects the Swiss cantons or 
the United States of America. The great ob- 
stacle in the way of this pernicious design 
was the influence of Paris. To strengthen the 
influence of Paris ought, therefore, to be the 
chief object of every patriot. 

The accusation brought against the leaders 
of the Girondist party was a mere calumny. 
They were undoubtedly desirous to prevent the 
capital from domineering over the Republic, 



and would gladly have seen the Convention 
removed for a time to some provincial town, or 
placed under the protection of a trusty guard, 
which might have overawed the Parisian 
mob ; but there is not the slightest reason to 
suspect them of any design against the unity 
of the state. Barere, however, really was a 
federalist, and, we are inclined to believe, the 
only federalist in the Convention. As far as a 
man so unstable and servile can be said to have 
felt any preference for any form of government, 
he felt a preference for federal government. 
He was born under the Pyrenees ; he was a 
Gascon of the Gascons, one of a people strong- 
ly distinguished by intellectual and moral cha- 
racter, by manners, by modes of speech, by 
accent, and by physiognomy, from the French 
of the Seine and of the Loire ; and he had many 
of the peculiarities of the race to which he be- 
longed. When he first left his own province 
he had attained his thirty-fourth year, and had 
acquired a high local reputation for eloquence 
and literature. He had then visited Paris for 
the first time. He had found himself in a new 
world. His feelings were those of a banished 
man. It is clear also that he had been by no 
means without his share of the small disap- 
pointments and humiliations so often experi- 
enced by men of letters who, elated by provin- 
cial applause, venture to display their powers 
before the fastidious critics of a capital. On 
the other hand, whenever he revisited the 
mountains among which he had been born, he 
found himself an object of general admiration. 
His dislike of Paris, and his partiality to his 
native district, were therefore as strong and 
durable as any sentiments of a mind like his 
could be. He long continued to maintain that 
the ascendency of one great city was the bane 
of France ; that the superiority of taste and in- 
telligence which it was the fashion to ascribe 
to the inhabitants of that city were wholly ima- 
ginary ; and that the nation would never enjoy 
a really good government till the Alsatian peo- 
ple, the Breton people, the people of Beam, the 
people of Provence, should have each an inde- 
pendent existence, and laws suited to its own 
tastes and habits. These communities he pro- 
posed to unite by a tie similar to that which 
binds together the grave Puritans of Connec- 
ticut, and the dissolute slave-drivers of New 
Orleans. To Paris he was unwilling to grant 
even the rank which Washington holds in the 
United States. He thought it desirable that 
the congress of the French federation should 
have no fixed place of meeting, but should sit 
sometimes at Rouen, sometimes at Bordeaux, 
sometimes at his own Toulouse. 

Animated by such feelings, he was, till the 
close of May, 1793, a Girondist, if not an ultra- 
Girondist. He exclaimed against those impure 
and blood-thirsty men who wished to make the 
public danger a pretext for cruelty and rapine, 
"Peril," he said, "could be no excuse for 
crime. It is when the wind blows hard, and 
the waves run high, that the anchor is most 
needed ; it is when a revolution is raging, that 
the great laws of morality are most necessary 
to the safety of a state." Of Marat he spoke 
with abhorrence and contempt; of the munici* 
pal authorities of Paris with just severity. H» 



BARERE'S MEMOIRS. 



685 



.0'idly complained that there were Frenchmen 
who paid to the Mountain that homage which 
was due to the Convention alone. When the 
establishment of the Revolutionary Tribunal 
was first proposed, he joined himself to Verg- 
niaud and Buzot, who strongly objected to that 
odious measure. "It cannot be," exclaimed 
Barere, " that men really attached to liberty will 
imitate the most frightful excesses of despo- 
tism !" He proved to the Convention, after his 
fashion, out of Sallust, that such arbitrary 
courts may indeed, for a time, be severe only 
on real criminals, but must inevitably degene- 
rate into instruments of private cupidity and 
revenge. When, on the tenth of March, the 
worst part of the population of Paris made the 
first unsuccessful attempt to destroy the Giron- 
dists, Barere eagerly called for vigorous mea- 
sures of repression and punishment. On the 
second of April, another attempt of the Jaco- 
bins of Paris to usurp supreme dominion over 
the Republic, was brought to the knowledge of 
the Convention ; and again Barere spoke with 
warmth against the new tyranny which afflict- 
ed France, and declared that the people of the 
departments would never crouch beneath the 
tyranny of one ambitious city. He even pro- 
posed a resolution to the effect, that the Con- 
vention would exert against the demagogues 
of the capital the same energy which had been 
exerted against the tyrant Louis. We are as- 
sured that, in private as in public, he at this 
time uniformly spoke with strong aversion of 
the Mountain. 

His apparent zeal for the cause of humanity 
and order had its reward. Early in April, 
came the tidings of Dumourier's defection. 
This was a heavy blow to the Girondists. Du- 
mourier was their general. His victories had 
thrown a lustre on the whole party; his army, 
it had been hoped, would, in the worst event, 
protect the deputies of the nation against the 
ragged pikemen of the garrets of Paris. He 
was now a deserter and an exile ; and those 
who had lately placed their chief reliance on 
his support, were compelled to join with their 
deadliest enemies in execrating his treason. 
At this perilous conjuncture, it was resolved to 
appoint a committee of public safety, and to 
arm that committee with powers, small indeed 
when compared with those which it afterwards 
drew to itself, but still great and formidable. 
The moderate party, regarding Barere as a 
representative of their feelings and opinions, 
elected him a member. In his new situation 
he soon began to make himself useful. He 
brought to the deliberations of the committee, 
not indeed the knowledge or the ability of a 
great statesman, but a tongue and a pen which, 
if others would only supply ideas, never paused 
(or want of words. His mind was a mere 
organ of communication between other minds. 
It originated nothing; it retained nothing ; but 
it transmitted every thing. The post assigned 
to him by his colleagues was not really of the 
highest importance ; but it was prominent, and 
drew the attention of all Europe. When a 
great measure was to be brought forward, when 
an account was to be rendered of an important 
event, he was generally the mouthpiece of the 
administration. He was therefore not unna- 



turally considered, by persons whc lived at a 
distance from the seat of government, and 
above all by foreigners who, while the war 
raged, knew France only from journals, as the 
head of that administration of which, in truth, 
he was only the secretary and the spokesman. 
The author of the History of Europe, in our 
own Annual Registers, appears to have been 
completely under this delusion. 

The conflict between the hostile parties was 
meanwhile fast approaching to a crisis. The 
temper of Paris grew daily fiercer and fiercer 
Delegates appointed by thirty-five of the forty- 
eight wards of the city appeared at the bar of 
the Convention, and demanded that Vergniaud, 
Brissot, Gaudet, Gensonne, Barbaroux, Buzot, 
Petion, Louvet, and many other deputies, should 
be expelled. This demand was disapproved by 
at least three-fourths of the Assembly, and, 
when known in the departments, called forth a 
general cry of indignation. Bordeaux declared 
that it would stand by its representatives, and 
would, if necessary, defend them by the sword 
against the tyranny of Paris. Lyons and Mar- 
seilles were animated by a similar spirit. These 
manifestations of public opinion gave courage 
to the majority of the Convention. Thanks 
were voted to the people of Bordeaux for their 
patriotic declaration, and a commission con- 
sisting of twelve members was appointed for 
the purpose of investigating the conduct of the 
municipal authorities of Paris ; and was em- 
powered to place under arrest such persons as 
should appear to have been concerned in any 
plot against the authority of the Convention. 
This measure was adopted on the motion 01 
Barere. 

A few days of stormy excitement and pro- 
found anxiety followed ; and then came the 
crash. On the thirty-first of May, the mob of 
Paris rose ; the Palace of the Tuileries was 
besieged by a vast array of pikes ; the majority 
of the deputies, after vain struggles and re- 
monstrances, yielded to violence, and suffered 
the Mountain to carry a decree for the suspen- 
sion and arrest of the deputies whom the wards 
of the capital had accused. 

During this contest, Barere had been tossed 
backwards and forwards between the two rag- 
ing factions. His feelings, languid and un- 
steady as they always were, drew him to the 
Girondists ; but he was awed by the vigour 
and determination of the Mountain. At one 
moment he held high and firm language, com- 
plained that the Convention was not free, and 
protested against the validity of any vote pass- 
ed under coercion. At another moment he 
proposed to concilitate the Parisians hy abo- 
lishing that commission of twelve which he 
had himself proposed only a few days before ; 
and himself drew up a paper condemning the 
very measures which had been adopted at his 
own instance, and eulogizing the public spirit 
of the insurgents. To do him justice, it was 
not without some symptoms of shame that he 
read this document from the tribune, where he 
had so often expressed very different senti- 
ments. It is said that, at some passages, he 
was even seen to blush. It may have been so ; 
he was still in his noviciate of infamy. 

Some days later he proposed that hostage 



636 



MACULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITIJNGS. 



for the personal safety of the accused deputies 
should be sent to the departments, and offered 
to be himself one of those hostages. Nor do 
we in the least doubt that the offer was sincere. 
He would, we firmly believe, have thought him- 
self far safer at Bordeaux or Marseilles than at 
Paris. His proposition, however, was not car- 
ried into effect; and he remained in the hands 
of the victorious Mountain. 

This was the great crisis of his life. Hitherto 
he had done nothing inexpiable, nothing which 
marked him out as a much worse man than 
that of his colleagues in the Convention. His 
voice had generally been on the side of mode- 
rate measures. Had he bravely cast in his 
lot with the Girondists, and suffered with them, 
he would, like them, have had a not dishonour- 
able place in history. Had he, like the great 
body of deputies who meant well, but who 
had not the courage to expose themselves to 
martyrdom, crouched quietly under the domi- 
nion of the triumphant minority, and suffered 
every motion of Robespierre and Billaud to 
pass unopposed, he would have incurred no 
peculiar ignominy. But it is probable that this 
course was not open to him. He had been too 
prominent among the adversaries of the Moun- 
tain to be admitted to quarter without making 
some atonement. It was necessary that, if he 
hoped to find pardon from his new lords, he 
should not be merely a silent and passive 
slave. What passed in private between him 
and them cannot be accurately related; but 
the result was soon apparent. The committee 
of public safety was renewed. Several of the 
fiercest of the dominant faction, Couthon for 
example, and St. Just, were substituted for 
more moderate politicians ; but Barere was 
suffered to retain his seat at the board. 

The indulgence with which he was treated 
excited the murmurs of some stern and ardent 
zealots. Marat, in the very last words that he 
wrote, words not published till the dagger of 
Charlotte Corday had avenged France and 
mankind, complained that a man who had no 
principles, who was always on the side of the 
strongest, who had been a royalist, and who 
was ready, in case of a turn of fortune, to be 
a royalist again, should be entrusted with an 
important share in the administration.* But 
the chiefs of the Mountain judged more cor- 
rectly. They knew indeed, as well as Marat, 
chat Barere was a man utterly without faith or 
steadiness ; that, if he could be said to have 
any political leaning, his leaning was not 
towards them; that he felt for the Girondist 
party that faint and wavering sort of prefer- 
ence of which alone his nature was suscepti- 
ble ; and that, if he had been at liberty to make 
his choice, he would rather have murdered 
Robespierre and Danton, than Vergniaud and 
Gensonne. But they justly appreciated that 
levity which made him incapable alike of 
earnest love and of earnest hatred, and that 
meanness which made it necessary to him to 
have a master. In truth, what the planters, of 
Carolina and Louisiana say of black men with 
flat noses and woolly hair, was strictly true of 



* See the Fubliciste of the 14th of July, 1793. Marat 
r*i stabbed on the evening of the 13th. 



Barere. The curse of Canaan was upoh ftim. 
He was born a slave. Baseness was an in- 
stinct in him. The impulse which drove him 
from a party in adversity to a party in pros- 
perity, was as irresistible as that which drives 
the cuckoo and the swallow towards the sun 
when the dark and cold months are approach- 
ing. The law which doomed him to be the 
humble attendant of stronger spirits resembled 
the law which binds the pilot-fish to the shark. 
" Ken ye," said a shrewd Scotch lord, who was 
asked his opinion of James the First ; " Ken 
ye a John Ape ? If I have Jacko by the collar, 
I can make him bite you ; but if you have 
Jacko, you can make him bite me." Just such 
a creature was Barere. In the hands of the 
Girondists he would have been eager to pro- 
scribe the Jacobins ; he was just as ready, in 
the gripe of the Jacobins, to proscribe the 
Girondists. On the fidelity of such a man, the 
heads of the Mountain could not, of course, 
reckon; but they valued their conquest as the 
very easy and not very delicate lover in Con- 
greve's lively song valued the conquest of a 
prostitute of a different kind. Barere was, 
like Chloe, false and common; but he was, 
like Chloe, constant while possessed ; and they 
asked no more. They needed a service which 
he was perfectly competent to perform. Des- 
titute as he was of all the talents both of ara 
active and of a speculative statesman, he 
could with great facility draw up a report, or 
make a speech on any subject and on any 
side. If other people would furnish facts and 
thoughts, he could always furnish phrases ; 
and this talent was absolutely at the command 
of his owners for the time being. Nor had 
he excited any angry passion among those to 
whom he had hitherto been opposed. They 
felt no more hatred to him than they felt to the 
horses which dragged the cannon of the Duke 
of Brunswick and of the Prince of Saxe-Co- 
burg. The horses had only done according to 
their kind, and would, if they fell into the 
hands of the French, drag with equal vigour 
and equal docility the guns of the Republic, 
and therefore ought not merely to be spared, 
but to be well fed and curried. So was it with 
Barere. He was of a nature so low, that it 
might be doubted whether he could properly 
be an object of the hostility of reasonable 
beings. He had not been an enemy ; he was 
not now a friend. But he had been an annoy- 
ance ; and he would now be a help. 

But though the heads of the Mountain par- 
doned this man, and admitted him into part- 
nership with themselves, it was not without 
exacting pledges such as made it impossible 
for him, false and fickle as he was, ever again 
to find admission into the ranks which he had 
deserted. That was truly a terrible sacrament 
by which they admitted the apostate into their 
communion. They demanded of him that he 
should himself take the most prominent part 
in murdering his old friends. To refuse was 
as much as his life was worth. But what is 
life worth when it is only one long agony of 
remorse and shame? These, however, are 
feelings of which it is idle to talk, when we are 
considering the conduct of such a man as 
Barere. He undertook th« task, mounted the 



BARERE'S MEMOIRS. 



637 



tribune, and told the Convention that the time 
was come for taking the stern attitude of jus- 
tice, and for striking at all conspirators without 
distinction. He then moved that Buzot, Bar- 
baroux, Petion, and thirteen other deputies, 
should be placed out of the pale of the law, or, 
in other words, beheaded without a trial; and 
that Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonne, and six 
others, should be impeached. The motion was 
carried without debate. 

We have already seen with what effrontery 
Barere has denied, in these Memoirs, that he 
took any part against the Girondists. This 
denial, we think, was the only thing wanting 
to make his infamy complete. The most im- 
pudent of all lies was a fit companion for the 
foulest of all murders. 

Barere, however, had not yet earned his par- 
don. The Jacobin party contained one gang 
which, even in that party, was pre-eminent in 
every mean and every savage vice, a gang so 
low-minded and so inhuman, that, compared 
with them, Robespierre might be called mag- 
nanimous* and merciful. Of these wretches 
Hebert was perhaps the best representative. 
His favourite amusement was to torment and 
insult the miserable remains of that great 
family which, having ruled France during 
eight hundred years, had now become an ob- 
ject of pity to the humblest artisan or peasant. 
The influence of this man, and of men like 
him, induced the committee of public safety to 
determine that Marie Antoinette should be 
sent to the scaffold. Barere was again sum- 
moned to his duty. Only four days after he 
had proposed the decrees against the Girondist 
deputies, he again mounted the tribune, in 
order to move that the queen should be brought 
before the Revolutionary Tribunal. He was 
improving fast in the society of his new allies. 
When he asked for the heads of Vergniaud 
and Petion, he had spoken like a man who had 
some slight sense of his own guilt and degra- 
dation ; he had said little, and that little had 
not been violent. The office of expatiating on 
the guilt of his old friends he had left to St. 
Just. Very different was Barere's second ap- 
pearance in the character of an accuser. He 
now cried out for blood in the eager tones of 
the true and burning thirst, and raved against 
the Austrian woman with the virulence natural 
to a coward who finds himself at liberty to 
outrage that which he has feared and envied. 
We have already exposed the shameless men- 
dacity with which, in these Memoirs, he at- 
tempts to throw the blame of his own guilt on 
the guiltless. 

On the day on which the fallen queen was 
dragged, already more than half dead, to her 
doom, Barere regaled Robespierre and some 
other Jacobins at a tavern. Robespierre's ac- 
ceptance of the invitation caused some sur- 
prise to those who knew how long and how 
bitterly it was his nature to hate. " Robespierre 
of the party!" muttered St. Just. "Barere is 
the only man whom Robespierre has forgiven." 
We have an account of this singular repast 
from one of the guests. Robespierre condemned 
the senseless brutality with which Hebert had 
conducted the proceedings against the Austrian 
voraan, and. in talking <£n that subject, became 
41 



so much excited that he broke his plate in the 
violence of his gesticulation. Barere exclaimed 
that the gullotine had cut a diplomatic kno' 
which it might have been difficult to untie. In 
the intervals between the Beaune and the 
Champagne, between the ragout of thrushes 
and the partridge with trufles, he fervently 
preached his new political creed. " The ves- 
sel of the revolution," he said, " can float into 
port only on waves of blood. We must begin 
with the members of the National Assembly 
and of the Legislative Assembly. That rub- 
bish must be swept away." 

As he talked at table he talked in the Con- 
vention. His peculiar style of oratory was now 
formed. I* was not altogether without inge- 
nuity and liveliness. But, in any other age or 
country, it would have been thought unfit for 
the deliberations of a grave assembly, and still 
more unfit for state papers. It might, perhaps-, 
succeed at a meeting of a Protestant associa- 
tion in Exeter Hall, at a repeal dinner in Ire- 
land, after men had well drunk, or in an Ameri- 
can oration on the fourth of July. No legislative 
body would now endure it. But in France, du- 
ring the reign of the Convention, the old laws 
of composition were held in as much contempt 
as the old government or the old creed. Cor 
rect and noble diction belonged, like the eti- 
quette of Versailles and the solemnities of Notre 
Dame, to an age which had passed away. Just 
as a swarm of ephemeral constitutions, demo- 
cratic, directorial, and consular, sprang from 
the decay of the ancient monarchy; just as a 
swarm of new superstitions, the worship of the 
Goddess of Reason, anA the fooleries of the 
Theophilanthropists, sprang from the decay of 
the ancient church; even so, out of the decay 
of the ancient French eloquence, sprang new 
fashions of eloquence, for the understanding of 
which new grammars and dictionaries were 
necessary. The same innovating spirit which 
altered the common phrases of salutation, which 
turned hundreds of Johns and Peters into Scse- 
volas and Aristogitons, and which expelled 
Sunday and Monday, January and February, 
Lady-day and Christmas, from the calendar, in 
order to substitute Decadi and Primidi, Nivose 
and Pluviose, Feasts of Opinion and Feasts of 
the Supreme Being, changed all the forms of 
official correspondence. For the calm, guarded, 
and sternly courteous language which govern- 
ments had long been accustomed to employ, 
were substituted puns, interjections, Ossianic 
rants, rhetoric worthy only of a schoolboy, scur- 
rility worthy only of a fishwife. Of the phrase- 
ology which was now thought to be peculiarly 
well suited to a report or a manifesto, Barere 
had a greater command than any man of his 
time ; and, during the short and sharp parox- 
ysm of the revolutionary delirium, passed for 
a great orator. When the fit was over, he was 
considered as what he really was, a man of 
qui«k apprehension and fluent elocution, with 
no originality, with little information, and with 
a taste as bad as his heart. His reports were 
popularly called Carmagnoles. A few months 
ago, we should have had seme difficulty in con- 
veying to an English reader an exact notion of 
the state papers to which this appellation was 
given. Fortunately a noble and. distinguished 



638 



MAOAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



person whom her majesty's ministers have 
though qualified to fill the most important post 
in the empire, has made our task easy. Who- 
ever has read Lord Ellenborough's proclama- 
tions is able to form a complete idea of a Car- 
magnole. 

The effect which Barere's discourses at one 
time produced is not to be wholly attributed to 
the perversion of the national taste. The occa- 
sions on which he rose were frequently such 
as would have secured to the worst speaker a 
favourable hearing. When military advan- 
tage had been gained, he was generally de- 
puted by the committee of public safety to an- 
nounce the good news. The hall resounded 
with applause as he mounted the tribune, hold- 
ing the despatches in his hand. Deputies and 
strangers listened with delight while he told 
them that victory was the order of the day; 
that the guineas of Pitt had been vainly la- 
vished to hire machines six feet high, carry- 
ing guns ; that the flight of the English leopard 
deserved to be celebrated by Tyrtseus ; and that 
the saltpetre dug out of the cellars of Paris had 
been turned into thunder, which would crush 
the Titan brethren, George and Francis. 

Meanwhile the trial of the accused Girond- 
ists, who were under arrest at Paris, came on. 
They flattered themselves with a vain hope of 
escape. They placed some reliance on their 
innocence, and some reliance on their elo- 
quence. They thought that shame would suf- 
fice to restrain any man, however violent and 
cruel, from publicly committing the flagrant 
iniquity of condemning them to death. The 
Revolutionary Tribunal was new to its func- 
tions. No member of the Convention had yet 
been executed; and it was probable that the 
boldest Jacobin would shrink from being the 
first to violate the sanctity which was sup- 
posed to belong to the representatives of the 
people. 

The proceedings lasted some days. Gen- 
sonne and Brissot defended themselves with 
great ability and presence of mind against the 
vile Hebert and Chaumette, who appeared as 
accusers. The eloquent voice of Vergniaud 
was heard for the last time. He pleaded his 
own cause, and that of his friends, with such 
force of reason and elevation of sentiment, that 
a murmur of pity and admiration rose from the 
audience. Nay, the court itself, not yet accus- 
tomed to riot in daily carnage, showed signs of 
emotion. The sitting was adjourned, and a 
rumour went forth that there would be an ac- 
quittal. The Jacobins met, breathing ven- 
geance. Robespierre undertook to be their 
organ. He rose on the following day in the 
Convention, and proposed a decree of such 
atrocity, that even among the acts of that year 
it can hardly be paralleled. By this decree 
the tribunal was empowered to cut short the 
defence of the prisoners, 'o pronounce the case 
clear, and to pass immediate judgment. One 
deputy made a faint opposition. Barere in- 
stantly sprang up to support Robespierre — 
Barere the federalist; Barere, the author of 
that commission of twelve which was among 
the chief causes of the hatred borne by Paris 
to the Girondists ; Barere, who in these Me- 
moirs denies that he ever toik any part against 



the Girondists ; Barere, who nas the effronterj 
to declare that he greatly loved and highly es« 
teemed Vergniaud. The decree was passed ; 
and the tribunal, without suffering the pri- 
soners to conclude what they had to say, pro 
nounced them guilty. 

The following day was the saddest in the sad 
history of the Revolution. The sufferers were 
so innocent, so brave, so eloquent, so accom- 
plished, so young. Some of them were grace- 
ful and handsome youths of six or seven and 
twenty. Vergniaud and Gensonne were little 
more than thirty. They had been only a few 
months engaged in public affairs. In a few 
months the fame of their genius had filled 
Europe ; and they were to die for no crime but 
this, that they had wished to combine order, 
justice and mercy with freedom. Their great 
fault was want of courage. We mean want 
of political courage — of that courage which is 
proof to clamour and obloquy, and which 
meets great emergencies by daring and deci- 
sive measures. Alas 5 they had but too good 
an opportunity of proving, that they did not 
want courage to endure with manly cheerful- 
ness the worst that could be inflicted by such 
tyrants as St. Just, and such slaves as Barere. 

They were not the only victims of the noble 
cause. Madame Roland followed them to the 
scaffold with a spirit as heroic as their own. 
Her husband was in a safe hiding-place, but 
could not bear to survive her. His body was 
found on the high road, near Rouen. He had 
fallen on his sword. Condorcet swallowed 
opium. At Bordeaux, the steel fell on the 
necks of the bold and quick-witted Gaudet, and 
of Barbaroux, the chief of those enthusiasts 
from the Rhone whose valour, in the great 
crisis of the tenth of August, had turned back 
the tide of battle from the Louvre to the Tuile- 
ries. In a field near the Garonne was found 
all that the wolves had left of Petion, once 
honoured, greatly indeed beyond his deserts, 
as the model of republican virtue. We are 
far from regarding even the best of the Gi- 
rondists with unmixed admiration ; but history 
owes to them this honourable testimony, that, 
being free to choose whether they would be 
oppressors or victims, they deliberately and 
firmly resolved rather to suffer injustice than 
to inflict it. 

And now began that strange period known 
by the name of the Reign of Terror. The 
Jacobins had prevailed. This was their hour, 
and the power of darkness. The Convention 
was subjugated, and reduced to profound 
silence on the highest questions of state. The 
sovereignty passed to the committee of public 
safety. To the edicts framed by that com- 
mittee, the representative assembly did no 1 , 
venture to offer even the species of opposition 
which the ancient Parliament had frequently 
offered to the mandates of the ancient kings. 
Six persons held the chief power in the small 
cabinet which now domineered over France- 
Robespierre, St. Just, Couthon, Collot, Billaud, 
and Barere. 

To some of these men, and of those whe 
adhered to them, it is due to say, that the fana 
ticism which had emancipated them from tha 
restraints of justice an<| compassion, had enum« 



BARERE'S MEMOIRS. 



63J 



cipated them also from the dominion of vulgar 
cupidity and of vulgar fear ; that, while hardly- 
knowing where to find an assignat of a few 
francs to pay for a dinner, they expended with 
strict integrity the immense revenue which 
they collected by every art of rapine; and 
that they were ready, in support of their cause, 
to mount the scaffold with as much indifference 
as they showed when they signed the death- 
warrants of aristocrats and priests. But no 
great party can be composed of such materials 
as these. It is the inevitable law, that such 
zealots as we have described shall collect 
around them a multitude of slaves, of cowards, 
and of libertines, whose savage tempers and 
licentious appetites, withheld only by the 
dread of law and magistracy from the worst 
excesses, are called into full activity by the 
hope of impunity. A faction which, from 
whatever motive, relaxes the great laws of 
morality, is certain to be joined by the most 
immoral part of the community. This has 
been repeatedly proved in religious wars. The 
war of the Holy Sepulchre, the Albigensian 
war, the Huguenot war, the Thirty Years' war, 
all originated in pious zeal. That zeal inflamed 
the champions of the church to such a point, 
that they regarded all generosity to the van- 
quished as a sinful weakness. The infidel, the 
heretic, was to be run down like a mad dog. 
No outrage committed by the Catholic warrior 
on the miscreant enemy could deserve punish- 
ment. As soon as it was known that bound- 
less license was thus given to barbarity and 
dissoluteness, thousands of wretches who 
cared nothing for the sacred cause, but who 
were eager to be exempted from the police of 
peaceful cities, and the discipline of well-go- 
verned camps, flocked to the standard of the 
faith. The men who had set up that standard 
were sincere, chaste, regardless of lucre, and 
perhaps, where only themselves were con- 
cerned, not unforgiving ; but round that stand- 
ard were assembled such gangs of rogues, 
ravishers, plunderers, and ferocious bravoes, 
as were scarcely ever found under the flag of 
any state engaged in a mere temporal quarrel. 
In a very similar way was the Jacobin party 
composed. There was a small nucleus of 
enthusiasts; round that nucleus was gathered 
a vast mass of ignoble depravity ; and in all 
that mass, there was nothing so depraved and 
so ignoble as Barere. 

Then came those days when the most bar- 
barous of all codes was administered by the 
most barbarous of all tribunals ; when no man 
could greet his neighbours, or say his prayers, 
or dress his hair, without danger of committing 
a capital crime ; when spies lurked in every 
corner; when the guillotine was long and hard 
at work every morning ; when the jails were 
filled as close as the hold of a slave-ship ; 
when the gutters ran foaming with blood into 
the S«ine ; when it was death to be great-niece 
of a captain of the royal guards, or half-bro- 
ther <ff a doctor of the Sarbonne, to express a 
doubt whether assignats would not fall, to hint 
that the English had been victorious in the 
Action of the first of June, to have a copy of 
one of Burke's pamphlets locked up in a desk, 
to laugh at a Jacobin for taking the name of 



Cassius or Timoleon, or to call the Fifth Sans- 
culottide by its old superstitious name of St. 
Matthew's Day. While the daily wagon-loads 
of victims were carried to their doom through 
the streets of Paris, the proconsuls whom the 
sovereign committee had sent forth to the 
departments, revelled in an extravagance of 
cruelty unknown even in the capital. The 
knife of the deadly machine rose and fell too 
slow for their work of slaughter. Long rows 
of captives were mowed down with grape- 
shot. Holes were made in the bottom of 
crowded barges. Lyons was turned into a 
desert. At Arras even the cruel mercy of a 
speedy death was denied to the prisoners. All 
down the Loire, from Samur to the sea, great 
flocks of crows and kites feasted on naked 
corpses, twined together in hideous embraces. 
No mercy was shown to sex or age. The 
number of young lads and of girls of seven- 
teen who were murdered by that execrable 
government, is to be reckoned by hundreds. 
Babies torn from the breast were tossed from 
pike to pike along the Jacobin ranks. One 
champion of liberty had his pockets well stuffed 
with ears. Another swaggered about with the 
finger of a little child in his hat. A few months 
had sufficed to degrade France below the level 
of New Zealand. 

It is absurd to say, that any amount of pub- 
lic danger can justify a system like this, we 
do not say on Christian principles, we do not 
say on the principles of a high morality, but 
even on principles of Machiavelian policy. It 
is true that great emergencies call for activity 
and vigilance; it is true that they justify 
severity which, in ordinary times, would de- 
serve the name of cruelty. But indiscriminate 
severity can never, under any circumstances, 
be useful. It is plain that the whole efficacy 
of punishment depends on the care with which 
the guilty are distinguished. Punishment which 
strikes the guilty and the innocent promiscu- 
ously, operates merely like a pestilence or a 
great convulsion of nature, and has no more 
tendency to prevent offences, than the cholera, 
or an earthquake like that of Lisbon, would 
have. The energy for which the Jacobin 
administration is praised was merely the en- 
ergy of the Malay who maddens himself with 
opium, draws his knife, and runs a-muck 
through the streets, slashing right and left at 
friends and foes. Such has never been the 
energy of truly great rulers ; of Elizabeth, for 
example, of Oliver, or of Frederick. They 
were not, indeed, scrupulous. But, had they 
been less scrupulous than they were, the 
strength and amplitude of their minds would 
have preserved them from crimes, such as 
those which the small men of the committer 
of public safety took for daring strokes of po- 
licy. The great queen who so long held hei 
own against foreign and domestic enemies, 
against temporal and spiritual arms ; the great 
protector who governed with more than regal 
power, in despite both of royalists and repub- 
licans ; the great king who, with a beaten army 
and an exhausted treasury, defended his littj- 
dominions to the last against the united efforts 
of Russia, Austria, and France; with whai 
scorn would Ihey have heard that it was un 



640 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



possible for them to strike a salutary terror 
into the disaffected, without sending school- 
boys and school-girls to death by cart-loads 
and boat-loads ! 

The popular notion is, we believe, that the 
leading Terrorists were wicked men, but, at 
the same time, great men. We can see no- 
thing great about them but their wickedness. 
That their policy was daringly original is a 
vulgar error. Their policy is as old as the 
oldest accounts which we have of human mis- 
government. It seemed new in France, and in 
the eighteenth century, only because it had 
been long disused, for excellent reasons, by 
the enlightened part of mankind. But it has 
always prevailed, and still prevails, in savage 
and half savage nations, and is the chief cause 
which prevents such nations from making 
advances towards civilization. Thousands of 
deys, of beys, of pachas, of rajahs, of nabobs, 
have shown themselves as great masters of 
statecraft as the members of the committee of 
public safety. Djezzar, we imagine, was supe- 
rior to any of them in their own line. In fact, 
there is not a petty tyrant in Asia or Africa so 
dull or so unlearned as not to be fully qualified 
for the business of Jacobin police and Jacobin 
finance. To behead people by scores without 
caring whether they are guilty or innocent; to 
wring money out of the rich by the help of 
jailers and executioners; to rob the public 
creditor, and put him to death if he remon- 
strates ; to take loaves by force out of the 
bakers' shops ; to clothe and mount soldiers 
by seizing on one man's wool and linen, and 
on another man's horses and saddles, without 
• compensation, is of all modes of governing the 
simplest and most obvious. Of its morality 
we at present say nothing. But surely it re- 
quires no capacity beyond that of a barbarian 
or a child. By means like those which we 
have described, the committee of public safety 
undoubtedly succeeded, for a short time, in 
enforcing profound submission, and in raising 
immense funds. But to enforce submission by 
butchery, and to raise funds by spoliation, is 
not statesmanship. The real statesman is he 
who, in troubled times, keeps down the turbu- 
lent without unnecessarily harassing the well- 
afiected ; and who, when great pecuniary re- 
sources are needed, provides for the public 
exigencies without violating the security of 
property, and drying up the sources of future 
prosperity. Such a statesman, we are confi- 
dent, might, in 1793, have preserved the inde- 
pendence of France without shedding a drop 
of innocent blood, without plundering a single 
warehouse. Unhappily, the Republic was sub- 
ject to men who were mere demagogues, and 
in no sense statesmen. They could declaim at 
a club. They could lead a rabble to mischief. 
But they had no skill to conduct the affairs of 
an empire. The want of skill they supplied 
fcr a time by atrocicv and blind violence. For 
legislative ability, fiscal ability, military ability, 
diplomatic ability, they had one substitute, the 
guillotine. Indeed their exceeding ignorance, 
and the barrenness of their invention, are the 
best excuse for their murders and robberies. 
We really believe that they would not have 
rau so manv throats, and picked so many 



pockets, if they had known how to govern in 
any other way. 

That, under their administration, the wai 
against the European coalition was successful- 
ly conducted, is true. But that war had beeD 
successfully conducted before their elevation 
and continued to be successfully conducted 
after their fall. Terror was not the order of 
the day when Brussels opened its gates to Du- 
mourier. Terror had ceased to be the order of 
the day when Piedmont and Lombardy were 
conquered by Bonaparte. The truth is, that 
France was saved, not by the committee of 
public safety, but by the energy, patriotism, and 
valour of the French people. Those high quali- 
ties were victorious in spite of the incapacity 
of rulers whose administration was a tissue, 
not merely of crimes, but of blunders. 

We have not time to tell how the leaders of 
the savage faction at length began to avenge 
mankind on each other; how the craven 
Hubert was dragged wailing and trembling to 
his doom ; how the nobler Danton, moved by a 
late repentance, strove in vain to repair the 
evil which he had wrought, and half redeemed 
the great crime of September, by manfully en- 
countering death in the cause of mere}'-. 

Our business is with Barere. In all those 
things he was not only consenting, but eagerly 
and joyously forward. Not merely was he one 
of the guilty administration. He was the man 
to whom was especially assigned the office of 
proposing and defending outrages on justice 
and humanity, and of furnisning to atrocious 
schemes an appropriate garb of atrocious rho. 
domontade. Barere first proclaimed from the 
tribune of the Convention, that terror must be 
the order of the day. It was by Barere that the 
Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris was provided 
with the aid of a public accuser worthy of such 
a court, the infamous Fouquier Tinville. It 
was Barere who, when one of the old members 
of the National Assembly had been absolved 
by the Revolutionary Tribunal, gave orders 
that a fresh jury should be summoned. "Ac- 
quit one of the National Assembly!" he cried. 
"The tribunal is turning against the Revolu- 
tion." It is unnecessary to say that the pri- 
soner's head was soon in the basket. It was 
Barere who moved that the city of Lyons should 
be destroyed. " Let the plough," he cried from 
the tribune, "pass over her. Let her name 
cease to exist. The rebels are conquered; but 
are they all exterminated 1 No weakness. No 
mercy. Let every one be smitten. Two words 
will suffice to tell the whole. Lyons made war 
on liberty ; Lyons is no more." When Toulon 
was taken, Barere came forward to announce 
the event. "The conquest," said the apostate 
Brissotine, " won by the Mountain over the 
Brissotines, must be commemorated by a mark 
set on the place where Toulon once stood. The 
national thunder must crush the house of every 
trader in the town." When Camille Desmou- 
lins, long distinguished among the republicans 
by zeal and ability, dared to raise his eloquent 
voice against the Reign of Terror, and to point 
out the close analogy between the government 
which then oppressed France and the govern- 
ment of the worst of the Crcsars, Barere rose 
to complain of the weak compassion which 



BARERE'B MEMOIRS. 



041 



tried lo revive the hopes of the aristocracy. 
"Whoever," he said, "is nobly born, la a man 
to be suspected. Every priest,every frequenter 
of the old court, every lawyer, every banker, is 
a man to be suspected. Every person who 
grumbles at the course which the Revolution 
takes, is a man to be suspected. There are 
whole castes already tried and condemned. 
There are callings which carry their doom with 
ihcm. There are relations of blood which the 
iaw regards with an evil eye. Republicans of 
France!" yelled the renegade Girondist, the old 
enemy of 1 the Mountain— "Republicans of 
France! the Brissotines led you by gentle 
i to slavery. The Mountain leads you by 
strong measures to freedom. Oh! who ran 
count the i trils which a false compassion may 
produce 1 !" When the friend;, of Danton mus- 
tered eourage.to express a wish that the Con- 
vention would at least hear him, in his 0WH 
defence, before it sent him to certain death, the 
voice of Barere was the Loudesl in opposition 
to their prayer. When the crimes of Lebon, 
one of tocworst, if 'not the very worst, of the 
rents of the committee of public safety, 

had so maddened the people of die Departments 

of the North, that they resorted to the desperate 
expedient of imploring the protection of the 
Convention, Barere pleaded the cause of the 
aei used tyrant, and threatened the petitioners 

with (he utmost vengeance of Ihe government. 

"These charges," lie said, "have been sug- 
gested by wily aristocrats. The man who 
crushes the enemies of the people, though he 
may be hurried by his zeal Into some excesses, 
can never be a proper object of censure. The 

proceedings of Lebon may have been a little 

harsh as to form." One of the small irregu 
larities thus gently censured was this: Lebon 

kept a wretched man a quarter Of an hour un- 
der the knife of the guillotine, in order to tor- 
ment him, by reading to him, before he was 
lespatcbed, a letter, the contents of which were 
supposed to be such as would aggravate even 
the bitterness of death. " But what," proceed- 
ed Marere, "is not. permitted to the hali I'd of a 
republican against aristocracy 1 How many 

generous sentiments atone, (or what may per- 
haps seem acrimonious in the prosecution of 
public enemies 1 Revolutionary measures are 
always to be spoken of with respect. Liberty 
is a virgin whose veil it is not lawful to lift." 

After this, it would be Idle to dwell on facts 
which would indeed, of themselves, suffice to 
render a name infamous, but which male-; no 
perceptible addition to the great infamy of 
Barere. it would he idle, for example, to relate 
how he, a man of letters, a member of an aca- 
demy of inscriptions, was foremost in that war 
against learning, art, and history which dis- 
graced the Jacobin government; how he re- 
commended a general conflagration oflibraries \ 
how he proclaimed that all records oi events 
anterior to the Revolution ought to be destroy- 
ed; how he laid waste the abbey of 8t. Denis, 
)»uiled down monuments consecrated by the 
veneration of ages, and scattered on the wind 
the dust of ancient kings. JIc was, m Irulh, 

seiuom so well employed as when he turned 
for a moment from making war on the living 
to make war on the dead. 



Equally Idle would u be to dilate on bin sen. 
sual excesses. That in Barere, as In the whole 
breed ofNeros,Galigulas, and Domitians whom 

he resembled, vol u pi iioiisness was mingled 
Willi cruelly; Ihal lie withdrew, twice in every 

decade, from the work- of blood to the smiling 
gardens of Glichy,and there forgot public cares 
in the madness of wine, and in the ai ms of 
courtesans, has often been repeated. M. Hip- 
polyte Carnot does not altogethei deny i i ■ < 
iruih of these stories, but |ustly observes thai 
Barere's dissipation was not carried to such a 
point as to Interfere with his industry. Nothing 
can be more, true. Barere was by no means so 

much addicted tO debauchery a s lo neglect Ihe 

work of murder. It was his boast that, even 
during his hours of recreation, he cut out work 
for the Revolutionary Tribunal. To those who 
expressed a fear that bis exertions would hurt 
his health, he gaily answered that he was less 

busy than Ihey Ihouyht. "The guillol ine," In- 
said, "does all;" the "guillotine gOVCmS." 
For ourselves, we are much moie disposed tO 

look indulgently on the pleasures which he 

allowed lo himsiH, llia.n on Ihe pain which he 

inflicted on his neighbours. 

" Atque utlrmm nil pottuf nugli toto lllo <i«nliatict 
Temporn nevUle, clarai qulbui abitulit urbl 
Illmtreique animai, Impune acvindice nullo." 

An immoderate appetite for i ' in sual gratifica- 
tion Is undoubtedly a blemish on the fame of 
Henry the Fourth, of Lord Bomers, of Mr. 
Fox. But the vices of honest men are the 
vn iiu-s oi Barere. 

And now Itainre had In-come a really cruel 
man. It was from nure pusillanimity Ihal. he 

had perpetrated his flrst great crimes. But the 

whole history of OUT race provs Ihal lie- taste 

for the misery of others is a taste which minds 
not naturally ferocious may too eat ^y acquire, 
and which, when once acquired, I s as strong 
as any of the propensities with which we are 
bom. A rery few months had sufficed to bring 
this man into a state of mind In which images 

Of despair, wailing, and death, had an exhila- 
rating effect on him ; and inspired him as wine 

and love inspire neui of free and joyou . ii;s 

iiin-s. The cart creaking under its daily 

freight Of Victims, ancient, men, and lads, and 

fair young girls, the binding of the hands, the 
thrusting of the head out of the little national 
sash window, the crai h of the axe, the pool of 

blood beneath lln- scalJold, the heads rolling by 

scores in the panier — these things were to him 

what Lalage and a cask of Falernian were lo 
Horace, what Rosette and a bottle of iced 

champagne are to De Blranger. As soon as 
he began to speak of slaughter, his heart 
seemed to be enlarged, and his fancy to be- 
come unusually fertile of conceits and gasco- 
nades* Robespierre, Bt. Just, and Billaud, 

whose barbarity was ihe effect of earnest ami 
gloomy hatred, were, in Ins view, men who 
made a toil of pleasure. Cruelty was no such 

melancholy businesi , to be gone about with at, 
austere brow and a whining tone; it was a re 
creation, fitly accompanied by singing an'l 
laughing, in truth, Robespierre and Barere 

might be well compared to the two rei>'jwnec 

hangmen of Louis the Eleventh. They were 



G42 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



alike insensible of pity, alike bent on havoc. 
But, while they murdered, one of them frowned 
and canted, the other grinned and joked. For 
our own part, we prefer Jean qui pleure to Jean 
qui rit. 

In the midst of the funereal gloom which 
overhung Paris, a gaiety stranger and more 
ghastly than the horrors of the prison and the 
scaffold distinguished the dwelling of Barere. 
Every morning a crowd of suitors assembled 
to implore his protection. He came forth in 
his rich dressing-gown, went round the ante- 
chamber, dispensed smiles and promises 
among the obsequious crowd, addressed him- 
self with peculiar animation to every hand- 
some woman who appeared in the circle, and 
complimented her in the florid style of Gascony 
on the bloom of her cheeks and the lustre of 
her eyes. When he had enjoyed the fear and 
anxiety of his suppliants, he dismissed them, 
and flung all their memorials unread into the 
fire. This was the best way, he conceived, to 
prevent arrears of business from accumulating. 
Here he was only an imitator. Cardinal Du- 
bois had been in the habit of clearing his table 
of papers in the same way. Nor was this the 
only point in which we could point out a re- 
semblance between the worst statesman of the 
monarchy and the worst statesman of the Re- 
public. 

Of Barere's peculiar vein of pleasantry a 
notion may be formed from an anecdote which 
one of his intimate associates, a juror of the 
Revolutionary Tribunal, has related. A cour- 
tesan who bore a conspicuous part in the 
orgies of Clichy, implored Barere to use his 
power against a head-dress which did not suit 
her style of face, and which a rival beauty was 
trying to bring into fashion. One of the ma- 
gistrates of the capital was summoned, and 
received the necessary orders. Aristocracy, 
Barere said, was again rearing its front. These 
new wigs were counter-revolutionary. He had 
reason to know that they were made out of the 
long fair hair of handsome aristocrats who 
had died by the national chopper. Every lady 
who adorned herself with the relics of crimi- 
nals might justly be suspected of incivism. 
This ridiculous lie imposed on the authorities 
of Paris. Female citizens were solemnly 
warned against the obnoxious ringlets, and 
were left to choose between their head-dresses 
and their heads. Barere's delight at the suc- 
cess of this facetious fiction was quite extrava- 
gant ; he could not tell the story without going 
into such convulsions of laughter as made his 
hearers hope that he was about to choke. 
There was something peculiarly tickling and 
exhilarating to his mind in this grotesque com- 
bination of the frivolous Avith the horrible, of 
false locks and curling-irons with spouting ar- 
leries and reeking hatchets. 

But though Barere succeeded in earning the 
Honourable nicknames of the Witling of Terror, 
and the Anacreon of the Guillotine, there was 
one place where it was long remembered to 
his disadvantage, that he had, for a time, talked 
the language of humanity and moderation. 
That place was the Jacobin Club. Even after 
hf had borne the chief part in the massacre 



of the Girondists, in the murder of the Queen, 
in the destruction of Lyons, he durst not show 
himself within that sacred precinct. At one 
meeting of the society, a member complained 
that the committee to which the supreme di- 
rection of affairs was intrusted, after all the 
changes which had been made, still contained 
one man who was not trustworthy. Robes- 
pierre, whose influence over the Jacobins was 
boundless, undertook the defence of his col- 
league, owned there was some ground for 
what had been said, but spoke highly of Ba- 
rere's industry and aptitude for business. This 
seasonable interposition silenced the accuser, 
but it was long before the neophyte could ven 
ture to appear at the club. 

At length a masterpiece of wickedness, 
unique, we think, even among Barere's great 
achievements, obtained his full pardon even 
from that rigid conclave. The insupportable 
tyranny of the committee of public safety had 
at length brought the minds of men, and even 
of women, into a fierce and hard temper, which 
defied or welcomed death. The life which 
might be any morning taken away, in conse- 
quence of the whisper of a private enemy, 
seemed of little value. It was something to 
die after smiting one of the oppressors ; it was 
something to bequeath to the surviving tyrants 
a terror not inferior to that which they had 
themselves inspired. Human nature, hunted 
and worried to the utmost, now turned furious- 
ly to bay. Fouquier Tinville was afraid to 
walk the streets ; a pistol was snapped at 
Collot D'Herbois ; a young girl, animated ap- 
parently by the spirit of Charlotte Corday, 
attempted to obtain an interview with Robes- 
pierre. Suspicions arose; she was searched; 
and two knives were found about her. She 
was questioned, and spoke of the Jacobin 
domination with resolute scorn and aversion. 
It is unnecessary to say that she was sent to 
the guillotine. Barere declared from the tri- 
bune that the cause of these attempts was 
evident. Pitt and his guineas had done the 
whole. The English government had organ- 
ized a vast system of murder, had armed the 
hand of Charlotte Corday, and had now, by 
similar means, attacked two of the most emi- 
nent friends of liberty in France. It is need- 
less to say, that these imputations were not 
only false, but destitute of all show of truth- 
Nay, they were demonstrably absurd ; for tha 
assassins to whom Barere referred rushed on 
certain death, a sure proof that they were 
not hirelings. The whole wealth of England 
would not have bribed any sane person to do 
what Charlotte Corday did. But Avhen we 
consider her as an enthusiast, her conduct is 
perfectly natural. Even those French writers 
who are childish enough to believe that the 
English government contrived the infernal 
machine, "and strangled the Emperor Paul, 
have fully acquitted Mr. Pitt of all share in 
the death of Marat and in the attempt on Ro- 
bespierre. Yet on calumnies so futile as those 
which we have mentioned, did Barere ground 
a motion at which all Christendom stood 
aghast. He proposed a decree that no quartel 
should be given to any English or Hanoverian 



BARERE'S MEMOIRS. 



64S 



soldier.* Am Carmagnole was worthy of the 
proposition with which it concluded. "That 
the Englishman should be spared, that for the 
slaves of George, for the human machines of 
York, the vocabulary of our armies should 
contain such a word as generosity, this is what 
the National Convention cannot endure. War 
to the death against every English soldier. If 
last year, at Dunkirk, quarter had been refused 
to them when they asked it on their knees, if 
our troops had exterminated them all, instead 
of suffering them to infest our fortresses by 
their presence, the English government would 
not have renewed its attack on our frontiers 
this year. It is only the dead man who never 
comes back. What is this moral pestilence 
which has introduced into our armies false 
ideas of humanity 1 That the English were 
to be treated with indulgence was the philan- 
thropic notion of the Brissotines ; it was the 
patriotic practice of Dumourier. But hu- 
manity consists in exterminating our enemies. 
No mercj to the execrable Englishman. Such 
are the sentiments of the true Frenchman ; for 
he knows that he belongs to a nation revolu- 
tionary as nature, powerful as freedom, ardent 
as the saltpetre which she has just torn from 
the entrails of the earth. Soldiers of liberty, 
when victory places Englishmen at your mer- 
cy, strike ! None of them must return to the 
servile soil of Great Britain ; none must pol- 
lute the free soil of France." 

The Convention, thoroughly tamed and si- 
lenced, acquiesced in Barere's motion without 
debate. And now at last the doors of the Jaco- 
bin Club were thrown open to the disciple who 
had surpassed his masters. He was admitted 
a member by acclamation, and was soon se- 
lected to preside. 

For a time he was not without hope that his 
decree would be carried into full effect. Intel- 
ligence arrived from the seat of war of a sharp 
contest between some French and English 
troops, in which the republicans had the ad- 
vantage, and in which no prisoners had been 
made. Such things happen occasionally in 
all wars. Barere, however, attributed the fe- 
rocity of this combat to his darling decree, and 
entertained the Convention with another Car- 
magnole. 

" The republicans," he said, " saw a division 
in red uniform at a distance. The red-coats 
are attacked with the bayonet. Not one of 
them escapes the blows of the republicans. All 
the red-coats have been killed. No mercy, no 
indulgence, has been shown towards the vil- 

* M. Hippolyte Carnot does his best to excuse this 
decree. His abuse of England is merely laughable. 
England has managed to deal with enemies of a very 
different sort from either himself or his hero. One 
disgraceful blunder, however, we think it right to 
notice. 

M Hippolyte Carnot asserts that a motion similar to 
that of Baret:e was made in the English Parliament by 
the late Lord Pitzwilliam. This assertion i3 false. We 
defy M. Hippolyte Carnot to state the date and terms 
of the motion of which he speaks. We do not accuse 
him of intentional misrepresentation ; but we confi- 
dently accuse him of extreme ignorance and temerity. 
Our readers will be amused to learn on what authority 
he has ventured to publish such a fable. He quotes, not 
the Journals of the Lords, not the Parliamentary De- 
bates ; but a ranting message of the Executive Direc- 
tory to the Five Hundred, a message, too, the whole 
meaning of vWrh he has utterly misunderstood. 



lains. Not an Englishman whom tl, republr 
cans could reach is now living. How many 
prisoners should you guess that we have 
made? One single prisoner is the result of 
this great day." 

And now this bad man's craving for blood 
had become insatiable. The more he quaffed, 
the more he thirsted. He had begun with the 
English; but soon he came down with a pro- 
position for new massacres. " All the troops,' 
he said, "of the coalesced tyrants in garrison 
at Conde, Valenciennes, Le Quesnoy, and Lan- 
drecies, ought to be put to the sword unless 
they surrender at discretion in twenty-four 
hours. The English, of course, will be admit- 
ted to no capitulation whatever. With the 
English we have no treaty but death. As to 
the rest, surrender at discretion in twenty-four 
hours, or death, these are our conditions. If 
the slaves resist, let them feel the edge of the 
sword." And then he waxed facetious. " On 
these terms the Republic is willing to give 
a lesson in the art of war." At that jest, some 
hearers worthy of such a speaker, set up a 
laugh. Then he became serious again. "Let 
the enemy perish," he cried; "I have already 
said it from this tribune. It is only the dead 
man who never comes back. Kings will not 
conspire against us in the grave. Armies will 
not fight against us when they are annihilated. 
Let our war with them be a war of extermina- 
tion. What pity is due to slaves whom the 
emperor leads to war under the cane; whom 
the King of Prussia beats to the shambles with 
the flat of the sword; and whom the Duke of 
York makes drunk with rum and gin 1" And 
at the rum and gin the Mountain and the gal- 
leries laughed again. 

If Barere had been able to effect his pur- 
pose, it is difficult to estimate the extent of the 
calamity which he would have brought on the 
human race. No government, however averse 
to cruelty, could, in justice to its own subjects, 
have given quarter to enemies who gave none. 
Retaliation would have been, not merely justi- 
fiable, but a sacred duty. It would have been 
necessary for Howe and Nelson to make every 
French sailor whom they took walk the plank. 
England has no peculiar reason to dread the 
introduction of such a system. On the con- 
trary, the operation of Barere's new law of war 
would have been more unfavourable to his 
countrymen than to ours ; for we believe that, 
from the beginning to the end of the war, there 
never was a time at which the number of French 
prisoners in England was not greater than the 
number of English prisoners in France; and 
so, we apprehend, it will be in all wars while 
England retains her maritime superiority. Had 
the murderous decree of the Convention been in 
force from 1794 to 1815, we are satisfied that, 
for every Englishman slain by the French, at 
least three Frenchmen would have been put to 
the sword by the English. It is therefore, not 
as Englishmen, but as members of the great 
society of mankind, that we speak with indig 
nation and horror of the change which Barero 
attempted to introduce. The mere slaughter 
would have been the smallest part of the evil. 
The butchering of a single unarmed man in 
cold blood, under an act of the legislature, 



844 



MAC AUL AY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



R r ould have produced more evil than the car- 
nage of ten such fields as Albuera. Public 
law would have been subverted from the foun- 
dations; national enmities would have been 
inflamed to a degree of rage which, happily, it 
is not easy for us to conceive ; cordial peace 
would have been impossible. The moral cha- 
racter of the European nations would have 
been rapidly and deepjy corrupted ; for in all 
countries those men whose" calling is to put 
their lives in jeopardy for the defence of the 
public weal enjoy high consideration, and are 
considered as the best arbitrators on points of 
honour and manly bearing. With the standard 
of morality established in the military profes- 
sion, the general standard of morality must, to 
a great extent, sink or rise. It is, therefore, 
a fortunate circumstance, that during a long 
course of years, respect for the weak, and 
clemency towards the vanquished, have been 
considered as qualities not less essential to the 
accomplished soldier than personal courage. 
How long would this continue to be the case, 
i' the slaying of prisoners were a part of the 
daily duty of the warrior 1 What man of kind 
and generous nature would, under such a sys- 
tem, willingly bear arms'? Who, that was 
compelled to bear arms, would long continue 
kind and generous 1 And is it not certain that, 
if barbarity towards the helpless became the 
characteristic of military men, the taint must 
rapidly spread to civil and to domestic life, and 
must show itself in all the dealings of the strong 
with the weak, of husbands with wives, of 
employers with workmen, of creditors with 
debtors 1 

But, thank God, Barere's decree was a mere 
dead letter. It was to be executed by men very 
different from those whc, in the "interior of 
France, were the instruments of the committee 
of public safety, who prated at Jacobin Clubs, 
and ran to Fouquier Tinville with charges of 
incivism against women whom they could not 
seduce, and bankers from whom they could 
not extort money. The warriors who, under 
Hoche, had guarded the walls of Dunkirk, and 
who, under Kleber, had made good the defence 
of the wood of Monceaux, shrank with horror 
from an office more degrading than that of the 
hangman. "The Convention," said an officer 
to his men, " has sent orders that all the English 
prisoners shall be shot." " We will not shoot 
them," answered a stout-hearted sergeant. 
" Send them to the Convention. If the depu- 
ties take pleasure in killing a prisoner, they 
may kill him themselves, and eat him too, like 
savages as they are." This was the sentiment 
of the whole army. Buonaparte, who tho- 
roughly understood war, who at Jaffa and else- 
where gave ample proof that he was not un- 
willing to strain the laws of war to their utmost 
rigour, and whose hatred of England amounted 
to a folly, always spoke of Barere's decree with 
.oathing, and boasted that the army had re- 
fused to obey the Convention. 

Such disobedience on the part of any other 
class of citizens would have been instantly 
punished by wholesale massacre ; but the com- 
mittee of public safety was aware that the dis- 
cipline which had tamed the unwarlike popu- 
tation of the fields and cities might not answer 



in the camps. To fling people by scores; out 
of a boat, and, when they catch hold of it, to 
chop off their fingers with a hatchet, is un- 
doubtedly a very agreeable pastime for a tho- 
rough-bred Jacobin, when the sufferers are, as 
at Nantes, old confessors, 3'oung girls, or wo- 
men with child. But such sport might prove 
a little dangerous if tried upon grim ranks oi 
grenadiers, marked with the scars of Hond- 
schoote, and singed by the smoke of Fleurus. 

Barere, however, found some consolation. 
If he could not succeed in murdering the 
English and the Hanoverians, he was amply 
indemnified by a new and vast slaughter of 
his own countrymen and countrywomen. If 
the defence which has been set up for the 
members of the committee of public safety 
had been well founded, if it had been true that 
they governed with extreme severity only be- 
cause the Republic was in extreme peril, it is 
clear that the severity would have diminished 
as the peril diminished. But the fact is, that 
those cruelties for which the public danger is 
made a plea, became more and more enor- 
mous as the danger became less and less, and 
reached the full height when there was no 
longer any danger at all. In the autumn of 
1793, there was undoubtedly reason to appre- 
hend that France might be unable to maintain 
the struggle against the European coalition. 
The enemy was triumphant on the frontiers. 
More than half the departments disowned the 
authority of the Convention. But at that time 
eight or ten necks a day were thought an am- 
ple allowance for the guillotine of the capital. 
In the summer of 1794, Bordeaux, Toulon, 
Caen, Lyons, Marseilles, had submitted to the 
ascendency of Paris. The French arms were 
victorious under the Pyrenees and on the 
Sambre. Brussels had fallen. Prussia had 
announced her intention of withdrawing from 
the contest. The Republic, no longer content 
with defending her own independence, was 
beginning to meditate conquest beyond the 
Alps and the Rhine. She was now more for- 
midable to her neighbours than ever Louis the 
Fourteenth had been. And now the Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal of Paris was not content with 
forty, fifty, sixty heads in a morning. It was 
just after a series of victories which destroyed 
the whole force of the single argument which 
has been urged in defence of the system of 
terror, that the committee of public safety re- 
solved to infuse into that system an energy 
hitherto unknown. It was proposed to recon- 
struct the Revolutionary Tribunal, and to col- 
lect in the space of two pages the whole revolu- 
tionary jurisprudence. Lists of twelve judges 
and fifty jurors were made out from among the 
fiercest Jacobins. The substantive law was 
simply this, that whatever the tribunal should 
think pernicious to the Republic was a capital 
crime. The law of evidence was simply this, 
that whatever satisfied the jurors was sufficient 
proof. The law of procedure was of a piece 
with every thing else. There was to be an ad- 
vocate against the prisoner, and no advocate 
for him. It was expressly declared that, if the 
jurors were in any manner convinced of the 
guilt of the prisoner, they might convict him 
without hearing a single witness. The only 



BARERE'S MEMOIRS. 



646 



punishment which the court could inflict was 
death. 

Robespierre proposed this decree. When he 
had read it, a murmur rose from the Conven- 
tion. The fear which had long restrained the 
deputies from opposing the committee was 
overcome by a stronger fear. Every man felt 
the knife at his throat. "The decree," said 
one, "is of grave importance. I move that it 
be printed, and that the debate be adjourned. 
If such a measure were adopted without time 
for consideration, I would olow my brains out 
at once." The motion fur adjournment was 
seconded. Then Barere sprang up. "It is 
impossible," he said, " that there can be any 
difference of opinion among us as to a law like 
this, a law so favourable in all respects to pa- 
triots ; a law which insures the speedy punish- 
ment of conspirators. If there is to be an ad- 
journment, I must insist that it shall not be for 
more than, three days." The opposition was 
overawed ; the decree was passed ; and, during 
the six w^eks which followed, the havoc was 
such as had never been known before. 

And now the evil was beyond endurance. 
That timid majority which had for a time sup- 
ported the Girondists, and which had, after 
their fall, consented itself with registering in 
silence the decrees of the committee of public 
safety, at length drew courage from despair. 
Leaders of bold and firm character were not 
wanting ; men such as Fouche and Tallien, who, 
having been long conspicuous among the chiefs 
of the Mountain, now found that their own 
lives, or lives still dearer to them than their 
own, were in extreme peril. Nor could it be 
ionger kept secret that there was a schism in 
Aie despotic committee. On one side were Ro- 
bespierre, St. Just, and Couthon ; on the other, 
Collot and Billaud. Barere leaned towards 
these last, but only leaned towards them. As 
was ever his fashion when a great crisis was 
at hand, he fawned alternately on both parties, 
struck alternately at both, and held himself in 
readiness to chant the praises or to sign the 
death-warrant of either. In any event his Car- 
magnole was ready. The tree of liberty, the 
blcod of traitors, the dagger of Brutus, the 
guineas of perfidious Albion, would do equally 
well for Billaud and for Robespierre. 

The first attack which was made on Robes- 
pierre was indirect. An old woman 7 named 
Catharine Theot, half maniac, half impostor, 
was protected by him, and exercised a strange 
'nfluence over his mind ; for he was natcrally 
prone to superstition, and, having abjured the 
faith in which he had been brought up, was 
looking about for something to believe. Ba- 
rere drew up a report against Catharine, which 
contained many facetious conceits, and ended, 
is might be expected, with a motion for send- 
isg her and some other wretched creatures of 
both sexes to the Revolutionary Tribunal, or, 
in other words, to death. This report, how- 
ever, he did not dare to read to the Convention 
himself. Another member, less timid, was in- 
duced to father the cruel buffoonery; and the 
real author enjoyed in security the dismay and 
vexation of Robespierre. 

Barere now thought that he had done enough 
on one side, and that it was time to make his 



peace with the other. On the seventh of Ther 
midor,he pronounced in the Convention a pane 
gyric on Robespierre. "That representativs 
of the people," he said, "enjoys a reputation 
for patriotism, earned by five years of exer- 
tion, and by unalterable fidelity to the prin. 
ciples of independence and l.berty." On the 
eighth of Thermidor, it became clear that a 
decisive struggle was at hand. Robespierre 
struck the first blow. He mounted the tribune 
and uttered a long invective on his opponents. 
It was moved that his discourse should be 
printed; and Barere spoke for the printing. 
The sense of the Convention soon appeared to 
be the other way; and Barere apologized for 
his former speech, and implored his colleagues 
to abstain from disputes, which would be agree- 
able only to Pitt and York. On the next day, 
the ever-memorable ninth of Thermidor, came 
the real tug of war. Tallien, bravely taking 
his life in his hand, led the onset, Billaud fol- 
lowed ; and then all that infinite hatred which 
had long been kept down by terror burst forth, 
and swept every barrier before it. When at 
length the voice of Robespierre, drowned by 
the president's bell, and by shouts of "Down 
with the tyrant!" had died away in hoarse 
gasping, Barere arose. He began with timid 
and doubtful phrases, watched the effect of 
every word he uttered, and, when the feeling 
of the Assembly had been unequivocally mani- 
fested, declared against Robespierre. But it 
was not till the people out of doors, and espe- 
cially the gunners of Paris, had espoused the 
cause of the Convention, that Barere felt 
quite at ea:^. Then he sprang to the tribune, 
poured forth a Carmagnole about Pisistratus 
and Catiline, and concluded by moving that the 
heads of Robespierre and Robespierre's accom- 
plices should be cut off without a trial. The 
motion was carried. On the following morn, 
ing the vanquished members of the committee 
of public safety and their principal adherents 
suffered death. It was exactly one year since 
Barere had commenced his career of slaughter, 
by moving the proscription of his old allies, the 
Girondists. We greatly doubt whether any 
human being has ever succeeded in packing 
more wickedness into the space of three hun- 
dred and sixty-five days. 

The ninth of Thermidor is one of the great 
epochs in the history of Europe. It is true 
that the three members of the committee ot 
public safety who triumphed were by no means 
better men than the three who fell. Indeed, 
we are inclined to think that of these six states- 
men the least bad were Robespierre and St. 
Just, whose cruelty was the effect of sincere 
fanaticism operating on narrow understandings 
and acrimonious tempers. The worst of the 
six was, beyond all doubt, Barere, who had no 
faith in any part of the system which he up- 
held by persecution ; who, while he sent his 
fellow-creatures to death for being the third 
cousins of royalists, had not in the least made 
up his mind that a republic was better than a 
monarchy ; who, while he slew his old friends 
for federalism, was himself far more a federal- 
ist than any of them ; who had become a mur- 
derer merely for his safety, and who continued 
to be a murderer merely for his pleasure 



646 



MACAULAVT'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



The tendency of the vulgar is to embody 
rvery thing. Some individual is selected, and 
often selected very injudiciously, as the repre- 
sentative of every great movement of the pub- 
lic mind, of every great revolution in human 
affairs ; and on this individual are concentrated 
all the love and all the hatred, all the admira- 
tion and all the contempt, which he ought right- 
fully to share with a whole party, a whole sect, 
a whole nation, a whole generation. Perhaps 
no human being has suffered so much from 
this propensity of the multitude as Robespierre. 
He is regarded not merely as what he was, an 
envious, malevolent zealot ; but as the incar- 
nation of Terror, as Jacobinism personified. 
The truth is, that it was not by him that the 
system of terror was carried to the last extreme. 
The most horrible days in the history of the 
Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris, were those 
which immediately preceded the ninth of Ther- 
midor. Robespierre had then ceased to attend 
the meetings of the sovereign committee ; and 
the direction of affairs was really in the hands 
of Billaud, of Collot, and of Barere. 

It had never occurred to those three tyrants, 
that in overthrowing Robespierre, they were 
overthrowing that system of terror to which 
they were more attached than he had ever 
been. Their object was to go on slaying even 
more mercilessly than before. But they had 
misunderstood the nature of the great crisis 
which had at last arrived. The yoke of the 
committee was broken for ever. The Conven- 
tion had regained its liberty, had tried its 
strength, had vanquished and punished its 
enemies. A great reaction had commenced. 
Twenty-four hours after Robespierre had ceased 
to live, it was moved and carried, amidst loud 
bursts of applause, that the sittings of the Re- 
volutionary Tribunal should be suspended. Bil- 
laud was not at that moment present. He en- 
tered the hall soon after, learned with indigna- 
tion what had passed, and moved that the vote 
should be rescinded. But loud cries of " No, 
no !" rose from those benches which had lately 
paid mute obedience to his commands. Barere 
came forward on the same day, and adjured 
the Convention not to relax the system of ter- 
ror. "Beware, above all things," he cried, 
" of that fatal moderation which talks of peace 
and of clemency. Let aristocracy know that 
here she will find only enemies sternly bent on 
vengeance, and judges who have no pity." But 
the day of the Carmagnoles was over: the 
restraint of fear had been relaxed; and the 
hatred with which the nation regarded the 
Jacobin dominion broke forth with ungovern- 
able violence. Not more strongly did the tide 
of public opinion run against the old monarchy 
and aristocracy, at the time of the taking of the 
Bastile, than it now ran against the tyranny of 
the Mountain. From every dungeon the prison- 
ers came forth, as they had gone in, by hundreds. 
The decree which forbade the soldiers of the 
Republic to give quarter to the English, was 
repealed by an unanimous vote, amidst loud 
acclamations ; nor, passed as it was, disobeyed 
as it was, and rescinded as it was, can it be 
with justice considered as a blemish on the 
Came of the French nation. The Jacobin Club 
tt'as refractory. It was suppressed without 



resistance. The surviving Girondist deputies 
who had concealed themselves from the ven« 
geance of their enemies in caverns and garrets, 
were re-admitted to their seats in the Conven« 
tion. No day passed without some signal 
reparation of injustice; no street in Paris was 
without some trace of the recent change. In 
the theatre, the bust of Marat was pulled down 
from its pedestal and broken in pieces, amidst 
the applause of the audience. His carcass 
was ejected from the Pantheon. The celebrated 
picture of his death, which had hung in the 
hall of the Convention, was removed. The 
savage inscriptions with which the walls of the 
city had been .covered disappeared; and in 
place of death and terror, humanity, the watch- 
word of the new rulers, was everywhere to be 
seen. In the mean time, the gay spirit of 
France, recently subdued by oppression, and 
now elated by the joy of a great deliverance, 
wantoned in a thousand forms. Art, taste, 
luxury, revived. Female beauty regained its 
empire — an empire strengthened by the remem- 
brance of all the tender and all the sublime 
virtues which women, delicately bred and re- 
puted frivolous, had displayed during the evil 
days. Refined manners, chivalrous sentiments, 
followed in the train of love. The dawn of the 
Arctic summer day after the Arctic winte; 
night, the great unsealing of the waters, tht 
awakening of animal and vegetable life, the 
sudden softening of the air, the sudden bloom- 
ing of the flowers, the sudden bursting^ of whole 
forests into verdure, is but a feeble type of that 
happiest and most genial of revolutions, the 
revolution of the ninth of Thermidor. 

But, in the midst of the revival of all kind 
and generous" sentiments, there was one por- 
tion of the community against which mercy 
itself seemed to cry out for vengeance. The 
chiefs of the late government and their tools 
were now never named but as the men of blood, 
the drinkers of blood, the cannibals. In some 
parts of France, where the creatures of the 
Mountain had acted with peculiar barbarity, 
the populace took the law into its own hands, 
and meted out justice to the Jacobins with the 
true Jacobin measure ; but at Paris the punish- 
ments were inflicted with order and decency ; 
and were few when compared with the num- 
ber, and lenient when compared with the enor- 
mity, of the crimes. Soon after the ninth of 
Thermidor, two of the vilest of mankind, Fou- 
quier Tinville, whom Barere had placed at the 
Revolutionary Tribunal, and Lebon, whom 
Barere had defended in the Convention, were 
placed under arrest. A third miscreant soon 
shared their fate, Carrier, the tyrant of Nantes. 
The trials of these men brought to light horrors 
surpassing any thing that Suetonius and Lam- 
pridius have related of the worst Caesars. Bu». 
it was impossible to punish subordinate agents 
who, bad as they were, had only acted in ac- 
cordance with the spirit of the government 
which they served, and, at the same time, to 
grant impunity to the heads of the wicked ad« 
ministration. A cry was raised, both within 
and without the Convention, for justice on 
Collot, Billaud, and Barere. 

Collot and Billaud, with all thei" vices, ap. 
pear to have been men of resolute natures. 



BARERE S MEMOIRS. 



64? 



They made no submission ; but opposed to the 
hatred of mankind, at first a fierce resistance, 
and afterwards a dogged and sullen endurance. 
Barere, on the other hand, as soon as he began 
to understand the real nature of the revolution 
of Thermidor, attempted to abandon the Moun- 
tain, and to obtain admission among his old 
friends of the moderate party. He declared 
everywhere that he had never been in favour 
of severe measures ; that he was a Girondist; 
that he had always condemned and lamented 
the manner in which the Brissotine deputies 
had been treated. He now preached mercy 
from that tribune from which he had recently 
preached extermination. " The time," he said, 
" has come at which our clemency may be in- 
dulged without danger. We may now safely 
consider temporary imprisonment as an ade- 
quate punishment for political misdemeanors." 
It was only a fortnight since, from the same 
place, he had declaimed against the moderation 
which dared even to talk of clemency; it was 
only a fortnight since he had ceased to send 
men and women to the guillotine of Paris, at 
the rate of three hundred a week. He now 
wished to make his peace with the moderate 
party at the expense of the Terrorists, as he 
had, a year before, made his peace with the 
Terrorists at the expense of the moderate party. 
But he was disappointed. He had left himself 
no retreat. His face, his voice, his rants, his 
jokes, had become hateful to the Convention. 
When he spoke, he was interrupted by mur- 
murs. Bitter reflections were daily cast on his 
cowardice and perfidy. On one occasion Car- 
n ot rose to give an account of a victory, and 
bo far forgot the gravity of his character as to 
indulge in the sort of oratory which Barere had 
affected on similar occasions. He was inter- 
rupted by cries of " No more Carmagnoles !" 
"No more of Barere's puns !" 

At length, five months after the revolution of 
1 hermidor, the Convention resolved that a 
committee of twenty-one members should be 
appointed to examine into the conduct of Bil- 
laud, Collot, and Barere. In some weeks the 
report was made. From that report we learn 
that a paper had been discovered, signed by 
Barere, and containing a proposition for adding 
the last improvement to the system of terror. 
France was to be divided into circuits ; itine- 
rant revolutionary tribunals, composed of trusty 
Jacobins, were to move from department to 
department ; and the guillotine was to travel in 
their train. 

Barere, in his defence, insisted that no speech 
or motion which he had made in the Conven- 
tion could, without a violation of the freedom 
of debate, be treated as a crime. He was asked 
how he could resort to such a mode of defence, 
after putting to death so many deputies on ac- 
count of opinions expressed in the Convention. 
He had nothing to say, but that it was much 
\d se regretted that the sound principle had 
ever been violated. 

He arrogated to himself a large share of the 
merit of the revolution of Thermidor. The men 
who had risked their lives to effect that revo- 
lution, and who knew that, if they had failed, 
Barere would, in all probability, have moved 
the decree for beheaudng them without a trial, 



and have drawn up a proclamation announcing 
their guilt and their punishment tc ail France, 
were by no means disposed to acquiesce in his 
claims. He was reminded that, only forty-eight 
hours before the decisive conflict, he had, in the 
tribune, been profuse of adulation to Robes 
pierre. His answer to this reproach is worth) 
of himself. " It was necessary," he said, " to 
dissemble. It was necessary to flatter Robes- 
pierre's vanity, and, by panegyric, to impel him 
to the attack. This was the motive which in- 
duced me to load him with those praises cf 
which you complain. Who ever blamed Bru- 
tus for dissembling with Tarquin 1" 

The accused triumvirs had only one chance 
of escaping punishment. There was severe 
distress at that moment among the working 
people of the capital. This distress the Jaco- 
bins attributed to the reaction of Thermidor, 
to the lenity with which the aristocrats were 
now treated, and to the measures which had 
been adopted against the chiefs of the late 
administration. Nothing is too absurd to be 
believed by a populace which has not break- 
fasted, and which does not know how it is to 
dine. The rabble of the Faubourg St. An- 
toine rose, menaced the deputies, and de- 
manded with loud cries the liberation of the 
persecuted patriots. But the Convention was 
no longer such as it had been, when similar 
means were employed too successfully against 
the Girondists. Its spirit was roused. Its 
strength had been proved. Military means 
were at its command. The tumult was sup- 
pressed, and it was decreed tfiat same evening 
that Collot, Billaud, and Barere should instantly 
be removed to a distant place of confinement. 

The next day the order of the Convention 
was executed. The account which Barere has 
given of his journey is thg most interesting 
and the most trustworthy part of these memoirs. 
There is no witness so infamous that a court 
of justice will not take his word against him- 
self; and even Barere may be believed when 
he tells us how much he was hated and de- 
spised. 

The carriage in which he was to travel 
passed, surrounded by armed men, along the 
street of St. Honore. A crowd soon gathered 
round it, and increased every moment. On 
the long flight of steps before the church of 
St. Roch stood rows of eager spectators. It 
was with difficulty that the coach could make 
its way through those who hung upon it, hoot- 
ing, cursing, and striving to burst the doors, 
Barere thought his life in danger, and was con- 
ducted at his own request to a public office, 
where he hoped that he might find shelter till 
the crowd should disperse. In the mean time, 
another discussion on his fate took place in the 
Convention. It was proposed to deal with him 
as he had dealt with better men, to put him out 
of the pale of the law, and to deliver him at 
once without any trial to the headsman. But 
the humanity which, since the ninth Thermi- 
dor, had generally directed the public counsels, 
restrained the deputies from taking this course 

It was now night ; and the streets gradually 
became quiet. The clock struck tweive ; anc 
Barere, under a strong guard, again set forth 
on his journey. He was conducted ov*>r tn«* 



618 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



river to the place where the Orleans road 
branches off from the southern boulevard. 
Two travelling carriages stood there. In one 
of them was Billaud, attended by two officers; 
in the other, two more officers were waiting to 
receive Barere. Collot was already on the road. 
At Orleans, a city which had suffered cruelly 
from the Jacobin tyranny, the three deputies 
were surrounded by a mob bent on tearing 
them to pieces. All the national guards of the 
neighbourhood were assembled ; and this force 
was not greater than the emergency required ; 
'or the multitude pursued the carriages far on 
the road to Blois. 

At Amboise the prisoners learned that Tours 
was ready to receive them. The stately bridge 
was occupied by a throng of people, who swore 
that the men under whose rule the Loire had 
been choked with corpses, should have full 
personal experience of the nature of a noyadc. 
In consequence of this news, the oflicers who 
had charge of the criminals made such arrange- 
ments that the carriages reached Tours at two 
in the morning, and drove straight to the post- 
house. Fresh horses were instantly ordered, 
and the travellers started again at full gallop. 
They had in truth not a moment to lose ; for 
the alarm'had been given : lights were seen in 
motion ; and the yells of a great multitude, 
disappointed of its revenge, mingled with the 
sound of fhe departing wheels. 

At Poitiers there was another narrow escape. 
As the prisoners quilled the post-house, they saw 
tine whole population pouring in fury down the 
steep declivity on which the city is built. They 
passed near Niort, but could not venture to 
enter it. The inhabitants came forth with 
threatening aspect, and vehemently cried to 
the postilions to stop ; but the postilions urged 
the horses to full sjpeed, and soon left the town 
behind. Through such dangers the men of 
blood were brought in safety to Rochelle. 

016" ron was the place of (heir destination, a 
dreary island beaten by the raging waves of 
the Bay of Biscay. The prisoners wore con- 
fined in the castle ; each had a single chamber, 
at the door of which a guard was plactd ; and 
each was allowed the ration of a single soldier. 
They were not allowed to communicate either 
with the garrison or with the population of the 
island: and soon after their arrival they were 
<lenied the indulgence of walking on the ram- 
parts. The only place where they were suf- 
fered to take exercise was the esplanade where 
•he troops were drilled. 

They had not been long in this situation 
when news came that the Jacobins of Paris 
had made a last; attempt to regain ascendency 
in the state, that the hall of the Convention had 
bawn. forced by a furious crowd, that one of the 
deputies had been murdered and his head fixed 
i'n a pike, that the life of the President had 
been for a time in imminent danger, and that 
some members of the legislature had not been 
ashamed to join the rioters. But troops had 
arrived in time to prevent a massacre. The 
insurgents had been put to flight ; the inhabit- 
ants of 'he disaffected quarters of the capital 
.iad been disarmed; the guilty deputies had 
suffered the just punishment of their treason; 
and the power of the Mountain was broken for 



ever. These events strengthened the aversion 
with which the system of Terror and the 
authors of that system were regarded. One 
member of the Convention had moved, that 
the three prisoners of Ol^ron should be put to 
death; another, that they should be brought 
back to Paris, and tried by a council of war. 
These propositions were rejected. But some- 
thing was conceded to the party which called 
for severity. A vessel which had been fittea 
out with great expedition at Itochefort touched 
at Oleron, and it was announced to Collot and 
Billaud that they must instantly go on board. 
They were forthwith conveyed to Guiana, 
where Collot soon drank himself to death with 
brandy. Billaud lived many years, shunning 
his fellow creatures and shunned by them; 
and diverted his lonely hours by teaching par- 
rots to talk. Why a distinction was made 
between Barere and his companions in guilt, 
neither he nor any other writer, as far as we 
know, has explained. It does not appear that 
the distinction was meant to be at all in his 
favour; for orders soon arrived from Paris, 
that he should be brought to trial for his crimes 
before the criminal court of the department 
of the Upper Charente. He was accordingly 
brought back to the Continent, and confined 
during some months at Saintes, in an old con- 
vent which had lately been turned into the jail. 
While he lingered here, the reaction which 
had followed the great crisis of Thermidor met 
with a temporary check. The friends of the 
house of Bourbon, presuming on the indul- 
gence with which they had been treated after 
the fall of Robespierre, not only ventured to 
avow their opinions with little disguise, but at 
length took arms against the Convention, and 
were not put down till much blood had been 
shed in the streets of Paris. The vigilance of 
the public authorities was therefore now di- 
rected chiefly against the royalists, and the 
rigour with which the Jacobins had lately been 
treated was somewhat relaxed. The Conven- 
tion, indeed, again resolved that Barere should 
be sent to Guiana. But this decree was not 
carried into effect. The prisoner, probably 
with the connivance of some powerful per- 
sons, made his escape from Saintes and fled to 
Bordeaux, where he remained in concealmen 
during some years. There seems to have been 
a kind of understanding between him and the 
government, that, as long as he hid himself, he 
should not be found, but that, if he obtruded 
himself on the public eye, he must take the 
consequences of his rashness. 

While the constitution of 1795, with its Ex 
ecutive Directory, its Council of Elders, and 
its Council of Five Hundred, was in operation, 
he continued to live under the ban of the law. 
It was in vain that he solicited, even at mo- 
ments when the politics of the Mountain 
seemed to be again in the ascendant, a remis- 
sion of the sentence pronounced by the Con- 
vention. Even his fellow regicides, even the 
authors of the slaughter of Vendemiaire and 
of the arrests of Fructidor, were ashamed of 
him. 

About eighteen months after his escape from 
prison, his name was again brought before the 
world. In his own province he sftll retainH 



IIAIIEIIH'H MEMOIRS. 



640 



Some of his early popularity. lie had, indeed, 
never been in that province since the downfall 
of the monarchy. The mountaineers of Gas* 
cony were far removed from the seat of govern* 
ruent, and were but Imperfectly Informed of 
what passed there. They knew that their coun* 
tryman had played an important part, and that 
he had on eome ocoaslons promoted their local 
interests) and they itood hy him In hli adver* 
eity and in his disgrace, with ;i constancy 
which present! a singular contrast to his own 
abject fickleness. All Prance was amazed to 
learn, that the department of the Upper Pyre- 
nees had chosen the proscribed tyrant a mem* 

her of the Council of Five Hundred. The 

council which, like our House of Commons, 
was the |udge of the election of its own mem- 
bers, refused to admit him. When his name 
was read from the roll, a cry of indignation 
rose from the bi riches. " Which of you," ex* 
Claimed one of the members, "would sit by 
the side of such a monster V — "Not I, not I! 
answered a crowd of voices. One deputy 
declare! that be would vacate his seat if the 
hail were polluted by the presence of such a 
wretch. The election was declared null, on 
the ground that the person elected was a crimi- 
nal skulking from justice; and many severe 
reflections were thrown on the lenity which 
suffered him to be still at large. 

lie tried to make bis peace with the Direc- 
tory by writing a bulky libel on England, enti- 
tled, The Liberty of the Seas. He seems to 
have confidently expected that this work would 
produce a great effect. He printed three thou- 
sand copies, and, in order to defray the expense 

of publication, sold one of his farms /'or the 
sum of ten thousand francs. The hook came 
out; but nobody bought it, in consequence, if 
Bar&re is to be believed, of the villainy of Mr. 
Pitt, who bribed the Directory to order the 
reviewers not to notice so formidable an 
attack on the maritime greatness of perfidious 
Albion. 

Barere had been about three years at Bor- 
deaux when he received intelligence that the 
mob of the town designed him the honour of 
a visit on the ninth of Th'-rmidor, and 
would probably administer to him what he 
had, in his defence of his friend Lebon, de- 
scribed as substantial justice under forms a 

little harsh. 1 1, was n< <<• vary for him to di ,- 

guise himself in clothes such as wen- worn by 
the carpenters of the dock, in this garb, with 

a bundle of wood shavings under his arm, he 
made his escape into the vineyards which sur- 
round tne city, lurked, during some days in a 
peasant's hut, and, when the dreaded anniver- 
sary was over, stole back into the city. A few 
months later he was again in danger. He 
now thought that he should be nowhere so safe 
as hi the neighbourhood of Paris, He quitted 
Bordeaux, hastened undetected through those 

towns where four years before his life had been 
in extreme danger, passed through the capital 
in the morning twilight, when none w<-rc in the 
streets except shopboys taking down the shut- 
ters, and arrived safe at the pleasant village of 
St. Ouen on the Heine. Here, he remained in 
seclusion during some months. In the mean 
time Bonaparte returned from Egypt, placed 



himself at the bead of a coalition of discern* 
tented parties, covered his designs with lbs 
authority of the Elders, drove the rive Hundred 
out of their hall at the poini of the bayonet, 
and became absolute monarch of Prance un« 

dei' the name of First. ( IoiisiiI. 

Harere assure:, us [hat these events almost 

broke his heart) that he oould not bear to see 
Prance again subject to a master) and that, If 
the representatives had been worthy of thai 

honourable name, they would ba.vc arrested 
the ambitious general who insulted them. 

These feelings, however, did not prcvenl him 
from soliciting the protection <d' the new go- 
vernment, and from sending to the first. Con* 
sui a handsome copy of the Essay on the 

Liberty of the SeaS. 

The, policy of Bonaparte was to cover a/ 
the pa.t with a general oblivion, lie belonged 
half to the Revolution and half to the reaction. 

lie was an upstart, and a sovereign ; and had, 

therefore, something In common with the Jaco* 
bin, and something in common with the royal* 

ist. All, whether Jacobins or loyalists, who 
were disposed to support ins government, were 

readily received — all, whether .lacobms 01 

royalists, who showed hostility to his govern- 
ment, wen- put, down and punished. Men 

who had borne a part iii the worst. CI noes of 
the Reign Of Terror, and men who had fought 
in the army id' Condi', were, to be found close 

together, both in his antechambers and in his 
dungeons. He decorated Pouche* and Maury 

with the same cross. He sent Arena and 

Georges Oadoudal to the same, scaffold. Prow 
a. government acting on such principles Barere 

easily obtained the indulgence which the Di- 
rectory had constantly refused lo grant. The 

sentence passed by the Convention was remit- 
ted, and be Was allowed to reside at I'aiis. 

iii., pardon, it is true, was not granted in the 

most honourable form; and he remained, din- 
in," some time, under the special supervision 

of the police. He hastened, however, to pay 
bis court at the Luxembourg palace, where 
Bonaparte then resided, and was honoured 
with a few dry and carclos words by the mas- 
ter of Prance. 

Here begins a new chapter of Harare's his- 
tory. What passed between him and the con 
SUlar government cannot, of course, be so 
accurately known to us as the speeches and 

reports winch he made iii the Convention, It 

is, however, not difficult, from notorious fact:?, 
and from the admissions scattered over these 
lying Memoirs, to form a tolerably accurate 
notion of what, took place. Bonaparte wantr 
ed to buy Harere: Daren: wauled to Sell him- 
self to Bonaparte. The only question was 
one, of price ; and there was an immense in- 
terval between what, was offered and what was 

demanded. 

Bonaparte, whose vehemence of will, fix- 
edness of purpose, and reliance on his own 
genius, were not only great, but extravagant, 
looked with scorn on the must effeminate and 
dependent of human minds. He was rptitc 
oapable of perpetrating crimes under the influ- 
ence cither of ambition or of revenge; but he 
bad i"' touch of that accursed monomania, 
that craving for blood qnd tears, which raged 



650 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



in some of the Jacobin chiefs. To proscribe 
ihe Terrorists would have been wholly incon- 
sistent with his policy ; but of all the classes 
of men whom his comprehensive system in- 
cluded, he liked them the least; and Barere 
was the worst of them. This wretch had been 
branded with infamy, first by the Convention, 
and then by the Council of Five Hundred. 
The inhabitants of four or five great cities had 
attempted to tear him limb from limb. Nor 
were his vices redeemed by eminent talents for 
administration or legislation. It would be un- 
wise to place in any honourable or important 
"post a man so wicked, so odious, and so little 
qualified to discharge high political duties. At 
the same time, there was a way in which it 
seemed likely mat he might be of use to the 
government. The First Consul, as he after- 
wards acknowledged, greatly overrated Ba- 
rere's powers as a writer. The effect which 
the reports of the committee of public safety 
had produced by the camp-fires of the republi- 
can armies had been great. Napoleon himself, 
when a young soldier, had been delighted by 
those compositions, which had much in com- 
mon with the rhapsodies of his favourite poet, 
Macpherson. The taste, indeed, of the great 
warrior and statesman was never very pure. 
His bulletins, his general orders, and his pro- 
clamations, are sometimes, it is true, master- 
pieces in their kind; but we too often detect, 
even in his best writing, traces of Fingal, and 
of the Carmagnoles. It is not strange, there- 
fore, that he should have been desirous to se- 
cure the aid of Barere's pen. Nor was this 
Ihe only kind of assistance which the old 
member of the committee of public safety 
might render to the consular government. He 
was likely to find admission into the gloomy 
dens in which those Jacobins whose constancy 
was to be overcome by no reverse, or whose 
crimes admitted of no expiation, hid them- 
selves from the curses of mankind. No en- 
terprise was too bold or too atrocious for minds 
crazed by fanaticism, and familiar with misery 
and death. The government was anxious to 
have information of what passed in their se- 
cret councils ; and no man was better qualified 
to furnish such information than Barere. 

For these reasons the First Consul was dis- 
posed to employ Baiere as a writer and as a 
•spy. But Barer', — -was it possible that he 
would submit to such a degradation ? Bad as 
he was, he had played a great part. He had 
belonged to that class of criminals who fill the 
world with the renown of their crimes ; he had 
been one of a cabinet which had ruled France 
with absolute power, and made war on all Eu- 
rope with signal success. Nay, he had been, 
though no* the most powerful, yet, with the 
single exception of Robespierre, the most con- 
spicuous member of that cabinet. His name 
had been a household word at Moscow and at 
Philadelphia, at Edinburgh and at Cadiz. The 
blood of the Queen of France, the blood of 
the greatest orators and philosophers of France, 
was on his hands. He had spoken ; and it 
had been decreed, that the plough should pass 
over the great city of Lyons. He had spoken 
again , and it had been decreed, that the streets 
of Toulcn should be Tazed to the ground. 



When depravity is placed so high a.s his, the 
hatred which it inspires is mingled with awe 
His place was with great tyrants, with Critias 
and Sylla, with Eccelino and Borgia; not with 
hireling scribblers and police runners. 

"Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast; 
But shall the dignity of vice be lost V 

So sang Pope ; and so felt Barere. When \\ 
was proposed to him to publish a journal in 
defence of the consular government, rage and 
shame inspired him for the first and last time 
with something like courage. He had filled as 
large a space in the eyes of mankind as Mr. 
Pitt or General Washington ; and he was coolly 
invited to descend at once to the level of Mr. 
Lewis Goldsmith. He saw, too, with agonies 
of envy, that a wide distinction was made be- 
tween himself and the other statesmen of the 
Revolution who were summoned to the aid of 
the government. Those statesmen were re- 
quired, indeed, to make large sacrifices of prin- 
ciple; but they were not called on to sacrifice 
what, in the opinion of the vulgar, constitutes 
personal dignity. They were made tribunes 
and legislators, ambassadors and counsellors 
of state, ministers, senators, and consuls. They 
might reasonably expect to rise with the rising 
fortunes of their master; and, in truth, many 
of them were destined to wear the badge of 
his Legion of Honour and of his order of the 
Iron Crown ; to be arch-chancellors and arch- 
treasurers, counts, dukes, and princes. Ba- 
rere, only six years before, had been far more 
powerful, far more widely renowned, than any 
of them; and now, while they were thought 
worthy to represent the majesty of France at 
foreign courts, while they received crowds of 
suitors in gilded ante-chambers, he was to pass 
his life in measuring paragraphs, and scolding 
correctors of the press. It was too much. 
Those lips which had never before been able 
to fashion themselves to a No, now murmured 
expostulation and refusal. "I could not" — 
these are his own words — "abase myself to 
such a point as to serve the First Consul 
merely in the capacity of a journalist, while so 
many insignificant, low, and servile people, 
such as the Treilhards, the Roederers, the Le- 
bruns, the Marets, and others whom it is super- 
fluous to name, held the first place in this 
government of upstarts." 

This outbreak of spirit was of short duration. 
Napoleon was inexorable. It is said indeed 
that he was, for a moment, half inclined to ad- 
mit Barere into the Council of State ; but the 
members of that body remonstrated in the 
strongest terms, and declared that such a nomi* 
nation would be a disgrace to them all. This 
plan was therefore relinquished. Thenceforth 
Barere's only chance of obtaining the patron- 
age of the government was to subdue his pride, 
to forget that there had been a time when, with 
three words, he might have had the heads of 
the three consuls, and to betake himself, hum- 
bly and industriously, to the task of compos- 
ing lampoons on England and panegyrics on 
Bonaparte. 

It has often been asserted, we know not on 
what grounds, that Barere was employed by 
the government, not only as a writer, but as a 
censor of the writings of other men. This im- 



BARERE'S MEMOIRS. 



651 



putation he vehemently denies in his Memoirs ; 
but our readers will probably agree with us in 
thinking, that his denial leaves the question 
exactly where it was. 

Thus much is certain, that he was not re- 
strained from exercising the office of censor by 
any scruple of conscience or honour; for he 
did accept an office, compared with which that 
of censor, odious as it is, may be called an 
august and beneficent magistracy. He began 
to have what are delicately called relations 
with the police. We are not Sure that we 
have formed, or that we can convey, an exact 
notion of the nature of Barere's new calling. 
It is a calling unknown in our country. It 
has, indeed, often happened in England, that a 
plot has been revealed to the government by 
one of the conspirators. The informer has 
sometimes been directed to carry it fair to- 
wards his accomplices, and to let the evil de- 
sign come to full maturity. As soon as his 
work is done, he is generally snatched from the 
public gaze, and sent to some obscure village, 
or to sotwe remote colony. The use of spies, 
even to this extent, is in the highest degree 
unpopular in England; but a political spy by 
profession, is a creature from which our island 
is as free as it is from wolves. In France the 
race is well known, and was never more nume- 
rous, more greedy, more cunning, or more sav- 
age, than under the government of Bonaparte. 

Our idea of a gentleman in relations with 
the consular and imperial police may perhaps 
be incorrect. Such as it is, we will try to con- 
vey it to our readers. We image to ourselves 
a well-dressed person, with a soft voice and 
affable manners. His opinions are those of 
the society in which he finds himself, but a lit- 
tle stronger. He often complains, in the lan- 
guage of honest indignation, that what passes 
in private conversation finds its way strangely 
to the government, and cautions his associates 
to take care what they say when they are not 
sure of their company. As for himself, he 
owns that he is indiscreet. He can never re- 
frain from speaking his mind ; and that is the 
reason that he is not prefect of a department. 

In a gallery of the Palais Royal he overhears 
two friends talking earnestly about the king 
and the Count of Artois. He follows them into 
a coffee-house, sits at the table next to them, 
calls for his half-dish and his small glass of 
cognac, takes up a journal, and seems occupied 
with the news. His neighbours go on talking 
without restraint, and in the style of persons 
warmly attached to the exiled family. They 
depart, and he follows them half round the 
boulevards till he fairly tracks them to their 
apartments, and learns their names from the 
porters. From that day every letter addressed 
to either of them is sent from the post-office to 
the police, and opened. Their correspondents 
become known to the government, and are 
carefully watched. Six or eight honest fami- 
lies, in different parts of France, find them- 
selves at once under the frown of power, with- 
out being able to guess what offence they have 
given. One person is dismissed from a public 
office; another learns with dismay that his 
promising son has been turned out of the Po- 
lytechnic school. 



Next, the indefatigable servant of the state 
falls in with an old republican, who has not 
changed with the times, who regrets the red 
cap and the tree of liberty, who has not un- 
learned the Thee and Thou, and who still sub- 
scribes his letters with "Health and Frater 
nity." Into the ears of this sturdy politician 
our friend pours forth a long series of com 
plaints. What evil times ! What a change 
since the days when the Mountain governed 
France ! What is the First Consul but a king 
under a new name 1 What is this Legion of 
Honour but a new aristocracy 1 The old su 
perstition is reviving with the old tyranny. 
There is a treaty with the Pope, and a provi- 
sion for the clergy. Emigrant nobles are re- 
turning in crowds, and are better received at 
the Tuiieries than the men of the tenth of Au- 
gust. This cannot last. What is life without 
liberty 1 ? What terrors has death to the true 
patriot 1 The old Jacobin catches fire, be- 
stows and receives the fraternal hug, and hints 
that there will soon be great news, and that 
the breed of Harmodius and Brutus is not 
quite extinct. The next day he is close pri- 
soner, and all his papers are in the hands of 
the government. 

To this vocation, a vocation compared with 
which the life of a beggar, of a pickpocket, of 
a pimp, is honourable, did Barere now descend. 
It was his constant practice, as often as he en- 
rolled himself in a new party, to pay his foot- 
ing with the heads of old friends. He was at 
first a royalist; and he made atonement by 
watering the tree of liberty with the blood of 
Louis. He was then a Girondist ; and he 
made atonement by murdering Vergniaud and 
Gensonne. He fawned on Robespierre up to 
the eighth of Thermidor; and he made atone- 
ment by moving, on the ninth, that Robespierre 
should be beheaded without a trial. He was 
now enlisted in the service of the new mo- 
narchy ; and he proceeded to atone for his 
republican heresies by sending republican 
throats to the guillotine. 

Among his most intimate associates was a 
Gascon named Demerville, who had been 
employed in an office of high trust under the 
committee of public safety. This man was 
fanatically attached to the Jacobin system of 
politics, and, in conjunction with other enthu 
siasts of the same class, formed a design 
against the First Consul. A hint of this de- 
sign escaped him in conversation with Barere. 
Barere carried the intelligence to Lannes, who 
commanded the Consular Guards. Demerville 
was arrested, tried, and beheaded ; and among 
the witnesses who appeared against him was 
his friend Barere. 

The account which Barere has given of 
these transactions is studiously confused and 
grossly dishonest. We think, hcwever, that 
we can discern, through much falsehood and 
much artful obscurity, some truths which he 
labours to conceal. It is clear to us that the 
government suspected him of what the Italians 
call a double treason. It was natural that such 
a suspicion should attach to him. He hau, In 
times not very remote, zealously preached the 
Jacobin doctrine, that he who smites a tyrant 
deserves nigher praise than he who saves a 



653 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



citizen. Was it possible that the member of 
the committee of public safety, the king-killer, 
the queen-killer, could in earnest mean to de- 
liver his old confederates, his bosom friends, 
to the executioner, solely because they had 
planned an act which, if there were any truth 
in his own Carmagnoles, was in the highest 
Jegree virtuous and glorious 1 Was it not 
more probable that he was really concerned in 
the plot, and that the information which he 
gave was merely intended to lull or to mislead 
the police ] Accordingly spies were set on the 
spy. He was ordered to quit Paris, and not to 
come within twenty leagues till he received 
further orders. Nay, he ran no small risk of 
being sent, with some of his old friends, to 
Madagascar. 

He made his peace, however, with the go- 
vernment so far, that he was not only permitted, 
during some years, to live unmolested, but 
was employed in the lowest sort of political 
drudgery. In the summer of 1803, while he 
was preparing to visit the south of France, he 
received a letter which deserves to be inserted. 
It was from Duroc, who is well known to have 
enjoyed a large share of Napoleon's confidence 
and favour. 

"The First Consul, having been informed 
that Citizen Barere is about to set out for the 
country, desires that he will stay at Paris. 

" Citizen Barere will every week draw up a 
report of the state of public opinion on the 
proceedings of the government, and generally 
on every thing which, in his judgment, it will 
be interesting to the First Consufto learn. 
" He may write with perfect freedom. 
" He will deliver his reports under seal into 
General Duroc's own hand, and General Duroc 
will deliver them to the First Consul. But it 
is absolutely necessary that nobody should sus- 
pect that this species of communication takes 
place; and, should any such suspicion get 
abroad, the First Consul will cease to receive 
the reports of Citizen Barere. 

"It will also be proper that Citizen Barere 
should frequently insert in the journals articles 
tending to animate the public mind, particu- 
larly against the English." 

During some years Barere continued to dis- 
charge the functions assigned to him by his 
master. Secret reports, filled with the talk of 
coffee-houses, were carried by him every week 
to the Tuileries. His friends assure us that he 
took especial pains to do all the harm in his 
power to the returned emigrants. It was not 
his fault if Napoleon was not apprised of every 
murmur and every sarcasm which old mar- 
quesses who had lost their estates, and old cler- 
gymen who had lost their benefices, uttered 
against the imperial system. M. Hippolyte 
Carnot, we grieve to say, is so much blinded 
by party spirit, that he seems to reckon this 
dirty wickedness among his hero's titles to 
public esteem. 

Barere was, at the same time, an indefati- 
gable journalist and pamphleteer. He set up a 
paper directed against England, and called the 
Memorial Antibritannique. He planned a work 
entitled,. " France made great and illustrious 
by Napoleon." When the imperial govern- 
ment was established, the old regicide made 



himself conspicuous even among the crowd 
of flatterers by the peculiar fulsomeness of his 
adulation. He translated into French a ccn- 
temptible volume of Italian verses, entitled, 
" The Poetic Crown, composed on the glorious 
accession of Napoleon the First, by the Shep- 
herds of Arcadia." He commenced a new 
series of Carmagnoles very different from 
those which had charmed the Mountain. The 
title of Emperor of the* French, he said, was 
mean; Napoleon ought to be Emperor of Eu 
rope. King of Italy was too humble an appel- 
lation; Napoleon's style ought to be King of 
Kings. 

But Barere laboured to small purpose in 
both his vocations. Neither as a writer nor as 
a spy was he of much use. He complains 
bitterly that his paper did not sell. While the 
Journal des Debals, then flourishing under the 
able management of Geoflroy, had a circula- 
tion of at least twenty thousand copies, the 
Memorial Antibritannique never, in its most pros- 
perous times, had more than fifteen hundred 
subscribers ; and these subscribers were, with 
scarcely an exception, persons residing far from 
Paris, probably Gascons, among whom the 
name of Barere had not yet lost its influence. 

A writer who cannot find readers, generally 
attributes the public neglect to any cause 
rather than to the true one ; and Barere was 
no exception to the general rule. His old 
hatred to Paris revived in all its fury. That 
city, he says, has no sympathy with France. 
No Parisian cares to subscribe to a journal 
which dwells on the real wants and interests 
of the country. To a Parisian nothing is so 
ridiculous as patriotism. The higher classes 
of the capital have always been devoted to 
England. A corporal from London is better 
received among them than a French general. 
A journal, therefore, which attacks England 
has no chance of their support. 

A much better explanation of the failure of 
the Memorial, was given by Bonaparte at St. 
Helena. " Barere," said he to Barry O'Meara, 
"had the reputation of being a man of talent; 
but I did not find him so. I employed him to 
write ; but he did not display ability. He used 
many flowers of rhetoric, but no solid argu- 
ment; nothing but coglionerie wrapped up in 
high-scunding language." 

The truth is, that though Barere was a man 
of quick parts, and could do with ease what 
he could do at all, he had never been a good 
writer. In the day of his power, he had been 
in the habit of haranguing an excitable audi- 
ence on exciting topics. The faults of his 
style passed uncensured; for it was a time of 
literary as well as of civil lawlessness, and a 
patriot was licensed to violate the ordinary 
rules of composition as well as the ordinary 
rules of jurisprudence and of social morality. 
But there had now been a literary as well as a 
civil reaction. As there was again a throne 
and a court, a magistracy, a chivalry, and a 
hierarchy, so was there a revival of classical 
taste. Honor was again paid to the prose of 
Pascal and Masillon, and to the verse of Racine 
and La Fontaine. The oratory which had de- 
lighted the galleries of the Convention, was noi 
only as much out of date as the language of 



BARERE'S MEMOIRS. 



653 



Villehardouin and Joinviile, but was associated 
in the public mind with images of horror. All 
the peculiarities of the Anacreon of the guillo- 
tine, his words unknown to the Dictionary of 
the Academy, his conceits and his jokes, his 
Gascon idioms and his Gascon hyperboles, had 
become as odious as the cant of the Puritans 
was in England after the Restoration. 

Bonaparte, who had never loved .the men of 
the Reign of Terror, had now ceased to fear 
them. He was all-powerful and at the height 
of glory ; they were weak and universally ab- 
horred. He was a sovereign, and it is probable 
that he already meditated a matrimonial alli- 
ance with sovereigns. He was naturally un- 
willing, in his new position, to hold any inter- 
course with the worst class of Jacobins. Had 
Barere's literary assistance been important to 
the government, personal aversion might have 
yielded to considerations of policy ; but there 
was no motive for keeping terms with a worth- 
less man who had also proved a worthless 
writer. Bonaparte, therefore, gave loose to 
his feeling's. Bar£re was not gently dropped, 
not sent into an honourable retirement, but 
spurned and scourged away like a troublesome 
dog. He had been in the habit of sending six 
copies of his journal on fine paper daily to the 
Tuileries. Instead of receiving the thanks and 
praises which he expected, he was dryly told 
that the great man had ordered five copies to 
be sent back. Still he toiled on ; still he che- 
rished a hope that at last Napoleon would 
relent, and that at last some share in the 
honours of fhe state would reward so much 
assiduity and so much obsequiousness. He 
was bitterly undeceived. Under the imperial 
constitution the electoral college of the depart- 
ments did not possess the right of choosing 
senators or deputies, but merely that of pre- 
senting candidates. From among these can- 
didates the emperor named members of the 
senate, and the senate named members of the 
legislative bodies. The inhabitants of the 
Upper Pyrenees were still strangely partial to 
Barere. In the year 1805, they were disposed 
to present him as a candidate for the senate. 
On this Napoleon expressed the highest dis- 
pleasure ; and the president of the electoral 
college was directed to tell the voters, in plain 
terms, that such a choice would be disgraceful 
to the department. All thought of naming 
Barere a candidate for the senate was conse- 
quently dropped. But the people of Argeles 
ventured to name him a candidate for the 
legislative body. That body was altogether 
destitute of weight and dignity; it was not 
permitted to debate ; its only function was to 
vote in silence for whatever the government 
proposed. It is not easy to understand how 
any man, who had sat in free and powerful 
deliberative assemblies, could condescend to 
bear a part in such a mummery. Barere, how- 
ever, was desirous of a place even in this mock 
legislature; and a place even in this mock 
legislature was refused to him. In the whole 
senate he had not a single vote. 

Such treatment was sufficient, it might have 
been thought, to move the most abject of 
mankind to resentment. Still, however, Ba- 
rere cringed and fawned on. His letters came 
42 



weekly to the Tuileries till the year 1807. At 
length, while he was actually writing the two 
hundred and twenty-third of the series, a note 
was put into his hands. It was from Duroc, 
and was much more perspicuous than polite. 
Barere was requested to send no more of his 
reports to the palace, as the emperor was too 
busy to read them. 

Contempt, says the Indian proverb, pierces 
even the shell of the tortoise ; and the contempt 
of the court was felt to the quick even by the 
callous heart of Barere. He had humbled 
himself to the dust ; and he had humbled him- 
self in vain. Having been eminent among the 
rulers of a great and victorious state, he had 
stooped to serve a master in the vilest capaci- 
ties ; and he had been told that, even in those 
capacities, he was not worthy of the pittance 
which had been disdainfully flung to him. He 
was now degraded below the level even of the 
hirelings whom the government employed in 
the most infamous offices. He stood idle in 
the market-place, not because he thought any 
office too infamous ; but because none would 
hire him. 

Yet he had reason to think himself fortu- 
nate ; for, had all that is avowed in these Me- 
moirs been then known, he would have received 
very different tokens of the imperial displea- 
sure. We learn from himself, that while pub- 
lishing daily columns of flattery on Bonaparte, 
and while carrying weekly budgets of calumny 
to the Tuileries, he was in close connection 
with the # agents whom the Emperor Alexander, 
then by no means favourably disposed towards 
France, employed to watch all that passed at 
Paris ; was permitted to read all their secret 
despatches ; was consulted by them as to the 
temper of the public mind and the character 
of Napoleon ; and did his best to persuade 
them that the government was in a tottering 
condition, and that the new sovereign was not, 
as the world supposed, a great statesman and 
soldier. Next, Barere, still the flatterer and 
talebearer of the imperial court, connected 
himself in the same manner with the Spanish 
envoy. He owns that with that envoy he had 
relations which he took the greatest pains to 
conceal from his own government; that they 
met twice a day, and that their conversation 
chiefly turned on the vices of Napoleon, on 
his designs against Spain, and on the best 
mode of rendering those designs abortive. In 
truth, Barere's baseness was unfathomabJe. 
In the lowest deeps of shame he found cut 
lower deeps. It is bad to be a sycophant; it 
is bad to be a spy. But even among syco- 
phants and spies there are degrees of mean- 
ness. The vilest sycophant is he who privily 
slanders the master on (7hom he fawns ; the 
vilest spy is he who serves foreigners against 
the government of his native land. 

From 1807 to 1814 Barere lived in obscurity, 
railing as bitterly as his craven cowardice 
would permit against the imperial administra- 
tion, and coming sometimes unpleasantly 
across the police. When the Bourbons re- 
turned, he, as might be expected, became a 
royalist, and wrote a pamphlet setting forth the 
horrors of the system from which the Restora- 
tion had delivered France, and magnifying thr 



G54 



MAOAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



wisdom and goodness which had dictated the 
charter. He who had voted for the death of 
Louis, he who had moved the decree for the 
trial of Marie Antoinette, he whose hatred of 
monarchy had led him to make war even upon 
the sepulchres of ancient monarchs, assures 
us with great complacency, that " in this work 
monarchical principles and attachment to the 
House of Bourbon are nobly expressed." By 
this apostacy he got nothing, not even any 
additional infamy; for his character was al- 
ready too black to be blackened. 

During the hundred days he again emerged 
for a very short time into public life ; he was 
chosen by his native district a member of the 
Chamber of Representatives. But though that 
assembly was composed in a great measure of 
men who regarded the excesses of the Jaco- 
bins with indulgence, he found himself an ob- 
ject of general aversion. When the President 
first informed the Chamber that M. Barere re- 
quested a hearing, a deep and indignant mur- 
mur ran round the benches. After the battle 
of Waterloo, Barere proposed that the Cham- 
ber should save France from the victorious 
enemy, by putting forth a proclamation about 
the pass of Thermopylae, and the Lacedasmo- 
nian eustom of wearing flowers in times of 
extreme danger. Whether this composition, 
if it had then appeared, would have stopped 
the English and Prussian armies, is a question 
respecting which we are left to conjecture. 
The Chamber refused to adopt this last of the 
Carmagnoles. 

The Emperor had abdicated. The Bourbons 
returned. The Chamber of Representatives, 
aftsr burlesquing during a few weeks the pro- 
ceedings of the National Convention, retired 
with the well-earned character of having been 
the silliest political assembly that had met in 
France. Those dreaming pedants and praters 
never for a moment comprehended their posi- 
tion. They could never understand that Eu- 
rope must be either conciliated or vanquished ; 
that Europe could be conciliated only by the 
restoration of Louis, and vanquished only by 
means of a dictatorial power entrusted to Na- 
poleon. They would not hear of Louis ; yet 
they would not hear of the only measures 
which could keep him out. They incurred the 
enmity of all foreign powers by putting Napo- 
leon at their head; yet they shackled him, 
thwarted him, quarrelled with him about every 
trifle, abandoned him on the first reverse. 
They then opposed declamations and disquisi- 
tions to eight hundred thousand bayonets ; 
played at making a constitution for their coun- 
try, when it depended on the indulgence of the 
victor whether they should have a country; 
and were at last interrupted in the midst of 
their babble about the rights of man and the 
sovereignty of the people, by the soldiers of 
Wellington and Blucher. 

A new Chamber of Deputies was elected, 
t*o bitterly hostile to the Revolution, that there 
was no small risk of a new reign of terror. 
It is just, however, to say that the king, his 
ministers, and his allies, exerted themselves to 
restrain the violence of the fanafical royalists, 
and thai the punishments inflicted, though in 
«ur opinion unjustifiat^e, were few and lenient 



when compared with those which were de 
manded by M. de Labourdonnaye and M. Hyde 
de Neuville. We have always heard, and are 
inclined to believe, that the government was 
not disposed to treat even the regicides with 
severity. But on this point the feeling of the 
Chamber of Deputies was so strong, that it 
was thought necessary to make some conces- 
sion. It was enacted, therefore, that whoever, 
having voted in January 1793 for the death of 
Louis the Sixteenth, had in any manner given 
in an adhesion to the government of Buona- 
parte during the hundred days, should be ban- 
ished for life from France. Barere fell within 
this description. He had voted for the death 
of Louis ; and he had sat in the Chamber of 
Representatives during the hundred days. 

He accordingly retired to Belgium, and re- 
sided there, forgotten by all mankind, till the 
year 1830. After the Revolution of July he 
was at liberty to return to France, and he fixed 
his residence in his native province. But he 
was soon involved in a succession of lawsuits 
with his nearest relations — " three fatal sisters 
and an ungrateful brother," to use his own 
words. Who was in the right is a question 
about which we have no means of judging, 
and certainly shall not take Barere's word. 
The courts appear to have decided some points 
in his favour and some against him. The 
natural inference is, that there were faults on 
all sides. The result of this litigation was, 
that the old man was reduced to extreme 
poverty, and was forced to sell his paternal 
house. 

As far as we can judge from the few facts 
which remain to be mentioned, Barere con- 
tinued Barere to the last. After his exile he 
turned Jacobin again, and, when he came back 
to France, joined the party of the extreme left 
in railing at Louis Philippe, and at all Louis 
Philippe's ministers. M. Casimir P6rier, M, 
de Broglie, M. Guizot, and M. Thiers, in par- 
ticular, are honoured with his abuse ; and the 
king himself is held up to execration as a hy- 
pocritical tyrant. Nevertheless, Barere had 
no scruple about accepting a charitable dona- 
tion of a thousand francs a year from the privy 
purse of the sovereign whom he hated and re- 
viled. This pension, together with some small 
sums occasionally doled out to him by the de- 
partment of the Interior, on the ground that he 
was a distressed man of letters, and by the 
department of Justice, on the ground that he 
had formerly held a high judicial office, saved 
him from the necessity of begging his bread. 
Having survived all his colleagues of the re- 
nowned committee of public safety, and almost 
all his colleagues of the Convention, he died 
in January 1841. He had attained his eighty- 
sixth year. 

We have now laid before our readers what 
we believe to be a just account of this man's 
life. Can it be. necessary for us to add any 
thing for the purpose of assisting their judg- 
ment of his character 1 If we were writing 
about any of his colleagues in the committee 
of public safety, about Carnot, about Robes- 
pierre, or St. Just, nay, even about Couthon, 
Collot, or Billaud, we might feel it necessary 
to go into a full examination of the argument! 



BARERE'S MEMOIRS. 



G56 



wnich have been employed to vindicate or to 
excuse the system of Terror. We could, we 
think, show that France was saved from her 
foreign enemies, not by the system of Terror, 
but in spite of it ; and that the perils which 
were made the plea for the violent policy of the 
Mountain, were, to a great extent, created by 
that very policy. We could, we think, also 
show that the evils produced by the Jacobin 
administration did not terminate when it fell; 
that it bequeathed a long series of calamities 
to France and to Europe ; that public opinion, 
which had during two generations been con- 
stantly becoming more and more favourable 
to civil and religious freedom, underwent, dur- 
ing the days of Terror, a change of which the 
traces are still to be distinctly perceived. It 
was natural that there should be such a change, 
when men saw that those who called them- 
selves the champions of popular rights had 
compressed into the space of twelve months 
more crimes than the kings of France, Mero- 
vingian, Carlovingian, and Capetian, had per- 
petrated in twelve centuries. Freedom was 
regarded as a great delusion. Men were will- 
ing to submit to the government of hereditary 
princes, of fortunate soldiers, of nobles, of 
priests ; to any government but that of philo- 
sophers and philanthropists. Hence the im- 
perial despotism, with its enslaved press and 
its silent tribune, its dungeons stronger than 
the old Bastile, and its tribunals more obse- 
quious than the old parliaments. Hence the 
restoration of the Bourbons and of the Jesuits, 
the Chamber of 1815, with its categories of 
proscription, the revival of the feudal spirit, 
the encroachments of the clergy, the persecu- 
tion of the Protestants, the appearance of a new 
breed of De Montforts and Dominies in the full 
light of the nineteenth century. Hence the 
admission of France into the Holy Alliance, 
and the war waged by the old soldiers of the 
tri-colour against the liberties of Spain. Hence, 
too, the apprehensions with which, even at the 
present day, the most temperate plans for widen- 
ing the narrow basis of the French represen- 
tation are regarded by those who are especially 
interested in the security of property and the 
maintenance of order. Haifa century has not 
sufficed to obliterate the stain which one year 
of depravity and madness has left on the 
noblest of causes. 

Nothing is more ridiculous than the manner 
in which writers like M. Hippolyte Carnot 
defend or excuse the Jacobin administration, 
while they declaim against the reaction which 
followed. That the reaction has produced and 
is still producing much evil, is perfectly true. 
But what produced the reaction 1 The spring 
flies up with a force proportioned to that with 
which it has been pressed down. The pendu- 
lum which is drawn far in one direction swings 
as far in the other. The joyous madness of 
intoxication in the evening is followed by lan- 
guor and nausea on the morrow. And so, in 
politics, it is the sure law that every excess 
shall generate its opposite ; nor does he deserve 
the name of a statesman who strikes a great 
blow without fully calculating the effect of the 
rebound. But s-ach calculation was infinitely 
beyond the react of the authors of the Reign of 



Terror. Violence, and more violence, bloedt 
and more blood, made up their whole policy. 
In a few months these poor creatures succeeded 
in bringing about a reaction, of which none ot 
them saw, and of which none of us may see, 
the close; and, having brought it about, they 
marvelled at it; they bewailed it; they exe 
crated it; they ascribed it to every thing bu; 
the real cause — their own immorality and their 
own profound incapacity for the conduct of 
great affairs. 

' These, however, are considerations to which, 
on the present occasion, it is hardly necessary 
for us to advert; for, the defence which has 
been setup for the Jacobin policy, good or bad, 
it is a defence which cannot avail Barere. 
From his own life, from his own pen, from his 
own mouth, we can prove that the part which 
he took in the work of blood is to be attributed, 
not even to sincere fanaticism, not even to 
misdirected and ill-regulated patriotism, but 
either to cowardice, or to delight in human 
misery. Will it be pretended that it was from 
public spirit that he murdered the Girondists 1 
In these very Memoirs he tells us that he al- 
ways regarded their death as the greatest 
calamity that could befall France. Will it be 
pretended that it was from public spirit that he 
raved for the head of the Austrian woman] 
In these very Memoirs he tells us that the time 
spent in attacking her was ill-spent, and ought 
to have been employed in concerting measures 
of national defence. Will it be pretended that 
he was induced by sincere and earnest abhor- 
rence of kingly government to butcher the living 
and to outrage the dead; he who invited Na- 
poleon to take the title of King of Kings, he 
who assures us, that after the Restoration he 
expressed in noble language his attachment to 
monarchy, and to the house of Bourbon ] Had 
he been less mean, something might have been 
said in extenuation of his cruelty. Had he 
been less cruel, something might have been 
said in extenuation of his meanness. But for 
him, regicide and court-spy, for him who pa- 
tronized Lebon and betrayed Demeryille, for 
him who wantoned alternately in gasconades 
of Jacobinism, and gasconades of servility, 
what excuse has the largest charity to offer ? 

We cannot conclude without saying some- 
thing about two parts of his character, which 
his biographer appears to consider as deserving 
of high admiration. Barere, it is admitted, waR 
somewhat fickle; but in two things he was 
consistent, in his love of Christianity, and in 
his hatred to England. If this were so, ve 
must say that England is much more beholden 
to him than Christianity. 

It is possible that our inclinations may bias 
our judgment ; but we think that we do not 
flatter ourselves when we say, that Barere's 
aversion to our country was a sentiment as 
deep and constant as his mind was capable of 
entertaining. The value of this compliment 
is, indeed, somewhat diminished by the cir- 
cumstance, that he knew very little about us. 
His ignorance of our institutions, manners, and 
history, is the less excusable, because, accord- 
ing to his own account, he consorted much, 
during the peace of Amiens, with Englishmen 
of note, such as that eminent nobleman LorW 



656 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Greaten, and that not less eminent philosopher 
Mr Mackenzie Coef his. In spite, however, of 
his connection with these well-known orna- 
ments of our country, he was so ill informed 
about us as to fancy that our government was 
always laying plans to torment him. If he 
was hooted at Saintes, probably by people 
whose relations he had murdered, it was be- 
cause the cabinet of St. James had hired the 
mob. If nobody would read his bad books, it 
was because the cabinet of St. James had 
secured the reviewers. His accounts of Mr. 
Fox, of Mr. Pitt, of the Duke of Wellington, of 
Mr. Canning, swarm with blunders, surpassing 
even the ordinary blunders committed by 
Frenchmen who write about England. Mr. 
Fox and Mr. Pitt, he tells us, were ministers in 
two different reigns. Mr. Pitt's sinking fund 
was instituted in order to enable England to 
pay subsidies to the powers allied against the 
French Republic. The Duke of Wellington's 
house in Hyde Park was built by the nation, 
which twice voted the sum of £200,000 for the 
purpose. This, however, is exclusive of the 
Cost of the frescoes, which were also paid for 
out of the public purse. Mr. Canning was the 
first Englishman whose death Europe had rea- 
son to lament ; for the death of Lord Ward, a 
relation, we presume, of Lord Greaten and Mr. 
Coef his, had been an immense benefit to man- 
kind. 

Ignorant, however, as Barere was, he knew 
enough of us to hate us ; and we persuade our- 
selves that, had he known us better, he would 
have hated us more. The nation which has 
combined, beyond all example and all hope, 
the blessings of liberty with those of order, 
might well be an object of aversion to one who 
had been false alike to the cause of order and 
to the cause of liberty. We have had amongst 
us intemperate zeal for popular rights ; we 
have had amongst us also the intemperance of 
loyalty. But we have never been shocked by 
such a spectacle as the Barere of 1794, or as 
the Barere of 1804. Compared with him, our 
fiercest demagogues have been gentle ; com- 
pared with him, our meanest courtiers have 
been manly. Mix together Thistlewood and 
Bubb Dodington, and you are still far from 
having Barere. The antipathy between him 
and us is such, that neither for the crimes of 
his earlier, nor for those of his later life, does 
our language, rich as it is, furnish us with ade- 
quate names. We have found it difficult to 
relate his history without having perpetual 
recourse to the French vocabulary of base- 
ness. It is not easy to give a notion of his 
conduct in the Convention, without using those 
smphatic terms, guillotinade, noyade, fusillade, 
nitraillade. It is not easy to give a notion of 
his conduct under the consulate and the em- 
pire, without borrowing such words as mouchard 
and mouton. 

We, therefore, like his invectives against us 
much better than any thing else that he has 
writ-ten; and dwell on them, not merely with 
ecmplacency, but with a feeling akin to grati- 
tude. It was but little, that he could do to pro- 



mote the honour of our country; but that little 
he did strenuously and constantly. Renegade, 
traitor, slave, coward, liar, slanderer, murderer, 
hack-writer, police-spy-— the one small service 
which he could render to England, was to hate 
her: and such as he was may all who hate 
her be. 

We cannot say that we contemplate with 
equal satisfaction that fervent and constant 
zeal for religion, which, according to M. Hip- 
polyte Carnot, distinguished Barere; for, as we 
think that whatever brings dishonour on reli- 
gion is a serious evil, we had, we own, indulged 
a hope that Barere was an atheist. We now 
learn, however, that he was at no time even a 
sceptic, that he adhered to his faith through the 
whole Revolution, and that he has left several 
manuscript works on divinity. One of these 
is a pious treatise, entitled, "Of Christianity 
and of its Influence." Another consists of 
meditations on the Psalms, which will doubt- 
less greatly console and edify the church. 

This makes the character complete. What- 
soever things are false, whatsoever things are 
dishonest, whatsoever things are unjust, Avhat- 
soever things are impure, whatsoever things 
are hateful, whatsoever things are of evil re- 
port, if there be any vice, and if there be any 
infamy, all these things, we knew, were blended 
in Barere. But one thing was still wanting, 
and that M. Hyppolyte Carnot has supplied. 
When to such an assemblage of qualities a 
high profession of piety is added, the effect 
becomes overpowering. We sink under the' 
contemplation of such exquisite and mani- 
fold perfection ; and feel, with deep humility, 
how presumptuous it was in us to think of 
composing the legend of this beatified athlete 
of the faith, Saint Bertrand of the Carmag- 
noles. 

Something more we had to say about him. 
But let him go. We did not seek him out, and 
will not keep him longer. If those who call 
themselves his friends had not forced him on 
our notice, we should never have vouchsafed 
to him more than a passing word of scorn and 
abhorrence, such as we might fling at his 
brethren, Hebert and Fouquier Tinville, and 
Carrier and Lebon. We have no pleasure in 
seeing human nature thus degraded. We turn 
with disgust from the filthy and spiteful Yahoos 
of the fiction ; and the filthiest and most spite 
ful Yahoo of the fiction was a noble creature 
when compared with the Barere of history 
But what is no pleasure, M. Hyppolyte Carnot 
has made a duty. It is no light thing, that a 
man in high and honourable public trust, a 
man who, from his connections and position, 
may not unnaturally be supposed to speak the 
sentiments of a large class of his countrymen, 
should come forward to demand approbation 
for a life, black with every sort of wickedness, 
and unredeemed by a single virtue. This M. 
Hippolite Carnot has done. By attempting to 
enshrine this Jacobin carrion, he has forced 
us to gibbet it ; and we venture to say that, 
from the eminence of infamy on which we 
have placed it, he will not easily take it down. 



MR. ROBERT MONTGOMERY'S POEMS. 



flW 



MR. ROBERT MONTGOMERY'S POEMS. 1 

[Edinburgh Review, April, 1830.] 



The wise men of antiquity loved to convey 
instruction under the covering of apologue; 
nnd, though this practice of theirs is generally- 
thought childish, we shall make no apology for 
adopting it on the present occasion. A gene- 
ration which has bought eleven editions of a 
poem by Mr. Robert Montgomery, may well 
condescend to listen to a fable of Pilpay. 

A pious Brahmin, it is written, made a vow 
that on a certain day he would sacrifice a 
sheep, and on the appointed morning he went 
forth to buy one. There lived in his neighbour- 
hood three rogues who knew of his vow, and 
laid a scjaeme for profiting by it. The first met 
him and said, " Oh, Brahmin, wilt thou buy a 
sheep 1 ? I have one fit for sacrifice." — "It is 
for that very purpose," said the holy man, 
" that I came forth this day." Then the im- 
postor opened a bag, and brought out of it an 
unclean beast, an ugly dog, lame and blind. 
Thereon the Brahmin cried out, " Wretch, who 
touchest things impure, and utterest things un- 
true, callest thou that cur a sheep i" — " Truly," 
answered the other, " it is a sheep of the finest 
fleece, and of the sweetest flesh. Oh, Brahmin, 
it will be an offering most acceptable to the 
gods." — "Friend," said the Brahmin, "either 
thou or I must be blind." 

Just then one of the accomplices came up. 
" Praised be the gods," said this second rogue, 
" that I have been saved the trouble of going 
to the market for a sheep ! This is such a 
sheep as I wanted. For how much wilt thou 
sell it 1" When the Brahmin heard this, his 
mind waved to and fro, like one swinging in 
the air at a holy festival. " Sir," said he to the 
new comer, " take heed what thou dost ; this is 
no sheep, but an unclean cur." — " Oh, Brah- 
min," said the new comer, " thou art drunk or 
mad!" 

At this time the third confederate drew near. 
"Let us ask this man," said the Brahmin, 
" what the creature is, and I will stand by what 
he shall say." To this the others agreed ; and 
the Brahmin called out, "Oh, stranger, what 
dost thou call this beast 1" — " Surely, oh, Brah- 
min," said the knave, "it is a fine sheep." 
Then the Brahmin said, " Surely the gods have 
taken away my senses," — and he asked pardon 
of him who carried the dog, and bought it for 
a measure of rice and a pot of ghee, and offered 
it up to the gods, who, being wroth at this un- 
clean sacrifice, smote him with a sore disease 
in all his joints. 

Thus, or nearly thu», if we remember rightly, 
runs the story of the Sanscrit J3sop. The 
moral, like the moral of every fable that is 

* The Omnipresence of the Deity, a Poem. By Robert 
Montgomery. Eleventh Edition. London. 1830. 

2. Satan, a Poem. By Robert Montgomery. Second 
Edition. London. 1830. 



worth the telling, lies on the surface. The 
writer evidently means to caution us against 
the practices of puffers, — a class of people 
who have more than once talked the public 
into the most absurd errors, but who surely 
never played a more curious, or a more diffi- 
cult trick, than when they passed Mr. Robert 
Montgomery off upon the world as a great poet. 

In an age in which there are so few readers 
that a writer cannot subsist on the sum arising 
from the sale of his works, no man who has 
not an independent fortune can devote himself 
to literary pursuits, unless he is assisted by 
patronage. In such an age, accordingly, men 
of letters too often pass their lives in dangling 
at the heels of the wealthy and powerful ; and 
all the faults which dependence tends to pro- 
duce, pass into their character. They become 
the parasites and slaves of the great. It is 
melancholy to think how many of the highest 
and most exquisitely formed of human intel- 
lects have been condemned to the ignominious 
labor of disposing the commonplaces of adu- 
lation in new forms, and brightening them into 
new splendour. Horace invoking Augustus 
in the most enthusiastic language of religious 
veneration, — Statius flattering a tyrant, and the 
minion of a tyrant, for a morsel of bread, — 
Ariosto versifying the whole genealogy of a 
niggardly patron, — Tasso extolling the heroic 
virtues of the wretched creature who lockea 
him up in a mad-house, — these are but a few 
of the instances which might easily be given 
of the degradation to which those must sub- 
mit, who, not possessing a competent fortune, 
are resolved to write when there are scarcely 
any who read. 

This evil the progress of the human mind 
tends to remove. As a taste for books becomes 
more and more common, the patronage of indi- 
viduals becomes less and less necessary. In 
the earlier part of the last century a marked 
change took place. The tone of literary men, 
both in this country and in France, became 
higher and more independent. Pope boasted 
that he was the "one poet" who had "pleased 
by manly ways ;" he derided the scft dedica 
tions with which Halifax had been fed,- 
asserted his own superiority over the pen 
sioned Boileau, — and glorified in being not the 
follower, but the friend, of nobles and princes. 
The explanation of all this is very simple. 
Pope was the first Englishman who, by the 
mere sale of hjs writings, realized a sum 
which enabled him to live in comfort and in 
perfect independence. Johnson extols him for 
the magnanimity which he showed in inscrib« 
ing his Iliad, not to a minister or a peer, but to 
Congreve. In our time, this would scarcely 
be a subject for praise. Nobody is astonished 
when Mr. Moore pays a complimept of this 



658 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Kind to Sir Walter Scott, or Sir Walter Scott 
to Mr. Moore. The idea of either of those 
gentlemen looking out for some lord who 
would be likely to give him a few guineas in 
return for a fulsome dedication, seems laugh- 
ably incongruous. Yet this is exactly what 
Dryden or Otway would have done ; and it 
would be hard to blame them for it. Otway is 
said to have been choked with a piece of bread 
which he devoured in the rage of hunger ; and, 
whether this story be true or false, he was, be- 
yond all question, miserably poor. Dryden, at 
near seventy, when at the head of the literary 
men of England, without equal or second, 
received three hundred pounds for his Fables 
— a collection of ten thousand verses, — and 
such verses as no man then living, except 
himself, could have produced. Pope, at thirty, 
had laid up between six and seven thousand 
pounds, — the fruits of his poetry. It was not, 
we suspect, because he had a higher spirit, or 
a more scrupulous conscience, than his pre- 
decessors, but because he had a larger income, 
that he kept up the dignity of the literary cha- 
racter so much better than they had done. 

From the time of Pope to the present day, 
the readers have been constantly becoming 
more and more numerous : and the writers, 
consequently, more and more independent. 
It is assuredly a great evil, that men fitted by 
their talents and acquirements to enlighten 
and charm the world, should be reduced to 
the necessity of flattering wicked and foolish 
patrons in return for the very sustenance of 
life. But though we heartily rejoice that this 
evil is removed, we cannot but see with con- 
cern that another evil has succeeded to it. 
The public is now the patron, and a most libe- 
ral patron. All that the rich and powerful 
bestowed on authors from the time of Mscenas 
to that of Harley would not, we apprehend, 
make up a sum equal to that which has been 
paid by English booksellers to authors during 
the last thirty years. Men of letters have 
accordingly ceased to court individuals, and 
have begun to court the public. They for- 
merly used flattery. They now use puffing. 

Whether the old or the new vice be the 
worse, — whether those who formerly lavished 
insincere praise on others, or those who now 
contrive by every art of beggary and bribery 
to stun the public with praises of themselves, 
disgrace their vocation the more deeply,— we 
•shall not attempt to decide. But of this we 
are sure,— that it is high time to make a stand 
against the new trickery. The puffing of 
books is now so shamefully and so success- 
fully practised, that it is the duty of all who 
are anxious for the purity of the national taste, 
or for the honour of the literary character, to 
join in discountenancing it. All the pens that 
ever were employed in magnifying Bish's 
lucky office, Romanis's fleecy hosiery, Pack- 
wood's razor strops, and Rowland's Kalydor, 

all the placard-bearers of Dr. Eady,— all the 
wall-chalkers of Day and Martin — seem to 
have taken service with the poets and novel- 
ists of this generation. Devices which in the 
lowest trades are considered as disreputable, 
are adopted without scruple, and improved 



upon with a despicable ingenuity by peopla 
engaged in a pursuit which never was, am/ 
never will be, considered as a mere trade by 
any man of honour and virtue. A butcher of 
the higher class disdains to ticket his meat. A 
mercer of the higher class would be ashamed 
to hang up papers in his window inviting the 
passers-by to look at the stock of a bankrupt, 
all of the first quality, and going for half the 
value. We expect some reserve, some decent 
pride, in our hatter and our bootmaker. But 
no artifice by which notoriety can be obtained 
is thought too abject for a man of letters. 

It is amusing to think over the history of 
most of the publications which have had a run 
during the last few years. The publisher ia 
often the publisher of some periodical work. 
In this periodical work the first flourish of 
trumpets is sounded. The peal is then echoed 
and re-echoed by all the other periodical works 
over which the publisher or the author, or the 
author's coterie, may have any influence. The 
newspapers are for a fortnight filled with puffs of 
all the various kinds which Sheridan recounted, 
— direct, oblique, and collusive. Sometimes 
the praise is laid on thick for simple-minded 
people. " Pathetic," " sublime," " splendid," 
" graceful, brilliant wit," " exquisite humour," 
and other phrases equally flattering, fall in a 
shower as thick and as sweet as the sugar- 
plums at a Roman carnival. Sometimes great- 
er art is used. A sinecure has been offered to 
the writer if he would suppress his work, or if 
he would even soften down a few of his incom- 
parable portraits. A distinguished military and 
political character has challenged the inimita 
ble satirist of the vices of the great; and the 
puffer is glad to learn that the parties have 
been bound over to keep the peace. Some- 
times it is thought expedient that the puffer 
should put on a grave face, and utter his pane- 
gyric in the form of admonition ! " Such at- 
tacks on private character cannot be too much 
condemned. Even the exuberant wit of our 
author, and the irresistible power of his with- 
ering sarcasm, are no excuses for that utter 
disregard which he manifests for the feelings 
of others. We cannot but wonder that the 
writer of such transcendent talents, — a writer 
who is evidently no stranger to the kindly 
charities and sensibilities of our nature, should 
show so little tenderness to the foibles of noble 
and distinguished individuals, with whom, it is 
clear, from every page of his work, that he 
must have been constantly mingling in socie- 
ty." These are but tame and feeble imitations 
of the paragraphs with which the daily papers 
are filled whenever an attorney's clerk or an 
apothecary's assistant undertakes to tell the 
public, in bad English and worse French, how 
people tie their neckcloths and eat their dir. 
ners in Grosvenor Square. The editors of the 
higher and more respectable newspapers 
usually prefix the words " Advertisement," or 
" From a Correspondent," to such paragraphs. 
But this makes little difference. The panegy- 
ric is extracted, and the significant heading 
omitted. The fulsome eulogy makes its ap- 
pearance on the covers of all the Reviews and 
Magazines, with " Times" or " Globe" affixed. 



MR. ROBERT MONTGOMERY'S POEMS. 



05* 



though the editors of the Times and the Globe 
have n o more to do with it than with Mr. Goss's 
way of making old rakes young again. 

That people who live by personal slander 
should practise these arts is not surprising. 
Those who stoop to write calumnious books 
may well stoop to puff them ; — and that the 
basest of all trades should be carried on in the 
basest of all manners, is quite proper, and as 
it should be. But how any man, who has the 
least self-respect, the least regard for his own 
personal dignity, can condescend to persecute 
the public with this rag-fair importunity, we 
do not understand. Extreme poverty may, 
indeed, in some degree, be an excuse for em- 
ploying these shifts, as it may be an excuse 
for stealing a leg of mutton. But we really 
think that a man of spirit and delicacy would 
quite as soon satisfy his wants in the one way 
as in the other. 

It is no excuse for an author, that the praises 
of journalists are procured by the money or in- 
fluence of the publisher, and not by his own. 
It is his business to take such precautions as 
may prevent others from doing what must de- 
grade them. It is for his honour as a gentle- 
man, and, if he is really a man of talents, it 
will eventually be for his honour and interest 
as a writer, that his works should come before 
the public, recommended by their own merits 
alone, and should be discussed with perfect 
freedom. If his objects be really such as he 
may own without shame, he will find that they 
will, in the long run, be better attained by suf- 
fering the voice of criticism to be fairly heard. 
At present, we too often see a writer attempt- 
ing to obtain literary fame as Shakspeare's 
usurper obtains sovereignty. The publisher 
plays Buckingham to the author's Richard. 
Some few creatures of the conspiracy are dex- 
terously disposed here and there in a crowd. 
It is the business of these hirelings to throw up 
their caps, and clap their hands, and utter their 
vivas. The rabble at first stare and wonder, 
and at last join in shouting for shouting's sake ; 
and thus a crown is placed on the head which 
has no right to it, by the huzzas of a few ser- 
vile dependants. 

The opinion of the great body of the reading 
public is very materially influenced even by 
the unsupported assertions of those who as- 
sume a right to criticise. Nor is the public 
altogether to blame on this account. Most, 
even of those who have really a great enjoy- 
ment in reading, are in the same state, with 
respect to a book, in which a man, who has 
never given particular attention to the art of 
painting, is with respect to a picture. Every 
man who has the least sensibility or imagina- 
tion, derives a certain pleasure from pictures. 
Yet a man of the highest and finest intellect 
might, unless he had formed his taste by con- 
templating the best pictures, be easily per- 
suaded by a knot of connoisseurs that the worst 
daub in Somerset-house was a miracle of art. 
If he deserves to be laughed at, it is not for his 
ignorance of pictures, but for his ignorance of 
men. He knows that there is a delicacy of 
taste in painting which he docs not possess ; 
that he cannot discriminate hands as prac- 



tised judges can; that he is not lamilliar witb 
the finest models ; that he has never looked at 
them with close attention ; and that, when the 
general effect of a piece has pleased him, 01 
displeased him, he has never troubled himselt 
to ascertain why. When, therefore, people 
whom he thinks more competent to judge than 
himself, and of whose sincerity he entertains 
no doubt, assure him that a particular work is 
exquisitely beautiful, he takes it for granted 
that they must be in the right. He returns to 
the. examination, resolved to find or imagine 
beauties; and if he can work himself up into 
something like admiration, he exults in his 
own proficiency. 

Just such is the manner in which nine 
readers out of ten judge of a book. They are 
ashamed to dislike what men, who speak as 
having authority, declare to be good. At pre 
sent, however contemptible a poem or a novel 
may be, there is not the least difficulty in pro- 
curing favourable notices of it from all sorts 
of publications, daily, weekly, and monthly 
In the mean time, little or nothing is said on 
the other side. The author and the publisher 
are interested in crying up the book. Nobody 
has any very strong interest in crying it down. 
Those who are best fitted to guide the public 
opinion, think it beneath them to expose mere 
nonsense, and comfort themselves by reflecting 
that such popularity cannot last. This con- 
temptuous lenity has been carried too far. It 
is perfectly true, that reputations which have 
been forced into an unnatural bloom, fade al- 
most as soon as they have expanded ; nor have 
we any apprehensions that puffing will ever 
raise any scribbler to the rank of a classic. It 
is, indeed, amusing to turn over some late vol- 
umes of periodical works, and to see how 
many immortal productions have, within a few 
months, been gathered to the poems of Black- 
more and the novels of Mrs. Behn ; how many 
" profound views of human nature," and " exqui- 
site delineations of fashionable manners," and 
"vernal, and sunny, and refreshing thoughts," 
and "high imaginings," and "young breath- 
ings," and " embodyings," and "pinings," and 
" minglings with the beauty of the universe," 
and "harmonies which dissolve the soul in a 
passionate sense of loveliness and divinity," the 
world has contrived to forget. The names of 
the books and the writers are buried Jn as deep 
an oblivion as the name of the builder of Stone- 
hedge. Some of the well-puffed " fashionable 
novels" of the last, hold the pastry of the pre- 
sent year; and others of the class, which are 
now extolled in language almost too high-flown 
for the merits of Don Quixote, will, we have no 
doubt, line the trunks of eighteen hundred and 
thirty-one. But though we have no apprehen- 
sions that puffing will ever confer permanent 
reputation on the undeserving, we still think 
its influence most pernicious. Men of jeai 
merit will, if they persevere, at last reach the 
station to which they are entitled, and intruders 
will be ejected with contempt and derision. 
But it is no small evil that the avenues to fame 
should be blocked up by a swarm of noisy, 
pushing, elbowing pretenders, who, though 
they will not ultimately be able to make go<«l 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



their own entrance, hinder, in the mean time, 
those who have a right to enter. All who will 
not disgrace themselves by joining in the un- 
seemly scuffle, must expect to be at first hustled 
and shouldered back. Some men of talents, 
accordingly, turn away in dejection from pur- 
suits in which success appears to bear no 
proportion to desert. Others employ in self- 
defence the means by which competitors, far 
inferior to themselves, appear for a time to ob- 
tain a decided advantage. There are few who 
have sufficient confidence in their own powers, 
and sufficient elevation of mind, to wait with 
secure and contemptuous patience, while dunce 
after dunce presses before them. Those who 
will not stoop to the baseness of the modern 
fashion are too often discouraged. Those who 
stoop to it are always degraded. 

We have of late observed with great plea- 
sure some symptoms which lead us to hope, 
that respectable literary men of all parties are 
beginning to be impatient of this insufferable 
nuisance. And we purpose to do what in us 
lies for the abating of it. We do not think 
that we can more usefully assist in this good 
work, than by showing our honest countrymen 
what that sort of poetry is which puffing can 
drive through eleven editions ; and how easy 
any bellman might, if a bellman would stoop 
to the necessary degree of meanness, become 
" a master-spirit of the age." We have no en- 
mity to Mr. Robert Montgomery. We know 
nothing whatever about him, except what we 
have learned from his books, and from the 
portrait prefixed to one of them, in which he 
appears to be doing his very best to look like a 
man of genius and sensibility, though with less 
success than his strenuous exertions deserve. 
We select him, because his works have re- 
ceived more enthusiastic praise, and have de- 
served 'more unmixed contempt, than any 
which, as far as our knowledge extends, have 
appeared within the last three or four years. 
His writing bears the same relation to poetry 
which a Turkey carpet bears to a picture 
There are colours in the Turkey carpet, out of 
which a picture might be made. There are 
words in Mr. Montgomery's verses, which when 
disposed in certain orders and combinations, 
have made, and will again make, good poetry. 
But, as they now stand, they seem to be put 
together on principle, in such a manner as to 
give no image of any thing in the " heavens 
above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters 
under the earth." 

The poem on the Omnipresence of the Deity 
commences with a description of the creation, 
in which we can find only one thought which 
has the least pretension to ingenuity, and that 
tune thought is stolen from Dryden, and marred 
in the stealing — 

"Last, softly beautiful as music's close, 
Angelic woman into being rose." 

fhe all-pervading influence of the Supreme 
Being is then described in a few tolerable lines 
borrowed from Pope, and a great many intoler- 
able lines of Mr. Robert Montgomery's own. 
file fol.owing may stand as a specimen— 



''But who could trace Thine uni estricted county 
Though Fancy follow'd with immortal force!' 
There's not a blossom fondled by the breeze, 
There's not a fruit that beautifies the trees, 
There's not a particle in sea or air, 
But nature owns thy plastic influence there ! 
With fearful gaze, still be it mine to see 
How all is filled and vivified by Thee ; 
Upon thy mirror, earth's majectic view, 
To paint Thy Presence, and to feel it too." 

The last two lines contain an excellent spe* 
cimen of Mr. Robert Montgomery's Turkey 
carpet style of writing. The majertic view of 
earth is the mirror of God's presence ; and on 
this mirror Mr. Robert Montgomery paints 
God's presence. The use of a mirror, we 
submit, is not to. be painted upon. 

A few more lines, as bad as those which we 
have quoted, bring us to one of the most amus- 
ing instances of literary pilfering which we 
remember. It might be of use to plagiarists to 
know as a general rule, that what they steal is, 
to employ a phrase common in advertisements, 
of no use to any but the right owner. We 
never fell in, however, with any plunderer who 
so little understood how to turn his booty to 
good account as Mr. Montgomery. Lord By- 
ron, in a passage which every body knows by 
heart, has said, addressing the sea, 

"Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow." 

Mr. Robert Montgomery very cooly appro- 
priates the image, and reproduces the stolen 
goods in the following form : 

"And thou, vast Ocean, on whose awful face 
Time's iron feet can print no ruin trace." 

So may such ill-got gains ever prosper ! 

The effect which the Ocean produces on 
Atheists is then described in the following 
lofty lines : 

" Oh ! never did the dark-soul'd Atheist stand, 
And watch the breakers boiling on the strand, 
And, while creation staggered at his nod, 
Mock the dread presence of the mighty God ! 
We hear Him in the wind-heaved ocean's roar, 
Hurling her billowy crags upon the shore ; 
We hear him in the riot of the blast, 
And shake, while rush the raving whirlwinds past !" 

If Mr. Robert Montgomery's genius were not 
far too free and aspiring to'be shackled by the 
rules of syntax, we should suppose that it U 
at the nod of the Atheist that creation shud- 
ders, and that it is thi§ same dark-souled Athe- 
ist who hurls billowy crags upon the shore. 

A few more lines bring us to another in- 
stance of unprofitable theft. Sir Walter Scott 
has these lines in the Lord of the Isles, 

"The dew that, on the violet lies, 
Mocks the dark lustre of thine eyes." 

This is pretty, taken separately, and, as is 
almost always the case with good things of 
good writers, much prettier in its place than 
can even be conceived" by those who see it only 
detached from the context. Now for Mr. Mont- 
gomery — 

"And the bright dew-bead on the bramble lies. 
Like liquid rapture upon beauty's eyes." 

The comparison of a violet, bright with the 
dew, to a woman's eyes, is as perfect as a 
comparison can be. Sir Walter's lines art 
part of a song addressed to a woman, and the 



MR. ROBERT MONTGOMERY'S POEMS 



661 



©comparison is therefore peculiarly natural and 
graceful. Dew on a bramble is no more like 
a woman's eyes than dew anywhere else. 
There is a very pretty Eastern tale, of which 
the fate of plagiarists often reminds us. The 
slave of a magician saw his master wave his 
wand, and heard him give orders to the spirits 
who arose at the summons. He accordingly 
stole the wand, and waved it himself in the 
air ; but he had not observed that his master 
used the left hand for that purpose. The spirits 
thus irregularly summoned, tore him to pieces, 
instead of obeying his orders. There are very 
few who can safely venture to conjure with 
the rod of Sir Walter, and we are sure that 
Mr. Robert Montgomery is not one of them. 

Mr. Campbell, in one of his most pleasant 
pieces, has this line — 

" The sentinel stars set their watch in the sky." 

The thought is good — and has a very striking 
propriety where Mr. Campbell placed it — in 
the mouth of a soldier telling his dream. But, 
though Shakspeare assures us that "every 
true man's apparel fits your thief," it is by no 
means the case, as we have already seen, that 
every true poet's similitude fits your plagiarist. 
Let us see how Mr. Robert Montgomery uses 
the image — 

"Ye quenchless stars ! so eloquently bright, 
Untroubled sentries of the shadowy night, 
While half the world is lapped in downy dreams, 
And round the lattice creep your midnight beams, 
How sweet to gaze upon your placid eyes, 
In lambent beauty looking from the skies." 

Certainly the ideas of eloquence— of un- 
troubled repose — of placid e} r es, on the lambent 
beauty of which it is sweet to gaze, harmonize 
admirably with the idea of a sentry! 

We would not be understood, however, to 
say, that Mr. Robert Montgomery cannot make 
similitudes for himself. A very few lines far- 
ther on, we find one which has every mark of 
originality, and on which, we will be bound, 
none of the poets whom he has plundered will 
ever think of making reprisals : 

"The soul, aspiring, pants its source to mount, 
As streams meander level with their fount." 

We take this to be, on the whole, the worst 
similitude in the world. In the first place, no 
stream meanders, or can possibly meander, 
level with its fount. In the next place, if 
streams did meander level with their founts, no 
two motions can be less alike than that of 
meandering level, and that of mounting up- 
wards. 

We have then an apostrophe to the Deity, 
couched in terms which, in any writer who 
dealt in meanings, we should call profane, but 
to which, we suppose, Mr. Robert Montgomery 
attaches no idea whatever. 

"Yes! pause and think, within one fleeting hour, 
How vast a universe obeys Thy power; 
Unseen, but felt, Thine interfused control 
Works in each atom, and pervades the whole ; 
Expands the blossom, and erects the tree, 
Conducts each vapour, and commands each sea, 
Beams In each ray, bids whirlwinds be unfurPd, 
Unrolls the thunder, and upheaves a world !" 

No field-preacher ever carried his irreverent 



familiarity so far as to bid the Supreme Being 
stop and meditate on the importance of the 
interests which are under his care. The gro- 
tesque indecency of such an address throws 
into shade the subordinate absurdities of the 
passage, the unfurling of whirlwinds, the un 
rolling of thunder, and the upheaving of 
worlds. 

Then comes a curious specimen of oui 
poet's English— 

" Yet not alone created realms engage 
Thy faultless wisdom, grand, primeval sage ! 
For all the thronging woes to life allied 
Thy mercy tempers, and Thy cares provide." 

We should be glad to know what the word 
" For " means here. If it is a preposition, it 
makes nonsense of the words, "Thy mercy 
tempers." If it is an adverb, it makes non- 
sense of the words, "Thy cares provide." 

These bpauties we have taken, almost at 
random, from the first part of the poem. The 
second part is a series of descriptions of va- 
rious events,--a battle— a murder—an execu- 
tion—a marriage— a funeral— and so forth. Mr. 
Robert Montgomery terminates each of these 
descriptions, by assuring us that the Deity was 
present at the battle, murder, execution, mar- 
riage, or funeral, in question. And this propo- 
sition, which might be safely predicated of 
every event that ever happened, or ever will 
happen, forms the only link which connects 
these descriptions with the subject, or with 
each other. 

How the descriptions are executed, our rea- 
ders are probably by this time able to conjec- 
ture. The battle is made up of the battles of 
all ages and nations ; " red-mouthed cannons, 
uproaring to the clouds," and " hands grasping 
firm the glittering shield." The only military 
operations of which this part of the poem re- 
minds us are those which reduced the Abbey 
of Quedtinburgh to submission— the Templar 
with his cross— the Austrian and Prussian 
grenadiers in full uniform — and Curtius and 
Dentatus with their battering-ram. We ought 
not to pass by unnoticed the slain war-hoise, 
who will no more 

" Roll his red eye, and rally for the fight ;" 

or the slain warrior, who, while " lying on his 
bleeding breast," contrives to " stare ghastly 
and grimly on the skies." As to this last ex« 
ploit, we can only say, as Dante did on a simi* 
lar occasion, 

"Forse per forza gia di parlasia 
Si stravolse cosi alcun del tutto : 
Ma io nol vidi, ne credo che sia." 

The tempest is thus described— 

"But lo! around the marsh'lling clouds unite, 
Like thick battalions halting for the fight ; 
The sun sinks back, the tempest-spirits sweep] 
Fierce through the air, and flutter on the deep, 
Till from their caverns rush the maniac blasts, 
Tear the loose sails, and split the creaking masts, 
And the lash'd billows, rolling in a train, 
Rear their white heads, and race along the main ! 

What, we should like to know, is the differ 
ence between the two operations which Mr, 
Robert Montgomery so accurately distinguishes 
from each other, — the fierce sweeping of the 
tempest-spirits through the air, and the rushing 



663 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



if the maniac blasts from their caverns ? And 
why does the former operation end exactly 
when the latter commences ? 

We cannot stop over each of Mr. Robert 
Montgomery's descriptions. We have a ship- 
wrecked sailor, who " visions a viewless temple 
in the air;" — a murderer, who stands on a 
heath, "with ashy lips, in cold convulsion 
spread;" — a pious man, to whosi, as he lies in 
bed at night, 

"The panorama of past life appears, 
Warms his pure mind and melts it into tears ;"-*- 

a traveller, who lose:; his way, owing to the 
thickness of the "cloud-battalion," and the 
want of "heaven-lamps, to beam their holy 
light." We have a description of a convicted 
felon, stolen from that incomparable passage in 
Crabbc's Borough, which has made many a 
rough and cynical reader cry like a child. We 
can, however, conscientiously declare, that 
persons of the -most excitable sensibility may 
safely venture upon it in Mr. Robert Montgo- 
mery's alteration. Then w° have the " poor, 
mindless, pale-faced, maniac boy," who 

" Rolls his vacant eye, 
To greet the glowing fancies of the sky." 

What are the glowing fancies of the sky? 
And what is the meaning of the two lines which 
almost immediately follow ? 

"A soulless thing, a spirit of the woods, 
He loves to commune with the fields and floods." 

How can a soulless thing be a spirit ? Then 
comes a panegyric on the Sunday. A baptism 
follows : — after that a marriage ; and we then 
proceed, in due course, to the visitation of the 
sick, and the burial of the dead. 

Often as death has been personified, Mr. 
Montgomery has found something new to say 
about him. 

"O Death! thou dreadless vanquisher of earth, 
The Elements shrank blasted at thy birth ! 
Careering round the world like tempest wind, 
Martyrs before, and victims strew'd behind; 
Ages on ages cannot grapple thee, 
Dragging the world into eternity!" 

If there be any one line in this passage about 
which we are more in the dark than about the 
rest, it is the fourth. What the difference may 
be between the victims and the martyrs, and 
why the martyrs are to lie before Death, and 
the victims behind him, are to us great myste- 
ries. 

We now come to the third part, of which we 
may say with honest Cassio, " Why, this is a 
more excellent song than the other." Mr. Ro- 
bert Montgomery is very severe on the infidels, 
and undertakes to prove that, as he elegantly 
expresses it, 

"One great Enchanter helm'd the harmonious whole." 

What an enchanter has to do with helming, or 
what a helm has to do with harmony, we do 
not quite understand. He proceeds with his 
argument thus : 

" And dare men dream that dismal Chance has framed 
All that the eye perceives, or tongue has named; 
The spacious world, and all its wonders, born 
Designless, self-created, and forlorn ; 
Like to the flashing bubbles on a stream, 
Fire from the cloud, or phantom in a dream?" 



We should be sorry to stake our faith id a 
higher Power on Mr. Robert Montgomery's 
logic. Does he believe that lightning, and bub* 
bles, and the phenomena of dreams, are design- 
less and self-created 1 ? If he does, we cannot 
conceive why he may not believe that the whole 
universe is designless and self-created. A few 
lines before, he tells us that it is the Deity who 
bids "thunder rattle from the skiey deep." 
His theory is therefore this, that God made the 
thunder, but that the lightning made itself. 

But Mr. Robert) Montgomery's metaphysics 
are not at present our game. He proceeds to 
set forth the fearful effects of atheism. 

"Then, blood-stain'd Murder, bare thy hideous arm, 
And thou, Rebellion, welter in thy storm : 
Awake, ye spirits of avenging crime; 
Burst from your bonds, and battle with the time !" 

Mr. Robert Montgomery is fond of personi- 
fication, and belongs, we need not say, to that 
school of poets who hold that nothing more is 
necessary to a personification in poetry than to 
begin a word with a capital letter. Murder 
may, without impropriety, bare her arm, — as 
she did long ago, in Mr. Campbell's Pleasures 
of Hope. But what possible motive Rebellion 
can have for weltering in her storm, — what 
avenging crime may be, — who its spirits may 
be, — why they should burst from their bonds, 
— what their bonds may be, — Why they should 
battle with the time, — what the time may be, 
— and what a battle between the time and the 
spirits of avenging crime would resemble, we 
must confess ourselves quite unable to under- 
stand. 

"And here let Memory turn her tearful glance 
On the dark horrors of tumultuous France, 
When blood and blasphemy defiled her land, 
And fierce Rebellion shook her savage hand." 

Whether Rebellion shakes her own hand, 
shakes the hand of Memory, or shakes the 
hand of France, or what any one of the meta- 
phors would mean, we know no more than we 
know what is the sense of the following pass- 
age : 

"Let the foul orgies of infuriate crime 
Picture the raging havoc of that time, 
When leagued Rebellion march'd to kindle man, 
Fright in her rear, and Murder in her van. 
And thou, sweet flower of Austria, slaughtered 

Queen, 
Who dropped no tear upon the dreadful scene, 
When gushed the life-blood from thine angel form, 
And martyr'd beauty perish'd in the storm, 
Once worshipped paragon of all who saw, 
Thy look obedience, and thy smile a law," &c. 

What is the distinction between the foul orgies 
and the raging havoc which the foul orgies are 
to picture ? Why does Fright go behind Re. 
bellion, and Murder before ? Why should not 
Murder fall behind Fright? Or why should 
not all the three walk abreast ? We have read 
of a hero who had 

"Amazement in his van, with Flight combined, 
And Sorrow's faded form, and Solitude behind." 

Gray, we suspect, could have given a reason 
for disposing the allegorical attendants of Ed 
ward thus. But to proceed. — " Flower of Aus. 
tria" is stolen from Byron. "Dropped" is 
false English. " Perish'd in the storm" means 
nothing at all ; and " thy look obedience" means 



MR. ROBERT MONTGOMERY'S POEMS. 



663 



(he very reverse of what Mr. Robert Montgo- 
mery intends to say 

Our poet then proceeds to demonstrate the 
immortality of the soul : — 

." And shall the soul, the fount of reason, die, 
When dust and darkness round its temple lie 1 
Did God breathe in it no ethereal fire, 
Dimless and quenchless, though the breath expire." 

The soul is a fountain ; and therefore it is not 
to die, though dust and darkness lie round its 
temple, because an ethereal fire has been 
oreathed into it, which cannot be quenched 
though its breath expire. Is it the fountain, 
or the temple, that breathes, and has fire 
breathed into it 1 
Mr. Montgomery apostrophizes the 

"Immortal beacons, — spirits of the just." 

and describes their employments in another 
world, which are to be, it seems, bathing in 
light, hearing fiery streams flow, and riding on 
living cars-of lightning. The deathbed of the 
sceptic is described with what we suppose is 
meant for energy. 

" See how he shudders at the thought of death ! 
What doubt and horror hang upon his breath, 
The gibbering teeth, glazed eye, and marble limb. 
Shades from the tomb stalk out and stare at him." 

A man as stiff as marble, shuddering and 
gibbering violently, would certainly present so 
curious a spectacle, that the shades, if they 
came in his way, might well stare. 

We then have the deathbed of a Christian 
made as ridiculous as false imagery and false 
English can make it. But this is not enough : 
— The Day of Judgment is to be described, — 
and a roaring cataract of nonsense is poured 
forth upon this tremendous subject. Earth, we 
are told, is dashed into Eternity. Furnace 
blazes wheel round the horizon, and burst into 
bright wizard phantoms. Racing hurricanes 
unroll and whirl quivering fire-clouds. The 
white waves gallop. Shadowy worlds career 
around. The red and raging eye of Imagina- 
tion is then forbidden to pry further. But fur- 
ther Mr. Robert Montgomery persists in pry- 
ing. The stars bound through the airy roar. 
The unbosomed deep yawns on the ruin. The 
billows of Eternity then begin to advance. 
The world glares in fiery slumber. A car 
comes forward driven by living thunder. 

" Creation shudders with sublime dismay, 
And in a blazing tempest whirls away." 

And this is fine poetry ! This is what ranks 
its writer with the master-spirits of the age ! 
This is what has been described over and over 
again, in terms which would require some 
qualification if used respecting Paradise Lost ! 
It is too much that this patch work, made by 
stitching together old odds and ends of what, 
when new, was, for the most part, but tawdry 
frippery, is to be picked off the dunghill on 
which it ought to rot, and to be held up to ad- 
miration as an inestimable specimen of art. 
And what must we think of a system, by 
means of which verses like those which we 
have quoted — verses fit only for the poet's cor- 



ner of the Morning Post — can produce emohv 
ment and fame? The circulation of this 
writer's poetry has been greater than that of 
Southey's Roderic, and beyond all comparison 
greater than that of Carey's Dante, or of the 
best works of Coleridge. Thus encouraged, 
Mr. Robert Montgomery has favoured the pub« 
lie with volume after volume. We have given 
so much space to the examination of his first 
and most popular performance, that we have 
none to spare for his Universal Prayer, and his 
smaller poems, which, as the pufling journals 
tell us, would alone constitute a sufficient title 
to literary immortality. We shall pass at once 
to his last publication, entitled Satan. 

This poem was ushered into the world with 
the usual roar of acclamation. But the thing 
was now past a joke. Pretensions so un- 
founded, so impudent, and so successful, had 
aroused a spirit of resistance. In several 
magazines and reviews, accordingly Satan 
has been handled somewhat roughly, and the 
arts of the puffers have been exposed with 
good sense and spirit. We shall, therefore, be 
very concise. 

Of the two poems, we rather prefer that on 
the Omnipresence of the Deity, for the same 
reason which induced Sir Thomas Moore to 
rank one bad book above another. " Marry, 
this is somewhat. This is rhyme. But the 
other is neither rhyme nor reason." Satan is 
a long soliloquy, which the Devil pronounces 
in five or six thousand lines of blank verse, 
concerning geography, politics, newspapers, 
fashionable society, theatrical amusements, 
Sir Walter Scott's novels, Lord Byron's poetry, 
and Mr. Martin's pictures. The new designs 
for Milton have, as was natural, particularly 
attracted the attention of a personage who 
occupies so conspicuous a place in them. Mr 
Martin must be pleased to learn, that, whatever 
may be thought of those performances on 
earth, they give full satisfaction in Pandemo- 
nium, and that he is there thought to have hit 
off the likenesses of the various thrones and 
dominations very happily. 

The motto to the poem of Satan is taken 
from the Book of Job :— " Whence comest 
thou 1 From going to and fro in the earth, and 
walking up and down in it." And certainly, 
Mr. Robert Montgomery has not failed to make 
his hero go to and fro, and walk up and down. 
With the exception, however, of this propen- 
sity to locomotion, Satan has not one Satanic 
quality. Mad Tom had told us, that "the 
prince of darkness is a gentleman ;" but we 
had yet to learn that he is a respectable and 
pious gentleman, whose principal fault is, that 
he is something of a twaddle, and far too liberal 
of his good advice. That happy change in his 
character which Origen anticipated, and of 
which Tillotson did not despair, seems to be 
rapidly taking place. Bad habits are not eradi- 
cated in a moment. It is not strange, therefore, 
that so old an offender should now and then 
relapse for a short time into wrong disposi 
tions. But to give him his due, as the proverb 
recommends, we must say, that he always re- 
turns, after two or three lines of impiety, to hia 
preaching tone. We would seriously advis« 



664 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Mr. Montgomery to omit, or alter, about a hun- 
dred lines in different parts of this large volume, 
and to republish it under the name of " Ga- 
briel." The reflections of which it consists 
would come less absurdly, as far as there is a 
more and a less in extreme absurdity, from a 
good than from a bad angel. 

We ean afford room only for a single quota- 
tion. We give one taken at random — neither 
worse nor better, as far as we can perceive, 
than any other equal number of lines in the 
book. The Devil goes to the play, and moral- 
izes thereon as follows : — 

* Music and pomp their mingling spirit shed 
Around mo ; beauties in their cloud-like robes 
Shine forth,— a scenic paradise, it glares 
Intoxication through the reeling senso 
Of flushed enjoyment. In the motley host 
Three prime gradations may be ranked : the first, 
To mount upon the wings of ShakBpeare's mind, 
And win a flash of his Promethean thought, — 
To smile and weep, to shudder and achieve 
A round of passionate omnipotence, 



Attend : the second, arc a sensual trlbo. 
Convened to hear romantic harlots sing. 
On forms to banquet a lascivious gaze, 
While the bright perfidy of wanton eyes 
Through brain and spirit darts delicious Arc : 
The last, a throng most pitiful 1 who seorn, 
With their corroded figures, rnyless glance 
And death-like struggle of decaying age, 
Like painted skeletons in charnol pomp 
Set forth to satirize tho human kind! — 
J low fine a prospect for domoniac viewl 
'Creatures whoso souls outbalunco worlds awaksl' 
Methinks I hear a pitying angel cry." 

Here we conclude. If our remarks give 
pain to Mr. ltobert Montgomery, w. are sorry 
for it. But, at whatever cost of pain to indi 
viduals, literature must be purified of this 
taint. And, to. show that we are not actuated 
by any feelings of personal enmity towards 
him, we hereby give notice, that, as soon as 
any book shall, by means of pufliing, reach a 
second edition, our intention is, to do unto the 
writer of it as we have dote unto Mr. Robert 
Montgomery. 



CIVIL DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS 



«W6 



CIVIL DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS/ 



TlM distinguished member of the House of 
Commons who, towards the close of the late 

Parliament, brought forward a proposition for 
the relief of the Jew:., has given notice of bis 
intention to renew if. The force of reason, in 
the last session, carried the measure through 
one stage, in spite of the opposition of power. 
Reason and power are now on the same sidcf 

and we have little doubt that they will con- 
jointly achieve a decisive victory. In ordei 
to contribute our share to the success of just 
principles, we propose to pass in review, as 

rapidly as possible, some ot the arguments, 
or phrases claiming to be arguments, which 
have been employed to vindicate a system full 
of absurdity and injustice. 

The constitution, it is said, is essentially 
Christian ; and therefore to admit. lews to office 
is to destroy the constitution. Nor is the Jew 
injured by being excluded from political power. 

For no man has any right to bis property ; a man 

has a right to be protected from personal Injury^ 

These rights the law allow; to the Jew; and 

with these rights it would be atrocious to inter* 
i'-re. But it t» a mere matter of favour to ad- 
mit, any man to political power; and no man 

can justly complain that he is shut out from 11 

We cannot but. admire the ingenuity of this 

contrivance for shifting the burden of the proof 
from those to whom it properly belongs, and 

who would, we suspect, find it rather CUmber< 

some< Surely no Christian can deny that every 
numan being has a right to be allowed every 

gratification which produces no harm to Others, 
and to he :.pared every mortification which 
produces no good to oilier,. Is it not aSOUTCe 
of mortification to a class of men that they are 
excluded from political power? If it be, they 
have, on Christian principles, a right to he 
freed from that mortification, unless it can be 
shown that their exclusion is necessary for the 
averting of some greater evil. The presump- 
tion is evidently in favour of toleration. It is 
for the persecutor to make out his case. 

The Strange argument which we are con- 
sidering would prove too much even for those 
who advance it. If no man has a right to po- 
litical power, then neither Jew nor Gentile has 
such a right. The whole foundation of go 
vernment is taken away. Hut if government 
he taken away, the property and the perrons 
of men are Insecure; and it is; acknowledged 
that men have a right to their property and to 
personal security. If it be right that the pro- 
perty of men should be protected, and if this 
can only be done by means of government, 
then it must be right that government should 
exist. Now there cannot be government unless 
some person or persons possess political power. 
Therefore it is rij*ht that some person or per- 
sons should possess political power. That is 

* 8taUmr.nt.nf the Civil IMmbUHien and I'rivationi af- 
f teting Jewt in England. Hvn. London: 1539. 



»/> say, some person or persons must have a 

right to political jiowcr. 

It is because men arc not in the habit of 

Considering What the end of government, is 

that Catholic disabilities and Jewish disablli* 

ties have been suffered to exist so long. We 
hear of essenlja.ll/ Protestant governments 
and essentially Christian governments, words 

which mean [ust as mucn as essentially Pro* 
testant cookery, or essentially Christian horse- 
manship. Government exists for the purpose 
of keeping tin; peace, for the purpose of com* 
polling us »o settle our disputes by arbitration 

instead of settling them by blows, for the pur- 
pose of compelling us to supply our wants by 

industry instead of Supplying them by rapine. 

This is the only operation for which the ma- 
chinery Of government is peculiar ly adapted, 

the only operation which wise governments 

ever propose to them.ejye, ; , . their chief ob- 
ject. If there Is any class of people who are 

not interested, or who do not think themselves 

interested, En the security of property and the 
maintenance of order, that class ought, to have 

no share of the powers which exisl for the 
purpose of securing property and maintaining 
order. Hut why a man should be lei I fit to 

exercise those powers because be wears a 
beard, because be dors, not eat bam, because 

he goes to the synagogue on Saturdays instead 

of going to the church on Sundays, we cannot 

conceive. 

The points of difference between Christianity 

and Judaism have v.ry much to do with a 
man's fitness to be a bishop or a rabbi. Hut 

they have no more to do with his fitness to be 
a magistrate, a legislator, or a minister of 
finance, than with his fitness to be a cobblet 
Nobody has ever thought of Compelling cob- 
blers to make any declaration on the true faith 
of a Christian* Any man would rather have 
his shoes mended by a heretical cobbler than 

by a person who had subscribed all the thirty- 
nine articles, but had never handle! an awl. 
Men act thus, not, because they are indifferent 
to religion, but because they do not see what 
religion has to do with the mending of Us 
hoes. Yet religion has as much to do with the 
mending of shoes as with the budget and the 
army estimate;. We have surely had several 
signal proofs within the last twenty years that 
a v.ry good Christian may be a very bad 
Chancellor of the Exchequer. 

But it would be monstrous, say the perseou 
tors, that. Jews should legislate tor a Christian 
community. This Is a palpable misrepresent 
tation. What is proposed is, not that the Jews 
should legislate for a Christian community, but 
that a legislature composed of Christians and 
Jews should legislate for a community com 
posed of Christians and Jews. On nine hundred 
and ninety-nine questions out of a thousand, 
on all questions of police, of finance, of civL" 
and criminal law, of foreign policy, the Jew 



666 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



as a Jew, has no interest hostile to that of the 
Christian, or even to that of the Churchman. 
On questions relating to the ecclesiastical 
establishment, the Jew and the Churchman 
may differ. But they cannot differ more widely 
than the Catholic and the Churchman, or the 
Independent and the Churchman. The princi- 
ple that Churchmen ought to monopolize the 
whole power of the state would at least have 
an intelligible meaning. The principle that 
Christians ought to monopolize it has no mean- 
ing at all. For no question connected with 
the ecclesiastical institutions of the country 
can possibly come before Parliament, with re- 
spect to which there will not be as wide a dif- 
ference between Christians as there can be 
between any Christian and any Jew. 

In fact, the Jews are not now excluded from 
any political power. They possess it ; and as 
long as they are allowed to accumulate large 
fortunes, they must possess it. The distinction 
which is sometimes made between civil privi- 
leges and political powers is a distinction with- 
out a difference. Privileges are power. Civil 
and political are synonymous words, the one 
derived from the Latin, the other from the 
Greek. Nor is this mere verbal quibbling. 
If we look for a moment at the facts of the 
case, we shall see that the things are insepara- 
ble, or rather identical. 

That a Jew should be a judge in a Christian 
country would be most shocking. But he may 
De a juryman. He may try issues of fact; 
and no harm is done. But if he should be 
suffered to try issues of law, there is an end 
of the constitution. He may sit in a box 
plainly dressed, and return verdicts. But that 
he should sit on the bench in a black gown and 
white wig, and grant new trials, would be an 
abomination not to be thought of among bap- 
tized people. The distinction is certainly most 
philosophical. 

What power in civilized society is so great 
as that of the creditor over the debtor 1 If ye 
take this away from the Jew, we take away 
from him the security of his property. If we 
.eave it to him, we leave to him a power more 
despotic by far than that of the king and all 
his cabinet. 

It would be impious to let a Jew sit in Par- 
liament. But a Jew may make money; and 
money may make members of Parliament. 
Gatton and Old Sarum may be the property of 
a Hebrew. An elector of Penryn will take 
ten pounds from Shylock rather than nine 
pounds nineteen shillings and eleven pence 
three farthings from Antonio. To this no ob- 
jection is made. That a Jew should possess 
the substance of legislative power, that he 
should command eight votes on every division 
as if he were the great Duke of Newcastle 
himself, is exactly as it should be. But that 
he should pass the bar and sit down on those 
mysterious cushions of green leather, that he 
should cry " hear" and " order," and talk about 
being on his legs, and being, for one, free to 
s.ay this and to say that, would be a profana- 
tion sufficient to bring ruin on the country. 

That a Jew should be privy-councillor to a 
Christian king would be an eternal disgrace to 
'He nation. But the Jew may govern the 



money-market, and the money-market m&f 
govern the world. The minister may be u. 
doubt as to his scheme of finance till he has 
been closeted with the Jew. A congress of 
sovereigns may be forced to summon the Jew 
to their assistance. The scrawl of the Jew on 
the back of a piece of paper may be worth 
more than the royal word of three kings, or 
the nationa. faith of three new American re- 
publics. But that he should put Right Honour, 
able before his name would be the most fright 
ful of national calamities. 

It was in this way that some of our politi- 
cians reasoned about the Irish Catholics. The 
Catholics ought to have no political power. 
The sun of England is set for ever if the 
Catholics exercise political power. Give the 
Catholics every thing else ; but keep political 
power from them. These vise men did not 
see that, when every thing else had been given, 
political power had been given. They con- 
tinued to repeat their cuckoo song, when it 
was no longer a question whether Catholics 
should have political power or not, when a 
Catholic Association bearded the Parliament, 
w4ien a Catholic agitator exercised infinitely 
more authority than the lord-lieutenant. 

If it is our duty as Christians to exclude the 
Jews from political power, it must be our duty 
to treat them as our ancestors treated them, to 
murder them, and banish them, and rob them. 
For in that way, and in that way alone, can we 
really deprive them of political power. If we 
do not adopt this course, we may take away the 
shadow, but we must leave them the sub- 
stance. We may do enough to pain and irri- 
tate them; but we shall not dc enough to 
secure ourselves from danger, if danger really 
exists. Where wealth is, there power must 
inevitably be. 

The English Jews, we are told, are not Eng- 
lishmen. They are a separate people, living 
locally in this island, but living morally and 
politically in communion with their brethren 
who are scattered over all the world. An 
English Jew looks on a Dutch or a Portuguese 
Jew as his countryman, and on an English 
Christian as a stranger. This want of patrio- 
tic feeling, it is said, renders a Jew unfit to 
exercise political functions. 

The argument has in it something plausible : 
but a close examination shows it to be quite 
unsound. Even if the alleged facts are admit- 
ted, still the Jews are not the only people who 
have preferred their sect to their country. The 
feeling of patriotism, when society is in a 
healthful state, springs up, by a natural and 
inevitable association, in the minds of citizens 
who know that they owe all their comforts and 
pleasures to the bond which unites them in 
one community. But, under a partial and op- 
pressive government, these associations cannot 
acquire that strength which they have in a 
better state of things. Men are compelled to 
seek from their party that protection which 
they ought to receive from their country, and 
they, by a natural consequence, transfer to their 
party that affection which they would other- 
wise have felt for their country. The Hugue. 
nots of France called in the help of England 
against their Catholic kings. The Catholios 



CIVIL DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS. 



687 



ef France called in the help of Spain against a 
Huguenot king. Would it be fair to infer, that 
at present the French Protestants would wish 
to see their religion made dominant by the help 
of a Prussian or English army 1 Surely not. 
And why is it that they are not willing, as they 
formerly were willing, to sacrifice the interests 
of their country to the interests of their reli- 
gious persuasion ? The reason is obvious : ihey 
were persecuted then, and are not persecuted 
now. The English Puritans, under Charles 
the First, prevailed on the Scotch to invade 
England. Do the Protestant Dissenters of our 
time wish to see the church put down by an 
invasion of foreign Calvinists 1 If not, to what 
cause are we to attribute the change 1 Surely 
to this, that the Protestant Dissenters are far bet- 
ter treated now than in the seventeenth century. 
Some of the most illustrious public men that 
England ever produced were inclined to take 
refuge from the tyranny of Laud in North 
America. Was this because Presbyterians and 
Independents are incapable of loving their 
country 1 -But it is idle to multiply instances. 
Nothing is so offensive to a man who knows 
any thing of history or of human nature as to 
hear those who exercise the powers of govern- 
ment accuse any sect of foreign attachments. 
If there be any proposition universally true in 
politics it is this, that foreign attachments are 
the fruit of domestic misrule. It has always 
been the trick of bigots to make their subjects 
miserable at home, and then to complain that 
they look for relief abroad ; to divide society, 
and to wonder that it is not united ; to govern 
as if a section of the state were the whole, and 
to censure the other sections of the state for 
their want of patriotic spirit. If the Jews have 
not felt towards England like children, it is 
because she has treated them like a step- 
mother. There is no feeling which more cer- 
tainly developes itself in the minds of men 
living under tolerably good government than 
the feeling of patriotism. Since the beginning 
of the world, there never was any nation, or 
any large portion of any nation, not cruelly 
oppressed, which was wholly destitute of that 
feeling, To make it therefore ground of ac- 
cusation against a class of men, that they are 
not patriotic, is the most vulgar legerdemain 
of sophistry. It is the logic which the wolf 
employs against the lamb. It is to accuse the 
mouth of the stream of poisoning the source. 

If the English Jews really felt a deadly hatred 
to England, if the weekly prayer of their syna- 
gogues were that all the curses denounced by 
Ezekiel on Tyre and Egypt might fall on Lon- 
don, if, in their solemn feasts, they called down 
blessings on those who should dash our chil- 
dren to pieces on the stones, still, we say, their 
hatred to their countrymen would not be more 
intense than that which sects of Christians 
have often borne to each other. But in fact 
the feeling of the Jews is not such. It is pre- 
cisely what, in the situation in which they are 
placed, we should expect it to be. They are 
treated far better than the French Protestants 
were treated in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries, or than our Puritans were treated in 
the time of Laud. They, therefore, have no 
rancour against the government or against 



their countrymen. It will not be denied that 
they are far better atfected to the state than the 
followers of Coligni or Vane. But they are 
not so well treated as the dissenting sects ol 
Christians are now treated in England; and 
on this account, and, we firmly believe, on this 
account alone, they have a more exclusive 
spirit. Till we have carried the experiment 
farther, we are not entitled to conclude that 
they cannot be made Englishmen altogether. 
The statesman who treats them as aliens, and 
then abuses them for not entertaining all the 
feelings of natives, is as unreasonable as the 
tyrant who punished their fathers for not mak- 
ing bricks without straw. 

Rulers must not be suffered thus to absolve 
themselves of their solemn responsibility. It 
does not lie in their mouths to say that a sect 
is not patriotic. It is their business to make 
it patriotic. History and reason clearly indi- 
cate the means. The English Jews are, as far 
as we can see, precisely what our government 
has made them. They are precisely what any 
sect, what any class of men, treated as they 
have been treated, would have been. If all the 
.red-haired people in Europe had, during cen- 
turies, been outraged and oppressed, banished 
from this place, imprisoned in that, deprived 
of their money, deprived of their teeth, con- 
victed of the most improbable crimes on the 
feeblest evidence, dragged at horses' tails, 
hanged, tortured, burned alive, if, when man- 
ners became milder, they had still been subject 
to debasing restrictions and exposed to vulgar 
insults, locked up in particular streets in some 
countries, pelted and ducked by the rabble in 
others, excluded everywhere from magistracies 
and honours, what would be the patriotism of 
gentlemen with red hair 1 And if, under such 
circumstances, a proposition were made for 
admitting red-haired men to office, how striking 
a speech might an eloquent admirer of our 
old institutions deliver against so revolutionary 
a measure ! " These men," he might say, 
" scarcely consider themselves as Englishmen. 
They think a red-haired Frenchman or a red- 
haired German more closely connected with 
them than a man with brown hair born in their 
own parish. If a foreign sovereign patronizes 
red hair, they love him better than their own 
native king. They are not Englishmen : they 
cannot be Englishmen : nature has forbidden 
it: experience proves it to be impossible. 
Right to political power they have none ; for 
no man has a right to political power. Let 
them enjoy personal security; let their pro- 
perty be under the protection of the law. But 
if they ask for leave to exercise power over a 
community of which they are only half mem- 
bers, a community the constitution of which is 
essentially dark-haired, let us answer them in 
the words of our wise-ancestors, Nolumus leges 
JLnglia mutari." 

But, it is said, the Scriptures declare that 
the Jews are to be restored to their own coun- 
try; and the whole nation looks forward to 
that restoration. They are, therefore, not so 
deeply interested as others in the prosperity of 
England. It is not their home, but merely the 
place of their sojourn, the house of their bon. 
dage. This argument, which first appeared in 



<I08 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



rhe Times newspaper, and which has attracted 
a degree of attention proportioned not so much 
to its own intrinsic force as to the general 
talent with which that journal is conducted, 
belongs to a class of sophisms by which the 
most hateful persecutions may easily be jus- 
fied. To charge men with practical conse- 
quences which they themselves deny, is disin- 
genuous in controversy; it is atrocious in 
government. The doctrine of predestination, 
in the opinion of many people, tends to make 
those who hold it utterly immoral. And cer- 
tainly it would seem that a man who believes 
his eternal destiny to be already irrevocably 
fixed is likely to indulge his passions without 
restraint and to neglect his religious duties. 
If he is an heir of wrath, his exertions must be 
unavailing. If he is preordained to life, they 
must be superfluous. But would it be wise to 
punish every man who holds the higher doc- 
trines of Calvinism, as if he had actually com- 
mitted all those crimes which we know some 
Antinomians to have committed ? Assuredly 
not. The fact notoriously is that there are 
many Calvinists as moral in their conduct as 
any Arminian, and many Arminians as loose 
as any Calvinist. 

It is altogether impossible to reason from 
the opinions which a man professes to his feel- 
ings and his actions ; and in fact no person is 
ever such a fool as to reason thus, except when 
he wants a pretext for persecuting his neigh- 
bours. A Christian is commanded, under the 
strongest sanctions, to be just in all his deal- 
ings. Yet to how many of the twenty-four 
millions of professing Christians in these isl- 
ands would any man in his senses lend a thou- 
sand pounds without security'! A man who 
should act, for one day, on the supposition that 
all the people about him were influenced by 
the religion which they professed, would find 
himself ruined before night ; and no man ever 
does act on that supposition in any of the ordi- 
nary concerns of life, in borrowing, in lend- 
ing, in buying, or in selling. But when any of 
our feilow-creatures are to be oppressed, the 
case is different. Then we represent those 
motives which we know to be so feeble for 
good as omnipotent for evil. Then we lay to 
the charge of our victims all the vices and 
follies to which their doctrines, however re- 
motely, seem to tend. We forget that the same 
weakness, the same laxity, the same disposi- 
tion to prefer the present to the future, which 
make men worse than a good religion, make 
them better than a bad one. 

It was in this way that our ancestors rea- 
soned, and that some people in our own time 
still reason, about the Catholics. A Papist 
believes himself bound to obey the pope. The 
pope has issued a bull deposing Queen Eli- 
zabeth. Therefore every Papist will treat 
her grace as an usurper. Therefore every 
Papist is a traitor. Therefore every Papist 
ought to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. To 
this logic we owe some of the most hateful 
laws that ever disgraced our history. Surely 
the answer lies on the surface. The church 
of Rome may have commanded these men to 
treat the queen as an usurper. But she has 
tommandcd them to in many other things 



which they have never done. She enjoins he! 
priests to observe strict purity. You are 
always taunting them with their licentious* 
ness. She commands all her followers to fast 
often, to be charitable to the poor, to take no 
interest for money, to fight no duels, to see no 
plays. Do they obey these injunctions ? If it 
be the fact that very few of them strictly ob» 
serve her precepts, when her precepts are 
opposed to their passions and interests, may 
not loyalty, may not humanity, may not the 
love of ease, may not the fear of death, be 
sufficient to prevent them from executing 
those wicked orders which she has issued 
against the sovereign of England ? When 
we know that many of these people do not 
care enough for their religion to go without 
beef on a Friday for it, why should we think 
that they will run the risk of being racked and 
hanged for it 1 ? 

People are now reasoning about the Jews as 
our fathers reasoned about the Papists. The 
law which is inscribed on the walls of the sy- 
nagogues prohibits covetousness. But if we 
were to say that a Jew mortgagee would not 
foreclose, because God had commanded him 
not to covet his neighbour's house, every body 
would think us out of our wits. Yet it passes 
for an argument to say that a Jew will take no 
interest in the prosperity of the country in 
which he lives, that he will not care how bad 
its laws and police may be, how heavily it 
may be taxed, how often it may be conquered 
and given up to spoil, because God has pro- 
mised that, by some unknown means, and at 
some undetermined time, perhaps ten thousand 
years hence, the Jews shall migrate to Pales- 
tine. Is not this the most profound ignorance 
of human nature ? Do we not know that what 
is remote and indefinite affects men far less 
than what is near and certain? The argu* 
ment too applies to Christians as strongly as 
to Jews. The Christian believes, as well as 
the Jew, that at some future period the pres- 
ent order of things will come to an end. Nay, 
many Christians believe that the Messiah will 
shortly establish a kingdom on the earth, and 
reign visibly over all its inhabitants. Whether 
this doctrine be orthodox or not we shall not 
here inquire. The number of people who hold 
it is very much greater than the number of 
Jews residing in England. Many of those whfl. 
hold it are distinguished by rank, wealth, and 
ability. It is preached from pulpits, both of 
the Scottish and of the English church. No- 
blemen and members of parliament have writ- 
ten in defence of it. Now wherein does this 
doctrine differ, as far as its political tendency 
is concerned, from the doctrine of the Jews? 
If a Jew is unfit to legislate for us because he 
believes that he or his remote descendents will 
be removed to Palestine, can we safely open 
the House of Commons to a fifth monarchy 
man who expects that, before this generation 
shall pass away, all the kingdoms of the earth 
will be swallowed up in one divine empire ? 

Does a Jew engage less eagerly than a Chris* 
tian in any competition which the law leaves 
open to him ? Is he less active and regular in 
his business than his neighbours ? Does he 
furnish his house meanly, because he is a pi3. 



CIVIL DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS 



6G& 



grim and sojourner in the land 1 Does the ex- 
pectation of being restored to the country of 
his fathers make him insensible to the fluctua- 
tions of the stock-exchange 1 Does he, in ar- 
ranging his private affairs, ever take into the 
account the chance of his migrating to Pales- 
tine 1 If not, why are we to suppose that feel- 
ings which never influence his dealings as a 
merchant, or his dispositions as a testator, will 
acquire a boundless influence over him as soon 
as he becomes a magistrate or a legislator 1 

There is another argument which we would 
not willingly treat with levity, and which yet we 
scarcely know how to treat seriously. Scrip- 
ture, it is said, is full of terrible denunciations 
against the Jews. It is foretold that they 
are to be wanderers. Is it then right to give 
them a home ] It is foretold that they are to 
be oppressed. Can we with propriety suffer 
them to be rulers'? To admit them to the 
rights of citizens is manifestly to insult the 
Divine oracles. 

We allow that to falsify a prophecy inspired 
by Divine* Wisdom would be a most atrocious 
crime. It is, therefore, a happy circumstance 
for our frail species, that it is a crime which 
no man can possibly commit. If we admit the 
Jews to seats in Parliament, we shall, by so 
doing, prove that the prophecies in question, 
whatever they may mean, do not mean that the 
Jews shall be excluded from Parliament. 

In fact it is already clear that the prophecies 
do not bear the meaning put upon them by the 
respectable persons whom we are now answer- 
ing. In France and in the United States the 
Jews are already admitted to all the rights of 
citizens. A prophecy, therefore, which should 
mean that the Jews would never, during the 
course of their wanderings, be admitted to all 
the rights of citizens in the places of their so- 
journ, would be a false prophecy. This, there- 
fore, is not the meaning of the prophecies of 
Scripture. 

But we protest altogether against the prac- 
tice of confounding prophecy with precept, of 
setting up predictions which are often obscure 
against a morality which is always clear. If 
actions are to be considered as just and good 
merely because they have been predicted, what 
action was ever more laudable than that crime 
which our bigots are now, at the end of eighteen 
centuries urging us to avenge on the Jews, 
43 



that crime which made the earth shake anu 
blotted out the sun from heaven 1 The same 
reasoning which is now employed to vindicats 
the disabilities imposed on our Hebrew coun- 
trymen will equally vindicate the kiss of Judas 
and the judgment of Pilate. " The Son of man 
goeth, as it is written of him ; but woe to that 
man by whom the Son of man is betrayed.*' 
And woe to those who, in any age or in any 
country, disobey his benevolent commands un 
der pretence of accomplishing his predictions 
If this argument justifies the laws now existing 
against the Jews, it justifies equally all the 
cruelties which have ever been committee 
against them, the sweeping edicts of banish 
ment and confiscation, the dungeon, the rack 
and the slow fire. How can we excuse our- 
selves for leaving property to people who are 
" to serve their enemies in hunger, and in thirst, 
and in nakedness, and in want of all things ;" 
for giving protection to the persons of those 
who are to " fear day and night, and to have 
none assurance of their life ;" for not seizing 
on the children of a race whose "sons and 
daughters are to be given unto another people." 
We have not so learned the doctrines of 
Him who commanded us to love our neigh- 
bour as ourselves, and who, when he was 
called upon to explain what He meant by a 
neighbour, selected as an example a heretic 
and an alien. Last year, we remember, it was 
represented by a pious writer in the John Bull 
newspaper, and by some other equally fervid 
Christians, as a monstrous indecency, that the 
measure for the relief of the Jews should be 
brought forward in Passion week. One of 
these humourists ironically recommended that 
it should be read a second time on Good Fri- 
day. We should have had no objection ; nor 
do we believe that the day could be commemo- 
rated in a more worthy manner. We know of 
no day fitter for terminating long hostilities 
and repairing cruel wrongs, than the day on 
which the religion of mercy was founded. We 
know of no day fitter for blotting out from the 
statute book the last traces of intolerance than 
the day on which the spirit of intolerance pro- 
duced the foulest of all judicial murders, the 
day on which the list of the victims of intoler- 
ance, that noble list wherein Socrates and Mora 
are enrolled, was gionfied oy a yet greater and 
holier name. 



070 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



MILL'S ESSAY ON GOVERNMENT. 4 



[Edinburgh Review, March, 1829.] 



Of those philosophers who call themselves 
Utilitarians, and whom others generally call 
Benthamites, Mr. Mill is, with the exception of 
the illustrious founder of the sect, by far the 
most distinguished. The little work now before 
us contains a summary of the opinions held by 
this gentleman and his brethren, on several 
subjects most important to society. All the 
seven Essays of which it consists, abound in 
curious matter. But at present we intend to 
confine our remarks to the Treatise on Govern- 
ment, which stands first in the volume. On 
some future occasion we may perhaps attempt 
to do justice to the rest. 

It must be owned, that, to do justice to any 
composition of Mr. Mill is not, in the opinion 
of his admirers, a very easy task. They do 
not, indeed, place him in the same rank with 
Mr. Bentham ; but the terms in which they 
extol the disciple, though feeble when com- 
pared with the hyperboles of admiration em- 
ployed by them in speaking of the master, are 
as strong as any sober man would allow him- 
self to use concerning Locke or Bacon. The 
Essay before us is perhaps the most remarka- 
ble of the works to which Mr. Mill owes his 
fame. By the members of his sect, it is con- 
sidered as perfect and unanswerable. Every 
part of it is an article of their faith ; and the 
damnatory clauses,in which their creed abounds 
far beyond any theological symbol with which 
we are acquainted, are strong and full against 
all who reject any portion of what is so irre- 
fragably established. No man, they maintain, 
who has understanding sufficient to carry him 
through the first proposition t of Euclid, can 
read this master-piece of demonstration, and 
honestly declare that he remains unconvinced. 

We have formed a very different opinion of 
this work. We think that the theory of Mr. 
Mill rests altogether on false principles, and 
that even on those false principles he does not 
reason logically. Nevertheless, we do not 
think it strange that his speculations should 
have filled the Utilitarians with admiration. 
We have been for some time past inclined to 
suspect that these people, whom some regard 
as the lights of the world, and others as incar- 
nate demons, are in general ordinary men, with 
narrow understandings, and little information. 
The contempt which they express for elegant 
literature is evidently the contempt of igno- 
rance. We apprehend that many of them are 
persons who, having read little or nothing, are 
delighted to be rescued from the sense of their 
own inferiority, by some teacher who assures 



* Essays on Government, Jurisprudence, the Liberty of 
ffc« Press, Prisons and Prison Discipline, Colonies, the Law 
ef Nations and Education. By James Mill, Esq., author 
of the History of British India. Reprinted by permission 
from the Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
(Not for sale.) London. 1828 



them that the studies which they hare nsglectei 
are of no value, puts five or six phrases into 
their mouths, lends them an odd number of the 
Westminster Review, and in a month trans- 
forms them into philosophers. Mingled with 
these smatterers, whose attainments just suffice 
to elevate them from the insignificance of 
dunces to the dignity of bores, and to spread 
dismay among their pious aunts and grand- 
mothers, there are, we well know, many well- 
meaning men, who have really read and 
thought much ; but whose reading and medi- 
tation have been almost exclusively confined 
to one class of subjects ; and who s consequently 
though they possess much valuable knowledge 
respecting those subjects, are by no means so 
well qualified to judge of a great system as if 
they had taken a more enlarged view of litera- 
ture and society. 

Nothing is more amusing or instructive than 
to observe the manner in which people, who 
think themselves wiser than all the rest of the 
world, fall into snares which the simple good 
sense of their neighbours detects and avoids. 
It is one of the principal tenets of the Utilita- 
rians, that sentiment and eloquence serve only 
to impede the pursuit of truth. They there- 
fore affect a quakerly plainness, or rather a 
cynical negligence and impurity of style. The 
strongest arguments, when clothed in brilliant 
language, seem to them so much wordy non- 
sense. In the meantime they surrender their 
understandings, with a facility found in no 
other party, to the meanest and most abjec 
sophisms, provided those sophisms come before 
them disguised with the externals of demonstra- 
tion. They do not seem to know that logic has 
its illusions as well as rhetoric, — that a fallacy 
may lurk in a syllogism as well as in a 
metaphor. 

Mr. Mill is exactly the writer to please people 
of this description. His arguments are stated 
with the utmost affectation of precision : his 
divisions are awfully formal ; and his style is 
generally as dry as that of Euclid's Elements. 
Whether this be a merit, we must be permitted 
to doubt. Thus much is certain, that the ages 
in which the true principles of philosophy 
were least understood, were those it. *vhich the 
ceremonial of logic was most strictly observed, 
and that the time from which we date the rapid 
progress of the experimental sciences was also 
the time at which a less exact and formal way 
of writing came into use. 

The style which the Utilitarians admire, suits 
only those subjects on which it is possible to 
reason a priori. It grew up with the verbal 
sophistry which flourished during the dark 
ages. With that sophistry it fell before the 
Baconian philosophy, in the day of the great 
deliverance of ths human mind. Thr induc- 
tive method not enly endured, but tequirej, 



MILL'S ESSAY ON GOVERNMENT. 



671 



greater freedom of diction. It was impossible 
to reason from phenomena up to principles, to 
mark slight shades of difference in quality, or 
»o estimate the comparative effect of two oppo- 
site considerations, between which there was 
no common measure, by means of the naked 
and meager jargon of the schoclmen. Of those 
schoolmen, Mr. Mill has inherted both the spirit 
and the style. He is an Aristotelian of the 
fifteenth century, born out of due season. We 
have here an elaborate treatise on government, 
from which, but for two or three passing allu- 
sions, it would not appear that the author was 
aware that any governments actually existed 
among men. Certain propensities of human 
nature are assumed ; and from these premises 
the whole science of polities is synthetically 
deduced ! We can scarcely persuade ourselves 
that we are not reading a book written before 
the time of Bacon and Galileo, — a book written 
in those days in which physicians reasoned 
from the nature of heat to the treatment of 
fever, and astronomers proved syllogistically 
that the planets could have no independent 
motion, — because the heavens were incorrupti- 
ble, and nature abhorred a vacuum ! 

The reason, too, which Mr. Mill has assigned 
for taking this course strikes us as most extra- 
ordinary. 

" Experience," says he, " if we look only at 
f .he outside of the facts, appears to be divided on 
this subject. Absolute monarchy, under Neros 
and Caligulas, under such men as the emperors 
of Morocco and sultans of Turkey, is the 
scourge of human nature. On the other side, 
the people of Denmark, tired out with the op- 
pression of an aristocracy, resolved that their 
king should be absolute ; and, under their abso- 
lute monarch, are as well governed as any 
people in Europe." 

This Mr. Mill actually gives as a reason for 
pursuing the a priori method But, in our 
judgment, the very circumstances which he 
mentions, irresistibly prove that the a priori 
method is altogether unfit for investigations of 
this kind, and that the only way to arrive at the 
truth is by induction. Experience can never be 
divided, or even appear to be divided, except 
with reference to some hypothesis. When we 
say that one fact is inconsistent with another 
fact, we mean only that it is inconsistent with 
the theory which we have founded on that other 
fact. But, if the fact be certain, the unavoid- 
able conclusion is, that our theory is false : and 
in order to correct it, we must reason back from 
an enlarged collection of facts to principles. 

Now, here we have two governments which, 
by Mr. Mill's own account, come under the 
same head in his theoretical classification. It 
is evident, therefore, that, by reasoning on that 
theoretical classification, we shall be brought 
to the conclusion that these two forms of go- 
vernment must produce the same effects. But 
Mr. Mill himself tells us, that they do not pro- 
duce the same effects. Hence he infers, that 
the only way to get at truth is to place implicit 
confidence in that chain of proof a priori, from 
which it appears that they must produce the 
same effects ! To believe at once in a theory, 
and in a fact which contradicts it, is an exer- 
cise of faith sufficiently hard: But, to believe 



in a theory because a fact contradicts it, is what 
neither philosopher nor pope ever before re» 
quired. This, however, is what Mr. Mill de* 
mands of us. He seems to think that if all 
despots, without exception, governed ill, it 
would be unnecessary to prove, by a synthetical 
argument, what would then be sufficiently clear 
from experience. But as some despots will be 
so perverse as to govern well, he finds himself 
compelled to prove the impossibility of their 
governing well, by that synthetical argument, 
which would have been superfluous had not 
the facts contradicted it. He reasons a priori, 
because the phenomena are not what, by rea- 
soning a priori, he will prove them to be. In 
other words, he reasons a priori, because, by so 
reasoning, he is certain to arrive at a false 
conclusion! 

In the course of the examination to which 
we propose to subject the speculations of Mr. 
Mill, we shall have to notice many other curious 
instances of that turn of mind which the pas- 
sage above quoted indicates. 

The first chapter of his Essay relates to the 
ends of government. The conception on this 
subject, he tells us, which exists in the minds 
of most men, is vague and undistinguishing. 
He first assumes, justly enough, that the end 
of government is "to increase to the utmost 
the pleasures, and diminish to the utmost the 
pains, which men derive from each other." He 
then proceeds to show, with great form, that 
" the greatest possible happiness of society is 
attained by insuring to every man the greatest 
possible quantity of the produce of his labour." 
To effect this is, in his opinion, the end of go- 
vernment. It is remarkable that Mr. Mill, with 
all his affected display of precision, has here 
given a description of the ends of government 
far less precise than that which is in the 
mouths of the vulgar. The first man with 
whom Mr. Mill may travel in a stage-coach 
will tell him that government exists for the 
protection of the persons and property of men. 
But Mr. Mill seems to think that the preserva- 
tion of property is the first and only object. It 
is true, doubtless, that many of the injuries 
which are offered to the persons of men pro- 
ceed from a desire to possess their property. 
But the practice of vindictive assassination, 
as it has existed in some parts of Europe — the 
practice of fighting wanton and sanguinary 
duels, like those of the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries, in which bands of seconds 
risked their lives as well as the principals ; — 
these practices, and many others which might 
be named, are evidently injurious to society; 
and we do not see how a government which 
'tolerated them could be said " to diminish to 
the utmost the pains which men derive from 
each other." Therefore, according to Mr. 
Mill's very correct assumption, such a govern- 
ment would not perfectly accomplish the end 
of its institution. Yet such a government 
might, as far as we can perceive, " insure to 
every man the greatest possible quantity of the 
produce of his labour." Therefore, such a 
government might, according to Mr. Mill's 
subsequent doctrine, perfectly accomplish the 
end of its institution. The matter is not of 
much consequence, exct pt as an instance cf 



672 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



that slovenliness of thinking which is often 
concealed beneath a peculiar ostentation of 
logical neatness. 

Having determined the ends, Mr. Mill pro- 
ceeds to consider the means. For the pre- 
servation of property, some portion of the 
community must be intrusted with power. 
This is government; and the question is, how 
are those to whom the necessary power is in- 
trusted to be prevented from abusing ill 

Mr. Mill first passes in review the simple 
forms of government. He allows that it would 
be inconvenient, if not physically impossible, 
that the whole community should meet in a 
mass ; it follows, therefore, that the powers of 
government cannot be directly exercised by 
the people. But he sees no objection to pure 
and direct democracy, except the difficulty 
which we have mentioned. 

"The community," says he, "cannot have 
an interest opposite to its interest. To affirm 
this would be a contradiction in terms. The 
community within itself, and with respect to 
itself, can have no sinister interest. One com- 
munity may intend the evil of another; never 
its own. This is an indubitable proposition, 
and one of great importance." 

Mr. Mill then proceeds to demonstrate that 
a purely aristocratical form of government is 
necessarily bad. 

" The reason for which government exists 
is, that one man, if stronger than another, will 
take from him whatever that other possesses 
and he desires. But if one man will do this, 
so will several. And if powers are put into 
the hands of a comparatively small number, 
called an aristocracy, — powers which make 
them stronger than the rest of the community, 
they will take from. the rest of the community 
as much as they please of the objects of desire. 
They will thus defeat the very end for which 
government was instituted. The unfitness, 
therefore, of an aristocracy to be intrusted 
with the powers of government, rests on de- 
monstration." 

In exactly the same manner Mr. Mill proves 
absolute monarchy to be a bad form of govern- 
ment. 

"If government is founded. upon this as a law 
of human nature, that a man, if able, will take 
from others any thing which they have and he 
desires, it is sufficiently evident that when a 
man is called a king he does not change his 
nature ; so that when he has got power to en- 
able him to take from every man what he 
pleases, he will take whatever he pleases. 
To suppose that he will not, is to affirm that 
government is unnecessary, and that human 
beings will abstain from injuring one another 
of their own accord. 

" It is very evident that this reasoning ex- 
tends to every modification of the smaller 
number. "Whenever the powers of govern- 
ment are placed in any hands other than those 
of the community, whether those of one man, 
of a few, or of several, those principles of hu- 
man nature which imply that government is at 
all necessary, imply that those persons will 
make use of them to defeat the very end for 
which government ex'sts." 
But is it not possil le that a king or an aris- 



tocracy may soon oe saturated with the object! 
of their desires, and may then protect the com- 
munity in the enjoyment of the rest? Mr. 
Mill answers in the negative. He proves, with 
great pomp, that every man desires to have 
the actions of every other correspondent to 
his will. Others can be induced to conform 
to our will only by motives derived from plea- 
sure or from pain. The infliction of pain is 
of course direct injury; and even if it take the 
milder course, in order to produce obedience 
by motives derived from pleasure, the govern- 
ment must confer favours. But, as there is no 
limit to its desire of obedience, there will be n? 
limit to its disposition to confer favours ; and, 
as it can confer favours only by plundering 
the people, there will be no limit to its disposi 
tion to plunder the people. "It is therefort 
not true, that there is in the mind of a king, or 
in the minds of an aristocracy, any point of 
saturation with the objects of desire." 

Mr. Mill then proceeds to show that, as mo- 
narchical and oligarchical governments can 
influence men by motives drawn from pain as 
well as by motives drawn from pleasure, they 
will carry their cruelty, as well as their rapa- 
city, to a frightful extent. As he seems greatly 
to admire his own reasonings on this subject, 
we think it but fair to let him speak for him- 
self. 

"The chain of inference in this case is close 
and strong to a most unusual degree. A man 
desires that the actions of other men shall be 
instantly and accurately correspondent to his 
will. He desires that the actions of the great- 
est possible number shall be so. Terror is the 
grand instrument. Terror can work only 
through assurance that evil will follow any 
failure of conformity between the will and the 
actions willed. Every failure must therefore 
be punished. As there are no bounds to the 
mind's desire of its pleasure, there are, of 
course, no bounds to its desire of perfection 
in the instruments of that pleasure. There 
are, therefore, no bounds to its desire of exact- 
ness in the conformity between its will and the 
actions willed; and, by consequence, to the 
strength of that terror which is its procuring 
cause. Even the most minute failure must be 
visited with the heaviest infliction ; and as 
failure in extreme exactness must frequently 
happen, the occasions of cruelty must be in 
cessant. 

"We have thus arrived at several conclu- 
sions of the highest possible importance. We 
have seen that the principle of human nature 
upon which the necessity of government is 
founded, the propensity of one man to possess 
himself of the objects of desire at the cost of 
another, leads on, by infallible sequence, where 
power over a community is attained, and no- 
thing checks, not only to that degree of plun- 
der which leaves the members, (excepting al- 
ways the recipients and instruments of the 
plunder,) the bare means of subsistence, but 
to that degree of cruelty which is necessary to 
keep in existence the most intense terrors." 

Now, no man who has the least knowledge 
of the real state of the world, either in former 
ages or at the present moment, can possibly 
be convinced, though he may perhaps be b«- 



MILL'S ESSAY ON GOVERNMENT. 



678 



Jttldered, by arguments like these. During 
the last two centuries, some hundreds of ab- 
solute princes have reigned in Europe. Is 
it true that their cruelty has kept in exist- 
ence the most intense degree of terror, that 
their rapacity has left no more than the bare 
means of subsistence to any of their subjects, 
their ministers and soldiers excepted 1 Is this 
true of all of them 1 Of one-half of them 1 
Of one-tenth part of them ] Of a single one 1 
Is it true, in the full extent, even of Philip the 
Second, of Lewis the Fifteenth, or of the Em- 
peror Paull But -it is scarcely necessary to 
quote history. No man o: common sense, 
however ignorant he may be of books, can be 
imposed on by Mr. Mill's argument; because 
no man of comm n sense can live among his 
fellow-creatures for a day without seeing in- 
numerable facts which contradict it. It is our 
business, however, to point out its fallacy; and, 
happily, the fallacy is not very recondite. 

We grant that rulers will take as much as 
they canjaf the objects of their desires; and 
that when the agency of other men is neces- 
sary to that end. they will attempt by all means 
in their power to enforce the prompt obedience 
of such men. But what are the objects of hu- 
man desire 1 Physical pleasure, no doubt, in 
part. But the mere appetites which we have 
in common with the animals, would be gratified 
almost as cheaply and easily as those of the 
animals ao gratified, if nothing were given to 
taste, to os5 mtation, or to the affections. How 
small a portion of the income of a gentleman 
in easy circumstances is laid out merely in 
giving pleasurable sensations to the body of 
the possessor 1 The greater part even of what 
is spent on his kitchen and his cellar, goes not 
to titillate his palate, but to keep up his charac- 
ter for hospitality, to save him from the re- 
proach of meanness in house-keeping, and to 
cement the ties of good neighbourhood. It is 
clear, that a king or an aristocracy may be 
supplied to satiety with mere corporeal plea- 
sures, at an expense which the rudest and 
poorest community would scarcely feel. 

Those tastes and propensities which belong 
to us as reasoning and imaginative beings, are 
not, indeed, so easily gratified. There is, we 
admit, no point of saturation .with objects of 
desire which come under this head. And 
therefore the argument of Mr. Mill will be just, 
unless there be something in the nature of the 
objects of desire themselves which is incon- 
sistent with i,t. Now, of these objects there is 
none which men in general seem to desire 
more than the good opinion of others. The 
hatred and contempt of the public are gene- 
rally felt to be intolerable. It is probable, that 
our regard .'or the sentiments of our fellow- 
creatures springs by association from a sense 
of their ability to hurt or to serve us. But be 
this as it may, it is notorious, that when the 
habit of mind of which we speak has once been 
formed, men feel extremely solicitous about 
the opinions of those by whom it is most im- 
probable, nay, absolutely impossible, that they 
should ever be in the slightest degree injured 
or benefited. The desire of posthumous fame, 
and the dread of posthumous reproach and 



execration, are feelings from the influence of 
which scarcely any man is perfectly free, and 
which in many men are powerful and constan' 
motives of action. As we are afraid that, if 
we handle this part of the argument after our 
own manner, we shall incur the reproach of 
sentimentality, a word which, in the sacred 
language of the Benthamites, is synonymous 
with idiocy, we will quote what Mr. Mill him- 
self says on the subject, in his Treatise on 
Jurisprudence. 

iC Pains from the moral source are the pains 
derived from the unfavourable sentiments of 

mankind These pains are capable 

of rising to a height with which hardly any 
other pains incident to our nature can be 
compared. There is a certain degree of un- 
favourableness in the sentiments of his fellow- 
creatures, under which hardly any man, not 
below the standard of humanity, can endure 
to live. 

" The importance of this powerful agency, 
for the prevention of injurious acts, is too ob- 
vious to need to be illustrated. If sufficiently 
at command, it would almost supersede the 
use of other means. . . . 

"To know how to direct the unfavourable 
sentiments of mankind, it is necessary to know 
in as complete, that is, in as comprehensive, a 
way as possible, what it is which gives them 
birth. Without entering into the metaphysics 
of the question, it is a sufficient practical an- 
swer, for the present purpose, to say that the 
unfavourable sentiments of man are excited 
by every thing which hurts them." 

It is strange that a writer who considers the 
pain derived from the unfavourable sentiments 
of others as so acute, that, if sufficiently at 
command, it would supersede the use of the 
gallows and the treadmill, should take no no- 
tice of this most important restraint, when 
discussing the question of government. We 
will attempt to deduce a theory of politics in 
the mathematical form, in which Mr. Mill de- 
lights, from the premises with which he has 
himself furnished us. 

PROPOSITION I. THEOREM. 

No rulers will do any thing which may hurt 
the people. 

This is the thesis to be maintained ; and the 
following we humbly offer to Mr. Mill as its 
syllogistic demonstration. 

No rulers will do that which produces pain 
to themselves. 

But the unfavourable sentiments of the peo 
pie will give pain to them. 

Therefore no rulers will do any thing which 
may excite the unfavourable sentiments of the 
people. 

But the unfavourable sentiments of the peo 
pie are excited by every thing which hurt* 
them. 

Therefore no rulers will do any thing which 
may hurt the people, which was the thing to 
be proved. 

Having thus, as we think, not unsuccessfully 
imitated Mr. Mill's logic, we do not see why 
we should not imitate what is at least equally 
perfect in its kind, his self-complacency, and 



674 



MAUAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



proclaim our Ewg«*« in his own words : " The 
chain of inference, in this case, is close and 
strong to a most unusual degree." 

The fact is, that when men, in treating of 
things which cannot be circumscribed by pre- 
cise definitions, adopt this mode of reasoning, 
when once they begin to talk of power, happi- 
ness, misery, pain, pleasure, motives, objects 
of desire, as they talk of lines and numbers, 
there is no end to the contradictions and absur- 
dities into which they fall. There is no pro- 
position so monstrously untrue in morals or 
politics that we will not undertake to prove it, 
by something which shall sound like a logical 
demonstration, from admitted principles. 

Mr. Mill argues, that if men are not inclined 
to plunder each other, government is unneces- 
sary; and that, if they are so inclined, the 
powers of government, when intrusted to a 
small number of them, will necessarily be 
abused. Surely it is not by propounding di- 
lemmas of this sort that we are likely to arrive 
at sound conclusions in any moral science. 
The whole question is a question of degree. 
If all men preferred the moderate approbation 
of their neighbours to any degree of wealth, or 
grandeur, or sensual pleasure, government 
would be unnecessary. If all men desired 
wealth so intensely as to be willing to brave 
the hatred of their fellow-creatures for six- 
pence, Mr. Mill's argument against monarchies 
and aristocracies would be true to the full ex- 
tent. But the fact is, that all men have some 
desires which impel them to injure their neigh- 
bours, and some desires which impel them to 
benefit their neighbours. Now, if there were 
a community consisting of two classes of men, 
one of which should be principally influenced 
by the one set of motives, and the other by the 
other, government would clearly be necessary 
to restrain the class which was eager of plun- 
der, and careless of reputation : and yet the 
powers of government might be safely intrust- 
ed to the class which was chiefly actuated by 
the love of approbation. Now, it might, with 
no small plausibility, be maintained, that, in 
many countries, there are two classes which, in 
some degree, answer to this description ; that 
the poor compose the class which government 
is established to restrain: and the people of 
some property the class to which the powers 
of government may without danger be con- 
fided. It might be said, that a man who can 
barely earn a livelihood by severe labour, is 
under stronger temptations to pillage others 
than a man who enjoys many luxuries. It 
might be said, that a man who is lost in the 
crowd is less likely to have the fear of public 
opinion before his eyes, than a man whose 
station and mode of living rendered him con- 
spicuous. We do not assert all this. We only 
say, that it was Mr. Mill's business to prove 
the contrary ; and that, not having proved the 
contrary, he is not entitled to say, " that those 
principles which imply that government is at 
all necessary, imply that an aristocracy will 
make use of its power to defeat the end for 
which governments exist." This is not true, 
unless it be true that a rich man is as likely to 
covet the goods of his neighbours as a poor 
man ; and that a poor man is as likely to be 



solicitous about the opinion of his neighbours 
as a rich man. 

But we do not see that, by reasoning a prion 
on such subjects as these, it is possible to 
advance one single step. We know that ever} 
man has some desires which he can gratify 
only by hurting his neighbours, and some 
which he can gratify only by pleasing them. 
Mr. Mill has chosen only to look at one-half of 
human nature, and to reason on the motives 
which impel men to oppress and despoil others, 
as if they were the only motives by which men 
could possibly be influenced. We have already 
shown that, by taking the other half of the 
human character, and reasoning on it as if it 
were the whole, we can bring out a result dia- 
metrically opposite to that at which Mr. Mill 
has arrived. We can, by such a process, easily 
prove that any form of government is good, or 
that all government is superfluous. 

We must now accompany Mr. Mill on the 
next stage of his argument. Does any combi- 
nation of the three simple forms of government 
afford the requisite securities against the abuse 
of power? Mr. Mill complains that those who 
maintain the affirmative generally beg the 
question, and proceeds to settle the point by 
proving, after his fashion, that no combination 
of the three simple forms, or of any two of them, 
can possibly exist. 

" From the principles which we have already 
laid down, it follows that, of the- objects of hu- 
man desire, and speaking more definitely, of 
the means to the ends of human desire, namely, 
wealth and power, each party will endeavour to 
obtain as much as possible. 

"If any expedient presents itself to any of 
the supposed parties effectual to this end, and 
not opposed to any preferred object of pursuit, 
we may infer, with certainty, that it will be 
adopted. One effectual expedient is not more 
effectual than obvious. Any two of the par- 
ties, by combining may swallow up the third. 
That such combinations will take place, ap- 
pears to be as certain as any thing which de- 
pends upon human will: because there are 
strong motives in favour of it, and none that 

can be conceived in opposition to it 

The mixture of three of the kinds of govern- 
ment, it is thus evident, cannot possibly exist. 

It may be proper to inquire, whether 

a union may not be possible of two of them. 

" Let us first suppose, that monarchy is united 
with aristocracy. Their power is equal or not 
equal. If it is not equal, it follows, as a neces- 
sary consequence, from the principles which 
we have already established, that the stronger 
will take from the weaker till it engrosses the 
whole. The only question, therefore, is, What 
will happen when the power is equal 1 

" In the first place, it seems impossible that 
such equality should ever exist. How is it to 
be established? or, by what criterion is it to be 
ascertained 1 If there is no such criterion, it 
must, in all cases, be the result of chance. If 
so, the chances against it are as infinity to one. 
The idea, therefore, is wholly chimerical and 
absurd. . . . 

" In this doctrine of the mixture of the sim- 
ple forms of government is included the cele« 
brated theory of the balance among the cor* 



MILL'S ESSAY ON GOVERNMENT. 



675 



ponent parts of a government. By this it is 
supposed that, when a government is composed 
of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, they 
balance one another, and by mutual checks 
produce good government. A few words will 
suffice to show that, if any theory deserves the 
epithet of * wild, visionary, and chimerical,' it 
is that of the balance. If there are three 
powers, How is it possible to prevent two of 
them from combining to swallow up the third 1 

" The analysis which we have already per- 
formed will enable us to trace rapidly the con- 
catenation of causes and effects in this ima- 
gined case. 

" We have already seen that the interest of 
the community, considered in the aggregate, or 
in the democratical point c? view, is, that each 
individual should receive protection ; and that 
the powers which are constituted for that pur- 
pose should be employed exclusively for that 

purpose We have also seen that the 

interest of the king and of the governing aris- 
tocracy is. directly the reverse. It is to have 
unlimited power over the rest of the commu- 
nity, and to use it for their own advantage. In 
the supposed case of the balance of the 
monarchical, aristocratical, and democratical 
powers, it cannot be for the interest either of 
the monarchy or the aristocracy to combine 
with the democracy ; because it is the interest 
of the democracy, or community at large, 
that neither the king nor the aristocracy should 
have one particle of power, or one particle of 
tfte wealth of the community, for their own 
advantage, 

"The democracy or community have aZ 
jossible motives to endeavour to prevent the 
monarchy and aristocracy from exercising 
power, or obtaining the wealth of the commu- 
nity for their own advantage. The monarchy 
and aristocracy have all possible motives for 
endeavouring to obtain unlimited power over 
the persons and property of the community. 
The consequence is inevitable ; they have all 
possible motives for combining to obtain that 
power." 

If any part of this passage be more emi- 
nently absurd than another, it is, we think, the 
argument by which Mr. Mill proves that there 
cannot be a union of monarchy and aristo- 
cracy. Their power, he says, must be equal or 
not equal. But of equality there is no crite- 
rion. Therefore the chances against its exist- 
ence are as infinity to one. If the power be 
not equal, then it follows, from the principles 
of human nature, that the stronger will take 
from the weaker, till it has engrossed the 
whole. 

Now, if there be no criterion of equality be- 
tween two portions of power, there can be no 
common measure of portions of power. There- 
fore it is utterly impossible to compare them 
together. But where two portions of power 
are of the same kind, there is no difficulty in 
ascertaining, sufficiently for all practical pur- 
poses, whether they are equal or unequal. It 
is easy to judge whether two men run equally 
fast, or caii lift equal weights. Two arbitrators, 
whose joint decision is to be final, and neither 
of whom can do any thing without the assent 
»f the other, possess equal power. Two elec- 



tors, each of whom has a vote for a borough, 
possess, in that respect, equal power. If not, 
all Mr. Mill's political theories fall to the ground 
at once. For if it be impossible to ascertain 
whether two portions of power are equal, he 
never can show that, even under a system of 
universal suffrage, a minority might not carry 
every thing their own way, against the wishes 
and interests of the majority. 

Where there are two portions of power dif- 
fering in kind, there is, we admit, no criterion 
of equality. But then, in such a case, it is ab- 
surd to talk, as Mr. Mill does, about the stronger 
and the weaker. Popularly, indeed, and with 
reference to some particular objects, these 
words may very fairly be used. But to use 
them mathematically is altogether improper. 
If we are speaking of a boxing-match, we may 
say that some famous bruiser has greater bo- 
dily power than any man in England. If we 
are speaking of a pantomime, we may say the 
same of some very agile harlequin. But it 
would be talking nonsense to say, in general, 
that the power of the harlequin either exceeded 
that of the pugilist, or fell short of it. 

If Mr. Mill's argument be good as between 
different branches of a legislature, it is equally 
good as between sovereign powers. Every 
government, it may be said, will, if it can, take 
the objects of its desires from every other. If 
the French government can subdue England, 
it will do so. If the English government can 
subdue France, it will do so. But the power ol 
England and France is either equal or not equal 
The chance that it is not exactly equal is as 
infinity to one, and may safely be left out of the 
account ; and then the stronger will fdtfallifc y 
take from the weaker, till the weaker is altoge- 
ther enslaved. 

Surely the answer to all this hubbub of ui* 
meaning words is the plainest possible. For 
some purposes France is stronger than 
England. For some purposes England is 
stronger than France. For some, neither has 
any power at all. France has the greater 
population, England the greater capital; 
France has the greater army, England the 
greater fleet. For an expedition to Rio Janeiro 
or the Philippines, England has the greater 
power. For a war on the Po or on the Danube, 
France has the greater power. But neither has 
power sufficient to keep the other in quiet sub- 
jection for a month. Invasion would be very 
perilous ; the idea of complete conquest on 
either side utterly ridiculous. This is the 
manly and sensible way of discussing such 
questions. The ergo, or rather the argal, of Mr. 
Mill, cannot impose on a child. Yet we ought 
scarcely to say this ; for we remember to have 
heard a child ask whether Bonaparte was 
stronger than an elephant ? 

Mr. Mill reminds us of those philosophers 
of the sixteenth century, who, having satisfied 
themselves a priori that the rapidity with which 
bodies descended to the earth varied exactly as 
their weights, refused to believe the contrary 
on the evidence of their own eyes ami ears 
The British constitution, according to Mr. 
Mill's classification, is a mixture of monarchy 
and aristocracy; one house of Parliamen 
being composed of hereditary nobles, and th« 



676 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ether almost entirely chosen by a privileged 
class, who possess the elective franchise on 
account of their property, or their connection 
with certain corporations. Mr. Mill's argu- 
ment proves that, from the time that these two 
powers were mingled in our government, that 
is, from the very first dawn of our history, one 
or the other must have been constantly en- 
croaching. According to him, moreover, all 
the encroachments must have been on one 
side. For the first encroachment could only 
have been made by the stronger, and that 
first encroachment would have made the 
stronger stronger still. It is, therefore, mat- 
ter of absolute demonstration, that either the 
Parliament was stronger than the crown in 
the reign of Henry VIII., or that the crown 
was stronger than the Parliament in 1641. 
"Hippocrate dira ce que lui plaira," says the 
girl in Moliere ; " mais le cocher est mort." 
Mr. Mill may say what he pleases ; but the 
English constitution is still alive. That, since 
the Revolution, the Parliament has possessed 
great power in the state, is what nobody will 
dispute. The king, on the other hand, can cre- 
ate new peers, and can dissolve Parliaments. 
William sustained severe mortifications from 
the House of Commons, and was, indeed, un- 
justifiably oppressed. Anne was desirous to 
change a ministry which had a majority in 
both houses. She watched her moment for a 
dissolution, created twelve tory peers, and suc- 
ceeded. Thirty years later, the House of Com- 
mons drove Walpole from his seat. In 1784, 
George III. was able to keep Mr. Pitt in office, 
in the face of a majority of the House of Com- 
mons. In 1804, the apprehension of a defeat 
in Parliament, compelled the same king to part 
from his most favoured minister. But in 1807, 
he was able to do exactly what Anne had done 
nearly a hundred years before. Now, had the 
power of the king increased during the inter- 
vening century, or had it remained stationary 1 
Is it possible that the one lot among the infinite 
number should have fallen to us 1 If not, Mr. 
Mill has proved that one of the two parties must 
have been constantly taking from the other. 
Many of the ablest men in England think that 
the influence of the crown has, on the whole, 
increased since the reign of Anne. Others 
think that Vie Parliament has been growing in 
strength. But of this there^is no doubt, that 
both sides possessed great power then, and 
possess great power now. Surely, if there were 
the least truth in the argument of Mr. Mill, it 
could not possibly be a matter of doubt, at the 
end of a hundred and twenty years, whether 
the one side or the other had been the gainer. 

But we ask pardon. We lorgot that a fact, 
irreconcilable with Mr. Mill's theory, furnishes, 
in his opinion, the strongest reason for adher- 
ing to the theory. To take up the question in 
another manner, is it not plain that there may 
be two bodies, each possessing a perfect and 
entire power, which cannot be taken from it 
without its own concurrence] What is the 
meaning of the words stronger and weaker, 
when applied to such bodies as these ? The 
one may, indeed, by physical force altogether 

estroy the other. But this is not the question. 

\ third party, a general of their own. for ex- 



ample, may, by physical force, subjugate then 
both : nor is there any form of government 
Mr. Mill's Utopian democracy not excepted, 
secure from such an occurrence. We are 
speaking of the powers with which the consti 
tution invests the two branches of the legisla 
ture ; and we ask Mr. Mill how, on his own 
principles, he can maintain that one of them 
will be able to encroach on the other, if the 
consent of the other be necessary to such en- 
croachment 1 

Mr. Mill tells us, that if a government be 
composed of the three simple forms, which he 
will not admit the British constitution to be, 
two of the component parts will inevitably join 
against the third. Now, if two of them com- 
bine and act as one, this case evidently resolves 
itself into the last ; and all the observations 
which we have just made will fully apply to 
it. Mr. Mill says, that " any two of the par- 
ties, by combining, may swallow up the third ;" 
and afterwards asks, "How is it possible to 
prevent two of them from combining to swal- 
low up the third!" Surely Mr. Mill must be 
aware, that in politics two is not always the 
double of one. If the concurrence of all the 
three branches of the legislature be necessary 
to every law, each branch will possess consti 
tutional power sufficient to protect it against 
any thing but that physical force, from which 
no form of government is secure. Mr. Mill 
reminds us of the Irishman, who could not be 
brought to understand how one juryman could 
possibly starve out eleven others. 

But is it certain that two of the branches of 
the legislature will combine against the third? 
"It appears to be as certain," says Mr. Mill, 
"as any thing which depends upon human 
will ; because there are strong motives in fa- 
vour of it, and none that can be conceived in 
opposition to it." He subsequently sets forth 
what these motives are. The interest of the 
democracy is, that each individual should re- 
ceive protection. The interest of the king 
and the aristocracy is, to have all the power 
that they can obtain, and to use it for their own 
ends. Therefore the king and the aristocracy 
have all possible motives for combining against 
the people. If our readers will look back to the 
passage quoted above, they will see that we re- 
present Mr. Mill's argument quite fairly. 

Now we should have thought that, without 
the help of either history or experience, Mr. 
Mill would have discovered, by the light of his 
own logic, the fallacy which lurks, and indeed 
scarcely lurks, under this pretended demon- 
stration. The interest of the king may be op- 
posed to that of the people. But is it identical 
with that of the aristocracy 1 In the very page 
which contains this argument, in tended to prove 
that the king and the aristocracy will coalesce 
against the people, Mr. Mill attempts to show 
that there is so strong an opposition of interest 
between the king and the aristocracy, that if 
the powers of government are divided between 
them, the one will inevitably usurp the power 
of the other. If so, he is not entitled to con- 
clude that! they will combine to destroy the 
power of the people, merely because their in- 
terests may be at variance with those of the 
people. He is bound to show, not merely thai 



MILL'S ESSAY ON GOVERNMENT. 



677 



m all communities the interest of a king must 
be opposed to that of the people, but also that, 
in all communities, it must be more directly 
opposed to the interest of the people than to 
the interest of the aristocracy. But he has not 
shown this. Therefore he has not proved his 
proposition on his own principles. To quote 
history would be a mere waste of time. Every 
school-boy, whose studies have gone so far as 
the abridgments of Goldsmith, can mention in- 
stances in which sovereigns have allied them- 
selves with the people against the aristocrac)*-, 
and in which nobles have allied themselves 
with the people against the sovereign. In ge- 
neral, when there are three parties, every one 
of which has much to fear from the others, it 
is not found that two of them combine to plun- 
der the third. If such a combination be formed, 
it scarcely ever effects its purpose. It soon be- 
comes evident which member of the coalition 
is likely to be the greater gainer by the trans- 
action. He becomes an object of jealousy to 
his ally, wjjo, in all probability, changes sides, 
and compels him to restore what he has taken. 
Everybody knows how Henry VIII. trimmed 
between Francis and the Emperor Charles. 
But it is idle to cite examples of the operation 
ol a principle which is illustrated in almost 
every page of history, ancient or modern, and 
to which almost every state in Europe has, at 
one time or another, been indebted for its in- 
dependence. 

Mr. Mill has now, as he conceives, demon- 
strated that the simple forms of government 
are bad, and that the mixed forms cannot pos- 
*ibly exist. There is still, however, it seems, 
a hope for mankind. 

"In the grand discovery of modern times, 
the system of representation, the solution of all 
the difficulties, both speculative and practical, 
will perhaps be found. If it cannot, we seem 
to be forced upon the extraordinary conclusion, 
that good government is impossible. For as 
there is no individual or combination of indi- 
viduals, except the community itself, who would 
not have an interest in bad government, if in- 
trusted with its powers, and an the community 
itself is incapable of exercising those powers, 
and must intrust them to certain individuals, 
the conclusion is obvious : the community it- 
self must check those individuals, else they 
will follow their interest, and produce bad 
government. But how is it the community 
can check 1 The community can act only 
when assembled; and when assembled, it is 
incapable of acting. The community, how- 
ever, can choose representatives." 

The next question is — How must the repre- 
sentative body be constituted ? Mr. Mill lays 
down two principles, about which, he says, "it 
is unlikely that there will b* any dispute." 

" First, The checking body must have a de- 
gree of power sufficient for the business of 
checking. 

"Secondly, It must have an identity of inte- 
rest with the community. Otherwise, it will 
make a mischievous use of its power." 

The first of these propositions certainly 
admits of no dispute. As to the second, we 
6hall hereafter take occasion to make some 
emarks on the sense in which Mr. Mill un- 



derstands the words, "interest of the comi 
munity." 

It does not appear very easy, on Mr. Mill's 
principles, to find out any mode of making the 
interest of the representative body identical 
with that of the constituent body. The plan 
proposed by Mr. Mill is simply that of very 
frequent election. " As it appears," says he, 
" that limiting the duration of their power is a 
security against the sinister interest of the 
people's representatives, so it appears that ii 
is the only security of which the nature of the 
case admits." But all the arguments by which 
Mr. Mill has proved monarchy and aristocracy 
to be pernicious, will, as it appears to us, 
equally prove this security to be no security 
at all. Is it not clear that the representatives, 
as soon as they are elected, are an aristocracy 
with an interest opposed to the interest of the 
community ? Why should they not pass a law 
for extending the term of their power from one 
year to ten years, or declare themselves sena- 
tors for life 1 If the whole legislative power 
is given to them, they will be constitutionally 
competent to do this. If part of the legislative 
power is withheld from them, to whom is that 
part given ? Is the people to retain it, and to 
express its assent or dissent in primary assem- 
blies 1 Mr. Mill himself tells us that the com- 
munity can only act when assembled, and that, 
when assembled, it is incapable of acting. Or 
is it to be provided, as in some of the Ameri- 
can republics, that no change in the funda- 
mental laws shall be made without the consent 
of a convention, specially elected for the pur- 
pose? Still the difficulty recurs : Why may 
not the members of the convention betray their 
trust, as well as the members of the ordinary 
legislature? When private men, ttiey may 
have been zealous for the interests of the com- 
munity. When candidates, they may have 
pledged themselves to the cause of the consti- 
tution. But as soon as they are a convention, 
as soon as they are separated from the people, 
as soon as the supreme power is put into their 
hands, commences that interest, opposite to the 
interest of the community, which must, accord- 
ing to Mr. Mill, produce measures opposite to 
the interests of the community. We must find 
some other means, therefore, of checking this 
check upon a check ; some other prop to carry 
the tortoise, that carries the elephant, that car- 
ries the world. 

We know well that there is no real danger 
in such a case. But there is no danger, only 
because there is no truth in Mr. Mill's princi 
pies. If men were what he represents them 
to be, the letter of the very constitution which 
he recommends would afford no safeguard 
against bad government. The real security is 
this, that legislators will be deterred by the 
fear of resistance and of infamy from acting 
in the manner which we have described. But 
restraints, exactly the same in kind, and differ- 
ing only in degree, exist in all forms of go- 
vernment. That broad line of distinction 
which Mr. Mill tries to point out between 
monarchies and aristocracies on the one side, 
and democracies on the other, has in fact no 
existence. In no form of government is there 
an absolute identity of interest between Ihr 



678 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



people and their rulers. In every form of go- 
vernment the rulers stand in some awe of the 
people. The fear of resistance and the sense 
of shame operate, in a certain degree, on the 
most absolute kings and the most illiberal oli- 
garchies. And nothing but the fear of resist- 
ance and the sense of shame preserves the 
freedom of the most democratic communities 
from the encroachments of their annual and 
biennial delegates. 

We have seen how Mr. Mill proposes to 
render the interest of the representative body 
identical with that of the constituent body. 
The next question is, in what manner the in- 
terest of the constituent body is to be rendered 
identical with that of the community. Mr. 
Mill shows that a minority of the community, 
consisting even of many thousands, would be 
a bad constituent body, and, indeed, merely a 
numerous aristocracy. 

" The benefits of the representative system," 
says he, " are lost in all cases in which the in- 
terests of the choosing body are not the same 
with those of the community. It is very evi- 
dent that, if the community itself were the 
choosing body, the interest of the community 
and that of the choosing body would be the 
same." 

On these grounds Mr. Mill recommends that 
all males of mature age, rich and poor, edu- 
cated and ignorant, shall have votes. But 
why not the women too 1 This question has 
often been asked in parliamentary debate, and 
has never, to our knowledge, received a plau- 
sible answer. Mr. Mill escapes from it as fast 
as he can. But we shall take the liberty to 
dwell a little on the words of the oracle. " One 
thing," says he, " is pretty clear, that all those 
individuals whose interests are involved in 
those of other individuals may be struck off 

without inconvenience In 

this light women may be regarded, the interest 
of almost all of whom is involved either in 
that of their fathers, or in that of their hus- 
bands." 

If we were to content ourselves with saying, 
in answer to all the arguments in Mr. Mill's 
Essay, that the interest of a king is involved 
in that of the community, we should be ac- 
cused, and justly, of talking nonsense. Yet 
such an assertion would not, as far as we can 
perceive, be more unreasonable than that 
which Mr. Mill has here ventured to make. 
Without adducing one fact, without taking the 
trouble to perplex the question by one sophism, 
he placidly dogmatizes away the interests of 
one-half of the human race. If there be a 
word of truth in history, women have always 
been, and still are, over the greater part of the 
globe, humble companions, playthings, cap- 
tives, menials, beasts of burden. Except in a 
few happy and highly civilized communities, 
they are strictly in a state of personal slavery. 
Even in those countries where they are best 
treated, the laws are generally unfavourable 
to them, with respect to almost all the points 
in which they are most deeply interested. 

Mr. Mill is not legislating for England or 
the United States ; but for mankind. Is then 
the interest of a Turk the same with that of 
•he girls who compose his haram 1 Is the in- 



terest of a Chinese the same with that of the 
woman whom he harnesses to his plough T 
Is the interest of an Italian the same with thai 
of the daughter whom he devotes to God 1 ! 
The interest of a respectable Englishman may 
be said, without any impropriety, to be identi- 
cal with that of his wife. But why is it so 1 
Because human nature is not what Mr. MiJ 
conceives it to be ; because civilized men, 
pursuing their own happiness in a social state, 
are not Yahoos fighting for carrion ; because 
there is a pleasure in being loved and es- 
teemed, as well as in being feared and ser- 
vilely obeyed. Why does not a gentleman re- 
strict his wife to the bare maintenance which 
the law would compel him to allow her, that 
he may have more to spend on his personal 
pleasures 1 Because, if he loves her, he has 
pleasure in seeing her pleased ; and because, 
even if he dislikes her, he is unwilling that 
the whole neighbourhood should cry shame on 
his meanness and ill-nature. Why does not 
the legislature, altogether composed of males, 
pass a law to deprive women of all civil pri- 
vileges whatever, and reduce them to the state 
of slaves '! By passing such a law, they would 
gratify what Mr. Mill tells us is an inseparable 
part of human nature, the desire to possess 
unlimited power of inflicting pain upon otheis. 
That they do not pass such a law, though they 
have the power to pass it, and that no man in 
England wishes to see such a law passed, 
proves that the desire to possess unlimited 
power of inflicting pain is not inseparable 
from human nature. 

If there be in this country an identity of in- 
terest between the two sexes, it cannot possi- 
bly arise from any thing but the pleasure of 
being loved, and of communicating happiness. 
For that it does not spring from the mere in- 
stinct of sex, the treatment which women ex- 
perience over the greater part of the world 
abundantly proves. And if it be said that our 
laws of marriage have produced it, this only 
removes the argument a step further; for 
those laws have been made by males. Now, 
if the kind feelings of one-half of the species 
be a sufficient security for the happiness of the 
other, why may not the kind feelings of a mo- 
narch or an aristocracy be sufficient at least 
to prevent them from grinding the people to 
the very utmost of their power! 

If Mr. Mill will examine why it is that wo- 
men are better treated in England than in 
Persia, he may perhaps find out, in the course 
of his inquiries, why it is that the Danes are 
better governed than the subjects of Caligula. 

We now come to the most important practi- 
cal question in the whole Essay. Is it desira- 
ble that all males arrived at years of discre- 
tion should vote for representatives, or should 
a pecuniary qualification be required! Mr. 
Mill's opinion is, that the lower the qualifica- 
tion the better; and that the best system is 
that in which there is none at all. 

"The qualification," says he, "must either 
be such as to embrace the majority of the 
population, or something less than the ma- 
jority. Suppose, in the first place, that it em- 
braces the majority, the question is, whether 
the majority would have an interest in op- 



MILL'S ESSAY ON GOVERNMENT. 



679 



pressing those who, upon this supposition, 
would be deprived of political power 1 If we 
reduce the calculation to its elements, we shall 
see that the interest which they would have 
of this deplorable kind, though it would be 
something, would not be very great. Each 
man of the majority, if the majority were con- 
stituted the governing body, would have some- 
thing less than the benefit of oppressing a 
single man. If the majority were twice as 
great as the minority, each man of the ma- 
jority would only have one-half the benefit of 

oppressing a single man. 

Suppose, in the second place, that the qualifi- 
cation did not admit a body of electors so 
large as the majority, in that case, taking 
again the calculation in its elements, we shall 
see that each man would have a benefit equal 
to that derived from the oppression of more 
than one man ; and that, in proportion as the 
elective body constituted a smaller and smaller 
minority, the benefit of misrule to the elective 
body would be increased, and bad government 
would be insured." 

The first remark which we have to make on 
this argument is, that, by Mr. Mill's own ac- 
count, even a government in which every 
human being should vote would still be defec- 
tive. For, under a system of universal suffrage, 
the majority of the electors return the repre- 
sentative, and the majority of the representa- 
tives make the law. The whole people may 
vote, therefore, but only the majority govern. 
So that, by Mr. Mill's own confession, the most 
perfect system of government conceivable is 
one in which the interest of the ruling body to 
oppress, though not great, is something. 

But is Mr. Mill in the right, when he says 
that such an interest could not be very great 1 
We think not. If, indeed, every man in the 
community possessed an equal share of what 
Mr. Mill calls the objects of desire, the majority 
would probably abstain from plundering the 
minority. A large minority would offer a 
vigorous resistance ; and the property of a 
small minority would not repay the other 
members of the community for the trouble of 
dividing it. But it happens that in all civilized 
communities there is a small minority of rich 
men, and a great majority of poor men. If 
there were a thousand men with ten pounds 
apiece, it would not be worth while for nine 
hundred and ninety of them to rob ten, and it 
would be a bold attempt for six hundred of them 
to rob four hundred. But if ten of them had a 
hundred thousand pounds apiece, the case 
would be very different. There would then be 
much to be got, and nothing to be feared. 

"That one human being will desire to render 
the person and property of another subservient 
to his pleasures, notwithstanding the pain or 
loss of pleasure which it may occasion to that 
other individual, is," according to Mr. Mill, 
"the foundation of government." That the 
property of the rich minority can be made sub- 
servient to the pleasures of the poor majority, 
will scarcely be denied. But Mr. Mill proposes 
& give the poor majority power over the rich 
minority. Is it possible to doubt to what, on 
*is own principles, such an arrangement must 
.ead T 



It may, perhaps, be said that, in thfl iong run, 
it is for the interest of the people that property 
should be secure, and that, therefore, they will 
respect it. We answer thus: — It cannot be 
pretended that it is not for the immediate in- 
terest of the people to plunder the rich. There- 
fore, even if it were quite certain that, in the 
long run, the people would, as a body, lose by 
doing so, it would not necessarily follow that 
the fear of remote ill consequences would over- 
come the desire of immediate acquisitions. 
Every individual might flatter himself that the 
punishment would not fall on him. Mr. Mill 
himself tells us, in his Essay on Jurisprudence, 
that no quantity of evil which is remote am' 
uncertain will suffice to prevent crime. 

But we are rather inclined to think that ii 
would, on the whole, be for the interest of the 
majority to plunder the rich. If so, the Utilita- 
rians will say, that the rich ought to be plun- 
dered. We deny the inference. For, in the 
first place, if the object of government be (he 
greatest happiness of the greatest number, the 
intensity of the suffering which a measure 
inflicts must be taken into consideration, as 
well as the number of the sufferers. In the next 
place, we have to notice one most important 
distinction which Mr. Mill has altogether over 
looked. Throughout his Essay, he confounds 
the community with the species. He talks of 
the greatest happiness of the greatest number: 
but when we examine his reasonings, we find 
that he thinks only of the greatest number of a 
single generation. 

Therefore, even if we were to concede, that 
all those arguments of which we have exposed 
the fallacy, are unanswerable, we might still 
deny the conclusion at which the essayist 
arrives. Even if we were to grant that he had 
found out the form of government which is 
best for the majority of the people now living 
on the face of the earth, we might still, without 
inconsistency, maintain that form of govern* 
ment to be pernicious to mankind. It would 
still be incumbent on Mr. Mill to prove that the 
interest of every generation is identical with 
the interest of all succeeding generations. And 
how, on his own principles, he could do this 
we are at a loss to conceive. 

The case, indeed, is strictly analogous to that 
of an aristocratical government. In an aris- 
tocracy, says Mr. Mill, the few, being invested 
with the powers of government, can take the 
objects of their desires from the people. In the 
same manner, every generation, in turn, can 
gratify itself at the expense of posterity, — pri- 
ority of time, in the latter case, giving an ad- 
vantage exactly corresponding to that which 
superiority of station gives in the former. 
That an aristocracy will abuse its advantage, 
is, according to Mr. Mill, matter of demonstra- 
tion. Is it not equally certain that the whole 
people will do the same; that, if they have th« 
power, they will commit waste of every sort on 
the estate of mankind, and transmit it to pos- 
terity impoverished and desolated ? 

How is it possible for any person who holds 
the doctrines of Mr. Mill to doubt, that :he rich, 
in a democracy such as that which he recom- 
mends, would be pillaged as unmercilully as 
under a Turkish pacha? It is no doubt <br thr 



680 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



interest of the next generation, and it may be 
for the remote interest of the present genera- 
tion, that property should be held sacred. And 
so no doubt it will be for the interest of the next 
pacha, and even for that of the present pacha, 
if he should hold office long, that the inhabitants 
of his pachalic should be encouraged to accu- 
mulate wealth. Scarcely any despotic sove- 
reign has plundered his subjects to a large 
extent, without having reason, before the end 
of his reign, to regret it. Everybody knows 
how bitterly Louis the Fourteenth, towards the 
close of his life, lamented his former extrava- 
gance. If that magnificent prince had not 
expended millions on Marli and Versailles, and 
lens of millions on the aggrandizement of his 
grandson, he would not have been compelled 
at last to pay servile court to low-born money- 
lenders, to humble himself before men, on 
whom, in the days of his pride, he would not 
have vouchsafed to look, for the means of sup- 
porting even his own household. Examples 
to the same effect might easily be multiplied. 
But despots, we see, do plunder their subjects, 
though history and experience tell them, that 
by prematurely exacting the means of profu- 
sion, they are in fact devouring the seed-corn, 
from which the future harvest of revenue is to 
spring. Why then should we suppose that the 
people will be deterred from procuring imme- 
diate relief and enjoyment by the fear of distant 
calamities, of calamities which, perhaps, may. 
not be fully felt till the times of their grand- 
children 1 

These conclusions are strictly drawn from 
Mr. Mill's own principles : and, unlike most of 
the conclusions which he has himself drawn 
from those principles, they are not, as far as 
we know, contradicted by facts. The case of 
the United States is not in point. In a country 
where the necessaries of life are cheap and the 
wages of labour high, where a man who has 
no capital but his legs and arms may expect 
to become rich by industry and frugality, it is 
not very decidedly even for the immediate 
advantage of the poor to plunder the rich; and 
the punishment of doing so would very speedily 
follow the offence. But in countries in which 
the great majorities live from hand to mouth, 
and in which vast masses of wealth have been 
accumulated by a comparatively small number, 
the case is widely different. The immediate 
want is, at particular seasons, craving, impe- 
rious, irresistible. In our own time, it has 
steeled men to the fear of the gallows, and 
urged them on the point of the bayonet. And 
if these men had at their command that gallows, 
and those bayonets, which now scarcely restrain 
them, what is to be expected 1 Nor is this state 
of things one which can exist only under a bad 
government. If theie be the least truth in the 
doctrines of the school to which Mr. Mill be- 
longs, the increase of population will necessa- 
rily produce it everywhere. The increase of 
population is accelerated by good and cheap 
government. Therefore, the better the govern- 
ment, the greater is the inequality of condi- 
tions ; and the greater the inequality of con- 
ditions, the stronger are the motives which 
impel the populace to spoliation. As for 
America, we appeal to the twentieth century. 



It is scarcely necessary to discuss the effect* 
which a general spoliation of the rich would 
produce. It may indeed happen, that where a 
legal and political system full of abuses is 
inseparably bound up with the institution of 
property, a nation may gain by a single con- 
vulsion, in which both perish together. The 
price is fearful : but if, when the shock is over, 
a new order of things should arise, under 
which property may enjoy security, the indus- 
try of individuals will soon repair the devasta- 
tion. Thus we entertain no doubt that the 
Revolution was, on the whole, a most salutary 
event for France. But would France have 
gained, if, ever- since the year 1793, she had 
been governed by a democratic convention 1 
If Mr. Mill's principles be sound, we say that 
almost her whole capital would by this time 
have been annihilated. As soon as the first 
explosion was beginning to be forgotten, as 
soon as wealth again began to germinate, as 
soon as the poor again began to compare their 
cottages and salads with the hotels and ban- 
quets of the rich, there would have been an- 
other scramble for property, another maximum, 
another general confiscation, another reign of 
terror. Four or five such convulsions follow- 
ing each other, at intervals of ten or twelve 
years, would reduce the most flourishing coun- 
tries of Europe to the state of Barbary or the 
Morea. 

The civilized part of the world has now 
nothing to fear from the hostility of savage 
nations. Once the deluge of barbarism has 
passed over it, to destroy and to fertilize ; and 
in the present state of mankind we enjoy a full 
security against that calamity. That flood will 
no more return to cover the earth. But is it 
possible that, in the bosom of civilization it- 
self, may be engendered the malady which shall 
destroy it? Is it possible that institutions may 
be established which, without the help of earth- 
quake, of famine, of pestilence, or of the foreign 
sword, may undo the work of so many ages 
of wisdom and glory, and gradually sweep 
away taste, literature, science, commerce, ma- 
nufactures, every thing but the rude arts ne- 
cessary to the support of animal life ? Is it 
possible, that in two or three hundred years, a 
few lean and half-naked fishermen may divide 
with owls and foxes the ruins of the greatest 
of European cities — may wash their nets 
amidst the relics of her gigantic docks, and 
build their huts out of the capitals of her 
stately cathedrals 1 If the principles of Mr. 
Mill be sound, we say, without hesitation, that 
the form of government which he recommends 
will assuredly produce all this. But if these 
principles be unsound, if the reasonings by 
which we have opposed them be just, the higher 
and middling orders are the natural representa- 
tives of the human race. Their interest may 
be opposed, in some things, to that of their 
poorer contemporaries, but it is identical with 
that of the innumerable generations which are 
to follow. 

Mr. Mill concludes his essay, by answering 
an objection often made to the project of uni< 
versal suffrage — that the people do not under- 
stand their own interests. We shall not g« 
through his arguments on this subject, because 



MILL'S ESSAY ON GOVERNT^ENT. 



68 



•ill he has proved, that it is for the interest of 
me people to respect property, he only makes 
matters worse, by proving that they understand 
rneir interests. But we cannot refrain from 
treating our readers with a delicious bonne 
bouche of wisdom, which he has kept for the 
last moment. 

"The opinions of that class of the people 
who are below the middle rank are formed, and 
their minds are directed, by that intelligent, that 
virtuous rank, who come the most immediately 
in contact with them, who are in the constant 
habit of intimate communication with them, to 
whom they fly for advice and assistance in all 
their numerous difficulties, upon whom they 
feel an immediate and daily dependence in 
health and. in sickness, in infancy and in old 
age, to whom their children look up as models 
for their imitation, whose opinions they hear 
daily repeated, and account it their honour to 
adopt. There can be no doubt that the middle 
rank, which gives to science, to art, and to 
legislation itself their most distinguished orna- 
ments, ancHs the chief source of all that has 
exalted and refined human natnre, is that por- 
tion of the commuuity, of which, if the basis 
of representation were ever so far extended, 
the opinion would ultimately decide. Of the 
people beneath them, a vast majority would be 
sure to be guided by their advice and ex- 
ample." 

This sirgle paragraph is sufficient to upset 
Mr. Mill s theory. Will the people act against 
their own intsrest? Or will the middle rank 
act against its own interest? Or is the inte- 
rest of the middle rank identical with the inte- 
rest of the people 1 If the people act accord- 
ing to the directions of the middle rank, as Mr. 
Mill says that they assuredly will, one of these 
three questions must be answered in the affir- 
mative. But if any one of the three be answer- 
ed in the affirmative, his whole system falls to 
the ground. If the interest of the middle rank 
be identical with that of the people, why should 
not the powers of government be intrusted to 
that rank ? If the powers of government were 
intrusted to that rank, there would evidently 
be an aristocracy of wealth ; and " to constitute 
an aristocracy of wealth, though it were a very 
numerous one, would," according to Mr. Mill, 
leave the community without protection, and 
exposed to all the "evils of unbridled power." 
Will not the same motives which induce the 
middle classes to abuse one of kind, of power, 
induce them to abuse another ? If their interest 
be the same with that of the people, they will 
govern the people well. If it be opposite to 
that of the people, they will advise the people 
ill. The system of universal suffrage, there- 
fore, according to Mr. Mill's own account, is 
only a device for doing circuitously what a 
representative system, with a pretty high qua- 
lification, would do directly. 

So ands the celebrated essay. And such is 
this philosophy, for which the experience of 
three thousand years is to be discarded ; this 
philosophy, the professors of which speak as 
if it had guided the world to the knowledge of 
navigation and alphabetical writing ; as if, be- 
fore its dawn, the inhabitants of Europe had 
lived in caverns and eaten each other ! We 



are sick, it seems, like the children of Israel, 
of the objects of our old and legitimate wor- 
ship. We pine for a new idolatry. All that 
is costly and all that is ornamental in our in- 
tellectual treasures must be delivered up, and 
cast into the furnace — and there comes ou* 
this calf! 

Our readers can scarcely mistake our object 
in writing this article. They will not suspect 
us of any disposition to advocate the cause of 
absolute monarchy, or of any narrow form 
of oligarchy, or to exaggerate the evils of po- 
pular government. Our object at present is, 
not so much to attack or defend any particular 
system of polity, as to expose the vices of a 
kind of reasoning utterly unfit for moral and 
political discussions ; of a kind of reasoning 
which may so readily be turned to purposes 
of falsehood, that it ought to receive no quarter, 
even when by accident it may be employed on 
the side of truth. 

Our objection to the essay of Mr. Mill is 
fundamental. We believe that it is utterly 
impossible to deduce the science of govern- 
ment from the principles of human nature. 

What proposition is there respecting human 
nature which is absolutely and universally 
true? We know of only one; and that is nu 
only true, but identical ; that men always act 
from self-ir.terest. This truism the Utilitarians 
proclaim with as much pride as if it were r ew, 
and as much zeal as if it were important. But 
in fact, when explained, it means only that 
men, if they can, will do as they chcose 
When we see the actions of a man, we know 
with certainty what he thinks his interest to be 
But it is impossible to reason with certainty 
from what we take to be his interest to his ac- 
tions. One man goes without a dinner, that 
he may add a shilling to a hundred thousand 
pounds : another runs in debt to give balls and 
masquerades. One man cuts his father's throat 
to get possession of his old clothes : another 
hazards his own life to save that of an enemy. 
One man volunteers on a forlorn hope : an- 
other is drummed out of a regiment for cow- 
ardice. Each of these men has, nc doubt, 
acted from self-interest. But we gain nothing 
by knowing this, except the pleasure, if it be 
one, of multiplying useless words. In fact, 
this principle is just as recondite, and just as 
important, as the great truth, that whatever is, 
is. If a philosopher were always to state facts 
in the following form — "There is a shower: 
but whatever is, is ; therefore, there is a shower," 
his reasoning would be perfectly sound; but 
we do not apprehend that it would materially 
enlarge the circle of human knowledge. And 
it is equally idle to attribute any importance to 
a proposition, which, when interpreted, means 
only that a man had rather do what he had 
rather do. 

If the doctrine that men always act from 
self-interest ^e laid down in any other sense 
than this — ii the meaning of the word self- 
interest be narrowed so as to exclude any one 
of the motives which may by possibility act 
on any human being, — the proposition ceases 
to be identical ; but at the same time it ceases 
to be true. 

What we have said of the word "self-inte 



682 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



rest" applies to all the synonymes and circum- 
locutions which are employed to convey the 
same meaning ; pain and pleasure, happiness 
and misery, objects of desire, and so forth. 

The whole art of Mr. Mill's essay consists 
in one simple trick of legerdemain. It con- 
sists in using words of the sort which we have 
been describing, first in one sense and then in 
another. Men will take the objects of their 
desire if they can. Unquestionably : — but this 
is an identical proposition: for an object of 
desire means merely a thing which a man will 
procure if he can. Nothing can possibly be 
inferred from a maxim of this kind. When 
we see a man take something, we shall know 
that it was an object of his desire. But till 
then, we have no means of judging with cer- 
tainty what he desires, or what he will take. 
The general proposition, however, having been 
admitted, Mr. Mill proceeds to reason as if 
men had no desires but those which can be 
gratified only by spoiliation and oppression. It 
then becomes easy to deduce doctrines of vast 
importance from the original axiom. The 
only misfortune is, that by thus narrowing the 
meaning of the word desire, the axiom be- 
comes false, and all the doctrines consequent 
upon it are false likewise. 

When we pass beyond those maxims which 
it is impossible to deny without a contradiction 
in terms, and which, therefore, do not enable 
as to advance a single step in practical know- 
ledge, we do not believe that it is possible to 
lay down a single general rule respecting the 
motives which influence human actions. There 
is nothing which may not, by association or by 
comparison, become an object either of desire 
or of aversion. The fear of death is generally 
considered as one of the strongest of our feel- 
ings. It is the most formidable sanction which 
legislators have been able to devise. Yet 
it is notorious that, as Lord Bacon has ob- 
served, there is no passion by which that fear 
has not been often overcome. Physical pain 
is indisputably an evil ; yet it has been often 
endured, and even welcomed. Innumerable 
martyrs have exulted in torments which made 
the spectators shudder; and, to use a more 
homely illustration, there are few wives who 
do not long to be mothers. 

Is the love of approbation a stronger motive 
than the love of wealth 1 It is impossible to 
answer this question generally, even in the 
case of an individual with whom we are very 
intimate. We often say, indeed, that a man 
loves fame more than money, or money more 
than fame. But this is said in a loose and 
popular sense ; for there is scarcely a man 
who would not endure a few sneers for a great 
sum of money, if he were in pecuniary dis- 
tress ; and scarcely a man, on the other hand, 
who, if hi were in flourishing circumstances, 
would e.nose himself to the hatred and con- 
tempt of tne public for a trifle. In order, there- 
fore, to return a precise answer, even about a 
single human being, we must know what is the 
amount of the sacrifice of reputation demand- 
ed, and of the pecuniary advantage offered, 
and in what situation the person to whom the 
temptation is proposed stands at the time. But 
when the auestion is propounded generally 



about the whole species, the impossibility of 
answering is still more evident. Man differs 
from man ; generation from generation ; na- 
tion from nation. Education, station, sex, age ; 
accidental associations, produce infinite shades 
of variety. 

Now, the only mode in which we can con- 
ceive it possible to deduce a theory of govern- 
ment from the principles of human nature, is 
this. We must find out what are the motives 
which, in a particular form of government,, 
impel rulers to bad measures, and what are 
those which impel them to good measures. 
We must then compare the effect of the two 
classes of motiyes; and according as we find 
the one or the other to prevail, we must pro- 
nounce the form of government in question 
good or bad. 

Now let it be supposed that, in aristocratical 
and monarchical states, the desire of wealth, 
and other desires of the same class, always 
tend to produce misgovernment, and that the 
love of approbation, and other kindred feelings, 
always tend to produce good government. 
Then, if it be impossible, as we have shown 
that it is, to pronounce generally which of the 
two classes of motives is the more influential, 
it is impossible to find out, a priori, whether a 
monarchical or aristocratical form of govern- 
ment be good or bad. 

Mr. Mill has avoided the difficulty of making 
the comparison, by very coolly putting all the 
weights into one of the scales, — by reasoning 
as if no human being had ever sympathized 
with the feelings, been gratified by the thanks, 
or been galled by the execrations, of another. 

The case, as we have put it, is decisive 
against Mr. Mill ; and yet we have put it in a 
manner far too favourable to him. For in 
fact, it is impossible to lay it down as a general 
rule, that the love of wealth in a sovereign 
always produces misgovernment, or the love 
of approbation good government. A patient 
and far-sighted ruler, for example, who is less 
desirous of raising a great sum immediately, 
than of securing an unencumbered and pro- 
gressive revenue, will, by taking off restraints 
from trade, and giving perfect security to pro- 
perty, encourage accumulation, and entice 
capital from foreign countries. The com- 
mercial policy of Prussia, which is perhaps 
superior to that of any government in the 
world, and which puts to shame the absurdi- 
ties of our republican brethren on the other 
side of the Atlantic, has probably sprung from 
the desire of an absolute ruler to enrich him- 
self. On the other hand, when the popular 
estimate of virtues and vices is erroneous, 
which is too often the case, the love of appro- 
bation leads sovereigns to spend the wealth of 
the nation on useless shows, or to engage in 
wanton and destructive wars. If, then, we can 
neither compare the strength of two motive?, 
nor determine with certainty to what descrip- 
tion of actions either motive will lead, how can 
we possibly deduce a theory of government 
from the nature of man 1 

How, then, are we to arrive at just conclu 
sions on a subject so important to the happi- 
ness of mankind! Surely by that method 
which, in every experimental science to which 



MILL'S ESSAY ON GOVERNMENT. 



883 



"t has been applied, has signally increased the 
power and knowledge of our species, — by that 
method for which our new philosophers would 
substitute quibbles scarcely worthy of barba- 
rous respondents and opponents of the middle 
ages, — by the method of induction ; — by observ- 
ing the present state of the world, — by as- 
siduously studying the history of past ages, — 
by sifting the evidence of facts, — by carefully 
combining and contrasting those which are 
authentic, — by generalizing with judgment and 
diffidence, — by perpetually bringing the theory 
which we have constructed to the test of new 
facts, — by correcting, or altogether abandoning 
it, according as those new facts prove it to be 
partially or fundamentally unsound. Proceed- 
ing thus, — patiently, diligently, candidly, — we 
may hope to form a system as far inferior in 
pretensions to that which we have been ex- 
amining, and as far superior to it in real utility, 
as the prescriptions of a great physician, vary- 
ing with every stage -of every malady, and 
with the constitution of every patient, to the 
pill of the advertising quack, which is to 
cure all human beings, in all climates, of all 
diseases. 

This is that noble science of politics, which 
is equally removed from the barren theories of 
the Utilitarian sophists, and from the petty 
craft, so often mistaken for statesmanship by 
minds grown narrow in habits of intrigue, job- 
bing, and official etiquette; — which, of all 
sciences, is the most important to the welfare 



of nations, — which, of all sciences, most tends 
to expand and invigorate the mind, — which 
draws nutriment and ornament from every pari 
of philosophy and literature, and dispenses, in 
return, nutriment and ornament to all. We are 
sorry and surprised when we see men of good 
intentions and good natural abilities abandon 
this healthful and generous study, to pore over 
speculations like those which we have been 
examining. And we should heartily rejoice to 
find that our remarks had induced any person 
of this description, to employ, in researches of 
real utility, the talents and industry which are 
now wasted on verbal sophisms, wretched of 
their wretched kind^ 

As to the greater part of the sect, it is, we 
apprehend, of little consequence, what they 
study, or under whom. It would be more 
amusing, to be sure, and more reputable, if they 
would take up the old republican cant, and 
declaim about Brutus and Timoleon, the duty 
of killing tyrants, and the blessedness of dying 
for liberty. But, on the whole, they might have 
chosen worse. They may as well be Utilita- 
rians as jockeys or dandies. And though 
quibbling about self-interest and motives, and 
objects of desire, and the greatest happiness 
of the greatest number, is but a poor employ- 
ment for a grown man, it certainly hurts the 
health less than hard drinking, and the fortune 
less than high play: it is not much morf 
laughable than phrenology, and is imnLtLStt- 
rably more humane than cock-fighting. 



684 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



BENTHAM' S DEFENCE OE MILL/ 



[Edinburgh Review, June, 1829.] 



We have had great reason, we think, to be 
gratified by the success of our late attack on 
the Utilitarians. We could publish a long list 
of the cures which it has wrought, in cases 
previously considered as hopeless. Delicacy 
forbids us to divulge names ; but we cannot 
refrain from alluding to two remarkable in- 
stances. — A respectable lady writes to inform 
us, that her son, who was plucked at Cam- 
bridge last January, has not been heard to call 
Sir James Mackintosh a poor ignorant fool 
more than twice since the appearance of our 
afticle. A distinguished political writer in the 
Westminster and Parliamentary Reviews has 
borrowed Hume's History, and has actually got 
as far as the battle of Agincourt. He assures 
us that he takes great pleasure in his new 
study, and that he is very impatient to learn 
how Scotland and England became one king- 
dom. But the greatest compliment that we 
have received is, that Mr. Bentham himself 
should have condescended to take the field in 
defence of Mr. Mill. We have not been in the 
habit of reviewing reviews ; but as Mr.Bentham 
is a truly great man, and as his party have 
thought fit to announce in puffs and placards 
that this article is written by him, and contains 
not only an answer to our attacks, but a develop- 
ment of the "greatest happiness principle," 
with the latest improvements of the author, we 
shall for once depart from our general rule. 
However the conflict may terminate, we shall 
at least not have been vanquished by an igno- 
ble hand. 

Of Mr. Bentham himself, we shall endea- 
vour, even while defending ourselves against 
his reproaches, to speak with the respect to 
which his venerable age, his genius, and his 
public services entitle him. If any harsh ex- 
pression should escape us, we trust that he 
will attribute it to inadvertence, to the momen- 
tary warmth of controversy, — to any thing, in 
short, rather than to a design of affronting him. 
Though we have nothing in common with the 
crew of Hurds and Boswells, who, either from 
interested motives, or from the habit of intel- 
lectual servility and dependence, pamper and 
vitiate his appetite with the noxious sweetness 
of their undiscerning praise, we are not per- 
haps less competent than they to appreciate 
his merit, or less sincerely disposed to acknow- 
ledge it. Though we may sometimes think his 
reasonings on moral and political questions 
feeble and sophistical — though we may some- 
times smile at his extraordinary language — we 
can never be weary of admiring the amplitude 
of his comprehension, the keenness of his pene- 
tration, the exuberant fertility with which his 
mind pours forth arguments and illustrations. 



* The Westminster Review, No. XXI., Article XVI. 
Edinburgh Review, No. XCVJI., Article on Mill's Essays 
On Government. &c. 



However sharply he may speak of us, we can 
never cease to revere in him the father of the 
philosophy of Jurisprudence. He has a ful. 
right to all the privileges of a great inventor; 
and, in our court of criticism, those privileges 
will never be pleaded in vain. But they are 
limited in the same manner in which, fortu- 
nately for the ends of justice, the privileges of 
the peerage are now limited. The advantage 
is personal and incommunicable. A nobleman 
can now no longer cover with his protection 
every lackey who follows his heels, or every 
bully who draws in his quarrel; and, highly 
as we respect the exalted rank which Mr. Ben- 
tham holds among the writers of our time, yet 
when, for the due maintenance of literary po- 
lice, we shall think it necessary to confute so- 
phists, or to bring pretenders to shame, we shall 
not depart from the ordinary course of our pro- 
ceedings because the offenders call themselves 
Benthamites. 

Whether Mr. Mill has much reason to thank 
Mr. Bentham for undertaking his defence, our 
readers, when they have finished this article, 
will perhaps be inclined to doubt. Great as 
Mr. Bentham's talents are, he has, we think, 
shown an undue confidence in them. He 
should have considered how dangerous it is 
for any man, however eloquent and ingenious 
he may be, to attack or to defend a book with- 
out reading it. And we feel quite convinced 
that Mr. Bentham would never have written 
the article before us, if he had, before he be- 
gan, perused our review with attention, and 
compared it with Mr. Mill's Essay. 

He has utterly mistaken our object and 
meaning. He seems to think that we have 
undertaken to set up some theory of govern- 
ment in opposition to that of Mr. Mill. But we 
distinctly disclaimed any such design. From 
the beginning to the end of our article, there is 
not, as far as we remember, a single sentence 
which, when fairly construed, can be considered 
as indicating any such design. If such an ex- 
pression can be found, it has been dropped by 
inadvertence. Our object was to prove, not 
that monarchy and aristocracy are good, but 
that Mr. Mill had not proved them to be bad; 
not that democracy is bad, but that Mr. Mill 
had not proved it to be good. The points in 
issue are these, Whether the famous Essay on 
Government be, as it has been called, a perfect 
solution of the great political problem, or a se- 
ries of sophisms and blunders; and whether 
the sect which, while it glories in the precision 
of its logic, extols this Essay as a masterpiece 
of demonstration, be a sect deserving of the 
respect or of the derision of mankind. These, 
we say, are the issues; and on these we with 
full confidence put ourselves on the country. 

It is not necessary, for the purposes of this 
investigation, that we should state what our 



BENTHAM'S DEFENCE OF MILL. 



685 



political creed is, or whether we have any po- 
litical creed at all. A man who cannot act the 
most trivial part in a farce has a right to his 
Romeo Coates — a man who does not know a 
vein from an artery may caution a simple 
neighbour against the advertisements of Doc- 
tor Eady. A complete theory of government 
would, indeed, be a noble present to mankind ; 
but it is a present which we do not hope, and 
do not pretend, that we can offer. If, however, 
we cannot lay the foundation, it is something 
to clear away the rubbish — if we cannot set up 
truth.it is something to pull down error. Even 
if the subjects of which the Utilitarians treat 
were subjects of less fearful importance, we 
should think it no small service to the cause 
of good sense and good taste, to point out the 
contrast between their magnificent pretensions 
and their miserable performances. Some of 
them have, however, thought fit to display their 
ingenuity on questions of the most momentous 
kind, and on questions concerning which men 
cannot reason ill with impunity. We think it, 
under these circumstances, an absolute duty 
to expose the fallacy of their arguments. It 
is no matter of pride or of pleasure. To read 
their works is the most soporific employment 
that we know; and a man ought no more to 
be proud of refuting them than of having two 
legs. We must now come to close quarters 
with Mr. Bentham, whom, we need not say, 
we do not mean to include in this observation. 
He charges us with maintaining, — 

" First, « that it is not true that all despots 
govern ill :'• — whereon the world is in a mis- 
take, and the whigs have the true light. And 
for proof, principally, — that the king of Den- 
mark is not Caligula. To which the answer 
is, that the king of Denmark is not a despot. 
He was put in his present situation, by the 
people turning the scale in his favour, in a 
balanced contest between himself and the no- 
bility. And it is quite clear that the same 
power would turn the scale the other way, the 
moment a king of Denmark should take into 
his head to be Caligula. It is of little conse- 
quence by what congeries of letters the ma- 
jesty of Denmark is typified in the royal press 
of Copenhagen, while the real fact is, that the 
sword of the people is suspended over his head 
in case of ill-behaviour, as effectually as in 
other countries where more noise is made 
upon the subject. Everybody believes the 
sovereign of Denmark to be a good and virtu- 
ous gentleman ; but there is no more superhu- 
man merit in his being so, than in the case of 
a rural squire who does not shoot his land- 
steward, or quarter his wife with his yeomanry 
sabre. 

" It is true that there are partial exceptions 
to the rule, that all men use power as badly as 
they dare There may have been such things 
as amiable negro-drivers and sentimental mas- 
ters of press-gangs ; and here and there, among 
the odd freaks of human nature, there may have 
b«en specimens of men who were ' No tyrants, 
though bred up to tyranny.' But it would be 
as wise to recommend wolves for nurses at 
the Foundling, on the credit of Romulus and 
Remus, as to substitute the exception for the 
general fact, and aJvis? mankind to take to 
44 



trusting to arbitrary power on the credit of 
these specimens." 

Now, in the first place, we never cited the 
case of Denmark to prove that all despots dc 
not govern ill. We cited it to prove that Mr. 
Mill did not know how to reason. Mr. Mill 
gave it as a reason for deducing the theory of 
government from the general laws of humaa 
nature, that the king of Denmark was not 
Caligula. This we said, and we still say, was 
absurd. 

In' the second place, it was not we, but Mr. 
Mill, who said that the king of Denmark was 
a despot. His words are these : — "The people 
of Denmark, tired out with the oppression of 
an aristocracy, resolved that their king should 
be absolute ; and under their absolute monarch 
are as well governed as any people in Europe." 
We leave Mr. Bentham to settle with Mr. Mill 
the distinction between a despot and an abso- 
lute king. 

In the third place, Mr. Bentham says, that 
there was in Denmark a balanced contest be- 
tween the king and the nobility. We find 
some difficulty in believing that Mr. Bentham 
seriously means to say this, when we considei 
that Mr. Mill has demonstrated the chance to 
be as infinity to one against the existence of 
such a balanced contest. 

Fourthly, Mr. Bentham says, that in this 
balanced contest the people turned the scale 
in favour of the king against the aristocracy. 
But Mr. Mill has demonstrated, that it cannot 
possibly be for the interest of the monarchy 
and democracy to join against the aristocracy; 
and that wherever the three parties exist, the 
king and the aristocracy will combine against 
the people. This, Mr. Mill assures us, is as 
certain as any thing which depends upon 
human will. 

Fifthly, Mr. Bentham says, that if the king 
of Denmark were to oppress his people, the 
people and nobles would combine against the 
king. But Mr. Mill has proved that it can 
never be for the interest of the aristocracy to 
combine with the democracy against the king. 
It is evidently Mr. Bentham's opinion, that 
" monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, may 
balance each other, and by mutual checks pro- 
duce good government." But this is the very 
theory which Mr. Mill pronounces to be tha 
wildest, the most visionary, the most chimeri- 
cal, ever broached on the subject of govern- 
ment. 

We have no dispute on these heads with Mr 
Bentham. On the contrary, we think his ex- 
planation true — or, at least, true in part ; and 
we heartily thank him for lending us his as- 
sistance to demolish the essay of his follower. 
His wit and his sarcasm are sport to us ; but 
they are death to his unhappy disciple. 

Mr. Bentham seems to imagine that we have 
said something implying an opinion favourable 
to despotism. We can scarcely suppose that, 
as he has not condescended to read that portion 
of our work which he undertook to answer, he 
can have bestowed much attention on its general 
character. Had he done so, he would, we think, 
scarcely have entertained such a suspicion. 
Mr. Mill asserts, and pretends to prove, that 
under no despotic government does any human 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



being, except the tools of the sovereign, possess 
more than the necessaries of life, and that the 
most intense degree of terror is kept up by 
constant cruelty. This, we say, is untrue. It 
is not merely a rule to which there are excep- 
tions: but it is not the rule. Despotism is bad; 
but it is scarcely anywhere so bad as Mr. Mill 
says that it is everywhere. This, we are sure, 
Mr. Bentham will allow. If a man were to say 
that five hundred thousand people die every 
year in London of dram-drinking, he would 
not assert a proposition more monstrously false 
than Mr. Mill's. Would it be just to charge us 
with defending intoxication because we might 
say that such a man was grossly in the wrong] 

We say with Mr. Bentham that despotism is 
a bad thing. We say with Mr. Bentham that 
the exceptions do not destroy the authority of 
the rule. But this we say — that a single ex- 
ception overthrows an argument, which either 
does not prove the rule at all, or else proves 
the rule to be true without exceptions ; and such 
an argument is Mr. Mill's argument against 
despotism. In this respect, there is a great 
difference between rules drawn from expe- 
rience, and rules deduced a priori. We might 
believe that there had been a fall of snow last 
August, and yet not. think it likely that there 
would be snow next August. A single oc- 
currence opposed to our general experience 
would tell for very little in our calculation of 
the chances. But if we could once satisfy 
ourselves that, in any single right-angled tri- 
angle, the square of the hypothenuse might be 
less than the squares of the sides, we must re- 
ject the forty-seventh proposition of Euclid 
altogether. We willingly adopt Mr. Bentham's 
lively illustration about the wolf; and we will 
say, in passing, that it gives us real pleasure 
'o see how little old age has diminished the 
gayety of this eminent man. We can assure 
him that his merriment gives us far more plea- 
sure on his account, than pain in our own. 
We say with him, keep the wolf out of the 
nursery, in spite of the story of Romulus and 
Remus. But if the shepherd who saw the wolf 
licking and suckling those famous twins, were, 
after telling this story to his companions, to 
assert that it was an infallible rule that no 
wolf ever had spared, or ever would spare, 
any living thing which might fall in its way — 
that its nature was carnivorous — and that it 
could not possibly disobey its nature, we think 
that the hearers might have been excused for 
starting. It may be strange, but is not incon- 
sistent, that a wolf which has eaten ninety-nine 
children should spare the hundredth. But the 
fact that a wolf has once spared a child is 
sufficient to show that there must be some flaw 
in the chain of reasoning, purporting to prove 
that wolves cannot possibly spare children. 

Mr. Bentham proceeds to attack another po- 
sition which he conceives us to maintain :— 

" Secondly, That a government not under the 
control of the community (for there is no ques- 
tion upon any other) 'may soon be saturated.' 
Tell it not in Bow Street, whisper it not in 
Hatton Garden — that there is a plan for pre- 
venting injustice by • saturation.' With what 
peals of unearthly merriment would Minos, 
,<f3acus, and Radamanthus. be aroused upon 



their benches, if the 'light wings of safTro* 
and of blue' should bear this theory into theit 
grim domains ! Why do not the owners of 
pocket-handkerchiefs try to ' saturate 1' Why 
does not the cheated publican beg leave to 
check the gulosity of his defrauder with a re- 
petatur haustus, and the pummelled plaintiff 
neutralize the malice of his adversary, by re- 
questing to have the rest of the beating in pre- 
sence of the court, — if it is not that such con- 
duct would run counter to all the conclusions 
of experience, and be the procreation of the 
mischief it affected to destroy 7 Woful is the 
man whose wealth depends on his having more 
than somebody .else can be persuaded to take 
from him ; and woful also is the people that is 
in such a case !" 

Now, this is certainly very pleasant writing . 
but there is no great difficulty in answering 
the argument. The real reason which makes 
it absurd to think of preventing theft by pen- 
sioning off thieves is this, that there is no limit 
to the number of thieves. If there were only 
a hundred thieves in a place, and we were 
quite sure that no person not already addicted 
to theft would take to it, it might become a 
question, whether to keep the thieves frcm 
dishonesty by raising them above distress, 
would not be a better course than to employ 
officers against them. But the actual cases are 
not parallel. Every man who chooses can be- 
come a thief; but a man cannot become a king 
or a member of the aristocracy whenever he 
chooses. The number of the depredators is 
limited ; and therefore the amount of depreda- 
tion, so far as physical pleasures are concern- 
ed, must be limited also. Now, we make the 
remark which Mr. Bentham censures with re- 
ference to physical pleasures only. The plea- 
sures of ostentation, of taste, of revenge, and 
other pleasures of the Game description, have, 
we distinctly allowed, no limit. Our words are 
these: — "A king or an aristocracy may be 
supplied to satiety with corporal pleasures, at an 
expense which the rudest and poorest commu- 
nity would scarcely feel." Does Mr. Bentham 
deny this 1 If he does, we leave him to Mr. 
Mill. " What," says that philosopher, in his 
Essay on Education, " what are the ordinary 
pursuits of wealth and power, which kindle to 
such a height the ardour of mankind ? Not to 
mere love of eating and of drinking, or all the 
physical objects together which wealth can 
purchase or power command. With these 
every man is in the long run speedily satis- 
fied." What the difference is between being 
speedily satisfied and being soon saturated, we 
leave Mr. Bentham and Mr. Mill to settle to- 
gether. 

The word " saturation," however, seems to 
provoke Mr. Bentham's mirth. It certainly did 
not strike us as very pure English ; but, as Mr. 
Mill used it, we supposed it to be good Ben- 
thamese. With the latter language we are not 
critically acquainted, though, as it has many 
roots in commv n witn our mother tongue, ws 
can contrive, by the help of a converted Utili- 
tarian, who attends us in the capacity of Moon- 
shee, to make oui a little. But Mr. Bentham's 
authority is of course decisive, and we bow 
to it. 



BENTHAM'S DEFENCE OF MILL. 



687 



Mr. Bentham next represents us as main- 
taining, — 

" Thirdly, That ' though there may be some 
tastes and propensities that have no point of 
saturation, there exists a sufficient check in 
the desire of the good opinion of others.' The 
misfortune of this argument is, that no man 
cares for the good opinion of those he has been 
accustomed to wrong. If oysters have opi- 
nions, it is probable they think very ill of those 
who eat them in August; but small is the 
effect upon the autumnal glutton that engulfs 
their gentle substances within his own. The 
planter and the slave-driver care just as much 
about negro opinion as the epicure about the 
sentiments of oysters. M. Ude throwing live 
eels into the fire as a kindly method of divest- 
ing them of the unsavoury oil that lodges be- 
neath their skins, is not more convinced of the 
immense aggregate of good which arises to the 
lordlier parts of the creation, than is the gentle 
peer who strips his fellow-man of country and 
of family for a wild fowl slain. The goodly 
landowner,^vho lives by morsels squeezed in- 
discriminately from the waxy hands of the 
cobbler and the polluted ones of the nightman, 
is in no small degree the object of both hatred 
and contempt; but it is to be feared that he is 
a long way from feeling them to be intolerable. 
The principle of ' At mihi plaudo ipse domi, simul 
ac nummos conternplorin area,' is sufficient to make 
a wide interval between the opinions of the 
plaintiff and defendant in such cases. In short, 
to banish lav/ and leave all plaintiffs to trust to 
the desire of reputation on the opposite side, 
would only be transporting the theory of the 
whigs from the House of Commons to West- 
minster Hall." 

Now, in the first place, we never maintained 
the proposition which Mr. Bentham puts into 
our mouths. We said, and say, that there is a 
certain check to the rapacity and cruelty of 
men, in their desire of the good opinion of 
others. We never said that it was sufficient. 
Let Mr. Mill show it to be insufficient. It is 
enough for us to prove that there is a set-off 
against the principle from which Mr. Mill de- 
duces the whole theory of government. The 
balance may be, and, we believe, will be, against 
despotism and the narrow forms of aristocracy. 
But what is this to the correctness or incor- 
rectness of Mr. Mill's accounts 1 The question 
is not, whether the motives which lead rulers 
to behave ill, are stronger than those which 
lead them to behave well; — but whether we 
ought to form a theory of government by look- 
ing only at the motives which lead rulers to be- 
have ill, and never noticing those which lead 
them to behave well. 

Absolute rulers, says Mr. Bentham, do not 
care for the good opinion of their subjects ; for 
no man cares for the good opinion of those 
whom he has been accustomed to wrong. By 
Mr. Bentham's leave, this is a plain begging of 
the question. The point at issue is this : — Will 
kings and nobles wrong the people 1 The ar- 
gument in favour of kings and nobles is this : 
— they will not wrong the people, because they 
care for the good opinion of the people. But 
this argument Mr. Bentham meets thus:— they 
will not care for the good opinion of the peo- 



ple, because they are accustomed to wrong the 
people. 

Here Mr. Mill differs, as usual, from Mr. Ben 
tham. " The greatest princes," says he, in his 
Essay on Education, " the most despotical mas« 
ters of human destiny, when asked what they 
aim at by their wars and conquests, would an- 
swer, if sincere, as Frederic of Prussia an- 
swered, pour fair parler de soi; — to occupy a 
large space in the admiration of mankind." 
Putting Mr. Mill's and Mr. Bentham's princi- 
ples together, we might make out very easily 
that " the greatest princes, the most despotical 
masters of human destiny," would never abuse 
their power. 

A man who has been long accustomed to in- 
jure people, must also have been long accus- 
tomed to do without their love, and to endure 
their aversion. Such a man may not miss the 
pleasure of popularity ; for men seldom miss a 
pleasure which they have long denied them- 
selves. An old tyrant does without popularity, 
just as an old water-drinker does without wine. 
But though it is perfectly true that men who, 
for the good of their health, have long ab- 
stained from wine, feel the want of it very lit- 
tle, it would be absurd to infer that men will 
always abstain from wine, when their health 
requires that they should do so. And it would 
be equally absurd to say, because men who 
have been accustomed to oppress care little for 
popularity, that men will therefore necessarily 
prefer the pleasures of oppression to those of 
popularity. 

Then, again, a man may be accustomed to 
wrong people in one point, and not in another. 
He may care fori their good opinion with re- 
gard to one point, and not with regard to an- 
other. The Regent Orleans laughed at charges 
of impiety, libertinism, extravagance, idleness, 
disgraceful promotions. But the slightest al- 
lusion to the charge of poisoning threw him 
into convulsions. Louis the Fifteenth braved 
the hatred and contempt of his subjects during 
many years of the most odious and imbecile 
misgovernment. But when a report was 
spread that he used human blood for his baths, 
he was almost driven mad by it. Surely Mr. 
Bentham's position, " that no man cares for the 
good opinion of those whom he has been ac- 
customed to wrong," would be objectionable, as 
far too sweeping and indiscriminate, even if it 
did not involve, as in the present case we have 
shown that it does, a direct begging of the 
question at issue. 

Mr. Bentham proceeds: — 

"Fourthly, The Edinburgh Reviewers are 
of opinion, that 'it might, with no small 
plausibility, be maintained, that, in many coun 
tries, there are two classes which, in some de- 
gree, answer to this description;' [viz.] 'that 
the poor compose the class which government 
is established to restrain, and the people of 
some property, the class to which the powers 
of government may without danger be con- 
fided.' 

"They take great pains, it is true, to say 
this, and not to say it. They shuffle and creep 
about, to secure a hole to escape at, if ' what 
they do not assert' should be found in any de« 
gree inconvenient. A man might waste his 



688 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



life in trying to find out whether the Misses of 
the Edinburgh mean to say Yes or No in their 
political coquetry. But whichever way the 
lovely spinsters may decide, it is diametrically 
opposed to history and the evidence of facts, 
that the poor are the class whom there is any 
difficulty in restraining. It is not the poor but 
the rich that have a propensity to take the 
property of other people. There is no instance 
upon earth of the poor having combined to 
take away the^ property of the rich ; and all the 
instances habitually brought forward in sup- 
port of it, are gross misrepresentations, found- 
ed upon the most necessary acts of self-defence 
on the part of the most numerous classes. 
Such a misrepresentation is the common one 
of the Agrarian law ; which was nothing but 
an attempt, on the part of the Roman people, 
to get back some part of what had been taken 
from them by undisguised robbery. Such an- 
other is the stock example of the French Revo- 
lution, appealed to by the Edinburgh Review in 
the actual case. It is utterly untrue that the 
French Revolution took place because 'the 
poor began to compare their cottages and sa- 
lads with the hotels and banquets of the rich ;' 
it took place because they were robbed of their 
cottages and salads to support the hotels and 
banquets of their oppressors. It is utterly un- 
true that there was either a scramble for pro- 
perty or a general confiscation ; the classes 
who took part with the foreign invaders lost 
their property, as they would have done here, 
and ought to do everywhere. All these are the 
vulgar errors of the man on the lion's back, — 
which the lion will set to rights when he can 
tell his own story. History is nothing but the 
relation of the sufferings of the poor from the 
rich ; except precisely so far as the numerous 
classes of the community have contrived to 
keep the virtual power in their hands, or in 
other words, to establish free governments. 
If a poor man injures the rich, the law is in- 
stantly at his heels ; the injuries of the rich 
Awards the poor are always inflicted by the 
law. A.nd to enable the rich to do this to any 
extent that may be practicable'or prudent, there 
is clearly one postulate required, which is, that 
the rich shall make the law." 

This passage is alone sufficient to prove that 
Mr. Bentham has not taken the trouble to read 
our article from beginning to end. We are 
quite sure that he would not stoop to misrepre- 
sent it. And if he had read it with any atten- 
tion, he would have perceived that all this co- 
quetry, this hesitation, this Yes and No, this 
saying and not saying, is simply an exercise 
of the undeniable right which in controversy 
belongs to the defensive side — to the side which 
proposes to establish nothing. The affirmative 
of the issue and the burden of the proof are 
with Mr. Mill, not with us. We are not bound, 
perhaps we are not able, to show that the form 
of government which he recommends is bad. 
It is quite enough if we can show that he does 
not prove it to be good. In his proof, among 
many other flaws, is this — he says, that if men 
are not inclined to plunder each other, govern- 
ment is unnecessary, and that, if men are so 
inclined, kings and aristocracies will plunder 
the people. Now this, we say, is a fallacy. 



That some men will plunder their neighbours 
if they can, is a sufficient reason for the exist- 
ence of governments. But it is not demon- 
strated that kings and aristocracies will plun 
der the people, unless it be true that all mei; 
will plunder their neighbours if they can. Men 
are placed in very different situations. Some 
have all the bodily pleasures that they desire, 
and many other pleasures besides, without 
plundering anybody. Others can scarcely ob- 
tain their daily bread without plundering. It 
may be true, but surely it is not self-evident, 
that the former class is under as strong temp- 
tations to plunder as the latter. Mr. Mill was 
therefore bound to prove it. That he has not 
proved it, is one of thirty or forty fatal errors 
in his argument. It is not necessary that we 
should express an opinion, or even have an 
opinion on the subject. Perhaps we are in a 
state of perfect skepticism; but what then? 
Are we the theory-makers ? When we bring 
before the world a theory of government, it 
will be time to call upon us to offer proof at 
every step. At present we stand on our un- 
doubted logical right. We concede nothing; 
and we deny nothing. We say to the Utilita- 
rian theorists — When you prove your doctrine, 
we will believe it, and till you prove it, we will 
not believe it. 

Mr. Bentham has quite misunderstood what 
we said about the French Revolution. We 
never alluded to that event for the purpose of 
proving that the poor were inclined to rob the 
rich. Mr. Mill's principles of human nature 
furnished us with that part of our argument 
ready-made. We alluded to the French Revo- 
lution for the purpose of illustrating the effects 
which general spoliation produces on society, 
not for the purpose of showing that general 
spoliation will take place under a democracy. 
We allowed distinctly that, in the peculiar cir- 
cumstances of the French monarchy, the Re- 
volution, though accompanied by a great 
shock to the institution of property, was a 
blessing. Surely Mr. Bentham will not main- 
tain that the injury produced by the deluge of 
assignats and by the maximum fell only on 
the emigrants, — or that there were not many 
emigrants who would have stayed and lived 
peaceably under any government, if their per- 
sons and property had been secure. 

We never said that the French Revolution 
took place because the poor began to compare 
their cottages and salads with the hotels and 
banquets of the rich. We were not speaking 
about the causes of the Revolution, or thinking 
about them. This we said, and say, that if a 
democratic government had been established 
in France, the poor, when they began to com- 
pare their cottages and salads with the hotels 
and banquets of the rich, would, on the sup- 
position that Mr. Mill's principles are sound, 
have plundered the rich, and repeated, without 
provocation, all the severities and confisca- 
tions which, at the time of the Revolution, 
were committed with provocation. We say 
that Mr. Mill's favourite form of government 
would, if his own views of human nature be 
just, make those violent convulsions and trans- 
fers of property which now rarely happen, ex- 
cept, as in the case of the French Revolution. 



BENTHAM'S DEFENCE OF MILL. 



689 



when the people are maddened by oppression, 
events of annual or biennial occurrence. We 
gave no opinion of our own. We give none 
now. We say that this proposition may be 
proved from Mr. Mill's own premises, by steps 
strictly analogous to those by which he proves 
monarchy and aristocracy to be bad forms of 
government. To say this is not to say that the 
proposition is true. For we hold both Mr. 
Mill's premises and his deductions to be un- 
sound throughout. 

Mr. Bentham challenges us to prove from 
history that the people will plunder the rich. 
What does history say to Mr. Mill's doctrine, 
that absolute kings will always plunder their 
subjects so unmercifully as to leave nothing 
but a bare subsistence to any except their own 
creatures 1 If experience is to be the test, Mr. 
Mill's theory is unsound. If Mr. Mill's reason- 
ing a priori be sound, the people in a demo- 
cracy will plunder the rich. Let us use one 
weight and one measure. Let us not throw 
history aside when we are proving a theory, 
and take it up again when we have to refute 
an objection founded on the principles of that 
theory. 

We have not done, however, with Mr. Ben- 
tham's charges against us. 

"Among other specimens of their ingenuity, 
they think they embarrass the subject by ask- 
ing why, on the principles in question, women 
should not have votes as well as men. And 
why not? 

'Gentle shepherd, tell me why. — ' 

If the mode of election was what it ought to 
be, there would be no more difficulty in wo- 
men voting for a representative in Parliament 
than for a director at the India House. The 
world will find out at some time, that the readi- 
est way to secure justice on some points is to 
be just on all ; — that the whole is easier to ac- 
complish than the part; and that, whenever 
the camel is driven through the eye of the 
needle, it would be simple folly and debility 
that would leave a hoof behind." 

Why, says or sings Mr. Bentham, should 
not women vote 1 It may seem uncivil in us 
to turn a deaf ear to his Arcadian warblings. 
But we submit, with great deference, that it is 
not our business to tell him why. We fully 
agree with him that the principle of female 
suffrage is not so palpably absurd that a chain 
of reasoning ought to be pronounced unsound, 
merely because it leads to female suffrage. 
We say that every argument which tells in 
favour of the universal suffrage of the males, 
tells equally in favour of female suffrage. Mr. 
Mill, however, wishes to see all men vote, but 
says that is unnecessary that women should 
vote ; and for making this distinction, he gives 
as a reason an assertion which, in the first 
place, is not true, and which, in the next place, 
would, if true, overset his whole theory of 
human nature; namely, that the interest of the 
women is identical with that of the men. We 
side with Mr. Bentham, so far at least as this, 
that when we join to drive the camel through 
the needle, he shall go through hoof and all. 
We at present desire to be excused from driv- 
ing the camel. It is Mr. Mill who leaves the 
hoof behind. Bnt we should think it uncour'p- 



ous to reproach him in the Janguage which 
Mr. Bentham, in the exercise of his paternal 
authority over the sect, thinks himself entitled 
to employ. 

"Another of their perverted ingenuities is, 
that 'they are rather inclined to think' that it 
would, on the whole, be for the interest of the 
majority to plunder the rich ; and if so, the 
Utilitarians will say, that the rich ought to be 
plundered. On which it is sufficient to reply, 
that for the majority to plunder the rich, would 
amount to a declaration that nobody should be 
rich ; which, as all men wish to be rich, would 
involve a suicide of hope. And as nobody has 
shown a fragment of reason why such a pro- 
ceeding should be for the general happiness, 
it does not follow that the ' Utilitarians' would 
recommend it. The Edinburgh Reviewers have 
a waiting gentlewoman's ideas of ' Utilitarian- 
ism.' It is unsupported by any thing but the 
pitiable 'We are rather inclined to think,' — 
and is utterly contradicted by the whole course 
of history and human experience besides, — 
that there is either danger or possibility of 
such a consummation as the majority agree- 
ing on the plunder of the rich. There have 
been instances in human memory of their 
agreeing to plunder rich oppressors, rich trai- 
tors, rich enemies, — but the rich simpliciter, 
never. It is as true now as in the days of 
Harrington, that 'a people never will, nor ever 
can, never did, nor ever shall, take up arma 
for levelling.' All the commotions in the 
world have been for something else ; and 
' levelling' is brought forward as the blind, to 
conceal what the other was." 

We say, again and again, that we are on the 
defensive. We do not think it necessary to 
prove that a quack medicine is poison. Let 
the vender prove it to be sanative. We do not 
pretend to show that universal suffrage is an 
evil. Let its advocates show it to be a good. 
Mr. Mill tells us, that if power be given for 
short terms to representatives elected by all 
the males of mature age, it will then be for 
the interest of those representatives to promote / 
the greatest happiness of the greatest number. 
To prove this, it is necessary that he should 
prove three propositions ; first, that the inte- 
rest of such a representative body will be 
identical with the interest of the constituent 
body; secondly, that the interest of the consti- 
tuent body will be identical with that of the 
community; thirdly, that the interest of one 
generation of a community is identical with 
that of all succeeding generations. The twc 
first propositions Mr. Mill attempts to prove, 
and fails. The last he does not even attempt 
to prove. We therefore refuse our assent to 
his conclusions. Is this unreasonable 1 

We never even dreamed, what Mr. Bentham 
conceives us to have maintained, that it co 
be for the greatest happiness of mankind 
plunder the rich. But we are "rather inclined 
to think," though doubtingly, and with a dispo- 
sition to yield to conviction, that it may be for 
the pecuniary interest of the majority of a sin- 
gle generation in a thickly-peopled country to 
plunder tho rich. Why we are inclined to 
think so we will explain, whenever we send a 
theory of government to an encyclc pf dia. At 



830 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WHITINGS. 



present we are bound to say only that we think 
so, till somebody shows us a reason for think- 
ing otherwise. 

Mr. Benthani's answer to us is simple asser- 
tion. He must not think that we mean any 
discourtesy by meeting it with a simple denial. 
The fact is, that almost all the governments 
that have ever existed in the civilized world, 
have been, in part at least, monarchical and 
aristocratical. The first government consti- 
tuted on principles approaching to those which 
the Utilitarians hold, was, we think, that of the 
United States. That the poor have never com- 
bined to plunder the rich in the governments 
of the old world, no more proves that they 
might plunder the rich under a system of uni- 
versal suffrage, than the fact, that the English 
kings of the House of Brunswick have been 
Neros and Domitians, proves that sovereigns 
may safely be intrusted with absolute power. 
Of what the people would do in a state of per- 
fect sovereignty, we can judge only by indica- 
tions, which, though rarely of much moment 
in themselves, and though always suppressed 
with little difficulty, are yet of great signifi- 
cance, and resemble those by which our do- 
mestic animals sometimes remind us that they 
are of kin with the fiercest monsters of the 
forest. It would not be wise to reason from 
the behaviour of a dog crouching under the 
lash, which is the case of the Italian people, 
or from the behaviour of a dog pampered with 
the best morsels of a plentiful kitchen, which 
is the case of the people of America, to the 
behaviour of a wolf, which is nothing but a 
dog run wild, after a week's fast among the 
snows of the Pyrenees. No commotion, says 
Mr. Bentham, was ever really produced by the 
wish of levelling : the wish has been put for- 
ward as a blind ; but something else has been 
the real object. Grant all this. But why has 
levelling been put forward as a blind in times 
of commotion, to conceal the real objects of 
the agitators 1 Is it with declarations which 
involve " a suicide of hope," that men attempt 
to allure others 1 Was famine, pestilence, 
slavery, ever held out to attract the people 1 
If levelling has been made a pretence for dis- 
turbances, the argument against Mr. Bentham's 
doctrine is as strong as if it had been the real 
object of the disturbances. 

But the great objection which Mr. Bentham 
makes to our review, still remains to be noticed. 

" The pith of the charge against the author 
of the Essays is, that he has written ' an ela> 
borate Treatise on Government,' and ' deduced 
the whole science from the assumption of cer- 
tain propensities of human nature.' Now, in 
(tie name of Sir Richard Birnie, and all saints, 
from what else should it be deduced 1 What 
did ever anybody imagine to be the end, object, 
and design of government as it ought to be, but 
the same operation, on an extended scale, which 
that meritorious chief magistrate conducts on 
a limited one at Bow Street ; to wit, the pre- 
venting one man from injuring another ] Ima- 
gine, then, that the whiggery of Bow Street were 
H rise up against the proposition that their sci- 
ence was to be deduced from 'certain propen- 
sities of human nature,' and thereon were to 
rahocinate as follows ;— 



" ' How then are we to arrive at just cc nclu* 
sions on a subject so important to the happi* 
ness of mankind? Surely by that method 
which, in every experimental science to which 
it has been applied, has signally increased the 
power and knowledge of our species, — by that 
method for which our new philosophers would 
substitute quibbles scarcely worthy of the bar- 
barous respondents and opponents of the middle 
ages, — by the method of induction, — by observ- 
ing the present state of the world, by assidu- 
ously studying the history of past ages, — by 
sifting the evidence of facts, — by carefully 
combining and contrasting those which are 
authentic, — by generalizing with judgment and 
diffidence, — by perpetually bringing the theory 
which we have constructed to the test of new 
facts, — by correcting, or altogether abandoning 
it, according as those new facts prove it to be 
partially or fundamentally unsound. Proceed- 
ing thus, — patiently, diligently, candidly, — wp 
may hope to form a system as far inferior it 
pretension to that which we have been exanrr-. 
ing, and as far superior to it in real utility, <a 
the prescriptions of a great pn*vsician, varying 
with every stage of every malady, and with the 
constitution of every patient, to the pill of the 
advertising quack, which is to cure all human 
beings, in all climates, of all diseases.' 

" Fancy now, — only fancy, — the delivery of 
these wise words at Bow Street; and think 
how speedily the practical catchpolls would 
reply that all this might be very fine, but as far 
as they had studied history, the naked story 
was, after all, that numbers of men had a pro- 
pensity to thieving, and their business was to 
catch them ; that they, too, had been sifters of 
facts ; and, to say the truth, their simple opi- 
nion was, that their brethren of the red waist- 
coat — though they should be sorry to think ill 
of any man — had somehow contracted a lean- 
ing to the other side, and were more bent on 
puzzling the case for the benefit of the defend- 
ants, than on doing the duty of good officers 
and true. Such would, beyond all doubt, be 
the sentence passed on such trimmers in the 
microcosm of Bow Street. It might not abso- 
lutely follow that they were in a plot to rob the 
goldsmiths' shops, or to set fire to the House 
of Commons ; but it would be quite clear that 
they had got a feeling, — that they were in pro- 
cess of siding with the thieves, — and that il 
was not to them that any man must look, who 
was anxious that pantries should be safe." 

This is all very witty ; but it does not touch 
us. On the present occasion, Ave cannot but 
flatter ourselves that we bear a much greater 
resemblance to a practical catchpoll than either 
Mr. Mill or Mr. Bentham. It would, to be sure, 
be very absurd in a magistrate, discussing the 
arrangements of a police-office, to spout in the 
style either of our article or Mr. Bentham's ; 
but, in substance, he would proceed, if he were 
a man of sense, exactly as we recommend. He 
would, on being appointed to provide for the 
security of property in a town, study attentively 
the state of the town. He would learn at what 
places, at what times, and under what circum- 
stances, theft and outrage were most frequent. 
Are the streets, he would ask, most infested 
with thieves at sunset, or at midnight 1 Are 



BENTHAM'S DEFENCE OF MILL. 



691 



there any public places of resort which give 
peculiar facilities to pickpockets'? Are there 
any districts completely inhabited by a lawless 
population 1 Which are the flash-houses, and 
which the shops of receivers 1 Having made 
himself master of the facts, he would act ac- 
cordingly. A strong detachment of officers 
might be necessary for Petticoat-Lane ; another 
for the pit entrance of Covent-Garden Theatre. 
Grosvenor Square and Hamilton Place would 
require little or no protection. Exactly thus 
should we reason about government. Lom- 
bardy is oppressed by tyrants; and constitu- 
tional checks, such as may produce security 
to the people, are required. It is, so to speak, 
one of the resorts of thieves, and there is great 
need of police-officers. Denmark resembles 
one of those respectable streets, in which it is 
scarcely necessary to station a catchpoll, be- 
cause the inhabitants would at once join to 
seize a thief. Yet even in such a street, we 
should wish to see an officer appear now and 
then, as his occasional superintendence would 
render the security more complete. And even 
Denmark, we think, would be better off under 
a constitutional form of government. 

Mr. Mill proceeds like a director of police, 
who, without asking a single question about the 
state of his district, should give his orders 
thus: — "My maxim is, that every man will 
take what he can. Every man in London 
would be a thief, but for the thief-takers. This 
is an undeniable principle of human nature. 
Some of my predecessors have wasted their 
time in inquiring about particular pawnbro- 
kers, and particular alehouses. Experience is 
altogether divided. Of people placed in ex- 
actly the same situation, I see that one steals, 
and that another would sooner burn his hand 
off. Therefore I trust to the laws of human 
nature alone, and pronounce all men thieves 
alike. Let everybody, high and low, be watch- 
ed. Let Townsend take particular care that 
the Duke of Wellington does not steal the silk 
handkerchief of the lord in waiting at the 
levee. A person has lost a watch. Go to Lord 
Fitzwilliam and search him for it: he is as 
great a receiver of stolen goods as Ikey Solo- 
mans himself. Don't tell me about his rank, 
and character, and fortune. He is a man ; and 
a man does not change his nature when he is 
called a lord.* Either men will steal or they 
will not steal. If they will not, why do I sit 
here 1 If they will, his lordship must be a 
thief." The whiggery of Bow Street would 
perhaps rise up against this wisdom. Would 
Mr. Bentham think that the whiggery of Bow 
was in the wrong 1 

We blamed Mr. Mill for deducing his theory 
of government from the principles of human 
nature. "In the name of Sir Richard Birnie, 
and all saints," cries Mr. Bentham, " from what 



* If government is founded upon this, as a law of hu- 
man nature, that a man, if able, will take from others 
any thing which they have and he desires, it is suffi- 
ciently evident that when a man is called a king, he does 
not change his nature ; so that, when he has power to 
take what he pleases, he will take what he pleases. To 
suppose that he will not, is to affirm that government is 
unnecessary, and that human beings will abstain from 
Injuring one another of their own accord." — Mill on 
Oovernmnni. 



else should it be deducea !" In spite of this 
solemn adjuration, we shall venture to answer 
Mr. Bentham's question by another. How does 
he arrive at those principles of human nature 
from which he proposes to deduce the scienc* 
of government] We think that we may ven> 
ture to put an answer into his mouth; for in 
truth there is but one possible answer. He 
will say — By experience. But what is the 
extent of this experience 1 Is it an experience 
which includes experience of the conduct of 
men intrusted with the powers of government ; 
or is it exclusive of that experience 1 If it 
includes experience' of the manner in which 
men act when intrusted with the powers of 
government, then those principles of human 
nature from which the science of govern- 
ment is to be deduced, can only be known after 
going through that inductive process by which 
we propose to arrive at the science of govern- 
ment. Our knowledge of human nature, in- 
stead of being prior in order to our knowledge 
of the science of government, will be posterior 
to it. And it would be correct to say, that by 
means of the science of government, and of 
other kindred sciences — the science of educa- 
tion, for example, which falls under exactly the 
same principle — we arrive at the science of 
human nature. 

If, on the other hand, we are to deduce the 
theory of government from principles of hu- 
man nature, in arriving at which principles we 
have not taken into the account the manner 
in which men act when invested with the 
powers of government, then those principles 
must be defective. They have not been formed 
by a sufficiently copious induction. We are 
reasoning from what a man does in one situa- 
tion, to what he will do in another. Sometimes 
we may be quite justified in reasoning thus. 
When we have no means of acquiring infor- 
mation about the particular case before us, we 
are compelled to resort to caseswhich bear some 
resemblance to it. But the most satisfactory 
course is to obtain information about the par- 
ticular case ; and whenever this can be ob- 
tained, it ought to be obtained. When first the 
yellow fever broke out, a physician might be 
justified in treating it as he had been accus- 
tomed to treat those complaints which, on the 
whole, had the most symptoms in common with 
it. But what should we think of a physician 
who should now tell us that he deduced his 
treatment of yellow fever from the general 
theory of pathology 1 Surely we should ask 
him, Whether, in constructing his theory of 
pathology, he had, or had not, taken into the 
account the facts which had been ascertained 
respecting the yellow fever 1 If he had, then 
it would be more correct to say, that he had 
arrived at the principles of pathology partly 
by his experience of cases of yellow fever, 
than that he had deduced his treatment of yel- 
low fever from the principles of pathology. 
If he had not, he should not prescribe for us. 
If we had the yellow fever, we should prefer a 
man who had never treated any cases of yellow 
fever, to a man who had walked the hospitals 
of London and Paris for years, but who knew 
nothing of our particular disease. 

Let Lord Bacon sneak for us : "Tnduetionem 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



censemus earn esse demonstrandi formam, quae I 
sensum, tuetur, et naturam premit, et operibus 
imminet, ac fere immiscetur. Itaque ordo 
quoque demonstrandi plane invertitur. Adhuc 
enim res ita geri consuevit, ut a sensu et par- 
ticularibus primo loco ad maxime generalia 
advoletur, tanquam ad polos fixos, circa quos 
disputationes vertantur ; ab illis csetera, per 
media, deriventur ; via certe compendiaria, sed 
pracepiti, et ad naturam impervia, ad disputa- 
tiones proclivi et accommodatd. At, secundum 
nos, axiomata continenter et gradatim excitan- 
tur, ut non, nisi postremo loco, ad maxime 
generalia veniatur." Can any words more 
exactly describe the political reasonings of Mr. 
Mill than those in which Lord Bacon thus de- 
scribes the logomachies of the schoolmen'! 
Mr. Mill springs at once to a general principle 
of the widest extent, and from that general 
principle deduces syllogistically every thing 
which is included in it. We say with Bacon — 
"non, nisi postremo loco, ad maxime generalia 
veniatur." In the present inquiry, the science 
of human nature is the "maxime generale." 
To this the Utilitarian rushes at once, and from 
this he deduces a hundred sciences. But the 
true philosopher, the inductive reasoner, travels 
up to it slowly, through those hundred sciences, 
of which the science of government is one. 

As we have lying before us that incompar- 
able volume, the noblest and most useful of all 
the works of the human reason, the Novum 
Organum, we will transcribe a few lines, in 
which the Utilitarian philosophy is portrayed 
to the life. 

" Syllogismus ad principia scientiarum non 
adhibetur, ad media axiomata frustra adhibetur, 
cum sit subtilitati natura longe impar. As- 
sensum itaque constringit, non res. Syllogis- 
mus ex propositionibus constat, propositiones 
ex verbis, verba notionum tessera sunt. Itaque 
si notiones ipsa;, id quod basis rei est, confusce 
sint, et temere a rebus abstractae, nihil in iis 
quae superstruuntur est firmitudinis. Itaque 
spes est una in Inductione vera. In notionibus 
nil sani est, nee in Logicis nee in physicis. 
Non substantia, non qualitas, agere, pati, ipsum 
esse, bona? notiones sunt : multo minus grave, 
leve, densum, tenue, humidum, siccum, gene- 
ratio, corruptio, attrahere, fugare, elementum, 
materia, forma, et id genus, sed omnes phan- 
tasticse et male terminatce." 

Substitute for the " substantia," the " gene- 
ratio," the " corruptio," the " elementum," the 
"materia" of the old schoolmen, Mr. Mill's 
pain, pleasure, interest, power, objects of 
desire, — and the words of Bacon will seem to 
suit the current year as well as the beginning 
of the seventeenth century. 

We have now gone through the objections 
that Mr. Bentham makes to our article ; and 
we submit ourselves on all the charges to the 
judgment of the public. 

The rest of Mr. Bentham's article consists 
of an exposition of the Utilitarian principle, 
or, as he decrees that it shall be cahed, the 
" greatest happiness principle." He seems to 
think that we have been assailing it. We 
never said a syllable against it. We spoke 
slightingly of the Utilitarian sect, as we thought 
pf them, and think of them ; but it was not for 



holding this doctrine that we blamed them. I« 
attacking them we no more meant to attack 
the " greatest happiness principle," than when 
we say that Mohammedanism is a false religion, 
we mean to deny the unity of God, which is the 
first article of the Mohammedan creed; — no 
more than Mr. Bentham, when he sneers at th« 
whigs, means to blame them for denying the 
divine right of kings. We reasoned throughout 
our article on the supposition that the end of 
government was to produce the greatest happi- 
ness to mankind. 

Mr. Bentham gives an account of the manner 
in which he arrived at the discovery of the 
" greatest happiness principle." He then pro- 
ceeds to describe the effects which, as he con- 
ceives, that discovery is producing, in language 
so rhetorical and ardent, that, if it had been 
written by any other person, a genuine Utilita- 
rian would certainly have thrown down the 
book in disgust. 

"The only rivals of any note to the new 
principles which were brought forward, were 
those known by the names of the ' moral sense,' 
and the 'original contract.' The new principle 
superseded the first of these, by presenting it 
with a guide for its decisions ; and the other, 
by making it unnecessary to resort to a remote 
and imaginary contract, for what was clearly 
the business of every man and every hour. 
Throughout the whole horizon of morals and 
of politics, the consequences were glorious 
and vast. It might be said, without danger of 
exaggeration, that they who sat in darkness 
had seen a great light. The mists in which 
mankind had jousted against each other were 
swept away, as when the sun of astronomical 
science arose in the full development of the 
principle of gravitation. If the object of legis- 
lation was the greatest happiness, morality was 
the promotion of the same end by the conduct 
of the individual ; and by analogy, the happi- 
ness of the world was the morality of nations. 

" All the sublime obscurities, which had 

haunted the mind of man from the first forma- 
tion of society, — the phantoms whose steps had 
been on earth, and their heads among the 
clouds, — marshalled themselves at the sounu 
of this new principle of connection and of 
union, and stood a regulated band, where all 
was order, symmetry, and force. What men 
had struggled for and bled, while they saw it bu 
as through a glass darkly, was made the object 
of substantial knowledge and lively appre- 
hension. The bones of sages and of patriots 
stirred within their tombs, that what they dimly 
saw and followed had become the world's 
common heritage. And the great result was 
wrought by no supernatural means, nor pro- 
duced by any unparallelable concatenation of 
events. It was foretold by no oracles, and 
ushered by no portents ; but was brought about 
by the quiet and reiterated exercise of God's 
first gift of common sense." 

Mr. Bentham's discovery does not, as we 
think we shall be able to show, approach in 
importance to that of gravitation, to which he 
compares it. At all events, Mr. Bentham seems 
to us to act much as Sir Isaac Newton would 
have done, if he had gone about boasting 
that he was the first person who taught brick 



BENTHAM'S DEFENCE OF MUX. 



093 



layers not to jump off scaffolds and break 
their legs. 

Does Mr. Bentham profess to hold out any 
new motive which may induce men to promote 
the happiness of the species to which they 
belong ? Not at all. He distinctly admits that, 
if he is asked why governments should attempt 
to produce the greatest possible happiness, he 
can give no answer. 

" The real answer," says he, " appeared to 
be, that men at large ought not to allow a go- 
vernment to afflict them with more evil or less 
good than they can help. What a government 
ought to do, is a mysterious and searching 
question, which those may answer who know 
what it means ; but what other men ought to 
do, is a question of no mystery at all. The 
word ought, if it means any thing, must have 
reference to some kind of interest or motives: 
and what interest a government has in doing 
right, when it happens to be interested in doing 
Wrong, is a question for the schoolmen. The 
fact appears to be, that ought is not predicable 
of goverffments. The question is not why 
governments are bound not to do this or that, 
but why other men should let them if they can 
help it. The point is not to determine why 
the lion should not eat sheep, but why men 
should eat their own mutton if they can." 

The principle of Mr. Bentham, if we under- 
stand it, is this, that mankind ought to act so as 
to produce their greatest happiness. The word 
ought, he tells us, has no meaning, unless it be 
used with reference to some interest. But the 
interest of a man is synonymous with his 
greatest happiness : — and therefore to say that 
a man ought to do a thing, is to say that it is 
for his greatest happiness to do it. And to say 
that mankind ought to act so as to produce their 
greatest happiness, is to say that the greatest 
Happiness is the greatest happiness — and this 
is all ! 

Does Mr. Bentham's principle tend to make 
any man wish for any thing for which he would 
not have wished, or do any thing which he 
would not have done, if the principle had 
never been heard of? If not, it is an utterly 
useless principle. Now, every man pursues 
his own happiness or interest — call it which 
you will. If his happiness coincides with the 
happiness of the species, then, whether he ever 
heard of the " greatest happiness principle" or 
not, he will, to the best of his knowledge and 
ability, attempt to produce the greatest happi- 
ness of the species. But, if what he thinks 
his happiness be inconsistent with the greatest 
happiness of mankind, will this new principle 
convert him to another frame of mind I Mr. 
Bentham himself allows, as we have seen, that 
he can give no reason why a man should pro- 
mote the greatest happiness of others, if their 
greatest happiness be inconsistent with what 
he thinks his own. We should very much like 
to know how the Utilitarian principle would 
run, when reduced to one plain imperative 
proposition. Will it run thus — pursue your 
own happiness ? This is superfluous. Every 
man pursues it, according to his light, and 
always has pursued it, and always must pursue 
it. To say that a man has done any thing, is 
to say mat he thought it for his happiness to 



do it. Will the principle run thus- pursue the 
greatest happiness of mankind, whether it be 
your own greatest happiness or not? This is 
absurd and impossible, and Mr. Bentham him- 
self allows it to be so. But if the principle 
be not stated in one of these two ways, we can- 
not imagine how it is to be stated at all. Stated 
in one of these ways, it is an identical proposi- 
tion, — true, but utterly barren of consequences. 
Stated in the other way, it is a contradiction in 
terms. Mr. Bentham has distinctly declined 
the absurdity. Are we then to suppose that he 
adopts the truism? 

There are thus, it seems, two great truths 
which the Utilitarian philosophy is to commu- 
nicate to mankind — two truths which are to 
produce a revolution in morals, in laws, in 
governments, in literature, in the whole system 
of life. The first of these is speculative ; the 
second is practical. The speculative truth is, 
that the greatest happiness is the greatest hap- 
piness. The practical rule is very simple, for 
it imports merely that men should never omit, 
when they wish for any thing, to wish for it. or 
when they do any thing, to do it ! It is a great 
comfort for us to think, that we readily assent- 
ed to the former of these great doctrines as 
soon as it was stated to us ; and that we have 
long endeavoured, as far as human frailty would 
permit, to conform to the latter in our practice. 
We are, however, inclined to suspect, that the 
calamities of the human race have been owing 
less to their not knowing that happiness was 
happiness, than to their not knowing how to, 
obtain it — less to their neglecting to do what 
they did, than to their not being able to do what 
they wished, or not wishing to do what they 
ought. 

Thus frivolous, thus useless is this philoso- 
phy, — "controversiarum ferax, operum effceta, 
ad garriendum prompta, ad generandum in- 
valida."* The humble mechanic who disco- 
vers some slight improvement in the construc- 
tion of safety lamps or steam vessels, does 
more for the happiness of mankind than the 
" magnificent principle," as Mr. Bentham calls 
it, will do in ten thousand years. The mechanic 
teaches us how we may, in a small degree, be 
better off than we were. The Utilitarian ad- 
vises us, with great pomp, to be as well off as 
we can. 

The doctrine of a moral sense may be very 
unphilosophical, but we do not think that it can 
be proved to te pernicious. Men did not enter- 
tain certain desires and aversions because they 
believed in a moral sense, but they gave the 
name of moral sense to a feeling which they 
found in their minds, however it came there. 
If they had given it no name at all, it would 
still have influenced their actions : and it will 
not be very easy to demonstrate that it has in- 
fluenced their actions the more, because they 
have called it the moral sense. The theory of 
the original contract is a fiction, and a very 
absurd fiction ; but in practice it meant, what 
the "greatest happiness principle," if evei 
it becomes a watchword of political warfare 
will mean — that is to say, whatever served the 
turn of those who used it. Both the one ex 

* Bacon, Novum Organnm. 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



oressioir. and the other sound very well in de- 
bating clubs ; but in the real conflicts of life, 
our passions and interests bid them stand aside 
and know their place. The "greatest happi- 
ness principle" has always been latent under 
the words, social contract, justice, benevo- 
lence, patriotism, liberty, and so forth, just 
as far as it was for the happiness, real or ima- 
gined, of those who used these words to pro- 
mote the greatest happiness of mankind. And 
of this we may be sure, that the words " the 
greatest happiness" will never, in any man's 
mouth, mean more than the greatest happiness 
of others which is consistent with what he 
thinks his own. The project of mending a bad 
WDrld, by teaching people to give new names 
to old things, reminds us of Walter Shandy's 
scheme, for compensating the loss of his son's 
nose by christening him Trismegistus. What 
society wants is a new motive — not a new cant. 
If Mr. Bentham can find out any argument yet 
undiscovered which may induce men to pursue 
the general happiness, he will indeed be a great 
benefactor to our species. But those whose 
happiness is identical with the general happi- 
ness, are even now promoting the general hap- 
piness to the very best of their power and know- 
ledge; and Mr, Bentham himself confesses 
that he has no means of persuading those 
whose happiness is not identical with the gene- 
ral happiness, to act upon his principle. Is 
not this, then, darkening counsel by words 
without knowledge? If the only fruit of the 
"magnificent principle" is to be, that the op- 
pressors and pilferers of the next generation 
are to talk of seeking the greatest happiness 
of the greatest number, just as the same class 
of men have talked in our time of seeking to 
uphold the Protestant Constitution — just as 
they talked under Anne of seeking the good 
of the Church, and under Cromwell, of seek- 
ing the Lord — where is the gain 1 Is not every 
great question already enveloped in a suffi- 
ciently dark cloud of unmeaning words ? Is it 
so difficult for a man to cant some one or more 
of the good old English cants which his father 
and grandfather canted before him, that he 
must learn, in the school of the Utilitarians, a 
new sleight of tongue, to make fools clap and 
wise men sneer ? Let our countrymen keep 
their eyes on the neophytes of this sect, and see 
whether we turn out to be mistaken in the pre- 
diction which we now hazard. It will before 
long be found, we prophesy, that, as the cor- 
ruption of a dunce is the generation of an 
Utilitarian, so is the corruption of an Utilita- 
rian the generation of a jobber. 

The most elevated station that the " greatest 
happiness principle" is ever likely to attain is 
this, that it may be a fashionable phrase among 
newspaper writers and members of Parliament 
—that it may succeed to the dignity which has 
been enjoyed by the " original contract," by the 
"constitution of 1688," and other expressions 
of the same kind. We do not apprehend that 
it is a less flexible cant than those which have 
preceded it, or that it will less easily furnish a 
pretext for any design for which a pretext may 
be required. Tne •' original contract" meant, 
in the Convention Parliament, the co-ordi- 
nate authority ^ f the Three Estates. If there 



were to be a radical insurrection to-morrow 
the " original contract" would stand just as well 
for annual parliaments and universal suffrage. 
The " Glorious Constitution" again, has mean*, 
every thing in turn : the Habeas Corpus Act 
the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, the 
Test Act, the Repeal of the Test Act. There 
has not been for many years a single important 
measure which has not been unconstitutional 
with its opponents, and which its supporters 
have not maintained to be agreeable to the true 
spirit of the constitution. Is it easier to ascer- 
tain what is for the greatest happiness of the 
human race than what is the constitution of 
England? If not, the "greatest happiness 
principle" will be what the "principles of the 
constitution" are, a thing to be appealed to by 
everybody, and understood by everybody in 
the sense which suits him best. It will mean 
cheap bread, dear bread, free trade, protecting 
duties, annual parliaments, septennial parlia- 
ments, universal suffrage, Old Sarum, trial by 
jury, martial law, every thing, in short, good, bad, 
or indifferent, of which any person, from ra- 
pacity or from benevolence, chooses to under- 
take the defence. It will mean six and eight- 
pence with the attorney, tithes at the rectory, 
and game-laws at the manor-house. The sta- 
tute of uses, in appearance the most sweeping 
legislative reform in our history, was said to 
have produced no other effect than that of add- 
ing three words to a conveyance. The uni- 
versal admission of Mr. Bentham's great prin- 
ciple would, as far as we can see, produce no 
other effect than that those orators who, while 
waiting for a meaning, gain time (like bankers 
paying in sixpences during a run) by uttering 
words that mean nothing, would substitute 
"the greatest happiness," or rather, as the 
longer phrase, " the greatest happiness of the 
greatest number," for, " under existing circum- 
stances," — "now that I am on my legs," — and, 
" Mr. Speaker, I, for one, am free to say." In 
fact, principles of this sort resemble those 
forms which are sold by law-stationers, with 
blanks for the names of parties, and for the 
special circumstances of every case — mere 
customary headings and conclusions, which 
are equally at the command of the most honest 
and of the most unrighteous claimant. It is on 
the filling up that every thing depends. 

The "greatest happiness principle" of Mr. 
Bentham is included in the Christian morality 
and, to our thinking, it is there exhibited in an. 
infinitely more sound and philosophical form 
than in the Utilitarian speculations. For in 
the New Testament it is neither an identical 
proposition, nor a contradiction in terms ; and, 
as laid down by Mr. Bentham, it must be either 
the one or the other. " Do as you would be 
done by : Love your neighbour as yourself;" 
these are the precepts of Jesus Christ. Under- 
stood in an enlarged sense, these precepts are, 
in fact, a direction to every man to promote 
the greatest happiness of the greatest number 
But this direction would be utterly unmean- 
ing, as it actually is in Mr. Bentham's philoso* 
phy, unless it were accompanied by a sanction. 
In the Christian scheme, accordingly, it is ac- 
companied by a sanction of immense force. 
To a man whose greatest happiness in this 



BENTHAM'S DEFENCE OF MILL. 



395 



World is inconsistent with the greatest happi- 
ness of the greatest number, is held out the 
prospect of an infinite happiness hereafter, 
from which he excludes himself by wronging 
his fellow-creatures here. 

This is practical philosophy, as practical as 
that on which penal legislation is founded. A 
man is told to do something which otherwise 
ne would not do, and is furnished with a new 
motive for doing it. Mr. Bentham has no new 
motive to furnish his disciples with. He has 
talents sufficient to effect any thing that can be 
effected. But to induce men to act without an 
inducement is too much even for him. He 
should reflect that the whole vast world of 
morals cannot be moved, unless the mover 
can obtain some stand for his engines beyond 
it. He acts as Archimedes would have done, 
if he had attempted to move the earth by a 
ever fixed on the earth. The action and re- 
action neutralize each other. The artist la- 
bours, and the world remains at rest. Mr. 
Bentham^ can only tell us to do something 
which we have always been doing, and should 
still have continued to do, if we had never 
heard of the " greatest happiness principle," — 
or else to do something which we have no con- 
ceivable motive for doing, and therefore shall 
not do. Mr. Bentham's principle is at best 
no more than the golden rule of the Gospel 
without its sanction. Whatever evils, there- 
fore, have existed in societies in which the au- 
thority of the Gospel is recognised, may, a for- 
tiori, as it appears to us, exist in societies in 
which the Utilitarian principle is recognised. 
We do not apprehend that it is more difficult 
for a tyrant or a persecutor to persuade him- 
self and others that, in putting to death those 
who oppose his power or differ from his opi- 
nions, he is pursuing "the greatest happiness," 
than that he is doing as he would be done by. 
But religion gives him a motive for doing as 
he would be done by: and Mr. Bentham fur- 
nishes him with no motive to induce him to 
promote the general happiness. If, on the 
other hand, Mr. Bentham's principle mean only 
that every man should pursue his own great- 
est happiness, he merely asserts what every- 
body knows, and recommends what everybody 
does. 

It is not upon this " greatest happiness prin- 
ciple" that the fame of Mr. Bentham will rest. 
He has not taught people to pursue their own 
happiness ; for that they always did. He has 
not taught them to promote the happiness of 
others at the expense of their own ; for that they 
will not and cannot do. But he has taught 
them how, in some most important points, to 
promote their own happiness; and if his school 
had emulated him as successfully in this re- 
spect as in the trick of passing off truisms for 
discoveries, the name of Benthamite would 
have been no word for the scoffer. But few 
of those who consider themselves as in a more 
especial manner his followers, have any thing 
in common with him but his faults. The 
whole science of jurisprudence is his. He has 
done much for political economy; but we are 
not aware that in either department any im- 
provement has been made by members of his 



sect. He discovered truths; all that they havfl 
done has been to make those truths unpopular 
He investigated the philosophy of law; hfl 
could teach them only to snarl at lawyers. 

We entertain no apprehensions of danger to 
the institutions of this country from the Utili- 
tarians. Our fears are of a different kind. We 
dread the odium and discredit of their alliance. 
We wish to see a broad and clear line drawn be 
tween the judicious friends of practical reform 
and a sect which, having derived all its influence 
from the countenance which they have impru* 
dently bestowed upon it, hates them with the 
deadly hatred of ingratitude. There is not, 
and we firmly believe that there never was, in 
this country, a party so unpopular. They 
have already made the science of political 
economy — a science of vast importance to the 
welfare of nations — an object c.f disgust to the 
majority of the community. The question of 
parliamentary reform will share the same fate, 
if once an association be formed in the publie 
mind between Reform an Utilitarianism. 

We bear no enmity to any member of the 
sect: and for Mr. Bentham we entertain very 
high admiration. We know that among his 
followers there are some well-intentioned men, 
and some men of talents : but we cannot say 
that we think the logic on which they pride 
themselves likely to improve their heads, or 
the scheme of morality which they have adopt- 
ed likely to improve their hearts. Their theory 
of morals, however, well deserves an article to 
itself; and perhaps, on some future occasion, 
we may discuss it more fully than time and 
space at present allow. 



The preceding article was written, and was 
actually in types, when a letter from Mr. Ben- 
tham appeared in the newspapers, importing, 
that "though he had furnished the Westminster 
Review with some memoranda respecting ' the 
greatest happiness principle,' he had nothing 
to do with the remarks on our former article. 
We are truly happy to find that this illustrious 
man had so small a share in a performance 
which, for his sake, we have treated with far 
greater lenity than it deserved. The mistake, 
however, does not in the least affect any part 
of our arguments; and we have therefore 
thought it unnecessary to cancel or cast anew 
any of the foregoing pages. Indeed, we are 
not sorry that the world should see how re- 
spectfully we were disposed to treat a great 
man, even when we considered him as the au- 
thor of a very weak and very unfair attack on 
ourselves. We wish, however, to intimate to 
the actual writer of that attack, that our civili- 
ties were intended for the author of the 
"Preuves Judiciaires," and the "Defence of 
Usury," — and not for him. We cannot con- 
clude, indeed, without expressing a wish*— ■ 
though we fear it has but little chance c£ 
reaching Mr. Bentham, — that he would endea- 
vour to find better editors for his compositions 
If M. Dumont had not been a redadeur of a dif 
ferent description from some of his successors, 
Mr. Bentham would never have attained the 
distinction of even giving his name to a sect. 



696 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



UTILITARIAN THEORY OF GOVERNMENT/ 



[Edinburgh Review, October, 1829.] 



We have long been of opinion that the Uti- 
litarians have owed all their influence to a 
mere delusion — that, while professing to have 
submitted their minds to an intellectual disci- 
pline of peculiar severity, to have discarded all 
sentimentality, and to have acquired consum- 
mate skill in the art of reasoning, they are de- 
cidedly inferior to the mass of educated men 
in the very qualities in which they conceive 
themselves to excel. They have undoubtedly 
freed themselves from the dominion of some 
absurd notions. But their struggle for intel- 
lectual emancipation has ended, as injudicious 
and violent struggles for political emancipation 
too often end, in a mere change of tyrants. 
Indeed, we are not sure that we do not prefer 
the venerable nonsense which holds prescrip- 
tive sway over the ultra-tory, to the upstart 
dynasty of prejudices and sophisms, by which 
the revolutionists of the moral world have 
suffered themselves to be enslaved. 

The Utilitarians have sometimes been abused 
as intolerant, arrogantjirrel'igious, — as enemies 
of literature, of the fine arts, and of the domes- 
tic charities. They have been reviled for some 
things of which they were guilty, and for some 
of which they were innocent. But scarcely 
anybody seems to have perceived, that almost 
all. their peculiar faults arise from the utter want 
both of comprehensiveness and of precision in 
their mode of reasoning. We have, for some 
time past, been convinced that this was really 
the case ; and that, whenever their philosophy 
should be boldly and unsparingly scrutinized, 
the world would see that it had been under a 
mistake respecting them. 

We have made the experiment, and it has 
succeeded far beyond our most sanguine ex- 
pectations. A chosen champion of the school 
has come forth against us. A specimen of his 
logical abilities now lies before us ; and we 
pledge ourselves to show, that no prebendary 
at an Anti-Catholic meeting, no true-blue baro- 
net after the third bottle at a Pitt Club, ever 
displayed such utter incapacity of comprehend- 
ing or answering an argument, as appears in 
the speculations of this Utilitarian apostle; 
that he does not understand our meaning, or 
Mr. Mill's meaning, or Mr. Bentham's meaning, 
or his own meaning ; and that the various parts 
o: his system — if the name of system can be 
so misapplied — directly contradict each other. 

Having shown this, we intend to leave him in 
undisputed possession of whatever advantage 
he may derive from the last word. We pro- 
pose only to convince the public that there is 
nothing in the far-famed logic of the Utilita- 
rians, of which any plain man has reason to 



* Westminster Review, (XXII. Art. 16,) on the Stric- 
tures of the Edinburgh Review (XCVIII. Art. 1,) on the 
V.Uitarian Theory of Government, and the " Greatest 
Happiness Principle." 



be afraid ; — that this logic will impose on no 
man who dares to look it in the face. 

The Westminster Reviewer begins by charg 
ing us with having misrepresented an import- 
ant part of Mr. Mill's argument. 

" The first extract given by the Edinburgh 
Reviewers from the essay was an insulated 
passage, purposely despoiled of what had pre- 
ceded and what followed. The author had 
been observing, that some profound and bene- 
volent investigators of human affairs had 
adopted the conclusion, that of all the possible 
forms of government, absolute monarchy is 
the best. This is what the reviewers have 
omitted at the beginning. He then adds, as in 
the extract, that ' Experience, if we look only at 
the outside of the facts, appears to be divided on 
this subject;' there are Caligulas in one place, 
and kings of Denmark in another. 'As the 
surface of history affords, therefore, no certain 
principle of decision, we must go beyond the sur- 
face, and penetrate to the springs within.' This 
is what the reviewers have omitted at the 
end." 

It is perfectly true, that our quotation from 
Mr. Mill's Essay was, like most other quotations, 
preceded and followed by something which 
we did not quote. But if the Westminster Re- 
viewer means to say, that either what preceded, 
or what followed, would, if quoted, have shown 
that we put a wrong interpretation on the pas- 
sage which was extracted, he does not under- 
stand Mr. Mill rightly. 

Mr. Mill undoubtedly says that, " as the sur- 
face of history affords no certain principle of 
decision, we must go beyond the surface, and 
penetrate to the springs within." But these 
expressions will admit of several interpreta- 
tions. In what sense, then, does Mr. Mill use 
them 1 If he means that we ought to inspect 
the facts with close attention, he means what 
is rational. But if he means that we ought to 
leave the facts, with all their apparent incon- 
sistencies, unexplained — to lay down a general 
principle of the widest extent, and to deduce 
doctrines from that principle by syllogistic ar- 
gument, without pausing to consider whether 
those doctrines be, or be not, consistent with 
the facts, — then he means what is irrational ; 
and this is clearly what he does mean : for he 
immediately begins, without offering the least 
explanation of the contradictory appearances 
which he has himself described, to go beyond 
the surface in the following manner : — " That 
one human being will desire to render the per- 
son and property of another subservient to his 
pleasures, notwithstanding the pain or loss of 
pleasure which it may occasion, to that othe? 
individual, is the foundation of government 
The desire of the object implies the desire of 
the power necessary to accomplish the object." 
And thus he proceeds to deduce consequencej 



UTILITARIAN THEORY OF GOVERNMENT. 



697 



directly inconsistent with what he has himself 
stated respecting the situation of the Danish 
people. 

If we assume that the object of government 
is the preservation of the persons and property 
of men, then we must hold that, wherever that 
object is attained, there the principle of good 
government exists. If that object be attained 
both in Denmark and in the United States of 
America, then that which makes government 
good must exist, under whatever disguise of 
title or name, both in Denmark and in the 
United States. If men lived in fear for their 
lives and their possessions under Nero and 
under the National Convention, it follows that' 
the causes from which misgovernment pro- 
ceeds, existed both in the despotism of Rome, 
and in the democracy of France. What, then, 
is that which, being found in Denmark and in 
the United States, and not being found in the 
Roman empire, or under the administration of 
Robespierre, renders governments, widely dif- 
fering in their external form, practically good 1 
Be it what it may, it certainly is not that which 
Mr. Mill proves a priori that it must be, — a de- 
mocratic representative assembly. For the 
Danes have no such assembly. 

The latent principle of good government 
ought to be tracked, as it appears to us, in the 
same manner in which Lord Bacon proposed 
to track the principle of heat. Make as large 
a list as possible, said that great man, of those 
bodies in which, however widely they differ 
from «ach other in appearance, we perceive 
heat ; and as large a list as possible of those 
which, while they bear a general resemblance 
to hot bodies, are, nevertheless, not hot. Ob- 
serve the different degrees of heat in different 
hot bodies, and then, if there be something 
which is found in all hot bodies, and of which 
the increase or diminution is always accom- 
panied by an increase or diminution of heat, 
we may hope that we have really discovered 
the object of our search. In the same manner, 
we ought to examine the constitution of all 
those communities in which, under whatever 
form, the blessings of good government are en- 
joyed; and to discover, if possible, in what 
they resemble each other, and in what they all 
differ from those societies in which the object 
of government is not attained. By proceeding 
thus we shall arrive, not indeed at a perfect 
theory of government, but at a theory which 
will be of great practical use, and which the 
experience of every successive generation will 
probably bring nearer and nearer to perfection. 

The inconsistencies into which Mr. Mill has 
been betrayed, by taking a different course, 
ought to serve as a warning to all speculators. 
Because Denmark is well governed by a mo- 
narch, who, in appearance at least, is absolute, 
Mr. Mill thinks, that the only mode of arriving 
at the true principles of government, is to de- 
duce them a priori from the laws of human na- 
ture. And what conclusion does he bring out 
by this deduction 1 We will give it in his own 
words : — " In the grand discovery of modern 
times, the system of representation, the solu- 
tion of all the difficulties, both speculative and 
practical, will perhaps be found. If it cannot, 
we seem to be forced upon the extraordinary 



conclusion, that good government is impossl 
ble." That the Danes are well governed with- 
out a representation, is a reason for deducing 
the theory of government from a general prin- 
ciple, from which it necessarily follows, that 
good government is impossible without a re- 
presentation ! We have done our best to put 
this question plainly ; and we think, that if the 
Westminster Reviewer will read over what we 
have written, twice or thrice with patience and 
attention, some glimpse of our meaning will 
break in, even on his mind. 

Seme objections follow, so frivolous and un- 
fair, that we are almost ashamed to notice them. 

" When it was said that there was in Den- 
mark a balanced contest between the king and 
the nobility, what was said was, that there was 
a balanced contest, but it did not last. It was 
balanced till something put an end to the ba- 
lance ; and so is every thing else. That such 
a balance will not last, is precisely what Mr 
Mill had demonstrated." 

Mr. Mill, we positively affirm, pretends to 
demonstrate, not merely that a balanced con« 
test between the king and the aristocracy will 
not last, but that the chances are as infinity to 
one against the existence of such a balanced 
contest. This is a mere question of fact: We 
quote the words of the Essay, and defy the 
Westminster Reviewer to impeach our accu- 
racy : — 

"It seems impossible that such equality 
should ever exist. How is it to be esta- 
blished'? Or by what criterion is it to be as- 
certained? If there is no such criterion, it 
must, in all cases, be the result of chance. 
If so, the chances against it are as infinity to 
one." 

The Reviewer has confounded the division 
of power with the balance or equal division 
of power. Mr. Mill says, that the division of 
power can never exist long, because it is next 
to impossible that the equal division of power 
should ever exist at all. 

" When Mr. Mill asserted that it cannot be 
for the interest of either the monarchy or the 
aristocracy to combine with the democracy, it 
is plain- he did not assert that if the monarchy 
and aristocracy were in doubtful contest with 
each other, they would not, either of them, ac- 
cept of the assistance of the democracy. He 
spoke of their taking the side of the democra- 
cy; not of their allowing the democracy to take 
side with themselves." 

If Mr. Mill meant any thing, he must have 
meant this — that the monarchy and the aristo- 
cracy will never forget their enmity to the de- 
mocracy, in their enmity to each other. 

" The monarchy and aristocracy," says he, 
"have all possible motives for endeavouring 
to obtain unlimited power over the persons and 
property of the community. The consequence 
is inevitable. They have all possible motives 
for combining to obtain that power, and unless 
the people have power enough to be a match 
for both, they have no protection. The ba- 
lance, therefore, is a thing, the existence of 
which, upon the best possible evidence, is to 
be regarded as impsssible." 

If Mr. Mill meant only what the Westminster 
Reviewer conceives him to have meant, his 



698 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



irgument would leave the popular theory of 
the balance quite untouched. For it is the 
very theory of the balance, that the help of the 
people will be solicited by the nobles when 
hard pressed by the king, and by the king 
when hard pressed by the nobles ; and that, 
as the price of giving alternate support to the 
crown and the aristocracy, they will obtain 
something for themselves, as the reviewer ad- 
mits that they have done in Denmark. If Mr. 
Mill admits this, he admits the only theory of 
the balance of which we never heard — that 
very theory which he has declared to be wild 
and chimerical. If he denies it, he is at issue 
with the Westminster Reviewer as to the phe- 
nomena of the Danish government. 

We now come to a more important passage. 
Our opponent has discovered, as he conceives, 
a radical error which runs through our whole 
argument, and vitiates every part of it. We 
suspect that we shall spoil his triumph. 

" Mr. Mill never asserted ' that under no des- 
potic government does any human being, except the 
tools of the sovereign, possess more than the necessa- 
ries of life, and that the most intense degree of terror 
is kept up by constant cruelty.' He said that ab- 
solute power leads to such results, ' by infalli- 
ble sequence, where power over a community 
is attained, and nothing checks.' The critic on 
the Mount never made a more palpable mis- 
quotation. 

" The spirit of this misquotation runs through 
•ivery part of the reply of the Edinburgh Re- 
view that relates to the Essay on Government ; 
and is repeated in as many shapes as the Ro- 
man Pork. The whole description of ' Mr. 
Mill's argument against despotism,' — including 
the illustration from right-angled triangles and 
the square of the hypothenuse, — is founded on 
this invention of saying what an author has 
not said, and leaving unsaid what he has." 

We thought, and still think, for reasons 
which our readers will soon understand, that 
we represented Mr. Mill's principle quite fairly, 
and according to the rule and law of common 
sense, ut res magis valeat quam pereat. Let us, 
however, give him all the advantage of the 
explanation tendered by his advocate, and see 
what he will gain by it. 

The Utilitarian doctrine then is, not that 
despots and aristocracies will always oppress 
and plunder the people to the last point, but 
that they will do so if nothing checks them. 

In the first place*,' it is quite clear that the 
doctrine thus stated, is of no use at all, unless 
the force of the checks be estimated. The 
first law of motion is, that a ball once pro- 
jected will fly on to all eternity with undimi- 
nished, velocity, unless something checks. The 
fact is, that a ball stops in a few seconds after 
proceeding a few yards with very variable 
motion. Every man would wring his child's 
neck, and pick his friend's pocket, if nothing 
checked him. In fact, the principle thus stated, 
means only that government will oppress, un- 
less they abstain from oppressing. This is 
quite true, we own. But we might with equal 
propriety turn the maxim round, and lay it 
down as the fundamental principle of govern- 
mert, that all rulers will govern well, unless 



some motive interferes to keep them from do 
ing so. 

If there be, as the Westminster Reviewer 
acknowledges, certain checks which, under 
political institutions the most arbitrary in seem, 
ing, sometimes produce good government, and 
almost always place some restraint on the ra- 
pacity and cruelty of the powerful ; surely the 
knowledge of those checks, of their nature* 
and of their effect, must be a most important 
part of the science of government. Does Mr. 
Mill say any thing upon this part of the sub- 
ject 1 Not one word. 

The line of defence now taken by the Utili- 
tarians evidantly degrades Mr. Mill's theory 
of government from the rank which, till within 
the last few months, was claimed for it by the 
whole sect. It is no longer a practical system, 
fit to guide statesmen, but merely a barren ex- 
ercise of the intellect, like those propositions 
in mechanics in which the effect of friction and 
of the resistance of the air is left out of the 
question ; and which, therefore, though cor- 
rectly deduced from the premises, are in prac- 
tice utterly false. For if Mr. Mill professes to 
prove only that absolute monarchy and aristo- 
cracy are pernicious without checks, — if he 
allows that there are checks which produce 
good government, even under absolute mo- 
narchs and aristocracies, — and if he omits to 
tell us what those checks are, and what effects 
they produce under different circumstances, he 
surely gives us no information which can be 
of real utility. 

But the fact is, — and it is most extraordinary 
that the Westminster Reviewer should not 
have perceived it, — that if once the existence 
of checks on the abuse of power in monarchies 
and aristocracies be admitted, the whole of Mr. 
Mill's theory falls to the ground at once. This 
is so palpable, that in spite of the opinion of 
the Westminster Reviewer, we must acquit Mr. 
Mill of having intended to make such an ad- 
mission. We still think that the words, "where 
power over a community is attained, and no- 
thing checks," must not be understood to mean, 
that under a monarchical or aristocratical form 
of government there can really be any check 
which can in any degree mitigate the wretch- 
edness of the people. 

For, all possible checks may be classed un- 
der two general heads, — want of will, and want 
of power. Now, if a king or an aristocracy* 
having the power to plunder and oppress the 
people, can want the will, all Mr. Mill's prin- 
ciples of human nature must be pronounced 
unsound. He tells us, "that the desire to pos- 
sess unlimited power of inflicting pain upon 
others, is an inseparable part of human nature ;" 
and that " a chain of inference, close and strong 
to a most unusual degree," leads to the conclu- 
sion that those who possess this power will 
always desire to use it. It is plain, therefore, 
that, if Mr. Mill's principles be sound, the check 
on a monarchical or an aristocratical govern- 
ment will not be the want of will to oppress. 

If a king or an aristocracy, having, as Mr 
Mill tells us that they always must have, the will 
to oppress the people with the utmost severity 
want the power, then the government, by what 



UTILITARIAN THEORY OF GOVERNMENT. 



699 



ever name it may be called, must be virtually 
a mixed government, or a pure democracy : for 
it is quite clear that the people possess some 
power in the state — some means of influencing 
the nominal rulers. But Mr. Mill has demon- 
strated that no mixed government can possibly 
exist, or at least that such a government must 
come to a very speedy end : therefore, every 
country in which people not in the service of 
the government have, for any length of time, 
been permitted to accumulate more than the 
yare means of subsistence, must be a pure de- 
mocracy. That is to say, France before the 
revolution, and Ireland during the last century, 
were pure democracies. Prussia, Austria, 
Russia, all the governments of the civilized 
world, were pure democracies. If this be not 
a reductio ad absurdum, we do not know what is. 

The errors of Mr. Mill proceed principally 
from that radical vice in his reasoning, which, 
in our last number, we described in the words 
of Lord Bacon. The Westminster Reviewer 
is unable to discover the meaning of our ex- 
tracts from the Novum Organum, and expresses 
himself as follows : 

" The quotations from Lord Bacon are mis- 
applications, such as anybody may make to 
any thing he dislikes. There is no more re- 
semblance between pain, pleasure, motives, 
&C, and substantia, generatio, corruptio, elemen- 
tum, materia, — than between lines, angles, mag- 
nitudes, &c, and the same." 

It wouM perhaps be unreasonable to expect 
that a writer who cannot understand his own 
English, should understand Lord Bacon's La- 
tin. We will, therefore, attempt to make our 
meaning clearer. 

What Lord Bacon blames in the schoolmen 
of his time, is this, — that they reasoned syllo- 
gistically on words which had not been denned 
with precision ; such as moist, dry, generation, 
corruption, and so forth. Mr. Mill's error is 
exactly of the same kind. He reasons syllo- 
gistically about power, pleasure, and pain, 
without attaching any definite notion to any 
one of those words. There is no more resem- 
blance, says the Westminster Reviewer, be- 
tween pain and substantia, than between pain 
and a line or an angle. By his permission, in 
the very point to which Lord Bacon's observa- 
tion applies, Mr. Mill's subjects do resemble 
the substantia and elementum of the schoolmen, 
and differ from the lines and magnitudes of 
Euclid. We can reason a priori en mathema- 
tics, because we can define with an exactitude 
which precludes all possibility of confusion. 
If a mathematician were to admit the least 
laxity into his notions ; if he were to allow 
himself to be deluded by the vague sense 
which words bear in a popular use, or by the 
aspect of an ill-drawn diagram ; if he were to 
forget in his reasonings that a point was indi- 
visible, or that the definition of a line excluded 
breadth, there would be no end to his blunders. 
The schoolmen tried to reason mathematically 
about things which had not been, and perhaps 
could not be, defined with mathematical accu- 
racy. We know the result. Mr. Mill has in 
our time attempted to do the same. He talks 
of power, for example, as if the meaning of the 
•cord power were as determinate as the mean- 



ing of the word circle. But when we analyze 
his speculations, we find that his notion ot 
power is, in the words of Bacon, "phantastica 
et male terminata." 

There are two senses in which we may use 
the word power, and those words which denote 
the various distributions of power, as for ex« 
ample, monarchy ; — the one sense popular and 
superficial, — the other more scientific and ac- 
curate. Mr. Mill, since he chose to reason a 
priori, ought to have clearly pointed out in 
which sense he intended to use words of this 
kind, and to have adhered inflexibly to the sense 
on which he fixed. Instead of doing this, he 
flies backwards and forwards from the one sense 
to the other, and brings out conclusions at last 
which suit neither. 

The state of these two communities to which 
he has himself referred — the kingdom of Den- 
mark and the empire of Rome — may serve to 
illustrate our meaning. Looking merely at the 
surface of things, we should call Denmark a 
despotic monarchy, and the Roman world, in 
the first century after Christ, an aristocratical 
republic. Caligula was, in theory, nothing 
more than a magistrate elected by the senate, 
and subject to the senate. That irresponsible 
dignity which, in the most limited monarchies 
of our time, is ascribed to the person of the 
sovereign, never belonged to the earlier Cassars. 
The sentence of death which the great council 
of the commonwealth passed on Nero, was 
strictly according to the theory of the constitu- 
tion. Yet, in fact, the power of the Roman 
emperors approached nearer to absolute domi- 
nion than that of any prince in modern Europe 
On the other hand, the king of Denmark, in 
theory the most despotic of princes, would, in 
practice, find it most perilous to indulge in cru- 
elty and licentiousness. Nor is there, we be- 
lieve, at the present moment, a single sovereign 
in our part of the world, who has so much real 
power over the lives of his subjects as Robes- 
pierre, while he lodged at a chandler's and 
dined at a restaurateur's, exercised over the 
lives of those whom he called his fellow-citi- 
zens. 

Mr. Mill and the Westminster Reviewer seem 
to agree, that there cannot long exist, in any 
society, a division of power between a monarch, 
an aristocracy, and the people ; or between any 
two of them. However the power be distri- 
buted, one of the three parties will, according to 
them, inevitably monopolize the whole. Now, 
what is here meant by power 1 If Mr. Mill 
speaks of the external semblance of power, — 
of power recognised by the theory of the con- 
stitution, — he is palpably wrong. In England, 
for example, we have had for ages the name 
and form of a mixed government, if nothing 
more. Indeed, Mr. Mill himself owns, that 
there are appearances which have given colour 
to the theory of the balance, though he main- 
tains that these appearances are delusive. But 
if he uses the word power in a deeper and phi- 
losophical sense, he is, if possible, still more in 
the wrong than on the former supposition. 
For if he had considered in what the power of 
one human being over otherhuman beings must 
ultimately consist, he would have perceived, 
not only that there are mixed government* 



700 



MAC AUL AY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



in the world, but that all the governments in 
the world, and all the governments which can 
even be conceived as existing in the world, 
are virtually mixed. 

If a king possessed the lamp of Aladdin, — 
if he governed by the help of a genius, who 
carried away the daughters and wives of his 
subjects through the air to the royal Parc-aux- 
cerfs, and turned into stone every man who 
wagged a finger against his majesty's govern- 
ment, there would, indeed, be an unmixed des- 
potism. But, fortunately, a ruler can be grati- 
fied only by means of his subjects. His power 
depends on their obedience ; and, as any three 
or four of them are more than a match for 
him by himself, he can only enforce the un- 
willing obedience of some, by means of the 
willing obedience of others. Take any of 
those who are popularly called absolute 
princes — Napoleon for example. Could Napo- 
leon have walked through Paris, cutting off the 
head of one person in every house which he 
passed ? Certainly not without the assistance 
of an army. If not, why not 1 Because the 
people had sufficient physical power to resist 
him, and would have put forth that power in 
defence of their lives and of the lives of their 
children. In other words, there was a portion 
of power in the democracy under Napoleon. 
Napoleon might probably have indulged him- 
self in such an atrocious freak of power if his 
army would have seconded him. But if his 
army had taken part with the people, he would 
have found himself utterly helpless ; and even 
if they had obeyed his orders against the peo- 
ple, they would not have suffered him to deci- 
mate their own body. In other words, there 
was a portion of power in the hands of a mi- 
nority of the people, that is to say, in the hands 
of an aristocracy, under the reign of Napoleon. 

To come nearer home, — Mr. Mill tells us that 
it is a mistake to imagine that the English go- 
vernment is mixed. He holds, we suppose, 
with all the politicians of the Utilitarian school, 
that it is purely aristocratical. There certainly 
is an aristocracy in England, and we are afraid 
that their power is greater than it ought to be. 
They have power enough to keep up the game- 
laws and corn-laws ; but they have not power 
enough to subject the bodies of men of the 
lowest class to wanton outrage at their plea- 
sure. Suppose that they were to make a law, 
that any gentleman of two thousand a year 
might have a day-labourer or a pauper flogged 
with a cat-of-nine-tails whenever the whim 
might take him. It is quite clear, that the first 
day on which such flagellation should be ad- 
ministered, would be the last day of the English 
aristocracy. In this point, and in many other 
points which might be named, the commonalty 
in our island enjoy a security quite as com- 
plete as if they exercised the right of univer- 
sal suffrage. We say, therefore, that the Eng- 
lish people have, in their own hands, a suffi- 
cient guarantee that in some points the aristo- 
cracy will conform to their wishes ; — in other 
word% they have a certain portion of power 
over the aristocracy. Therefore the English 
government is mixed. 

Wherever a king or an oligarchy refrains 
from the last extremity cf rapacity and tyranny. 



through fear of the resistance of the people 
there the constitution, whatever it may be 
called, is in some measure democratical. The 
admixture of democratic power may be slight 
It may be much slighter than it ought to be ; 
but some admixture there is. Wherever a nu- 
merical minority, by means of superior wealth 
or intelligence, of political concert, or of mili- 
tary discipline, exercises a greater influence on 
the society than any other equal number of 
persons, — there, whatever the form of govern- 
may be called, a mixture of aristocracy does 
in fact exist. And wherever a single man, 
from whatever cause, is so necessary to the 
community, or to any portion of it, that he 
possesses more power than any other man, 
there is a mixture of monarchy. This is the 
philosophical classification of governments; 
and if we use this classification we shall find, 
not only that there are mixed governments, but 
that all governments are, and must always be, 
mixed. But we may safely challenge Mr. Mill 
to give any definition of power, or to make any 
classification of governments, which shall bear 
him out in his assertion, that a lasting division 
of authority is impracticable. 

It is evidently on the real distribution of 
power, and not on names and badges, that the 
happiness of nations must depend. The repre- 
sentative system, though doubtless a great and 
precious discovery in politics, is only one of 
the many modes in which the democratic part 
of the community can effectually check the 
governing few. That certain men have been 
chosen as deputies of the people, — that there 
is a piece of paper stating such deputies to 
possess certain powers, — these circumstances 
in themselves constitute no security for good 
government. Such a constitution nominally 
existed in France ; while, in fact, an oligarchy 
of committees and clubs trampled at once on 
the electors and the elected. Representation is 
a very happy contrivance for enabling large 
bodies of men to exert their power, with les? 
risk of disorder than there would otherwise be 
But assuredly it does not of itself give power 
Unless a representative assembly is sure of 
being supported, in the last resort, by the 
physical strength of large masses, who have 
spirit to defend the constitution, and sense to 
defend it in concert, the mob of the town in 
which it meets may overawe it ; — the howls of 
the listeners in its gallery may silence its de- 
liberations; — an able and daring individual 
may dissolve it. And if that sense and that 
spirit of which we speak be diffused through a 
society, then, even without a representative as- 
sembly, that society will enjoy many of the 
blessings of good government. 

Which is the better able to defend himself, 
— a strong man with nothing but his fists, or a 
paralytic cripple encumbered with a sword 
which he cannot lift ? Such, we believe, is the 
difference between Denmark and some new re- 
publics in which the constitutional forms of the 
United States have been most sedulously imi- 
tated. 

Look on the Long Parliament, on the day on 
which Charles came to seize the five members, 
and look at it again on the day when Cromweh 
stamped with his foot on its floor. On which 



UTILITARIAN THEORY OF GOVERNMENT. 



701 



dav was its apparent power the greater 1 On 
which day was its real power the less? 
Nominally subject, it was able to defy the 
sovereign. Nominally sovereign, it was turned 
out of doors by its servant. 

Constitutions are in politics what paper- 
money is in commerce. They afford great 
facilities and conveniences. But we must not 
attribute to them that value which really be- 
longs to what they represent. They are not 
power, but symbols of power, and will, in an 
emergency, prove altogether useless, unless the 
power for which they stand be forthcoming. 
The real power by which the community is 
governed, is made up of all the means which 
all its members possess of giving pleasure or 
pain to each other. 

Great light may be thrown on the nature of 
a circulating medium by the phenomena of a 
state of barter. And in the same manner it 
may be useful to those who wish to compre- 
hend the nature and operation of the outward 
signs of jtower, to look at communities in 
which no such signs exist: for example, at the 
great community of nations. There we find 
nothing analogous to a constitution : But do we 
not find a government 1 We do in fact find 
government in its purest, and simplest, and 
most intelligible form. We see one portion 
of power acting directly on another portion of 
power. We see a certain police kept up ; the 
weak to a certain degree protected ; the strong 
to a certain degree restrained. We see the 
principle of the balance in constant operation. 
We see the whole system sometimes undis- 
turbed by any attempt at encroachment for 
twenty or thirty years at a time ; and all this is 
produced without a legislative assembly, or an 
executive magistracy — without tribunals, — 
without any code which deserves the name ; 
solely by the mutual hopes and fears of the 
various members of the federation. In the 
community of nations, the first appeal is to 
physical force. In communities of men, forms 
of government serve to put off that appeal, 
and often render it unnecessary. But it 
is still open to the oppressed or the am- 
Ditious. 

Of course, we do not mean to deny that a 
form of government will, after it has existed 
for a long time, materially affect the real dis- 
tribution of power throughout the community. 
This is because those who administer a govern- 
ment, with their dependents, form a compact 
and disciplined body, which, acting methodi- 
cally and in concert, is more powerful than 
any other equally numerous body which is 
inferior in organization. The power of rulers 
is not, as superficial observers sometimes seem 
to think, a thing sui generis. It is exactly 
similar in kind, though generally superior in 
amount, to that of any set of conspirators who 
plot, to overthrow it. We have seen in our 
time the most extensive and the best organized 
conspiracy that ever existed — a conspiracy 
which possessed all the elements of real power 
m so great a degree, that it was able to cope 
with a strong government, and to triumph 
over it— the Catholic Association. A Utilita- 
rian would tell us, we suppose, that the Irish 
Catholics had no portion of political power 
45 



whatever on the first day of the late session 
of Parliament. 

Let us really go beyond the surface of facts 
let us, in the sound sense of the words, pene- 
trate to the springs within ; and the deeper we 
go, the more reason shall we find to smile ax 
those theorists who hold that the sole hope of 
the human race is in a rule-of-three sum and a 
ballot-box. 

We must now return to the Westminster 
Reviewer. The following paragraph is an 
excellent specimen of his peculiar mode of 
understanding and answering arguments. 

"The reply to the argument against 'satura- 
tion,' supplies its own answer. The reason 
why it is of no use to try to 'saturate,' is pre- 
cisely what the Edinburgh Reviewers have 
suggested — 'that there is no limit to the number of 
thieves.' There are the thieves, and the thieves' 
cousins, — with their men-servants, their maid- 
servants, and their little ones, to the fortieth 
generation. It is true, that 'a man cannot 
become a king or a member of the aristocracy 
whenever he chooses ;' but if there is to be no 
limit to the depredators except their own incli- 
nation to increase and multiply, the situation 
of those who are to suffer is as wretched as 
it needs be. It is impossible to define what are 
'corporal pleasures.' A Duchess of Cleveland 
was a ' corporal pleasure.' The most disgrace- 
ful period in the history of any nation, — that 
of the Restoration, — presents an instance of 
the length to which it is possible to go in an 
attempt to 'saturate' with pleasures of this 
kind." 

To reason with such a writer is like talking 
to a deaf man, who catches at a stray word, 
makes answer beside the mark, and is led 
further and further into error by every attempt 
to explain. Yet, that our readers may fully 
appreciate the abilities of the new philoso- 
phers, we shall take the trouble to go over 
some of our ground again. 

Mr. Mill attempts to prove, that there is no 
point of saturation with the objects of human 
desire. He then takes it for granted that men 
have no objects of desire but those which can 
be obtained only at the expense of the happi- 
ness of others. Hence he infers that absolute 
monarchs and aristocracies will necessarily 
oppress and pillage the people to a frightful 
extent. 

We answered in substance thus : there are 
two kinds of objects of desire; those whic)a 
give mere bodily pleasure, and those whici, 
please through the medium of associations. 
Objects of the former class, it is true, a man 
cannot obtain without depriving somebody eise 
of a share : but then with these every man is 
soon satisfied. A king or an aristocracy can 
not spend any very large portion of the national 
wealth on the mere pleasures of sense. With 
the pleasures which belong to us as reason- 
ing and imaginative beings we are never 
satiated, it is true : but then, on the other 
hand, many of those pleasures can be ob- 
tained without injury to any person, and suma 
of them can be obtained only by doing good to 
others. 

The Westminster Reviewer, in his former 
attack on us, laughed at us fcr saying, that a 



702 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



king or an aristocracy could not be easily 
satiated with the pleasures of sense, and asked 
why the same course was not tried with thieves. 
We were not a little surprised at so silly an 
oDjection from the pen, as we imagined, of 
Mr. Bentham. We returned, however, a very 
simple answer. There is no limit to the 
number of thieves. Any man who chooses 
can steal: but a man cannot become a member 
of the aristocracy, or a king, whenever he 
chooses. To satiate one thief, is to tempt 
twenty other people to steal. But by satiating 
one king or five hundred nobles with bodily 
pleasures, we do not produce more kings or 
more nobles. The answer of the Westminster 
Reviewer we have quoted above ; and it will 
amply repay our readers for the trouble of 
examining it. We never read any passage 
which indicated notions so vague and confused. 
The number of the thieves, says our Utilitarian, 
is not limited. For there are the dependents 
and friends of the king, and of the nobles. Is 
it possible that he should not perceive that this 
comes under a different head? The bodily 
pleasures which a man in power dispenses 
among his creatures, are bodily pleasures as 
respects his creatures, no doubt. But the 
pleasure which he derives from bestowing 
them is not a bodily pleasure. It is one of 
those pleasures which belong to him as a 
reasoning and imaginative being. No man of 
common understanding can have failed to per- 
ceive, that when we said that a king or an aris- 
tocracy might easily be supplied to satiety with 
sensual pleasures,we were speaking of sensual 
pleasures directly enjoyed by themselves. But 
"it is impossible," says the Reviewer, "to define 
what are corporal pleasures." Our brother 
would indeed, we suspect, find it a difficult 
task; nor, if we are to judge of his genius for 
classification from the specimen which imme- 
diately follows, would we advise him to make 
the attempt. "A Duchess of Cleveland was a 
corporal pleasure." And to this wise remark 
is appended a note, setting forth that Charles 
the Second gave to the Duchess of Cleveland 
the money which he ought to have spent on 
the war with Holland. We scarcely know how 
to answer a man who unites so much preten- 
sion to so much ignorance. There are, among 
the many Utilitarians who talk about Hume, 
C.ondillac, and Hartley, a few who have read 
those writers. Let the Reviewer ask one of 
these what he thinks on the subject. We shall 
not undertake to whip a pupil of so little 
promise through his first course of meta- 
physics. We shall, therefore, only say — leav- 
ing him to guess and wonder what we can 
mean— that in our opinion, the Duchess of 
Cleveland was not a merely corporal plea- 
sure, — that the feeling which leads a prince to 
prefer one woman to all others, and to lavish 
the wealth of kingdoms on her, is a feeling 
which can only be explained by the law of as- 
sociation. 

But we are tired, and even more ashamed 
'.nan tired, of exposing these blunders. The 
whole article is of a piece. One passage, how- 
ever, we must select, because it contains a 
»ery gross misrepresentation. 

" ' Tkey never alluded to the French Revolution 



for the purpose of proving that the poor were inclined 
to rob the rich.'' — They only said, ' as soon as tha 
poor again began to compare their cottages 
and salads with the hotels and banquets of the 
rich, there would have been another scramble 
for property, another general confiscation,' " &c, 

We said, that, if Mr. Mill's principles of human 
nature were correct, there would have been an- 
other scramble for property, and another con- 
fiscation. We particularly pointed this out in 
our last article. We showed the Westminster 
Reviewer that he had misunderstood us. We 
dwelt particularly on the condition which was 
introduced into our statement. We said that 
we had not given, and did not mean to give, 
any opinion of our own. And after this, thfe 
Westminster Reviewer thinks proper to repeat 
his former misrepresentation, without taking 
the least notice of that qualification to which 
we, in the most marked manner, called his at- 
tention. 

We hasten on to the most curious part of the 
article under our consideration — the defence 
of the "greatest happiness principle." The 
Reviewer charges us with having quite mis- 
taken its nature. 

"All that they have established is, that they 
do not understand it. Instead of the truism of 
the whigs, ' that the greatest happiness is the 
greatest happiness,' what Mr. Bentham had de- 
monstrated, or, at all events, had laid such 
foundations that there was no trouble in de- 
monstrating, was, that the greatest happiness 
of the individual was, in the long run, to be 
obtained by pursuing the greatest happiness 
of the aggregate." 

It was distinctly admitted by the Westminster 
Reviewer, as we remarked in our last article, 
that he could give no answer to the question, — 
why governments should attempt to produce the 
greatest possible happiness'! The Reviewer 
replies thus : — 

"Nothing of the kind will be admitted at all, 
In the passage thus selected to be tacked to the 
other, the question started was, concerning 'the 
object of government;' in which government 
was spoken of as an operation, not as any thing 
that is capable of feeling pleasure or pain. In 
this sense it is true enough, that ought is not 
predicable of governments." 

We will quote, once again, the passage which 
we quoted in our last number, and we really 
hope that our brother critic will feel somsthing 
like shame while he peruses it. 

"The real answer appeared to be, that men 
at large ought not to allow a government to 
afflict them with more evil or less good, than 
they can help. What a government, ought to 
do, is a mysterious and searching question, 
which those may answer who know what it 
means ; but what other men ought to do, is a 
question of no mystery at all. The word ought, 
if it means any thing, must have reference to 
some kind of interest or motives; and what 
interest a government has in doing right, when 
it happens to be interested in doing wrong, is 
a question for the schoolmen. The fact ap- 
pears to be, that ought is not predicable of 
governments. The question is not, why go- 
vernments are bound not to do this or that, 
but why other men should let them if they cao 



UTILITARIAN THEORY OF GOVERNMENT. 



703 



help it. The point is not to determine why 
the Hol should not eat sheep, hut why men 
should not eat their own mutton if they can." 

We defy the Westminster Reviewer to re- 
concile this passage with the " general happi- 
ness principle," as he now states it. He tells 
us, that he meant by government, not the peo- 
ple invested with the powers of government, 
but a mere operation incapable of feeling plea- 
sure or pain. We say, that he meant the peo- 
ple invested with the powers of government, 
and nothiag else. It is true, that ought is not 
predicable of an operation. But who would 
ever dream of raising any question about the 
duties of an operation 1 What did the Re- 
viewer mean by saying, that a government 
could not be interested in doing right because 
it was interested in doing wrong 1 Can an 
operation be interested in either 1 And what 
did he mean by his comparison about the 
lion 1 Is a lion an operation incapable of pain 
or pleasure 1 And what did he mean by the 
expressiojj, " other men," so obviously opposed 
to the word " government 1" But let the public 
judge between us. It is superfluous to argue 
a point so clear. 

The Reviewer does indeed seem to feel that 
his expressions cannot be explained away, and 
attempts to shuffle out of the difficulty by own- 
ing, that " the double meaning of the word 
government was not got clear of without con- 
fusion." He has now, at all events, he assures 
us, made himself master of Mr. Bentham's 
philosophy. The real and genuine "greatest 
happiness principle" is, that the greatest hap- 
piness of every individual is identical with the 
greatest happiness of society; and all other 
" greatest happiness principles" whatever, are 
counterfeits. "This," says he, "is the spirit 
of Mr. Bentham's principle; and if there is 
any thing opposed to it in any former state- 
ment, it may be corrected by the present." 

Assuredly if a fair and honourable opponent 
had, in discussing a question so abstruse as 
that concerning the origin of moral obligation, 
made some unguarded admission inconsistent 
with the spirit of his doctrines, we should not 
be inclined to triumph over him. But no ten- 
derness is due to a writer who, in the very act 
of confessing his blunders, insults those by 
whom his blunders have been detected, and 
accuses them of misunderstanding what, in 
fact, he has himself misstated. 

The whole of this transaction illustrates ex- 
cellently the real character of this sect. A 
paper comes forth, professing to contain a full 
development of the "greatest happiness prin- 
ciple," with the latest improvements of Mr. 
Bentham. The writer boasts that his article 
has the honour of being the announcement 
and the organ of this wonderful discovery, 
which is to make " the bones of sages and pa- 
triots stir within their tombs." This " magni- 
ficent principle" is then stated thus : Mankind 
ought to pursue their greatest happiness. But 
there are persons whose interest is opposed to 
the greatest happiness of mankind. Ought is 
not predicable of such persons. For the word 
ought has no meaning, unless it be used with 
reference to some interest. 

We answered, with much more lenity than 



we should have shown tc such nonsense ha) 
it not proceeded, as we supposed, from Mr, 
Bentham, that interest was synonymous with 
greatest happiness ; and that, therefore, if th« 
word ought has no meaning, unless used with 
reference to interest, then, to say that mankind 
ought to pursue their greatest happiness, is 
simply to say, that the greatest happiness is 
the greatest happiness ; that every individual 
pursues his own happiness; that either what 
he thinks his happiness must coincide with 
the greatest happiness of society or not; that 
if what he thinks his happiness coincides with 
the greatest happiness of society, he will at- 
tempt to promote the greatest happiness of 
society, whether he ever heard of the " great- 
est happiness principle" or not; and that, by 
the admission of the Westminster Reviewer, 
if his happiness is inconsistent with the great- 
est happiness of society, there is no reason 
why he should promote the greatest happiness 
of society. Now, that there are individuals 
who think that for their happiness which is 
not for the greatest happiness of society is 
evident. The Westminster Reviewer allowed 
that some of these individuals were in the 
right; and did not pretend to give any reason 
which could induce any one of them to think 
himself in the wrong. So that the "magnifi- 
cent principle" turned out to be either a truism 
or a contradiction in terms ; either this maxim. 
" Do what you do ;" or this maxim, " Do what 
you cannot do." 

The Westminster Reviewer had the wit to 
see that he could not defend this palpable non- 
sense; but, instead of manfully owning that he 
had misunderstood the whole nature of the 
"greatest happiness principle" in the summer, 
and had obtained new light during the autumn, 
he attempts to withdraw the former principle 
unobserved, and to substitute another, directly 
opposed to it, in its place ; clamouring all the 
time against our unfairness, like one who, 
while changing the cards, diverts the attention 
of the table from his sleight-of-hand by voci- 
ferating charges of foul play against other 
people. 

The " greatest happiness principle" for the 
present quarter is then this, — that every indi- 
vidual will best promote his own happiness in 
this world, religious considerations being left 
out of the question, by promoting the greatest 
happiness of the whole species. And this 
principle, we are told, holds good with respect 
to kings and aristocracies, as well as with 
other people. 

" It is certain that the individual operators 
in any government, if they were thoroughly in- 
telligent and entered into a perfect calculation 
of all existing chances, would seek for their 
own happiness in the promotion of the general; 
which brings them, if they knew it, under Mr. 
Bentham's rule. The mistake of supposing the 
contrary, lies in confounding criminals who 
have had the luck to escape punishment with 
those who have the risk still before them. Sup- 
pose, for instance, a member of the House of 
Commons were at this moment to debate with 
in himself whether it would be for his ultimate 
happiness to begin, according to his ability, to 
misgovern. If he could be sure of being a» 



704 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



facky as some that are dead and gone, there 
might be difficulty in finding him an answer. 
Buc he is not sure; and never can be till he is 
dead. He does not know that he is not close 
upon the moment when misgovernment, such 
as he is tempted to contemplate, will be made 
a terrible example of. It is not fair to pick 
out the instance of the thief that has died un- 
hanged. The question is, whether thieving is 
at this moment an advisable trade to begin, 
with all the possibilities of hanging not got 
over 1 ? This is the spirit of Mr. Bentham's 
principle ; and if there is any thing opposed 
to it in any former statement, it 'may be cor- 
rected by the present." 

We hope that we have now at last got to 
the real "magnificent principle, 1 '' — to the prin- 
ciple which is really to make "the bones of 
the sages and patriots stir." What effect it 
may produce on the bones of the dead we shall 
not pretend to decide ; but we are sure that 
it will do very little for the happiness of the 
living. 

In the first place, nothing is more certain 
than this, that the Utilitarian theory of govern- 
ment, as developed in Mr. Mill's Essay, and in 
all the other works on the subject which have 
been put forth by the sect, rests on these two 
principles, — that men follow their interest, and 
that the interest of individuals may be, and in 
fact perpetually is, opposed to the interest of 
society. Unless these two principles be grant- 
ed, Mr. Mill's Essay does not contain one sound 
sentence. All his arguments against monarchy 
and aristocracy, all his arguments in favour 
of demccracy, nay, the very argument by which 
he shows that there is any necessity for having 
government at all, must be rejected as utterly 
worthless. 

This is so palpable, that even the Westmin- 
ster Reviewer, though not the most clear-sight- 
ed of men, could not help seeing it. Accord- 
ingly, he attempts to guard himself against the 
objection, after the manner of such reasoners, 
by committing two blunders instead of one. 
"All this," says he, " only shows that the mem- 
bers of a government would do well if they 
were all-wise ;" and he proceeds to tell us, that 
as rulers are not all-wise, they will invariably 
act against this principle wherever they can, so 
that the democratical checks will still be neces- 
sary to produce good government. 

No form which human folly takes is so richly 
and exquisitely laughable as the spectacle of an 
Utilitarian in a dilemma. What earthly good 
can there be in a principle upon which no man 
will act until he is all-wise] A certain most 
important doctrine, we are told, has been de- 
monstrated so clearly, that it ought to be the 
foundation of the science of government. And 
jet the whole frame of government is to be 
constituted exactly as if this fundamental doc- 
trine were false, and on the supposition that no 
human being will ever act as if he believed it 
to be true ! 

The whole argument of the Utilitarians, in 
favour of universal suffrage, proceeds on the 
supposition that even the rudest and most un- 
educated men cannot, for any length of time, 
be deluded into acting against their own true 
interest. Yet now they tell us that, in all aris- 



tocratical communities, the higher and more 
educated class will, not occasionally, but inva- 
riably, act against its own interest. Now, the 
only use of proving any thing, as far as we 
can see, is that people may believe it. To say 
that a man does what he believes to be against 
his happiness, is a contradiction in terms. If, 
therefore, government and laws are to be con- 
stituted on the supposition on which Mr. Mill's 
Essay is founded, that all individuals Avill, 
whenever they have power over others put in- 
to their hands, act in opposition to the general 
happiness, then government and laws must be 
constituted on the supposition that no individual 
believes, or ever- will believe, his own happi- 
ness to be identical with the happiness of so- 
ciety. That is to say, government and laws 
are to be constituted on the supposition that no 
human being will ever be satisfied by Mr. Ben- 
tham's proof of his " greatest happiness prin- 
ciple," — a supposition which may be true 
enough, but which says little, we think, for the 
principle in question. 

But where has this principle been demon- 
strated 7 We are curious, we confess, to see 
this demonstration which is to change the face 
of the world, and yet is to convince nobody. 
The most amusing circumstance is, that the 
Westminster Reviewer himself does not seem 
to know whether the principle has been demon- 
strated or not. "Mr. Bentham, he says, "has 
demonstrated it, or at all events has laid such 
foundations that there is no trouble in de- 
monstrating it." Surely it is rather strange 
that such a matter should be left in doubt. The 
Reviewer proposed, in his former article, a 
slight verbal emendation in the statement of 
the principle; he then announced that the 
principle had received its last improvement; 
and gloried in the circumstance that the West- 
minster Review had been selected as the organ 
of that improvement. Did it never occur to 
him that one slight improvement to a doctrine 
is to prove it 1 

Mr. Bentham has not demonstrated the 
"greatest happiness principle," as now stated. 
He is far too wise a man to think of demon 
strating any such thing. In those sections of 
his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and 
Legislation., to which the Reviewer refers us ia 
his note, there is not a word of the kind. Mr. 
Bentham says, most truly, that there are no oc- 
casions in which a man has not some motives 
for consulting the happiness of other men ; and 
he proceeds to set forth what those motives 
are — sympathy on all occasions, and the love 
of reputation on most occasions. This is the 
very doctrine which we have been maintaining 
against Mr. Mill and the Westminster Reviewer. 
The principle charge which we brought against 
Mr. Mill was, that those motives to which Mr. 
Bentham ascribes so much influence, were 
quite left out of consideration in his theory. 
The Westminster Reviewer, in the very arti- 
cle now before us, abuses us for saying, in the 
spirit and almost in the words of Mr. Bentham, 
that " there is a certain check to the rapacity 
and cruelty of men in their desire of the good 
opinion of others." But does this principle, in 
which we fully agree with Mr. Bentham, go the 
length of the new " greatest happiness princi* 



UTILITARIAN THEORY OF GOVERNMENT. 



705 



pis !" The question is not whether men have 
tome motives for promoting the greatest happi- 
ness, but whether the stronger motiv es be those 
which impel them to promote the greatest hap- 
piness. That this would always be the case, 
if men knew their own worldly interests, is the 
assertion of the Reviewer. As he expresses 
some doubt whether Mr. Bentham has demon- 
strated this or not, we would advise him to set 
the point at rest by giving his own demonstra- 
tion. 

The Reviewer has not attempted to give a 
general composition of the "greatest happiness 
principle ;" but he has tried to prove that it 
holds good in one or two particular cases. 
And even in those particular cases he has 
utterly failed. A man, says he, who calcu- 
lated the chances fairly, would perceive that 
it would be for his greatest happiness to ab- 
stain from stealing ; for a thief runs a greater 
risk of being hanged than an honest, man. 

It would have been wise, we think, in the 
Westminster Reviewer, before he entered on 
a discussion of this sort, to settle in what hu- 
man happiness consists. Each of the ancient 
sects of philosophy held some tenet on this sub- 
ject which served for a distinguishing badge. 
The summum bonum of the Utilitarians, as far 
as we can judge from the passage which we 
are now considering, is the not being hanged. 

That it is an unpleasant thing to be hanged, 
we most willingly concede to our brother. But 
that the whole question of happiness or misery 
resolves itself into this single point, we cannot 
so easily admit. We must look at- the thing 
purchased, as well as the price paid for it. A 
thief, assuredly, runs a greater risk of being 
hanged than a labourer : and so an officer in 
the army runs a greater risk of being shot than 
a banker's clerk ; and a governor of India runs 
a greater risk of dying of cholera than a lord 
of the bedchamber. But does it therefore fol- 
low that every man, whatever his habits or 
feelings may be, would, if he knew his own 
happiness, become a clerk rather than a cor- 
net, or goldstick in waiting rather than go- 
vernor of India! 

Nothing can be more absurd than to sup- 
pose, like the Westminster Reviewer, that 
thieves steal only because they do not calcu- 
late the chances of being hanged as correctly 
as honest men. It never seems to have oc- 
curred to him as possible, that a man may so 
greatly prefer the life of a thief to the life of a 
labourer, that he may determine to brave the 
risk of detection and punishment, though he 
may even think that risk greater than it really 
is. And how, on Utilitarian principles, is such 
a man to be convinced that he is in the wrong 1 
H You will be found out." — "Undoubtedly." — 
" You will be hanged within two years." — " I 
expect to be hanged within one year." — "Then 
why do you pursue this lawless mode of life V 
— " Because I would rather live for one year 
with plenty of money, dressed like a gentleman, 
eating and drinking of the best, frequenting 
public places, and visiting a dashing mistress, 
than break stones on the road, or sit down to 
the loom, with the certainty of attaining a 
good old age. It is my humour. Are you 
answered?" 



A king, says the Reviewer again, would go 
vern well if he were wise, for fear of provok 
ing his subjects to insurrection. Therefore, the 
true happiness of a king is identical with th« 
greatest happiness of society. Tell Charles II. 
that if he will be constant to his queen, sober 
at table, regular at prayers, frugal in his ex 
penses, active in the transaction of business, 
if he will drive the herd of slaves, buffoons, 
and procurers from Whitehall, and make the 
happiness of his people the rule of his conduct, 
.he will have a mucn greater chance of reign- 
ing in comfort to an advanced age ; that his 
profusion and tyranny have exasperated his 
subjects, and may, perhaps, bring him to an 
end as terrible as his father's. He might an- 
swer, that he saw the danger, but that life was 
not worth having without ease and vicious 
pleasures. And what has our philosopher to 
say 1 Does he not see that it is no more pos- 
sible to reason a man out of liking a short life 
and a merry one more than a long life and a 
dull one, than to reason a Greenlander out of 
his train oil 1 We may say that the tastes of 
the thief and the tyrant differ from ours ; but 
what right have we to say, looking at this 
world alone, that they do not pursue their 
greatest happiness very judiciously 1 

It is the grossest ignorance of human nature 
to suppose that another man calculates the 
chances differently from us, merely because 
he does what, in his place, we should not do 
Every man has tastes and propensities, which 
he is disposed to gratify at a risk and expense, 
which people of different temperaments and ha- 
bits think extravagant. " Why," says Horace, 
" does, one brother like to lounge in the forum, 
to play in the Campus, and to anoint himself 
in the baths, so well, that he would not put 
himself out of his way for all the wealth of the 
richest plantations of the East; while the other 
toils from sunrise to sunset for the purpose of 
increasing his fortune V Horace attributes the 
diversity to the influence of the Genius and the 
natal star: and eighteen hundred years have 
taught us only to disguise our ignorance be- 
neath a more philosophical language. 

We think, therefore, that the Westminster 
Reviewer, even if we admit his calculation of 
the chances to be right, does not make out his 
case. But he appears to us to miscalculate 
chances more grossly than any person who 
ever acted or speculated in this world. "It is 
for the happiness," says he, "of a member of 
the House of Commons to govern well ; for he 
never can tell that he is not close on ihe mo- 
ment when misgovernment will be terribly 
punished: if he was sure that he should be as 
lucky as his predecessors, it might be for his 
happiness to misgovern ; but he is not sure." 
Certainly a member of Parliament is not sure 
that he shall not be torn in pieces by a mob, or 
guillotined by a revolutionary tribunal, for his 
opposition to reform. Nor is the Westminster 
Reviewer sure that he shall not be hanged for 
writing in favour of universal suffrage. We 
may have democratical massacres. We may 
also have aristocratical proscriptions. It is 
not very likely, thank God, that we should see 
either. But the radical, we thin'ic, runs as 
much danger as the aristocrat. As to ova 



706 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



friend, the Westminster Reviewer, he, it must 
be owned, has as good a right as any man on 
his side, "Antoni gladios contemncre" But take 
the man whose votes, ever since he has sate 
m Parliament, have been the most uniformly 
bad, and oppose him to the man whose votes 
have been the most uniformly good. The 
Westminster Reviewer would probably select 
Mr. Sadler and Mr. Hume. Now, does any 
rational man think, — will the Westminster Re- 
viewer himself say, — that Mr. Sadler runs 
more risk of coming to a miserable end, on 
account of his public conduct, than Mr. Hume ! 
Mr. Sadler does not know that he is not close 
on the moment when he will be made an ex- 
ample of; for Mr. Sadler knows, if possible, 
less about the future than about the past. But 
he has no more reason to expect that he shall 
be made an example of, than to expect that 
London will be swallowed up by an earthquake 
next spring ; and it would be as. foolish in him 
to act on the former supposition as on the 
latter. There is a risk; for there is a risk of 
every thing which does not involve a contra- 
diction ; but it is a risk from which no man in 
his wits would give a shilling to be insured. 
Yet our Westminster Reviewer tells us, that 
this risk alone, apart from all considerations 
of religion, honour, or benevolence, would, 
as a matter of mere calculation, induce a wise 
member of the House of Commons to refuse 
any emoluments which might be offered him 
as the price of his support to pernicious mea- 
sures. 

We have hitherto been examining cases 
proposed by our opponent. It is now our turn 
to propose one, and we beg that he will, spare 
Bo wisdom in solving it. 

A thief is condemned to be hanged. On 
the eve of the day fixed for the execution, a 
•urnkey enters his cell, and tells him that all is 
safe, that he has only to slip out, that his friends 
are waiting in the neighbourhood with disguises, 
and that a passage is taken for him in an Ame- 
rican packet. Now, it is clearly for the great- 
est happiness of society that the thief should 
be hanged, and the corrupt turnkey exposed 
and punished. Will the Westminster Reviewer 
tell us, that it is for the greatest happiness of 
the thief to summon the head jailer, and tell 
the whole story] Now, either it is for the 
greatest happiness of the thief to be hanged, 
or it is not. If it is, then the argument, by 
which the Westminster Reviewer attempts to 
prove, that men do not promote their own hap- 
piness hy thieving, falls to the ground. If it is 
not, then there are men whose greatest happi- 
ness is at variance with the greatest happiness 
of the community. 

To sum up our arguments shortly, we say, 
that the " greatest happiness principle," as now 
s>tated, is diametrically opposed to the prin- 
ciple stated in the Westminster Review three 
months ago. 

We say, that if the "greatest happiness 
principle," as now stated, be sound, Mr. Mill's 
Essay, and all other works concerning govern- 
ment, which, like that essay, proceed on the 
supposition, that individuals may have an in- 
terest opposed to the greatest happiness of 
society, are fundamentally erroneous. 



We say, that those who hold this principle 
to be sound, must be prepared to maintain, 
either that monarchs and aristocracies may bo 
trusted to govern the community, or else tha. 
men cannot be trusted to follow their own inte- 
rest, when that interest is demonstrated to 
them. 

We say, that if men cannot be trusted to 
follow their own interest, when that interest 
has been demonstrated to them, then the Utili- 
tarian arguments, in favour of universal suf- 
frage, are good for nothing. 

We say, that the "greatest happiness prin- 
ciple" has not been proved; that it cannot be 
generally proved ; that even in the particular 
cases selected by the Reviewer it is not ciear 
that the principle is true ; and that many cases 
might be stated in which the common sense 
of mankind would at once pronounce it to be 
false. 

We now leave the Westminster Reviewer 
to alter and amend his " magnificent principle" 
as he thinks best. Unlimited, it is false. Pro- 
perly limited, it will be barren. The "greatest 
happiness principle" of the 1st of July, as far 
as we could discern its meaning through a 
cloud of rodomontade, was an idle truism. 
The " greatest happiness principle" of the 1st 
of October is, in the phrase of the American 
newspapers, "important if true." But unhap- 
pily it is not true. It is not our business to 
conjecture what new maxim is to make the 
bones of sages and patriots stir on the 1st of 
December. "We can only say, that, unless it 
be something infinitely more ingenious than 
its two predecessors, we shall leave it unmo- 
lested. The Westminster Reviewer may, if 
he pleases, indulge himself like Sultan Schah- 
riar, with espousing a rapid succession of 
virgin theories. But we must beg to be ex- 
cused from playing the part of the vizier, who 
regularly attended on the day after the wedding 
to strangle the new sultana. 

The Westminster Reviewer charges us with 
urging it as an objection to the " greatest hap- 
piness principle," that, " it is included in the 
Christian morality." This is a mere fiction of 
his own. We never attacked the morality of 
the gospel. We blamed the Utilitarian for 
claiming the credit of a discovery, when they 
had merely stolen that morality, and spoiled it 
in the stealing. They have taken the precept 
of Christ, and left the motive; and they de- 
mand the praise of a most wonderful and bene- 
ficial invention, when all that they have done 
has been to make a most useful maxim useless 
by separating it from its sanction. On reli- 
gious principles, it is true that every individual 
will best promote his own happiness by pro- 
moting the happiness of others. But if re- 
ligious considerations be left out of the ques- 
tion, it is not true. If we do not reason on the 
supposition of a future state, where is the mo- 
tive 1 If we do reason on that supposition, 
where is the discovery 1 

The Westminster Reviewer tells us, that 
" we wish to see the science of government 
unsettled, because we see no prospect of a 
settlement which accords with our interests." 
His angry eagerness to have questions settled 
resembles that of a judge in one of Dryden's 



UTILITARIAN THEORY OF GOVERNMENT. 



?07 



plays- -.the, Amphitryon, we think — who wishes 
*o decide a cause after hearing only one party, 
and when he has been at last compelled to 
listen to the statement of the defendant, flies 
into a passion, and exclaims, "There now, 
sir ! see what you have done. The case was 
quite clear a minute ago ; and you must come 
and puzzle it !" He is the zealot of a sect. 
We are searchers after truth. He wishes to 
have the question settled. We wish to have it 
sifted first. The querulous manner in which 
we have been blamed for attacking Mr. Mill's 
system, and propounding no system of our 
cwn, reminds us of the horror with which that 
shallow dogmatist, Epicurus, the worst parts 
of whose nonsense the Utilitarians have at- 
tempted to revive, shrank from the keen and 
searching scepticism of the second Academy. 

It is not our fault that an experimental 
science of vast extent does not admit of being 
settled by a short demonstration; — that the 
subtilty of nature, in the moral as in the phy- 
sical world, triumphs over the subtilty of syllo- 
gism. Tn"e quack who declares on affidavit 
that, by using his pills, and attending to his 
printed directions, hundreds who had been 
dismissed incurable from the hospitals have 
renewed their youth like the eagles, may, per- 
haps, think that Sir Henry Halford, when he 
feels the pulses of patients, inquires about their 
symptoms, and prescribes a different remedy 
to each, is unsettling the science of medicine 
for the sake of a fee. 

If, in the course of this controversy, we have 
refrained from expressing any opinion respect- 
ing the political institutions of England, it is 
not because we have not an opinion, or be- 
cause we shrink from avowing it. The Utili- 
tarians, indeed, conscious that their boasted 
theory of government would not bear investi- 
gation, were desirous to turn the dispute about 
Mr. Mill's Essay into a dhpute about the whig 
party, rotten boroughs, unpaid magistrates, and 



ex officio informations. When we blamed 
them for talking nonsense, tney cried out that 
they were insulted for being reformers, — just 
as poor Ancient Pistol swore that the scars 
which he had received from the cudgel of 
Fluellen were got in the Gallia wars. We, 
however, did not think it desirable to mix up 
political questions, about which the public 
mind is violently agitated, with a great pro- 
blem in moral philosophy. 

Our notions about government are not, how- 
ever, altogether unsettled. We have an opi- 
nion about parliamentary reform, though we 
have not arrived at that opinion by the royal 
road which Mr. Mill has opened for the ex- 
plorers of political science. As we are taking 
leave, probably for the last time, of this con- 
troversy, we will state very concisely what our 
doctrines are. On some future occasion we 
may, perhaps, explain and defend them at 
length. 

Our fervent wish, and, we will add, our san- 
guine hope, is, that we may see such a reform 
in the House of Commons as may render its 
votes the express image of the opinion of the 
middle orders of Britain. A pecuniary quali- 
fication we think absolutely necessary; and in 
settling its amount, our object would be to 
draw the line in such a manner that every 
decent farmer and shopkeeper might possess 
the elective franchise. We should wish to see 
an end put to all the advantages which parti 
cular forms of property possess over other 
forms, and particular portions of property over 
other equal portions. And this would content 
us. Such a reform would, according to Mr. 
Mill, establish an aristocracy of wealth, and 
leave the community without protection, and 
exposed to all the evils of unbridled power. 
Most willingly would we stake the whole con- 
troversy between us on the success of the ex« 
periment which we propose. 



j HE EARL OF CHATHAM. 



709 



THE EARL OF CHATHAM.* 

[Edinburgh Review for October, 1844.] 



Monx than ten years ago we commenced a 
sketch of the political life of the great Lord 
Chaiham.f We then stopped at the death of 
George the Second, with the intention of speed- 
ily resuming our task. Circumstances which 
it would be tedious to explain, long prevented 
us from carrying this intention into effect. Nor 
can we regret the delay. For the materials 
which were within our reach in 1834 were 
scanty and unsatisfactory, when compared with 
those which we at present possess. Even now, 
though we have had access to some valuable 
sources of information which have not yet been 
opened to the public, we cannot but feel that 
the history of the first ten years of the reign of 
George the Third is but imperfectly known to 
us. Nevertheless, we are inclined to think 
that we are in a condition to lay before our 
readers a narrative neither uninstructive nor 
uninteresting. We therefore return with plea- 
sure to our long interrupted labour. 

We left Pitt in the zenith of prosperity and 
glory, the idol of England, the terror of France, 
the admiration of the whole civilized world. 
The wind, from whatever quarter it blew, 
carried to England tidings of battles won, for- 
tresses taken, provinces added to the empire. 
At home, factions had sunk into a lethargy, 
such as had never been known since ttie great 
religious schism of the sixteenth century had 
roused the public mind from repose. 

In order that the events which we have to 
relate may be clearly understood, it may be 
desirable that we should advert to the causes 
which had for a time suspended the animation 
of both the great English parties. 

If, rejecting all that is merely accidental, we 
look at the essential characteristics of the 
Whig and the Tory, we may consider each of 
them as the representative of a great principle, 
essential to the welfare of nations. One is, 
in an especial manner, the guardian of liber- 
ty, and the other, of order. One is the moving 
power, and the other the steadying power of 
the state. One is the sail, without which 
society would make no progress; the other 
the ballast, without which there would be 
small safety in a tempest. But, during the 
forty-six years which followed the accession 
of the house of Hanover, these distinctive 
peculiarities seemed to be effaced. The Whig 
conceived that he could not better serve the 
cause of civil and religious freedom than by 
strenuously supporting the Protestant dynasty. 
The Tory conceived that he could not better 
prove his hatred of revolutions than by attack- 

* Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. 
4 vols. 8vo. London, 1840. 

Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, to Sir Horace 
Mann. 4 vols. 8vo. London, 1343-4. 

t Se« page 226. 



ing a government to which a revoluticn had 
given being. Both came by degrees to attach 
more importance to the means than to tha 
end. Both were thrown into unnatural situa- 
tions ; and both, like animals transported to 
an uncongenial climate, languished and de- 
generated. The Tory, removed from the sun- 
shine of the court, was as a camel in the 
snows of Lapland. The Whig, basking in the 
rays of royal favour, was as a reindeer* in the 
sands of Arabia. 

Dante tells us that he saw, in Malebolge, a 
strange encounter between a human form and 
a serpent. The enemies, after cruel wounds 
inflicted, stood for a time glaring on each other. 
A great cloud surrounded them, and then a 
wonderful metamorphosis began. Each crea- 
ture was transfigured into the likeness of its 
antagonist. The serpent's tail divided itself 
into two legs ; the man's legs intertwined them- 
selves into a tail. The body of the serpen! 
put forth arms ; the arms of the man shranfc 
into his body. At length the serpent stood up 
a man, and spake ; the man sank down a 
serpent, and glided hissing away. Something 
like this was the transformation which, during 
the reign of George the First, befell the two 
English parties. Each gradually took the shape 
and colour of its foe; till at length the Tory 
rose up erect the zealot of freedom, and the 
Whig crawled and licked the dust at the feet 
of power. 

It is true that, when these degenerate politi- 
cians discussed questions merely speculative, 
and, above all, when they discussed questions 
relating to the conduct of their own grand- 
fathers, they still seemed to differ as their 
grandfathers had differed. The Whig, who 
during three Parliaments had never given one 
vote against the court, and who was ready to 
sell his soul for the Comptroller's staff, or for 
the Great Wardrobe, still professed to draw 
his political doctrines from Locke and Milton, 
still worshipped the memory of Pym and 
Hampden, and would still, on the thirtieth of 
January, take his glass, first to the man in the 
mask, and then to the man who would do it 
without a mask. The Tory, on the other hand, 
while he reviled the mild and temperate Wal- 
pole as a deadly enemy of liberty, could sec 
nothing to reprobate in the iron tyranny of 
Stafford and Laud. But, whatever judgment 
the Whig or the Tory of that age might pro* 
nounce on transactions long past, there can 
be no doubt that, as respected the practical 
questions then pending, the Tory was a re- 
former, and indeed an intemperate and in' 
discreet reformer, while the Whig was con- 
servative even to bigotry. We have ourselves 
seen similar effects produced in a neighbour 
ing country by similar causes. Whc wouW 



710 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



have "believed, fifteen years ago, that M. Guizot 
and M. Villemain would have to defend pro- 
perty and sdcial order against the Jacobinical 
attacks of such enemies as M. Genoude and 
M. de La Roche Jaquelin 1 

Thus the successors of the old Cavaliers 
had turned demagogues ; the successors of 
the old Roundheads had turned courtiers. Yet 
was it long before their mutual animosity 
began to abate ; for it is the nature of parties 
to retain their original enmities, far more firm- 
ly than their original principles. During many 
years, a generation of Whigs whom Sidney 
vould have spurned as slaves, continued to 
'vage deadly war with a generation of Tories 
whom Jefferies would have hanged for re- 
publicans. 

Through the whole reign of George the First, 
and through nearly half of the reign of George 
the Second, a Tory was regarded as an enemy 
of the reigning house, and was excluded from 
all the favours of the crown. Though most 
of the country gentlemen were Tories, none 
but Whigs were created peers and baronets. 
Though most of the clergy were Tories, none 
but Whigs were created deans and bishops. In 
every county opulent and well-descended Tory 
squires complained that their names were left 
out of the commission of the peace ; while 
men of small estate and mean birth, who were 
for toleration and excise, septennial parlia- 
ments and standing armies, presided at quarter 
sessions, and became deputy lieutenants. 

By degrees some approaches were made 
owards a reconciliation. While Walpole was 
at the head of affairs, emnity to his power 
induced a large and powerful body of Whigs, 
headed by the heir-apparent of the throne, to 
make an alliance with the Tories, and a truce 
even with the Jacobites. After Sir Robert's 
fall, the ban which lay on the Tory party was 
taken off. The chief places in the administra- 
tion continued to be filled by Whigs, and, 
indeed, could scarcely have been filled other- 
wise ; for the Tory nobility and gentry, though 
strong in numbers and in property, had among 
them scarcely a single man distinguished by 
talents, either for business or for debate. A 
few of them, however, were admitted to sub- 
ordinate offices ; and this indulgence produced 
a-softening effect on the temper of the whole 
body. The first levee of George the Second 
after Walpole's resignation was a remarka- 
ble spectacle. Mingled with the constant sup- 
porters of the house of Brunswick, with the 
Russells, the Cavendishes, and the Pelhams, 
appeared a crowd of faces utterly unknown to 
the pages and gentlemen-ushers, lords of rural 
manors, whose ale and fox-hounds were re- 
nowned in the neighbourhood of the Mendip 
hills, or round the Wrekin, but who had never 
crossed the threshold of the palace since the 
days when Oxford, with the white staff in his 
hand, stood behind Queen Anne. 

During the eighteen years which followed 
this day, both factions were gradually sinking 
deeper and deeper into repose. The apathy of 
the public mind is partly to be ascribed to the 
anjust violence with which the administration 
of Wa.pole had been assailed. In the body 
politic, as in the natural body, morbid languor 



generally succeeds to morbid excitement. The 
people had been maddened by sophistry, by 
calumny, by rhetoric, by stimulants applied to 
the national pride. In the fulness of bread; 
they had raved as if famine had been in the 
land. While enjoying such a measure of civil 
and religious freedom as, till then, no great 
society had ever known, they had cried out for 
a Timoleon or a Brutus to stab their oppres- 
sors to the heart. They were in this frame of 
mind when the change of administration took 
place ; and they soon found that there was to 
be no change whatever in the system of go- 
vernment. The natural consequences follow- 
ed. To frantic zeal succeeded sullen indiffer- 
ence. The cant of patriotism had not merely 
ceased to charm the public ear, but had becom« 
as nauseous as the cant of Puritanism after 
the downfall of the Rump. The hot fit was 
over: the cold fit had begun: and it was long 
before seditious arts, or even real grievances, 
could bring back the fiery paroxysm which 
had run its course, and reached its termination. 

Two attempts were made to disturb this 
tranquillity. The banished heir of the house 
of Stuart headed a rebellion ; the discontented 
heir of the house of Brunswick headed an op- 
position. Both the rebellion and the opposition 
came to nothing. The battle of Culloden an- 
nihilated the Jacobite party; the death of 
Prince Frederic dissoTVMr-ftie faction which, 
under his guidance, had feebly striven to an- 
noy his father's government. His chief fol- 
lowers hastened to make their peace with the 
ministry; and the political torpor became 
complete. 

Five years after the death of Prince Fre- 
deric, the public mind was for a time violently 
excited. But this excitement had nothing to 
do with the old disputes between Whigs and 
Tories. England was at war with France. 
The war had been feebly conducted. Minorca 
had been torn from us. Our fleet had retired 
before the white flag of the House of Bourbon. 
A bitter sense of humiliation, new to the 
proudest and bravest of nations, superseded 
every other feeling. The cry of all the coun- 
ties and great towns of the realm was for a 
government which would retrieve the honour 
of the English arms. The two most powerful 
men in the country were the Duke of New- 
castle and Pitt. Alternate victories and de- 
feats had made them sensible that neither of 
them could stand alone. The interests of the 
state, and the interests of their own ambition, 
impelled them to coalesce. By their coalition 
was formed the ministry which was in power 
when George the Third ascended the throne. 

The more carefully the structure of this 
celebrated ministry is examined, the more 
shall we see reason to marvel at the skill or 
the luck which had combined in one harmo- 
nious whole such various and, as it seemed, 
incompatible elements of force. The influence 
which is derived from stainless integrity, the 
influence which is derived from the vilest arts 
of corruption, the strength' of aristocratical 
connection, the strength of democratical enthu- 
siasm, all these things -were for the first time 
found together. Newcastle bro^ht to the 
coalition a vast mass of power, which had 



THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 



711 



descended to him from Walpole and Pelham. 
The public offices, the church, the courts of 
law, the army, the navy, the diplomatic ser- 
vice, swarmed with his creatures. The bo- 
roughs, which long afterwards made up the 
memorable schedules A and B, were repre- 
sented by his nominees. The great Whig 
families, which during several generations had 
been trained in the discipline of party warfare, 
and were accustomed to stand together in a 
firm phalanx, acknowledged him as their cap- 
tain. Pitt, on the other hand, had what New- 
castle wanted, an eloquence which stirred the 
passions and charmed the imagination, a high 
reputation for purity, and the confidence and 
ardent love of millions. 

The partition which the two ministers made 
of the powers of government was singularly 
happy. Each occupied a province for which he 
was well qualified; and neither had any inclina- 
tion to intrude himself into the province of the 
other. Newcastle took the treasury, the civil 
and ecclesiastical patronage, and the disposal 
of that part of the secret service money which 
was then employed in bribing members of 
Parliament. Pitt was secretary of state, with 
the direction of the war and of foreign affairs. 
Thus the filth of all the noisome and pestilen- 
tial sewers of government was poured into one 
channel. Through the other passed only what 
was bright and stainless. Mean and selfish 
politicians, pining for commissionerships, gold 
sticks, and ribands, flocked to the great house 
at the corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields. There, 
at every levee, appeared eighteen or twenty 
pair of lawn sleeves ; for there was not, it was 
said, a single prelate who had not owed either 
his first elevation or some subsequent transla- 
tion to Newcastle. There appeared those 
members of the House of Commons in whose 
silent votes the main strength of the govern- 
ment lay. One wanted a place in the excise 
for his butler. Another came about a prebend 
for his son. A third whispered that he had 
always stood by his Grace and the Protestant 
succession; that his last election had been 
very expensive ; that pot- wallopers had now 
no conscience ; that he had been forced to take 
up money on mortgage; and that he hardly 
knew where to turn for five hundred pounds. 
The duke pressed all their hands, passed his 
arms round all their shoulders, patted all their 
backs, and sent away some with wages, and 
some with promises. From this traffic Pitt 
stood haughtily aloof. Not only was he him- 
self incorruptible, but he shrank from the 
loathsome drudgery of corrupting others. He 
had not, however, been twenty years in Par- 
liament, and ten in office, without discovering 
how the government was carried on. He was 
perfectly aware that bribery was practised on 
a large scale by his colleagues. Hating the 
practice, yet despairing of putting it down, 
and doubting whether, in those times, any 
ministry could stand without it, he determined 
to be blind to it. He would see nothing, know 
nothing, believe nothing. People who came 
to talk to him about shares in lucrative con- 
tracts, or about the means of securing a 
Cornish corporation, were soon put out of 
countenance by ms arrogant humility. They 



did him too much honour. Such matters wer« 
beyond his capacity. It was true that his pooi 
advice about expeditions and treaties was" 
listened to with indulgence by a gracious 
sovereign. If the question were, who should 
command in North America, or who should be 
ambassador at Berlin, his colleagues would 
probably condescend to take his opinion. But 
he had not the smallest influence with the 
secretary of the treasury, and could not ven- 
ture to ask even for a tide-waiter's place. 

It may be doubted whether he did not owe 
as much of his popularity to his ostentatious 
purity, as to his eloquence, or to his talents for 
the administration of war. It was everywhere 
said with delight and admiration that the great 
Commoner, without any advantages of birth 
or fortune, had, in spite of the dislike of the 
court and of the aristocracy, made himself the 
first man in England, and made England the 
first country in the world ; that his name was 
mentioned with awe in every palace from 
Lisbon to Moscow ; that his trophies were in 
all the four quarters of the globe ; yet that he 
was still plain William Pitt, without title or 
riband, without pension or sinecure place. 
Whenever he should retire, after saving the 
state, he must sell his coach-horses and his 
silver candlesticks. Widely as the taint of 
corruption had spread, his hands were clean. 
They had never received, they had neve? 
given, the price of infamy. Thus the coalition 
gathered to itself support from all the high 
and all the low parts of human nature, and 
was strong with the whole united strength of 
virtue and of mammon. 

Pitt and Newcastle were co-ordinate chief 
ministers. The subordinate places had been 
filled on the principle of including in the go- 
vernment every party and shade of party, the 
avowed Jacobites alone excepted ; nay, every 
public man who, from his abilities or from his 
situation, seemed likely to be either useful in 
office or formidable in opposition 

The Whigs, according to what was then 
considered as their prescriptive right, held by 
far the largest share of power. The main 
support of the administration was what may 
be called the great Whig connection — a con 
nection which, during near half a century, had 
generally had the chief sway in the country, 
and which derived an immense authority from 
rank, wealth, borough interest, and firm union, 
To this connection, of which Newcastle was 
the head, belonged the houses of Cavendish, 
Lennox, Fitzroy, Bentinck, Manners, Conway, 
Wentworth, and many others of high note. 

There were two other powerful Whig con* 
nections, either of which might have been a 
nucleus for a formidable opposition. But 
room had been found in the government for 
both. They were known as the Grenviiles 
and the Bedfords. 

The head of the Grenviiles was Rich aril 
Earl Temple. His talents for administration 
and debate were of no high order. But his 
great possessions, his turbulent and unscru- 
pulous character, his restless activity, and his 
skill in the most ignoble tactics of faction; 
made him one of the most formidable enemies 
that a ministry could have. He was keepel 



718 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



of the privy seal. His brother George was 
treasurer of the navy. They were supposed 
to be on terms of close friendship with Pitt, 
who had married their sister, and was the 
most uxorious of husbands. 

The Bedfords, or, as they were called by 
their enemies, the Bloomsbury gang, professed 
to be led by John Duke of Bedford, but in truth 
led him wherever they chose, and very often 
led him where he never would have gone of 
his own accord. He had many good qualities 
of head and heart, and would have been cer- 
tainly a respectable, and possibly a distin- 
guished man, if he had been less under the 
influence of his friends, or more fortunate in 
choosing them. Some of them were indeed, 
to do them justice, men of parts. But here, 
we are afraid, eulogy must end. Sandwich and 
Rigby were able debaters, pleasant boon com- 
panions, dexterous intriguers, masters of all 
the arts of jobbing and electioneering, and, 
both in public and private life, shamelessly 
immoral. Weymouth had a natural eloquence, 
which sometimes astonished those who knew 
how little he owed to study. But he was in- 
dolent and dissolute, and had early impaired a 
fine estate with the dice-box, and a fine con- 
stitution with the bottle. The wealth and 
power of the duke, and the talents and auda- 
city of some of his retainers, might have seri- 
ously annoyed the strongest minis! ry. But his 
assistance had been secured. He was Lord- 
lieutenant of Ireland; Rigby was his secretary; 
and the whole party dutifully supported the 
measures of the government. 

Two men had, a short time before, been 
thought likely to contest with Pitt the lead of 
the House of Commons — William Murray 
and Henry Fox. But Murray had been re- 
moved to the Lords, and was Chief-Justice of 
the King's Bench ; Fox was indeed still in the 
Commons. But means had been found to se- 
cure, if not his strenuous support, at least his si- 
lent acquiescence. He was a poor man ; he 
was a doting father. The office of Paymaster- 
General during an expensive war was, in that 
age, perhaps the most lucrative situation in 
the gift of the government. This oflice was 
bestowed on Fox. The prospect of making a 
noble fortune in a few years, and of providing 
amply for his darling boy Charles, was irre- 
sistibly tempting. To hold a subordinate place, 
however profitable, after having led the House 
of Commons, and having been intrusted with 
the business of forming a ministry, was in- 
teed a great descent. But a punctilious sense 
of personal dignity was no part of the charac- 
ter of Henry Fox. 

We have not time to enumerate all the 
other men of weight and talents who were, by 
some tie or other, attached to the government. 
We may mention Hardwicke, reputed the first 
.aw^r of the age; Legge, reputed the first 
financer of the age ; the acute and ready Os- 
wald; the bold and humrrous Nugent; Charl°.s 
Townshend, the most brilliant and versatile 
of mankind ; Elliot, Barrington, North, Pratt. 
Indeed, as far as we recollect, there were in 
the whole House of Commons only two men 
of distinguished abilities who were not con- 
nected vith the government; and those two 



men stood so low in public estimation, thai 
the only service which they could have ren« 
dered to any government would have been to 
oppose it. We speak of Lord George Sack 
ville and Bubb Dodington. 

Though most of the official men, and all the 
members of the cabinet, were reputed Whigs, 
the Tories were by no means excluded from 
employment. Pitt had gratified many of them 
with commands in the militia, which increased 
both their income and their importance in 
their own counties ; and they were therefore 
in better humour than at any time since the 
death of Anne. Some of the party still con- 
tinued to grumble over their punch at the 
Cocoa-Tree ; but in the House of Commons 
not a single one of the malecontents durst lift 
his eyes above the buckle of Pitt's shoe. 

Thus there was absolutely no opposition. 
Nay, there was no sign from which it could 
be guessed in what quarter opposition was 
likely to arise. Several years passed during 
which Parliament seemed to have abdicated 
its chief functions. The Journals of the House 
of Commons during four sessions contain no 
trace of a division on a party question. The 
supplies, though beyond precedent great, were 
voted without discussion. The most animated 
debates of that period were on road bills and 
enclosure bills. 

The old king was content ; and it mattered 
little whether he were content or not. It 
would have been impossible for him to eman- 
cipate himself from a ministry so powerful, 
even if he had been inclined to do so. But he 
had no such inclination. He had once, in- 
deed, been strongly prejudiced against Pitt, and 
had repeatedly been ill-used by Newcastle; 
but the vigour and success with which the war 
had been waged in Germany, and the smooth- 
ness with which all public business was car- 
ried on, had produced a favourable change in 
the royal mind. 

Such was the posture of affairs when, on 
the 25th of October, 1760, George the Second 
suddenly died, and George the Third, then 
twenty-two years old, became king. The 
situation of George the Third differed widely 
from that of his grandfather and that of his 
great-grandfather. Many years had now 
elapsed since a sovereign of Engl and had been 
an object of affection to any part of his people. 
The first two kings of the house of Hanover 
had neither those hereditary rights which have 
often supplied the defect of merit, nor those 
personal qualities which have often supplied 
the defect of title. A prince may be popular 
with little virtue or capacity, if he reigns by 
birthright derived from a long line of illus- 
trious predecessors. An usurper may be 
popular, if his genius has saved or aggran- 
dized the nation which he governs. Perhaps 
no rulers have in our time had a stronger hold 
on the affection of subjects than the Emperor 
Francis, and his son-in-law the Emperor 
Napoleon. But imagine a ruler with no better 
title than Napoleon, and no better understand- 
ing than Francis. Richard Cromwell was 
such a ruler; and, as soon as an arm was 
lifted up against him, he fell without a struggle, 
amidst universal derision. George the Firs* 



THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 



713 



and George the Second wsre in a situation 
which bore some resemblance to that of Rich- 
ard Cromwell. They were saved from the 
fate of Richard Cromwell by the strenuous 
and able exertions of the Whig party, and by 
the general conviction that the nation had no 
choice but between the house of Brunswick 
and Popery. But by no class were the Guelphs 
regarded with that devoted affection, of which 
Cnarles the First, Charles the Second, and 
James the Second, in spite of the greatest 
faults, and in the midst of the greatest misfor- 
tunes, received innumerable proofs. Those 
Whigs who stood by the dynasty so manfully 
with purse and sword, did so on principles 
independent of, and indeed almost incompati- 
ble with, the sentiment of devoted loyalty. 
The moderate Tories regarded the foreign 
dynasty as a great evil, which must be endured 
for fear of a greater evil. In the eyes of the 
high Tories, the elector was the most hateful 
of robbers and tyrants. The crown of another 
was on his head ; the blood of the brave and 
loyal was on his hands. Thus, during many 
years, the kings of England were objects of 
strong personal aversion to many of their 
subjects, and of strong personal attachment to 
none. They found, indeed, firm and cordial 
support against the pretender to their throne ; 
but this support was given, not at all for their 
sake, but for the sake of a religious and 
political system which would have been en- 
dangered by their fall. This support, too, 
they were compelled tc purchase by perpetually 
sacrificing their private inclinations to the 
party which had set them on the throne, and 
which maintained them there. 

At the close of the reign of George the Se- 
cond, the feeling of aversion with which the 
house of Brunswick had long been regarded by 
half the nation had died away ; but no feeling 
of affection to that house had yet sprung up. 
There was little, indeed, in the old king's 
character to inspire esteem or tenderness. He 
was not our countryman. He never set foot 
on our soil till he was more than thirty years 
old. His speech betrayed his foreign origin 
and breeding. His love for his native -land, 
though the most amiable part of his character, 
was not likely to endear him to his British sub- 
jects. That he was never so happy as when 
he could exchange St. James's for Hernhausen ; 
that, year after year, our fleets -were employed 
to convoy him to the Continent; that the in- 
terests of his kingdom were as nothing to him 
when compared with the interests of his elec- 
torate, could scarcely be denied. As to the rest, 
he had neither the qualities which make dul- 
ness respectable, nor the qualities which make 
libertinism attractive. He had been a bad son 
and a worse father; an unfaithful husband and 
an ungraceful lover. Not one magnanimous 
or humane action is recorded of him ; but many 
instances of meanness, and of a harshness 
which, but for the strong constitutional re- 
straints under which he was placed, might have 
made the misery of his people. 

He died; and at once a n.ew world opened. 
The young kins; was a born Englishman. All 
his tastes and habits, good or bad, were Eng- 
lish. No portion of his subjects had any .hing 



to reproach him with. Even the remaining 
adherents of the house of Stuart could scarcely 
impute to him the guilt of usurpation. He wag 
not responsible for the Revolution, for the Ac» 
of Settlement, for the suppression of the risings 
of 1715 and of 1745. He was innocent of the 
blood of Derwentwater and Kilmarnock, of Bal- 
merino and Cameron. Born more than fifty 
years after the old line had been expelled, 
fourth in descent and third in succession of the 
Hanoverian dynasty,he might plead some show 
of hereditary right. His age, his appearance, 
and all that was known of his character, con- 
ciliated public favour. He was in the bloom 
of youth ; his person and address were pleasing. 
Scandal imputed to him no vice ; and flattery 
might, without any glaring absurdity, ascribe 
to him many princely virtues. 

It is not strange, therefore, that the senti- 
ment of loyalty, a sentiment which had lately 
seemed to be as much out of date as the belief 
in witches or the practice of pilgrimage, should, 
from the day of his accession, have begun to 
revive. The Tories, in particular, who had 
always been inclined to king-worship, and who 
had long felt with pain the want of an idol be- 
fore whom they could bow themselves down, 
were as joyful as the priests of Apis, when, 
after a long interval, they had found a new calf 
to adore. It was soon clear that George the 
Third was regarded by a portion of the nation 
with a very different feeling from that which 
his two predecessors had inspired. They had 
been merely first Magistrates, Doges, Stadt- 
holders; he was emphatically a King, the 
anointed of Heaven, the breath of his people's 
nostrils. The years of the widowhood and 
mourning of the Tory party were over. Dido 
had kept faith long enough to the cold ashes 
of a former lord; she had at last found a com- 
forter, and recognised the vestiges of the old 
flame. The golden days of Harley would re- 
turn ; the Somersets, the Lees, and the Wynd- 
hams would again surround the throne. The 
latitudinarian prelates, who had not been 
ashamed to correspond with Doddridge and to 
shake hands with Whiston, would be succeeded 
by divines of the temper of South and Alter- 
bury. The devotion which had been so signally 
shown to the house of Stuart — which had been 
proof against defeats, confiscations, and pre- 
scriptions ; which perfidy, oppression, ingrati- 
tude, could not weary out — was now transferred 
entire to the house of Brunswick. If George 
the Third would but accept the homage of the 
Cavaliers and High-churchmen, he should be to 
them all that Charles the First and Charles the 
Second had been. 

The prince whose accession was thus hailed 
by a great party long estranged from his house, 
had received from nature a strong will, a firm- 
ness of temper to which a harsher name might 
perhaps be given, and an understanding not, 
indeed, acute or enlarged, but such as qualified 
him to be a good man of business. But his 
character had not yet fully developed itself. He 
had been brought up in strict seclusion. The 
detractors of the Princess Dowager of Wales 
affirmed that she had kept her children from 
commerce with society, in order that she might 
hold an undivided empire over their minds. Shu 



714 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



gave a very different explanation of her con- 
duct. She would gladly, she said, see her sons 
and daughters mix in the world, if they could 
do so without risk to their morals. But the 
profligacy of the people of quality alarmed her. 
The young men were all rakes; the young 
women made love, instead of waiting till it was 
made to them. She could not bear to expose 
those whom she loved best to the contaminating 
influence of such society. The moral advan- 
tages of the system of education which formed 
the Duke of York, the Duke of Cumberland, 
and the Queen of Denmark, may perhaps be 
questioned. George the Third was indeed no 
libertine ; but he brought to the throne a mind 
only half opened, and was for some time en- 
tirely under the influence of his mother and of 
his Groom of the Stole, John Stuart Earl of 
Bute. 

The Earl of Bute was scarcely known, even 
by name, to the country which he was soon to 
govern. He had indeed, a short time after he 
came of age, been chosen to fill a vacancy 
which, in the middle of a parliament, had taken 
place among the Scotch representative peers. 
He had disobliged the Whig ministers by giv- 
ing some silent votes with the Tories, had con- 
sequently lost his seat at the next dissolution, 
and had never been re-elected. Near twenty 
years had elapsed since he had borne any part 
in politics. He had passed some of those 
years at his seat in one of the Hebrides, and 
from that retirement he had emerged as one of 
the household of Prince Frederic. Lord Bute, 
excluded from public life, had found out many 
ways of amusing his leisure. He was a tolera- 
ble actor in private theatricals, and was par- 
ticularly successful in the part of Lothario. A 
handsome leg, to which both painters and sa- 
tirists took care to give prominence, was among 
his chief qualifications for the stage. He de- 
vised quaint dresses for masquerades. He 
dabbled in geometry, mechanics, and botany. 
He paid some attention to antiquities and works 
of art, and was considered in his own circle as 
a judge of painting, architecture, and poetry. 
It is said that his spelling was incorrect. But 
though, in our time, incorrect spelling is justly 
considered as a proof of sordid ignorance, it 
would be most unjust to apply the same rule 
to people who lived a century ago. The novel 
of Sir Charles Grandison was published about 
the time at which Lord Bute made his appear- 
ance at Leicester House. Our readers may 
perhaps remember the account which Char- 
lotte Grandison gives of her two lovers. One 
of them, a fashionable baronet who talks French 
and Italian fluently, cannot write a line in his 
own language without some sin against ortho- 
graphy; the other, who is represented as a 
most respectable specimen of the young aris- 
tocracy, and something of a virtuoso, is de- 
scribed as spelling pretty well for a lord. On 
the whole, the Earl of Bute might fairly be 
called a man of cultivated mind. He was also 
a man of undoubted honour. But his under- 
standing was narrow, and his manners cold 
and haughty. His qualifications for the part 
of a statesman were best described by Frederic, 
who often indulged in the unprincely luxury of 
tneering at his dependents. "Bute," said his 



royal highness, " you are the very man to l*j 
envoy at some small proud German court where 
there is nothing to do." 

Scandal represented the Groom of the Stoi* 
as the favoured lover of the Princess-Dowager, 
He was undoubtedly her confidential friend. 
The influence which the two united exercised 
over the mind of the king, was for a time un- 
bounded. The princess, a woman and a fo- 
reigner, was not likely to be a judicious advi- 
ser about affairs of state; the earl could scarcely 
be said to have served even a noviciate in poli 
tics. His notions of government had been ac- 
quired in the society which had been in the 
habit of assembling round Frederic at Kew and 
Leicester House. That society consisted prin- 
cipally of Tories, who had been reconciled to 
the house of Hanover by the civility with 
which the prince had treated them, and by the 
hope of obtaining high preferment when he 
should come to the throne. Their Political 
creed was a peculiar modification of Toryism. 
It was the creed neither of the Tories of the 
seventeenth nor of the Tories of the nineteenth 
century; it was the creed, not of Filmer and 
Sacheverell, not of Perceval and Eldon, but of 
the sect of which Bolingbroke may be consi- 
dered as the chief doctor. This sect deserves 
commendation for having pointed out and justly 
reprobated some great abuses which sprang 
up during the long domination of the Whigs. 
But it is far easier to point out and reprobate 
abuses than to propose reforms ; and the reforms 
which Bolingbroke proposed would either have 
been utterly inefficient, or would have produced 
much more mischief than they would have re- 
moved. 

The revolution had saved the nation from 
one class of evils, but had at the same time- 
such is the imperfection of all things human- 
engendered or aggravated another class of 
evils which required new remedies. Libertj 
and property were secure from the attacks of 
prerogative. Conscience was respected. ' Nr 
government ventured to infringe any of th< 
rights solemnly recognised by the instrument 
which had called William and Mary to the 
throne. But it cannot be denied that, unde; 
the new system, the public interests and the 
public morals were seriously endangered by 
corruption and faction. During the long strug- 
gle against the Stuarts, the chief object of 
the most enlightened statesmen had been to 
strengthen the House of Commons. The strug- 
gle was over, the victory was won, the House 
of Commons was supreme in the state ; and 
all the vices which had till then been latent in 
the representative system were rapidly deve- 
loped by prosperity and power. Scarcely had 
the executive government become really re- 
sponsible to the House of Commons, when it 
began to appear that the House of Commons 
was not really responsible to the nation. Many 
of the constituent bodies were under the abso- 
lute control of individuals; many were notori- 
ously at the command of the highest bidder. 
The debates were not published; it was very 
seldom known out of doors how a gentleman 
had voted. Thus, while the ministry was ac« 
countable to the Parliament, the majority of the 
Parliament was accountable to nobody. Under 



THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 



715 



«nch circumstances, nothing could be more na- 
tura. than that the members should insist on 
being paid for their votes, should form them- 
selves into combinations for the purpose of 
raising the price of their votes, and should at 
critical conjunctures extort large wages by 
threatening a strike. Thus the Whig minis- 
ters of George the First and George the Se- 
cond were compelled to reduce corruption to a 
system, and to practise it on a gigantic scale. 

If we are right as to the cause of these 
abuses, we can scarcely be wrong as to the 
remedy. The remedy was surely not to de- 
prive the House of Commons of its weight in 
the state. Such a course would undoubtedly 
have put an end to parliamentary corruption 
and to parliamentary factions : for, when votes 
cease to be of importance, they will cease to 
be bought, and when knaves can get nothing 
hy combining, they will cease to combine. 
But to destroy corruption and faction by in- 
troducing despotism, would have been to cure 
bad by woree. The proper remedy evidently 
was, to make the House of Commons respon- 
sible to the nation ; and this was to be effected 
in two ways — first, by giving publicity to par- 
liamentary proceedings, and thus placing 
every member on his trial before the tribunal 
of public opinion; and secondly, by so reform- 
ing the constitution of the House, that no man 
should be able to sit in it who had not been 
returned by a respectable and independent 
body of constituents. 

Bolingbroke and Bolingbroke's disciples 
recommended a very different mode of treating 
the diseases of the state. Their doctrine was, 
that a vigorous use of the prerogative by a 
patriot king would at once break all factious 
combinations, and supersede the pretended ne- 
cessity of bribing members of Parliament. The 
king had only to resolve that he would be 
master, that he would not be held in thraldom 
by any set of men, that he would take for min- 
isters any persons in whom he had confidence, 
without distinction of party, and that he would 
restrain his servants from influencing, by im- 
moral means, either the constituent bodies or 
the representative body. This childish scheme 
proved, that those who proposed it knew no- 
thing of the nature of the evil with which they 
pretended to deal. The real cause of the pre- 
valence of corruption and faction was, that a 
House of Commons, not accountable to the 
people, was more powerful than the king. 
Bolingbroke's remedy could be applied only by 
a king more powerful than the House of Com- 
mons. How was the patriot prince to govern 
in defiance of the body without whose consent 
he could not equip a sloop, keep a battalion 
under arms, send an embassy, or defray even 
the charges of his own household ? Was he 
to dissolve the Parliament ? And what was he 
likely to gain by appealing to Sudbury and 
Old Sarum against the venality of their repre- 
sentatives ? Was he to send out privy seals'? 
Was he to levy ship-money? If so, this 
boasted reform must commence in all proba- 
bility by civil war, and, if consummated, must 
be consummated by the establishment of ab- 
solute monarchy. Or was the patriot king to 
carry the House of Commons with him in his 



upright designs? By what means? Inter* 
dieting himself from tl e use of corrup iuflu« 
ence, what motive was he to address to the Dod« 
ingtons and Winningtons ? Was cupidity, 
strengthened by habit, to be laid asleep by a 
few fine sentences about virtue and union? 

Absurd as this theory was, it had many ad* 
mirers, particularly among men of letters. It 
was now to be reduced to practice ; and the re- 
sult was, as any man of sagacity must have 
foreseen, the most piteous and ridiculous of 
failures. 

On the very day of the young king's acces- 
sion, appeared some signs which indicated the 
approach of a great change. The speech 
which he made to his council was not submit- 
ted to the cabinet. It was drawn up by Bute, 
and contained some expressions which might 
be construed into reflections on the conduct of 
affairs during the late reign. Pitt remon 
strated, and begged that these expressions migW 
be softened down in the printed copy ; but it 
was not till after some hours of altercation 
that Bute yielded ; and, even after Bute had 
yielded, the king affected to hold out till the 
following afternoon. On the same day on 
which this singular contest took place, Bute 
was not only sworn of the privy council, but 
introduced into the cabinet. 

Soon after this, Lord Holdernesse, one of the 
secretaries of state, in pursuance of a plan 
concerted with the court, resigned the seals. 
Bute was instantly appointed to the vacant 
place. A general election speedily followed, 
and the new secretary entered parliament in 
the only way in which he then could enter it, 
as one of the sixteen representative peers of 
Scotland.* 

Had the ministers been firmly united, it can 
scarcely be doubted that they would have been 
able to withstand the court. The parliament- 
ary influence of the Whig aristocracy, com- 
bined with the genius, the virtue, and the 
fame of Pitt, would have been irresistible. 
But there had been in the cabinet of George 
the Second latent jealousies and enmities, 
which now began to show themselves. Pitt 
had been estranged from his old ally Legge, 
the chancellor of the exchequer. Some of the 
ministers were envious of Pitt's popularity; 
others were, not altogether without cause, 
disgusted by his imperious and haughty de 
meanour; others, again, were honestly op- 
posed to some parts of his policy. They 
admitted that he had found the country in the 
depths of humiliation, and had raised it to the 
height of glory ; they admitted that he had 
conducted the war with energy, ability, and 
splendid success. But they began to hint that 
the drain on the resources of the state was 
unexampled, and that the public debt was in- 
creasing with a speed at which Montague or 
Godolphin would have stood aghast. Some 
of ' the acquisitions made by our fleets and 
armies were, it was acknowledged, profitable 
as well as honourable ; but, now that George 
the Second was dead, a courtier might ven- 



» In the reign of Anne, the House of Lords had re- 
solved that, under the 23d article of Union, no Scotch 
peer could be created a peer of Great Britain. This re- 
solution was not annulled till the year 1782 



716 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



tare to ask why England was to become a par- 
ty in a dispute between two German powers. 
What was it to her whether the house of 
Hapsburg or the house of Brandenburg ruled 
in Silesia 1 Why were the best English regi- 
ments fighting on the Maine 1 Why were the 
Prussian battalions paid with English goldl 
The great minister seemed to think it beneath 
him to calculate the price of victory. As long 
as the Tower guns were fired, as the streets 
were illuminated, as French banners were 
carried in triumph through the streets of Lon- 
don, it was to him matter of indifference to 
what extent the public burdens were augment- 
ed. Nay, he seemed to glory in the magnitude 
of these sacrifices, which the people, fascinated 
by his eloquence and success, had too readily 
made, and would long and bitterly regret. 
There was no check on waste or embezzle- 
ment. Our commissaries returned from the 
camp of Prince Ferdinand to buy boroughs, 
to rear palaces, to rival the magnificence of 
the old aristocracy of the realm. Already had 
we borrowed, in four years of war, more than 
.he most skilful and economical government 
would pay in forty years of peace. But the 
prospect of peace was as remote as ever. It 
could not be doubted that France, smarting 
and prostrate, would consent to fair terms of 
accommodation ; but this was not what Pitt 
wanted. War had made him powerful and 
popular : with war, all that was brightest in 
his life was associated : for war, his talents 
were peculiarly fitted. He had at length be- 
gun to love war for its own sake, and was 
more disposed to quarrel with neutrals than 
to make peace with enemies. 

Such were the views of the Duke of Bedford 
and of the Earl of Hardwicke ; but no member 
of the government held these opinions so 
strongly as George Grenville, the treasurer of 
the navy. George Grenville was brother-in- 
law of Pitt, and had always been reckoned 
one of Pitt's personal and political friends. 
But it is difficult to conceive two men of 
talents and integrity more utterly unlike each 
other. Pitt, as his sister often said, knew 
nothing accurately except Spenser's Fairy 
Queen. He had never applied himself stead- 
ily to any branch of knowledge. He was a 
wretched financier. He never became fami- 
liar even with the rules of that House of 
which he was the brightest ornament. He 
had never studied public law as a system; 
and was, indeed, so ignorant of the whole 
subject, that George the Second, on one occa- 
sion, complained bitterly that a man who had 
never read Vattel should presume to under- 
take the direction of foreign affairs. But 
these defects were more than redeemed by 
high and rare gifts ; by a strange power of 
inspiring great masses of men with confidence 
and affection ; by an eloquence which not 
only delighted the ear, but stirred the blood 
and brought tears into the eyes ; by originality 
« devising plans; by vigour in executing 
them. Grenville, on the other hand, was by 
nature and habit a man of details. He had 
Dten bred a lawyer; and he had brought the 
industry and acuteness of the Temple into 
official and parliamentarv life. He was sup- 



posed to be intimately acquainted with the 
whole fiscal system of the country. He had 
paid especial attention to the law of Parlia- 
ment, and was so learned in all things relating 
to the privileges and orders of the House of 
Commons, that those who loved him least 
pronounced him the only person competent 
to succeed Onslow in the Chair. His speeches 
were generally instructive, and sometimes, 
from the gravity and earnestness with which 
he spoke, even impressive; but never bril- 
liant, and generally tedious. Indeed, even 
when he was at the head of affairs, he some- 
times found it difficult to obtain the ear of the 
House. In disposition as well as in intellect, 
he differed widely from his brother-in-law. 
Pitt was utterly regardless of money. He 
would scarcely stretch out his hand to take 
it ; and, when it came, he threw it away with 
childish profusion. Grenville, though strictly 
upright, was grasping and parsimonious. Pitt 
was a man of excitable nerves, sanguine in 
hope, easily elated by success and popularity, 
keenly sensible of injury, but prompt to for 
give ; Grenville's character was stern, melan 
choly, and pertinacious. Nothing was more 
remarkable in him than his inclination al 
ways to look on the dark side of things. He 
was the raven of the House of Commons, 
always croaking defeat in the midst of tri- 
umphs, and bankruptcy with an overflowing 
exchequer. Bunce, with general applause, 
compared Grenville, in a time of quiet and 
plenty, to the evil spirit whom Ovid described 
looking down on the stately temples and 
wealthy haven of Athens, and scarce able to 
refrain from weeping because she could find 
nothing at which to weep. Such a man was 
not likely to be popular. But to unpopularity 
Grenville opposed a dogged determination, 
which sometimes forced even those who 
hated him to respect him. 

It was natural that Pitt and Grenville, being 
such as they were, should take very different 
views of the situation of affairs. Pitt could see 
nothing but the trophies ; Grenville could see 
nothing but the bill. Pitt boasted that England 
was victorious at once in America, in India, 
and in Germany — the umpire of the Continent, 
the mistress of the sea. Grenville cast up the 
subsidies, sighed over the army extraordina- 
ries, and groaned in spirit to think that the 
nation had borrowed eight millions in onf 
year. 

With a ministry thus divided, it was not dif- 
ficult for Bute to deal. Legge was the first 
who fell. He had given offence to the young 
king in the late reign, by refusing to support a 
creature of Bute at a Hampshire election. He 
was now not only turned out, but in the closet, 
when he delivered up his seal of office, was 
treated with gross incivility. 

Pitt, who did not love Legge, saw this event 
with indifference. But the danger was now 
fast approaching himself. Charles the Third 
of Spain had early conceived a deadly hatred 
of England. Twenty years before, when he 
was King of the Two Sicilies, he had been 
eager to join the coalition against Maria The- 
resa. But an English fleet had suddenly ap- 
peared in the Bay of Naples. An English 



THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 



71'. 



captain had landed, had proceeded to the 
palace, had laid a watch on the table, and had 
told his majesty that, within an hour, a treaty 
of neutrality must be signed, or a bombardment 
would commence. The treaty was signed; 
the squadron sailed out of the bay twenty-four 
hours after it had sailed in ; and from that day 
the ruling passion of the humbled prince was 
aversion to the English name. He was at 
length in a situation in which he might hope to 
gratify that passion. He had recently become 
King of Spain and the Indies. He saw, with 
envy and apprehension, the triumphs of our 
navy, and the rapid extension of our colonial 
empire. He was a Bourbon, and sympathized 
with the distress of the house from which he 
sprang. He was a Spaniard ; and no Spaniard 
could bear to see Gibraltar and Minorca in the 
possession of a foreign power. Impelled by 
such feelings, Charles concluded a secret 
treaty with France. By this treaty, known as 
the Family Compact, the two powers bound 
themselves, not in express words, but by the 
clearest implication, to make war on England 
in common. Spain postponed the declaration 
of hostilities only till her fleet, laden with the 
treasures of America, should have arrived. 

The existence of the treaty could not be kept 
a secret from Pitt. He acted as a man of his 
capacity and energy might be expected to act. 
He at once proposed to declare war against 
Spain, and to intercept the American fleet. He 
had determined, it is said, to attack without 
delay both Havanna and the Philippines. 

His wise and resolute counsel was rejected. 
Bute was foremost in opposing it, and was 
supported by almost the whole cabinet. Some 
of the ministers doubted, or affected to doubt, 
the correctness of Pitt's intelligence ; some 
shrank from the responsibility of advising a 
course so bold and decided as that which he 
proposed ; some were weary of his ascen- 
dency, and were glad to be rid of him on any 
pretext. One only of his colleagues agreed 
with him, his brother-in-law, Earl Temple. 

Pitt and Temple resigned their offices. To 
Pitt the young king behaved at parting in the 
most gracious manner. Pitt, who, proud and 
fiery everywhere else, was always meek and 
humble in the closet, was moved even to tears. 
The king and the favourite urged him to accept 
some substantial mark of royal gratitude. 
Would he like to be appointed governor of 
Canada 1 A salary of £5000 a-year should be 
annexed to the office. Residence would not be 
required. It was true that the governor of 
Canada, as the law then stood, could not be a 
member of the House of Commons. But a bill 
should be brought in, authorizing Pitt to hold 
his government together with a seat in Parlia- 
ment, and in the preamble should be set forth 
his claims to the gratitude of his country. 
Pitt answered, with all delicacy, that his anxie- 
ties were rather for his wife and family than 
for himself, and that nothing would be so ac- 
ceptable to him as a mark of royal goodness, 
•which might be beneficial to those who were 
dearest to him. The hint was taken. The 
same gazette which announced the retirement 
of the secretary of state, announced also, that, 
hi consideration of his great public services, 
46 



his wife had been created a peeress in her own 
right, and a pension of three thousand pounds 
a-year, for three lives, had been bestowed on 
himself. It was doubtless thought that the 
rewards and honours conferred on the great 
minister would have a conciliatory effect on 
the public mind. Perhaps, too, it was thought 
that his popularity, which had partly arisen 
from the contempt which he had always shown 
for money, would be damaged by a pension ; 
and, indeed, a crowd of libels instantly ap- 
peared, in which he was accused of having 
sold his country. Many of his true friends 
thought that he would have best consulted the 
dignity of his character by refusing to accept 
any pecuniary reward from the court. Never- 
theless, the general opinion of his talents, vir- 
tues, and services remained unaltered. Ad- 
dresses were presented to him from several 
large towns. London showed its admiration 
and affection in a still more marked manner. 
Soon after his resignation came the Lord 
Mayor's day. The king and the royal family 
dined at Guildhall. Pitt was one of the guests. 
The young sovereign, seated by his bride in 
his state coach, received a remarkable lesson. 
He was scarcely noticed. All eyes were fixed , 
on the fallen minister; all acclamations directed 
to him. The streets, the balconies, the chiB- 
ney-tops, burst into a roar of delight as his 
chariot passed by. The ladies waved their 
handkerchiefs from the windows. The com- 
mon people clung to the wheels, shook hands 
with the footmen, and even kissed the horses. 
Cries of " No Bute !" " No Newcastle salmon !" 
were mingled with the shouts of " Pitt for ever !" 
When Pitt entered Guildhall, he was welcomed 
by loud huzzas and clapping of hands, in which 
the very magistrates of the city joined. Lord 
Bute, in the mean time, was hooted and pelted 
through Cheapside, and would, it was thought, 
have been in some danger, if he had not taken 
the precaution of surrounding his carriage with 
a strong body-guard of boxers. Many persons 
blamed the conduct of Pitt on this occasion as 
disrespectful to the king. Indeed, Pitt himself 
afterwards owned that he had done wrong. 
He was led into this error, as he was after- 
wards led into more serious errors, by the in- 
fluence of his turbulent and mischievous 
brother-in-law, Temple. 

The events which immediately followed 
Pitt's retirement raised his fame higher than 
ever. War with Spain proved to be, as he 
had predicted, inevitable. News came from 
the West Indies that Martinique had been 
taken by an expedition which he had sent 
forth. Havanna fell ; and it was known that 
he had planned an attack on Havanna. Ma- 
nilla capitulated; and it was believed that he 
had meditated a blow against Manilla. The 
American fleet, which he had proposed to in- 
tercept, had unloaded an immense cargo of 
bullion in the haven of Cadiz, before Bute 
could be convinced that the court of Madrid 
really entertained hostile intentions. 

The session of Parliament which followed 
Pitt's retirement passed over without any vio- 
lent storm. Lord Bute took on himself the 
most prominent part in the House of Lords. 
He had become secretary of state, and indeed 



718 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



prime minister, without having once opened 
his lips in public except as an actor. There 
was, therefore, no small curiosity to know how 
he would acquit himself. Members of the 
House of Commons crowded the bar of the 
Lords, and covered the steps of the throne. It 
was generally expected that the orator would 
break down; but his most malicious hearers 
were forced to own that he had made a better 
figure than they expected. They, indeed, ridi- 
culed his action as theatrical, and his style as 
tumid. They were especially amused by the 
long pauses which, not from hesitation but 
from affectation, he made at all the emphatic 
words, and Charles Townshend cried out, 
"Minute guns!" The general opinion how- 
ever was, that if Bute had been early practised 
in debate, he might have become an impres- 
sive speaker. 

In the Commons, George Grenville had been 
intrusted with the lead. The task was not, as 
yet, a very difficult one : for Pitt did not think 
fit to raise the standard of opposition. His 
speeches at this time were distinguished, not 
only by that eloquence in which he excelled 
all his rivals, but also by a temperance and a 
modesty which had too often been wanting to 
his character. When war was declared 
against Spain, he justly laid claim to the merit 
of having foreseen what had at length become 
manifest to all, but he carefully abstained 
from arrogant and acrimonious expressions ; 
and this abstinence was the more honourable 
to him, because his temper, never very placid, 
was now severely tried, both by gout and by 
calumny. The courtiers had adopted a mode 
of warfare, which was soon turned with far 
more formidable effect against themselves. 
Half the inhabitants of the Grub Street garrets 
paid their milk-scores, and got their shirts out 
of pawn, by abusing Pitt. His German war, 
his subsidies, his pension, his wife's peerage, 
were shin of beef and gin, blankets and baskets 
of small coal, to the starving poetasters of the 
Fleet. Even in the House of Commons, he 
was, on one occasion during this session, as- 
sailed with an insolence and malice which 
called forth the indignation of men of all par- 
ties ; but he endured the outrage with majestic 
patience. In his younger days he had been 
but too prompt to retaliate on those who at- 
tacked him ; but now, conscious of his great 
services, and of the space which he filled in 
the eyes of all mankind, he would not stoop to 
personal squabbles. " This is no season," he 
said, in the debate on the Spanish war, " for 
altercation and recrimination. A day has ar- 
rived when every Englishman should stand 
forth for his country. Arm the whole ; be one 
people ; forget every thing but the public. I 
Jet you the example. Harassed by slanderers, 
sinking under pain and disease, for the public 
forget both my wrongs and my infirmities !" 
On a general review of his life, we are inclined 
to think that his genius and virtue never 
shone with so pure an effulgence as during 
the session of 1762. 

The session drew towards the close; and 
Bute, emboldened by the acquiescence of the 
Houses, resolved to strike another great blow, 
Did to become first minister in name as well 



as in reality. That coalition, which a fe* 
months before had seemed all-powerful, had 
been dissolved. The retreat of Pitt had de* 
prived the government of popularity. New- 
castle had exulted in the fall of the illustrious 
colleague whom he envied and dreaded, and 
had not foreseen that his own doom was at 
hand. He still tried to flatter himself that he 
was at the head of the government ; but insulti 
heaped on insults at length undeceived him. 
Places which had always been considered as 
in his gift, wei*e bestowed without any refer- 
ence to him. His expostulations only called 
forth significant hints that it was time for him 
to retire. One day he pressed on Bute the 
claims of a Whig prelate to the archbishopric 
of York. " If your grace thinks so highly of 
him," answered Bute, " I wonder that you did 
not promote him when you had the power." 
Still the old man clung with a desperate grasp 
to the wreck. Seldom, indeed, have Christian 
meekness and Christian humility equalled the 
meekness and humility of his patient and ab- 
ject ambition. At length he was forced to un- 
derstand that all was over. He quitted that 
court where he had held high office during forty- 
five years, and hid his shame and regret among 
the cedars of Claremont. Bute became first 
lord of the treasury. 

The favourite had undoubtedly committed a 
great error. It is impossible to imagine a tool 
better suited to his purposes than that which 
he thus threw away, or rather put into the 
hands of his enemies. If Newcastle had been 
suffered to play at being first minister, Bute 
might securely and quietly have enjoyed the 
substance of power. The gradual introduction 
of Tories into all the departments of the go- 
vernment might have been effected without 
any violent clamour, if the chief of the great 
Whig connection had been ostensibly at the 
head of affairs. This was strongly represented 
to Bute by Lord Mansfield, a man who may 
justly be called the father of modern Toryism, 
of Toryism modified to suit an order of things 
under which the House of Commons is the 
most powerful body in the state. The theories 
which had dazzled Bute could not impose on 
the fine intellect of Mansfield. The temerity 
with which Bute provoked the hostility of 
powerful and deeply-rooted interests, was dis- 
pleasing to Mansfield's cold and timid nature. 
Expostulation, however, was vain. Bute was 
impatient of advice, drunk with success, eager 
to be, in show as well as in reality, the head 
of the government. He had engaged in an 
undertaking, in which a screen was absolutely 
necessary to his success, and even to his 
safety. He found an excellent screen ready in 
the very place where it was most needed ; and 
he rudely pushed it away. 

And now the new system ff government 
came into full operation. F<.r the first time 
since the accession of the house of Hanover, 
the Tory party was in the ascendant. The 
prime minister himself was a Tory. Lord 
Egremont, who had succeeded Pitt as secretary 
of state, was a Tory, and the son of a Tory. 
Sir Francis Dashwood, a man of slender parts, 
of small experience, and of notoriously im« 
moral character, was made chancellor of the 



THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 



719 



exchequer, for no reason that could be ima- 
gined, except that he was a Tory and had been 
a Jacobite. The royal household was filled 
with men whose favourite , toast, a few years 
before, had been the " King over the water." 
The relative position of the two great national 
seats of learning was suddenly changed. The 
University of Oxford had long been the chief 
seat of disaffection. In troubled times, the 
High Street had been lined with bayonets ; the 
colleges had been searched by the king's mes- 
sengers. Grave doctors were in the habit of 
talking very Ciceronian treason in the theatre ; 
and the under-graduates drank bumpers to Ja- 
cobite toasts, and chanted Jacobite airs. Of 
four successive Chancellors of the University, 
?ne had notoriously been in the Pretender's 
service; the other three were fully believed 
to be in secret correspondence with the exiled 
family. Cambridge had therefore been espe- 
cially favoured by the Hanoverian princes, 
and had shown herself grateful for their pa- 
tronage? George the First had enriched her 
library; George the Second had contributed 
munificently to her senate-house. Bishoprics 
and deaneries were showered on her children. 
Her Chancellor was Newcastle, the chief of 
the Whig aristocracy ; her High-Steward was 
Hardwicke, the Whig head of the law. Both 
her burgesses had held office under the Whig 
ministry. Times had now changed. The Uni- 
versity of Cambridge was received at St. 
James's with comparative coldness. The an- 
swers to the addresses of Oxford were all gra- 
ciousness and warmth. 

The watchwords of the new government 
were prerogative and purity. The sovereign 
was no longer to be a puppet in the hands of 
any subject, or of any combination of subjects. 
George the Third would not be forced to take 
ministers whom he disliked, as his grandfa- 
ther had been forced to take Pitt. George the 
Third would not be forced to part with any 
whom he delighted to honour, as his grand- 
father had been forced to part with Carteret. 
At the same time, the system of bribery which 
had grown up during the late reigns was to 
cease. It was ostentatiously proclaimed that, 
since the accession of the young king, neither 
constituents nor representatives had been 
bought wi'li the secret service money. To 
free Britain from corruption and oligarchical 
cabals, to detach her from continental connec- 
tions, to bring the bloody and expensive war 
with France and Spain to a close, such were 
the specious objects which Bute professed to 
procure. 

Some of these objects he attained. England 
withdrew, at the cost of a deep stain on her 
faith, from her German connections. The war 
■yith France and Spain was terminated by a 
peace, honourable indeed and advantageous to 
our country, yet less honourable indeed and ad- 
Tantageous than might have been expected from 
a long and almost unbroken series of victo- 
ries, by land and sea, in every part of the 
world. But the only effect of Bute's domestic 
administration was to make faction wilder and 
sorruption fouler than ever. 

The mutual animosity of the Whig and Tory 
parties had begun to languish after the fall of 



Walpole, and had seemed to be almost extinct 
at the close of the reign of George the Second, 
It now revived in all its force. Many Whigs, 
it is true, were still in office. The Duke of 
Bedford had signed the treaty with France. The 
Duke of Devonshire, though jnuch out of hu- 
mour, still continued to be Lord-chamberlain. 
Grenville, who led the House of Commons, and 
Fox, who still enjoyed in silence the immense 
gains of the Pay-Office, had always been re- 
garded as strong Whigs. But the bulk of the 
party throughout the country regarded the new 
minister with abhorrence. There was, indeed, 
no want of popular themes for invective against 
his character. He was a favourite ; and favour 
ites have always been odious in this country. 
No mere favourite had been at the head of the 
government, since the dagger of Felton reached 
the heart of the Duke of Buckingham. After 
that event, the most arbitrary and the most 
frivolous of the Stuarts had felt the necessity 
of confiding the chief direction of affairs to 
men who had given some proof of parliamen- 
tary or official talent. Strafford, Falkland, 
Clarendon, Clifford, Shaftesbury, Lauderdale, 
Danby, Temple, Halifax, Rochester, Sunder- 
land, whatever their faults might be, were all 
men of acknowledged ability. They did not 
owe their eminence merely to the favour of the 
sovereign. On the contrary, they owed the fa- 
vour of the sovereign to their eminence. Most 
of them, indeed, had first attracted the notice of 
the court by the capacity and vigour which 
they had shown in opposition. The Revolu- 
tion seemed to have for ever secured the state 
against the domination of a Carr or a Villiers. 
Now, however, the personal regard of the king 
had at once raised a man who had seen no- 
thing of public business, who had never opened 
his lips in Parliament, over the heads of a 
crowd of eminent orators, financiers, diploma- 
tists. From a private gentleman, this fortunate 
minion had at once been turned into a secre- 
tary of state. He had made his maiden speech 
when at the head of the administration. The 
vulgar resorted to a simple explanation of the 
phenomenon, and the coarsest ribaldry against 
the Princess Mother was scrawled on every 
wall and in every alley. 

This was not all. The spirit of party, roused 
by impolitic provocation from its long sleep, 
roused in turn a still fiercer and more malig- 
nant fury, the spirit of national animosity. 
The grudge of Whig against Tory was mingled 
with the grudge of Englishman against Scot. 
The two sections of the great British people 
had not yet been indissolubly blended together. 
The events of 1715 and of 1744 had left pain- 
ful and enduring traces. The tradesmen of 
Cornhill had been in dread of seeing their tills 
and warehouses plundered by bare-legged 
mountaineers from the Grampians. They still 
recollected that Black Friday, when the news 
came that the rebels were at Derby, when all 
the shops in the city were closed, and when the 
Bank of England began to pay in sixpences. 
The Scots, on the other hand, remembered, 
with natural resentment, the severity with 
which the insurgents had been chastised, the 
military outrages, the humiliating laws, the 
heads fixed on Temple Bar, the fires and quar 



730 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



tering-blocks on Kennington Common. The 
favourite did not suffer the English to forget 
from what part of the island he came. The cry 
of all the south was that the public offices, the 
army, the navy, were filled with high-cheeked 
Drummonds, and Erskines, Macdonalds and 
Macgillivrays, who could not talk a Christian 
tongue, and some of whom had but lately be- 
gun to wear Christian breeches. All the old 
jokes on hills without trees, girls without 
stockings, men eating the food of horses, pails 
emptied from the fourteenth story, were point- 
ed against these lucky adventurers. To the 
honour of the Scots it must be said, that their 
prudence and their pride restrained them from 
retaliation. Like the princess in the Arabian 
tale, they stopped their ears tight, and, unmoved 
Dy the shrillest notes of abuse, walked on, 
without once looking round, straight towards 
the Golden Fountain. 

Bute, who had always been considered as a 
man of taste and reading, affected, from the 
moment of his elevation, the character of a 
Mseceaas. If he expected to conciliate the 
public by encouraging literature and art, he 
was grievously mistaken. Indeed, none of the 
objects of his munificence, with the single ex- 
ception of Johnson, can be said to have been 
well selected ; and the public, not unnaturally, 
ascribed the selection of Johnson rather to the 
doctor's political prejudices than to his literary 
merits. For a wretched scribbler named Sheb- 
beare, who had nothing in common with John- 
son except violent Jacobitism, and who had 
stood in the pillory for a libel on the Revolu- 
tion, was honoured with a mark of royal ap- 
probation, similar to that which was bestowed 
on the author of the English Dictionary, and 
of the Vanity of Human Wishes. It was re- 
marked that Adam, a Scotchman, was the court 
architect, and that Ramsay, a Scotchman, was 
the court painter, and was preferred to Rey- 
nolds. Mallet, a Scotchman of no high literary 
fame, and of infamous character, partook 
largely of the liberality of the government. 
John Home, a Scotchman, was rewarded for the 
tragedy of Douglas, both with a pension and 
with a sinecure place. But, when the author 
of the Bard, and of the Elegy in a Country 
Churchyard, ventured to ask for a professor- 
ship, the emoluments of which he much need- 
ed,;and for the duties of which he was, in many 
respects, better qualified than any man living, 
he was refused; and the post was bestowed on 
the pedagogue under whose care the favourite's 
son-in-law, Sir James Lowther, had made such 
signal proficiency in the graces and in the hu- 
mane virtues. 

Thus, tiia first loid of the treasury was de- 
tested by many as a Tory, by many as a favour- 
ite, and by many as a Scot. All the hatred 
which flowed from these various soiirces soon 
mingled, and was directed in one torrent of 
obloquy against the treaty of peace. The 
Duke of Bedford, who negotiated that treaty, 
was hooted through the streets. Bute was at- 
tacked in his chair, and was with difficulty 
rescued by a troop of guards. He could hardly 
walk the streets in safety without disguising 
himself A gentleman who died not many 
years ago used to say. that he once recognised 



the favourite earl in the piazza of Covcuf 
Garden, muffled in a large coat, and with a hal 
and wig drawn down over his brows. His 
lordship's established type with the mob was 
a jack-boot, a wretched pun on his Christiaa 
name and title. A jack-boot, generally ac- 
companied by a petticoat, was sometimes 
fastened on a gallows, and sometimes com- 
mitted to the flames. Libels on the court, ex- 
ceeding in audacity and rancour any that had 
been published for many years, now appeared 
daily both in prose and verse. Wilkes, with 
lively insolence, compared the mother of 
George the Third to the mother of Edward the 
Third, ai,d the Scotch minister to the gentle 
Mortimer. Churchill, with all the energy of 
hatred, deplored the fate of his country, in- 
vaded by a new race of savages, more cruel 
and ravenous than the Picts or the Danes, the 
poor, proud children of leprosy and hunger. 
It is a slight circumstance, but deserves to be 
recorded, that in this year pamphleteers first 
ventured to print at length the names of the 
great men whom they lampooned. George the 
Second had always been the K . His mi- 
nisters had been Sir R W ,Mr. P , 

and the Duke of N . But the libellers of 

George the Third, of the Princess Mother, and 
of Lord Bute, did not give quarter to a single 
vowel. 

It was supposed that Lord Temple secretly 
encouraged the most scurrilous assailants of 
the government. In truth, those who knew 
his habits tracked him as men tracked a mole. 
It was his nature to grub underground. When- 
ever a heap of dirt was flung up, it might well 
be suspected that he was at work in some foul 
crooked labyrinth below. But Pitt turned 
away from the filthy work of opposition, with 
the same scorn with which he had turned 
away from the filthy work of government. He 
had the magnanimity to proclaim everywhere 
the disgust that he felt at the insults offered by 
his own adherents to the Scottish nation, and 
missed no opportunity of extolling the courage 
and fidelity which the Highland regiments had 
displayed through the whole war. But, though 
he disdained to use any but lawful and honour- 
able weapons, it was well known that his fair 
blows were likely to be far more* formidable 
than the privy thrusts of his brother-in-law's 
stiletto. 

Bute's heart began to fail him. The Houses 
were about to meet. The treaty would instantly 
be the subject of discussion. It was probable 
that Pitt, the great Whig connection, and the 
multitude, would all be on the same side. The 
favourite had professed to hold in abhorrence 
those means by which preceding ministers 
had kept the House of Commons in good hu« 
mour. He now began to think that he had 
been too scrupulous. His Utopian visions 
were at an end. It was necessary, not only to 
bribe, but to bribe more shamelessly and flagi- 
tiously than his predecessors, in order to make 
up for lost time. A majority must be secured, 
no matter by what means. Could Grenville 
do this 1 Would he do it ? His firmness and 
ability had not yet been tried in any perilous 
crisis. He had been generally regarded as an 
humble follower of his brother Temple, and 



THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 



721 



i>£ his brother-in-law, Pitt, and was supposed, 
though with little reason, to be still favourably 
inclined towards them. Other aid must be 
called in. And where was other aid to be 
found 1 

There was one man whose sharp and manly 
logic had often in debate been found a match 
for the lofty and impassioned rhetoric of Pitt, 
whcse talents for jobbing were not inferior to 
his talents for debate, whose dauntless spirit 
shrank from no difficulty or danger, and who 
was as little troubled with scruples as with 
fears. Henry Fox, or nobody, could weather 
the storm which was about to burst. Yet was 
he a person to whom the court, even in that 
extremity, was unwilling to have recourse. 
He had always been regarded as a Whig of the 
Whigs. He had been the friend and disciple 
of Walpole. He had long been connected by 
close ties with William Duke of Cumberland. 
By the Tories he was more hated than any 
man livyjg. So strong was their aversion to 
him, that when, in the late reign, he attempted 
to form a party against the Duke of Newcastle, 
they had thrown all their weight into New- 
castle's scale. By the Scots, Fox was abhor- 
red as the confidential friend of the conqueror 
of Culloden. He was, on personal grounds, 
most obnoxious to the Princess Mother. For 
he had, immediately after her husband's death, 
advised the late king to take the education of 
her son, the heir-apparent, entirely out of her 
hands. He had recently given, if possible, 
still deeper offence ; for he had indulged, not 
without some ground, the ambitious hope that 
his beautiful sister-in-law, the Lady Sarah 
Lennox, might be queen of England. It had 
been observed that the king at one time rode 
every morning by the grounds of Holland 
House, and that, on such occasions, Lady 
Sarah, dressed like a shepherdess at a mas- 
querade, was making hay close to the road, 
which was then separated by no wall from the 
lawn. On account of the part which Fox had 
taken in this singular love affair, he was the 
only member of the privy council who was not 
summoned to the meeting atwhich his majesty 
announced his intended marriage with the 
Princess of Mecklenburg, Of all the states- 
men of the age, therefore, it seemed that Fox 
was the last with whom Bute, the Tory, the 
Scot, the favourite of the Princess Mother, 
could, under any circumstances, act. Yet to 
Fox, Bute was now compelled to apply. 

Fox had many noble and amiable qualities, 
whish in private life shone forth in full lustre, 
and made him dear to his children, to his de- 
penisnts, and to his friends ; but as a public 
man he had no title to esteem. In him the vices 
which were common to the whole school of 
Walpole appeared, not perhaps in their worst, 
but certainly in their most prominent form ; 
for his parliamentary and official talents made 
all his faults conspicuous. His courage, his 
vehement temper, his contempt for appear- 
ances, led him to display much that others, 
quite as unscrupulous as himself, covered with 
a decent veil. He was the most unpopular of 
the statesmen of histime, not because he sinned 
more than many of them, but because he canted 
less. 



He felt his unpopularity ; but he felt it after 
the fashion of strong minds. He became, not 
cautious, but reckless, and faced the rage of 
the whole nation with a scowl of inflexible de- 
fiance. He was born with a sweet and gene- 
rous temper; but he had been goaded and 
baited into a savageness which was not natural 
to him, and which amazed and shocked those 
who knew him best. Such was the man tc 
whom Bute, in extreme need, applied for sue 
cour. 

Such succour Fox was not unwilling to af- 
ford. Though by no means of an envious 
temper, he had undoubtedly contemplated the 
success and popularity of Pitt with bitter mor- 
tification. He thought himself Pitt's match as 
a debater, and Pitt's superior as a man of busi- 
ness. They had long been regarded as well 
paired rivals. They had started fair in the ca- 
reer of ambition. They had long run side by 
side. At length Fox had taken the lead, and 
Pitt had fallen behind. Then had come a sud- 
den*turn of fortune, like that in Virgil's foot- 
race. Fox had stumbled in the mire, and had 
not only been defeated, but befouled. Pitt had 
reached the goal, and received the prize. The 
emoluments of the Pay-Office might induce the 
defeated statesman to submit in silence to the 
ascendency of his competitor, but could not 
satisfy a mind conscious of great powers, and 
sore from great vexations. As soon, therefore, 
as a party arose adverse to the war and to the 
supremacy of the great war-minister, the hopes 
of Fox began to revive. His feuds with the 
Princess Mother, with the Scots, with the To- 
ries, he was ready to forget, if, by the help of 
his old enemies, he could now regain the im- 
portance which he had lost, and confront Pitt 
on equal terms. 

The alliance was, therefore, soon concluded. 
Fox was assured that, if he would pilot the go- 
vernment out of its embarrassing situation, he 
should be rewarded with a peerage, of which 
he had long been desirous. He undertook on 
his side to obtain, by fair or foul means, a vote 
in favour of the peace. In consequence of 
this arrangement he became leader of the 
House of Commons ; and Grenville, stiflinghis 
vexation as well as he could, sullenly acqui- 
esced in the change. 

Fox had expected that his influence would 
secure to the court the cordial support of some 
eminent Whigs who were his personal friends, 
particularly of the Duke of Cumberland and of 
the Duke of Devonshire. He was disappointed, 
and soon found that, in addition to all his other 
difficulties, he must reckon on the opposition 
of the ablest prince of the blood, and of the 
great house of Cavendish. 

But he had pledged himself to win the battle ; 
and he was not a man to go back. It was no 
time for squeamishness. Bute was made to 
comprehend that the ministry could be saved 
only by practising the tactics of Walpole to an 
extentat which Walpole himself would have 
stared. The Pay-Office was turned into a mart 
for votes. Hundreds of members were closeted 
there with Fox, and, as there is too much rea- 
son to believe, departed carrying with them the 
wages of infamy. It was affirmed by persons 
who had the best opportunities of obtaining in 



722 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



formation, that twenty-five thousand pounds 
were thus paid away in a single morning. The 
lowest bribe given, it was said, was a bank note 
for two hundred pounds. 

Intimidation was joined with corruption. 
^.11 ranks, from the highest to the lowest, were 
to be taught that the king would be obeyed. 
The Lords-lieutenant of several counties were 
dismissed. The Duke of Devonshire was es- 
pecially singled out as the victim by whose 
fate the magnates of England were to take 
warning. His wealth, rank, and influence, his 
stainless private character, and the constant 
attachment of his family to the house of Han- 
over, did not secure him from gross personal 
indignity. It was known that he disapproved 
of the course which the government had taken ; 
and it was accordingly determined to humble 
the Prince of the Whigs, as he had been nick- 
named by the Princess Mother. He went to 
the palace to pay his duty. " Tell him," said 
the king to a page, "that I will not see him." 
The page hesitated. " Go to him," said the 
king, "and tell him those very words." The 
message was delivered. The duke tore off 
his gold key, and went away boiling with 
anger. His relations who were in office in- 
stantly resigned. A few days later, the king 
called for the list of privy-councillors, and with 
his own hand struck out the duke's name. 

In this step there was at least courage, 
though little wisdom or good-nature. But as 
nothing was too high for the revenge of the 
court, so also was nothing too low. A perse- 
cution, such as ha<7 never been knoAvn before 
and has never been known since, raged in 
every public department. Great numbers of 
humble and laborious clerks were deprived of 
their bread, not because they had neglected 
their duties, not because they had taken an ac- 
tive part against the ministry, but merely be- 
cause they had owed their situations to the 
recommendation of some nobleman or gentle- 
man who was against the peace. The pro- 
scription extended to tide-waiters, to gaugers, 
to doorkeepers. One poor man to whom a 
pension had been given for his gallantry in a 
fight with smugglers, was deprived of it be- 
cause he had been befriended by the Duke of 
Grafton. An aged widow, who, on account of 
her husband's services in the navy, had, many 
years before, been made housekeeper to a 
public office, was dismissed from her situation, 
because it was imagined that she was distantly 
connected by marriage with the Cavendish 
family. The public clamour, as may well be 
supposed, grew daily louder and louder. But 
the louder it grew, the more resolutely did Fox 
go on with the work which he had begun. His 
Oid friends could not conceive what had pos- 
sessed him. "I could forgive," said the Duke 
of Cumberland, " Fox's political vagaries, but 
I am quite confounded by his inhumanity. 
Surely he used to be the best-natured of men." 

At last Fcx went so far as to take a legal 
opinion on the question, whether the patents 
granted by George the Second were binding on 
George the Third. It is said that, if his col- 
leagues had not flinched, he would at once 
have turned out the tellers of the Exchequer 
and justices in Evre. 



Meanwhile the Parliament met. The mia 
isters, more hated by the people than ever 
were secure of a majority, and they had alse 
reason to hope that they would have the ad- 
vantage in the debates as well as in the divi- 
sions. For Pitt was confined to his chamber 
by a severe attack of gout.- His friends moved 
to defer the consideration of the treaty till he 
should be able to attend. But the motion was 
rejected. The great day arrived. The discus- 
sion had lasted some time, when a loud huzza 
was heard in Palace-yard. The noise came 
nearer and nearer, up the stairs, through the 
lobby. The door opened, and from the midst 
of a shouting multitude came forth Pitt, borne 
in the arms of his attendants. His face was 
thin and ghastly, his limbs swathed in flannel, 
his crutch in his hand. The bearers set him 
down within the bar. His friends instantly 
surrounded him, and with their help he crawled 
to his seat near the table. In this condition he 
spoke three hours and a half against the peace. 
During that time he was repeatedly forced to 
sit down and to use cordials. It may well be 
supposed that his voice was faint, that his ac- 
tion was languid, and that his speech, though 
occasionally brilliant and impressive, was fee- 
ble when compared with his best oratorical 
performances. But those who remembered 
what he had done, and who saw what he suf- 
fered, listened to him with emotion stronger 
than any that mere eloquence can produce. 
He was unable to stay for the division, and 
was carried away from the House amidst 
shouts as loud as those which had announced 
his arrival. fc 

A large majority approved the peace. The 
exultation of the court was boundless. "Now," 
exclaimed the Princess Mother, "my son is 
really king." The young sovereign spoke of 
himself as freed from the bondage in which his 
grandfather had been held. On one point, it 
was announced, his mind was unalterably 
made up. Under no circumstances whatever 
should those Whig grandees, who had en- 
slaved his predecessors and endeavoured to 
enslave himself, be restored to power. 

His vaunting was premature. The real 
strength of the favourite was by no means 
proportioned to the number of votes which he 
had, on one particular division, been able to 
command. He was soon again in difficulties. 
The most important part of his budget was a 
tax on cider. This measure was opposed, not 
oaly by those who were generally hostile to 
his administration, but also by many of his 
supporters. The name of excise had always 
been hateful to the Tories. One of the chief 
crimes of Walpole, in their eyes, had been his 
partiality for this mode of raising money. 
The Tory Johnson had in his Dictionary given 
so scurrilous a definition of the word " excise," 
that the Commissioners of excise had serious- 
ly thought of prosecuting him. The counties 
which the new impost particularly affected 
had always been Tory counties. It was the* 
boast of John Philips, the poet of the English 
vintage, that the Cider-land had ever beeB 
faithful to the throne, and that all the pruning- 
hooks of her thousand orchards had been 
beaten into swords for the service of the i\ x - 



THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 



723 



fated Stuarts. The effect of Bute's fiscal 
scheme was to produce an union between the 
gentry and yeomanry of the Cider-land and 
the Whigs of the capital. Herefordshire and 
Worcestershire were in a flame. The city of 
London, though not so directly interested, was, 
if possible, still more excited. The debates 
on this question irreparably damaged the go- 
vernment. Dashwood's financial statement 
had been confused and absurd beyond belief, 
and had been received by the House with 
roars of laughter. He had sense enough to 
be conscious of his unfitness for the high 
situation which he held, and exclaimed, in a 
comical fit of despair, "What shall I do? 
The boys will point at me in the street, and 
ory, ' There goes the worst chancellor of the 
exchequer that ever was.' " George Grenville 
came to the rescue, and spoke strongly on his 
favourite theme, the profusion with which the 
late war had been carried on. That profu- 
sion, he said, had made taxes necessary. He 
called "on the gentlemen opposite to him to 
say where they would have a tax laid, and 
dwelt on this topic with his usual prolixity. 
" Let them tell me where," he repeated, in a 
monotonous and somewhat fretful tone. "I 
say, sir, let them tell me where. I repeat it, 
sir; I am entitled to say to them — tell me 
where." Unluckily for him, Pitt had come 
down to the House that night, and had been 
bitterly provoked by the reflections thrown on 
the war. He revenged himself by murmur- 
ing, in a whine resembling Grenville's, a line 
of a well-known song, " Gentle shepherd, tell 
me where." " If," cried Grenville, " gentlemen 

are to be treated in this way" Pitt, as was 

his fashion when he meant to mark extreme 
contempt, rose deliberately, made his bow, 
and walked out of the House, leaving his 
brother-in-law in convulsions of rage, and 
everybody else in convulsions of laughter. 
It was long before Grenville lost the nickname 
of the gentle shepherd. 

But the ministry had vexations still more 
serious to endure. The hatred which the To- 
ries and Scots bore to Fox was implacable. 
In a moment of extreme peril, they consented 
to put themselves under his guidance. But 
the aversion with which they regarded him 
broke forth as soon as the crisis seemed to be 
over. Some of them attacked him about the 
accounts of the Pay-Office. Some of them 
rudely interrupted him when speaking, by 
laughter and ironical cheers. He was natu- 
rally desirous to escape from so disagreeable 
a situation, and demanded the peerage which 
had been promised as the reward of his ser- 
vices. 

It was clear that there must be some change 
in the composition of the ministry. But scarce- 
ly any, even of those who, from their situation, 
might be supposed to be in all the secrets of 
(he government, anticipated what really took 
place. To the amazement of the Parliament 
and the nation, it was suddenly announced 
that Bute had resigned. 

Twenty different explanations of this strange 
step were suggested. Some attributed it to 
profound design, and some to sudden panic. 
Some said that the lampoons of the opposition 



had driven the earl from the field ; some thai 
he had taken office only in order to bring the 
war to a close, and had always meant to retire* 
when that object had been accomplished. He 
publicly assigned ill health as his reason, for 
quitting business, and privately complained 
that he was not cordially seconded by his col 
leagues ; and that Lord Mansfield, in particu 
lar, whom he had himself brought into the 
cabinet, gave him no support in the House of 
Peers. Lord Mansfield was, indeed, far too 
sagacious not to perceive that Bute's situation 
was one of great peril, and far too timorous to 
thrust himself into peril for the sake of an- 
other. The probability, hoAvever, is, thai 
Bute's conduct on this occasion, like the 
conduct of most men on most occasions, was 
determined by mixed motives. We suspect 
that he was sick of office ; for this is a feeling 
much more common among ministers than 
persons who see public life from a distance 
are disposed to believe. And nothing could 
be more natural than that this feeling should 
take possession of the mind of Bute. In gene- 
ral, a statesman climbs by slow degrees. 
Many laborious years elapse before he reaches 
the topmost pinnacle of preferment. In the 
earlier part of his career, therefore, he is con- 
stantly lured on by seeing something above 
him. During his ascent he gradually becomes 
inured to the annoyances which belong to a 
life of ambition. By the time that he has 
attained the highest point, he has become pa- 
tient of labour and callous of abuse. He is 
kept constant to his vocation, in spite of all 
its' discomforts, at first by hope, and at last by 
habit. It was not so with Bute. His whole 
public life lasted little more than two years. 
On the day on which he became a politician 
he became a cabinet minister. In a few 
months he was, both in name and in show, 
chief of the administration. Greater than he 
had been he could not be. If what he already 
possessed was vanity and vexation of spirit, 
no delusion remained to entice him onward. 
He had been cloyed with the pleasures of am- 
bition before he had been seasoned to its pains. 
His habits had not been such as were likely 
to fortify his mind against obloquy and public 
hatred. He had reached his forty-eighth year 
in dignified ease, without knowing, by per- 
sonal experience, what it was to be ridiculed 
and slandered. All at once, without any pre- 
vious initiation, he had found himself exposed 
to such a storm of invective and satire as had 
never burst on the head of any statesman. 
The emoluments of office were now nothing 
to him ; for he had just succeeded to a princely 
property by the death of his father-in-law. 
All the honours which could be bestowed or. 
him he had already secured. He had obtained 
the Garter for himself, and a British peerage 
for his son. He seems also to have imaginad, 
that by quitting the treasury he should escape 
from danger and abuse without reaHy resign 
ing power, and should still be able to exercise 
in private supreme influence over the royai 
mind. 

Whatever may have been his motives, he 
retired. Fox at the same time took refuge in 
the House of Lords ; and Geuree Grenville 



72 1 



MAC AUL AY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



became first lord of the treasury and chancellor 
of the exchequer. 

We believe that those who made this ar- 
rangement fully intended that Grenville should 
be a mere puppet in the hands of Bute; for 
Grenville was as yet very imperfectly known 
even to those who had observed him long. 
He passed for a mere official drudge ; and he 
had all the industry, the minute accuracy, the 
formality, the tediousness, which belong to the 
character. But he had other qualities which 
had not yet shown themselves — devouring 
ambition, dauntless courage, self-confidence 
amounting to presumption, and a temper 
which could not endure opposition. He was 
not disposed to be anybody's tool ; and he had 
no attachment, political or personal, to Bute. 
The two men had, indeed, nothing in common, 
except a strong propensity towards harsh and 
unpopular courses. Their principles were 
fundamentally different. 

Bute was a Tory. Grenville would have 
been very angry with any person who should 
have denied his claim to be a Whig. He was 
more prone to tyrannical measures than Bute; 
but he loved tyranny only when disguised 
under the forms of constitutional liberty. He 
mixed up, after a fashion then not very un- 
usual, the theories of the republicans of the 
seventeenth century with the technical maxims 
of English law, and thus succeededin combining 
anarchical speculation with arbitrary practice. 
The voice of the people was the voice of God ; 
/but the only legitimate organ through which 
the voice of the people could be uttered was 
the Parliament. All power was from the peo- 
ple ; but to the Parliament the whole power of 
the people had been delegated. No Oxonian 
divine had ever, even in the years which im- 
mediately followed the restoration, demanded 
for. the king so abject, so unreasoning a ho- 
mage, as Grenville, on what he considered as 
the purest Whig principles, demanded for the 
Parliament. As he wished to see the Parlia- 
ment despotic over the nation, so he wished to 
see it also despotic over the court. In his 
view, the prime minister, possessed of the con- 
fidence of the House of Commons, ought to be 
mayor of the palace. The king was a mere 
Childeric or Chilperic, who might well think 
himself lucky in being permitted to enjoy such 
handsome apartments at St. James's, and so 
fine a park at Windsor. 

Thus the opinions of Bute and those of Gren- 
ville were diametrically opposed. Nor was 
there any private friendship between the two 
statesmen. Grenvilk's nature was not forgiv- 
ing; and he well remembered how, a few 
months before, he had been compelled to yield 
the lead of the House of Commons to Fox. 

We are inclined to think, on the whole, that 
the worst administration which has governed 
England since the Revolution was that of 
George Grenville. His public acts may be 
classed under two heads — outrages on the 
liberty of the people, and outrages on the dig- 
nity of the crown. 

He began by making war on the press. 
John Wilkes, member of parliament for Ayles- 
Dury, was singled out for persecution. Wilkes 
had, till very lately, been known chiefly as one 



of the most profane, licentious, and agreeable 
rakes about town. He was a man of taste, 
reading, and engaging manners. His sprightly 
conversation was the delight of green-rooms 
and taverns, and pleased even grave hearers, 
when he was sufficiently under restraint to 
abstain from detailing the particulars of his 
amours, and from breaking jests on the New 
Testament. His expensive debaucheries forced 
him to have recourse to the Jews. He was 
soon a ruined man, and determined to try his 
chance as a political adventurer. In Parlia- 
ment he did not succeed. His speaking, 
though pert, was feeble, and by no means in- 
terested his hearers so much as to make them 
forget his face, which was so hideous that the 
caricaturists were forced, in their own despite, 
to flatter him. As a writer, he made a better 
figure. He set up a weekly paper, called the 
North Briton. This journal, written with some 
pleasantry, and great audacity and impudence, 
had a considerable number of readers. Forty- 
four numbers had been published when Bute 
resigned; and, though almost every number 
had contained matter grossly libellous, no pro- 
secution had been instituted. The forty-fifth 
number was innocent when compared with 
the majority of those which had preceded it, 
and indeed contained nothing so strong as may 
now be found daily in the leading articles of 
the Times and Morning Chronicle. But Gren- 
ville was now at the head of affairs. A new 
spirit had been infused into the administration. 
Authority was to be upheld. The government 
was no longer to be braved with impunity. 
Wilkes was arrested under a general warrant, 
conveyed to the Tower, and confined there with 
circumstances of unusual severity. His papers 
were seized, and carried to the secretary of state. 
These harsh and illegal measures produced a 
violent outbreak of popular rage, which was 
soon changed to delight and exultation. The 
arrest was pronounced unlawful by the Court 
of Common Pleas, in which Chief Justice 
Pratt presided, and the prisoner was dis- 
charged. This victory over the government 
was celebrated with enthusiasm both in Lon- 
don and in the Cider-counties. 

While the ministers were daily becoming 
more odious to the nation, they were doing 
their best to make themselves also odious to 
the court. They gave the king plainly to un- 
derstand that they were determined not to be 
Lord Bute's creatures, and exacted a promise 
that no secret adviser should have access to 
the royal ear. They soon found reason to sus- 
pect that this promise had not been observed. 
They remonstrated in terms less respectful 
than their master had been accustomed tc 
hear, and gave him a fortnight to make his 
choice between his favourite and his cabinet 

George the Third was greatly disturbed. 
He had but a few weeks before exulted in his 
deliverance from the yoke of the great Whig 
connection. He had even declared that his 
honour would not permit him ever again to 
admit the members of that connection to his 
service. He now found that he had only ex- 
changed one set of masters for another set still 
harsher and more imperious. In his distress 
he thought on Pitt. From Pitt it was possible 



THE EARL OF CHATHAM 



725 



that better terms might be obtained than either 
from Grenville, or from the party of which 
Newcastle was the head. 

Grenville, on his return from an excursion 
into the country, repaired to Buckingham 
House. He was astonished to find at the 
entrance a chair, the shape of which was well 
known to him, and indeed to all London. It 
was distinguished by a large boot, made for 
the purpose of accommodating the great com- 
moner's gouty leg. Grenville guessed the 
whole. His brother-in-law was closeted with 
the king. Bute, provoked by what he con- 
sidered as the unfriendly and ungrateful 
conduct of his successors, had himself pro- 
posed that Pitt should be summoned to the 
palace. 

Pitt had two audiences on two successive 
days. What passed at the first interview led 
him to expect that the negotiation would be 
brought to a satisfactory close ; but on the 
morrow he found the king less complying. 
The besf account, indeed the only trustworthy 
account of the conference, is that which was 
taken from Pitt's own mouth by Lord Hard- 
wicke. It appears that Pitt strongly repre- 
sented the importance of conciliating those 
chiefs of the Whig party who had been so un- 
happy as to incur the royal displeasure. They 
had, he said, been the most constant friends of 
the house of Hanover. Their power and cre- 
dit were great ; they had been long versed in 
public business. If they were to be under 
sentence of exclusion, a solid administration 
could not be formed. His majesty could not 
bear to think of putting himself into the hands 
of those whom he had recently chased from 
his court with the strongest marks of anger. 
"I am sorry, Mr. Pitt," he said, "but I see this 
will not do. My honour is concerned. I must 
support my honour." How his majesty suc- 
ceeded in supporting his honour, we shall 
soon see. 

Pitt retired, and the king was reduced to 
request the ministers whom he had been on 
the point of discarding, to remain in office. 
During the two years which followed, Gren- 
ville, now closely leagued with the Bedfords, 
was the master of the court ; and a hard mas- 
ter he proved. He knew that he was kept in 
place only because there was no choice except 
between himself and the Whigs. That, under 
any circumstances, the Whigs would be for- 
given, he thought impossible. The late attempt 
to get rid of him had roused his resentment; 
the failure of that attempt had liberated him 
from all fear. He had never been very courtly. 
He now began to hold a language, to which, 
since the days of Cornet Joyce and President 
Bradshaw, no English king had been compel- 
led to listen. 

In one matter, indeed, Grenville, at the ex- 
pense of justice and liberty, gratified the pas- 
sions of the court while gratifying his own. 
The persecution of Wilkes was eagerly press- 
ed. He had written a parody on Pope's Essay 
on Man, entitled the Essay on Woman, and had 
appended to it notes, in ridicule of Warbur- 
ton's famous Commentary. 

This composition was exceedingly profligate, 
but not more so, we think, than some of Pope's 



own works — the imitation of the second satire 
of the first book of Horace, for example ; and, 
to do Wilkes justice, he had not, like Pope, 
given his ribaldry to the world. He had 
merely printed at a private press a very small 
number of copies, which he meant to present 
to some of his boon companions, whose morals 
were in no more danger of being corrupted by 
a loose book, than a negro of being tanned ho 
a warm sun. A tool of the government, by 
giving a bribe to the printer, procured a copy 
of this trash, and placed it in the hands of ths 
ministers. The ministers resolved to visit 
Wilkes's offence against decorum with the 
utmost rigour of the law. What share piety 
and respect for morals had in dictating this 
resolution, our readers may judge from the 
fact, that no person was more eager for bring- 
ing the libertine poet to punishment than Lord 
March, afterwards Duke of Queensberry. 

On the first day of the session of Par- 
liament, the book, thus disgracefully ob- 
tained, was laid on the table of the Lords by 
the Earl of Sandwich, whom the Duke of Bed- 
ford's interest had made Secretary of State. 
The unfortunate author had not the slightest 
suspicion that his licentious poem had ever 
been seen, except by his printer and by a few 
of his dissipated companions, till it was pro- 
duced in full Parliament. Though he was p 
man of easy temper, averse from danger, and 
not very susceptible of shame, the surprise, 
the disgrace, the prospect ot utter ruin, put him 
beside himself. He picked a quarrel with one 
of Lord Bute's dependents, fought a duel, was 
seriously wounded, and, when half recovered, 
fled to France. His enemies had now their 
own way both in the Parliament and in the 
King's Bench. He was censured; expelled 
from the House of Commons ; outlawed. His 
works were ordered to be burned by the com- 
mon hangman. Y*et was the multitude still 
true to him. In the minds even of many moral 
and religious men, his crime seemed light when 
compared with the crime of his accusers. The 
conduct of Sandwich, in particular, excited 
universal disgust. His own vices were noto- 
rious ; and, only a fortnight before he laid the 
Essay on Woman before the House of Lords, 
he had been drinking and singing loose catches 
with Wilkes at one of the most dissolute clubs 
in London. Shortly after the meeting of Par- 
liament, the Beggar's Opera was acted at 
Covent-Garden theatre. When Macheath ut- 
tered the words — "That Jemmy Twitcher 
should peach me I own surprised me," — pit, 
boxes, and galleries, burst into a roar which 
seemed likely to bring the roof down. From 
that day Sandwich was universally known by 
the nickname of Jemmy Twitcher. The cere- 
mony of burning the North Briton was inter- 
rupted by a riot. The constables were beaten ; 
the paper was rescued; and, instead of it, a 
jack-boot and a petticoat were committed to the 
flames. Wilkes had instituted an action for 
the seizure of his papers, against the under- 
secretary of state. The jury gave a thousand 
pounds damages. But neither these nor any 
other indications of public feeling had power 
to move Grenville. He had the Parliament 
witl- him : and, according to his political creed, 



7»9 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



the sense of the nation was to be collected from 
the Parliament alone. 

Soon, however, he found reason to fear that 
even the Parliament might fail him. On the 
question of the legality of general warrants, 
me opposition, having on its side all sound 
principles, all constitutional authorities, and 
the voice of the whole nation, mustered in great 
force, and was joined by many who did not 
ordinarily vote against the government. On one 
occasion the ministry, in a very full House, 
had a majority of only fourteen votes. The 
storm, however, blew over. The spirit of the 
opposition, from whatever cause, began to flag 
at the moment when success seemed almost 
certain. The session ended without any change. 
Pitt, whose eloquence had shone with its usual 
lustre in all the principal debates, and whose 
popularity was greater than ever, was still a 
private man. Grenville, detested alike by the 
court and by the people, was still minister. 

As soon as the Houses had risen, Grenville 
took a step which proved, even more signally 
than any of his past acts, how despotic, how 
acrimonious, and how fearless his nature was. 
Among the gentlemen not ordinarily opposed 
to the government, who, on the great constitu- 
tional question of general warrants, had voted 
with the minority, was Henry Conway, brother 
of the Earl of Hertford, a brave soldier, a tole- 
rable speaker, and a well-meaning, though not 
a wise or vigorous politician. He was now 
deprived of his regiment, the merited reward 
of faithful and gallant services in two wars. 
It was confidently asserted that in this violent 
measure the king heartily concurred. 

But whatever pleasure the persecution of 
Wilkes, or the dismissal of Conway, may have 
given to the royal mind, it is certain that his 
majesty's aversion to his ministers increased 
day by day. Grenville was as frugal of the 
public money as of his own, and morosely re- 
fused to accede to the king's request, that a few 
thousand pounds might be expended in buying 
some open fields to the west of the gardens of 
Buckingham House. In consequence of this 
refusal, the fields were soon' covered with 
buildings, and the king and queen were over- 
looked in their most private walks by the upper 
windows of a hundred houses. Nor was this 
the worst. Grenville was as liberal of words as 
he was sparing of guineas. Instead of explain- 
ing himself in that clear, concise, and lively 
manner, which alone could win the attention 
of a young mind new to business, he spoke in 
the closet just as he spoke in the House of 
Commons. When he had harang. sd two 
houis, he looked at his watch, as he hai been 
in the habit of looking at the clock opposite the 
Speaker's chair, apologized for the length of 
his discourse, and then went on for an hour 
more. The members of the House of Com- 
mons can cough an orator down, or can walk 
away to dinner ; and they were by no means 
sparing in the use of these privileges when 
Grenville was on his legs. But the poor young 
king had to endure all this eloquence with 
mournful civility. To the end of his life he 
continued to talk with horror of Grenville's 
orations. 



About this time took place one of the most 
singular events in Pitt's life. There was a 
certain Sir William Pynsent, a Somersetshire 
baronet of Whig politics, who had been a 
member of the House of Commons in the days 
of Queen Anne, and had retired to rural pri- 
vacy when the Tory party, towards the end 
of her reign, obtained the ascendency in her. 
councils. His manners were eccentric. His 
morals lay under very odious imputations. 
But his fidelity to his political opinions was 
unalterable. During fifty years of seclusion 
he continued to brood over the events which 
had driven him from public life, the dismissal 
of the Whigs, the peace of Utrecht, the deser- 
tion of our allies. He now thought that he 
perceived a close analogy betweer me well- 
remembered events of his youth and the events 
which he had witnessed in extreme old age ; 
between the disgrace of Marlborough and the 
disgrace of Pitt; between the elevation of 
Harley and the elevation of Bute; between 
the treaty negotiated by St. John and the treaty 
negotiated by Bedford ; between the wrongs 
of the house of Austria in 1712 and the wrongs 
of the house of Brandenburgh in 1762. This 
fancy took such possession of the old man's 
mind that he determined to leave his whole 
property to Pitt. In this way Pitt unex- 
pectedly came into possession of near three 
thousand pounds a year. Nor could all the 
malice of his enemies find any ground for 
reproach in the transaction. Nobody could 
call him a legacy-hunter. Nobody could ac« 
cuse him of seizing that to which others had a 
better claim. For he had never in his life 
seen Sir William ; and Sir William had left 
no relation so near as to be entitled to form 
any expectations respecting the estate. 

The fortunes of Pitt seemed to flourish ; bu 1 
his health was worse than ever. We cannot 
find that, during the session which began in 
January, 1765, he once appeared in Parliament 
He remained some months in profound retire- 
ment at Hayes, his favourite villa, scarcely 
moving except from his arm-chair to his bed, 
and from his bed to his arm-chair, and often 
employing his wife as his amanuensis in his 
most confidential correspondence. Some of 
his detractors whispered that his invisibility 
was to be ascribed quite as much to affectation 
as to gout. In truth his character, high and 
splendid as it was, wanted simplicity. With 
genius which did not need the aid of stage- 
tricks, and with a spirit which should have 
been far above them, he had yet been, through 
life, in the habit of practising them. It was, 
therefore, now surmised that, having acquired 
all the consideration which could be derived 
from eloquence and from great services to the 
state, he had determined not to make himself 
cheap by often appearing in public, but, undei 
the pretext of ill health, to surround himself 
with mystery, to emerge only at long intervals 
and on momentous occasions, and at othei 
times to deliver his oracles only to a few fa- 
voured votaries, who were suffered to make 
pilgrimages to his shrine. If such were his 
object, it was for a time fully attained. Never 
was the magic of his name so powerful, never 



THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 



727 



Ivas he regarded by his country with such su- 
perstitious veneration, as during this year of 
silence and seclusion. 

While Pitt was thus absent from parliament, 
Grenville proposed a measure destined to pro- 
duce a great revolution, the effects of which 
will long be felt by the whole human race. 
We speak of the act for imposing stamp-duties 
on the North American colonies. The plan 
was eminently characteristic of its author. 
Every feature of the parent was found in the 
child. A timid statesman would have shrunk 
from a step, of which Walpole, at a time when 
the colonies were far less powerful, had said — 
"He who shall propose it will be a much 
bolder man than I." But the nature of Gren- 
ville was insensible to fear. A statesman of 
large vitvws would have felt, that to lay taxes 
at Westminster on New England and New 
York, was a course opposed, not indeed to 
the letter of the statute-book, or to any decision 
contained in the Term Reports, but to the 
principles of good government, and to the 
spirit of the constitution. A statesman of 
large views would also have felt, that ten 
times the estimated produce of the American 
stamps would have been dearly purchased by 
even a transient quarrel between the mother 
country and the colonies. But Grenville knew 
of no spirit of the constitution distinct from 
the letter of the law, and of no national interests 
except those which are expressed by pounds, 
shillings, and pence. That this policy might 
give birth to deep discontents in all the pro- 
vinces, from the shore of the Great Lakes to 
the Mexican sea; that France and Spain 
might seizenhe opportunity of revenge ; that 
the Empire might be dismembered ; that the 
debt — that debt with the amount of which he 
perpetually reproached Pitt — might, in con- 
sequence of his own policy, be doubled ; these 
were possibilities which never occurred to 
that small, sharp mind. 

The Stamp Act will be remembered as long 
as the globe lasts. But, at the time, it attracted 
much less notice in this country than another 
act which is now almost utterly forgotten. 
The king fell ill, and was thought to be in a 
iangerous state. His complaint, we believe, 
was the same which, at a Jater period, repeat- 
edly incapacitated him for the performance of 
his regal functions. The heir-apparent was 
only two years old. It was clearly proper to 
make provision for the administration of the 
government, in case of a minority. The dis- 
cussions on this point brought the quarrel be- 
tween the court and the ministry to a crisis. 
The king wished to be intrusted with the 
power of naming a regent by will. The minis- 
ters feared, or affected to fear, that, if this 
power were conceded to him, he would name 
the Princess Mother, nay, possibly, the Earl 
of Bute. They, therefore, insisted on intro- 
ducing into the bill words confining the king's 
choice to the royal family. Having thus ex- 
cluded Bute, they urged the king to let them, 
n the most marked manner, exclude the 
Princess Dowager also. They assured him 
.hat the House of Commons would undoubt- 
edly strike her name out, and by this threat 
Jxey wrung from him a reluctant assent. In a 



few days, it appeared that the representation 
by which they had induced the king to pu 
this gross and public affront on his mother 
were unfounded. The friends of the princess 
in the House of Commons moved that her 
name should be inserted. The ministers could 
not decently attack the parent of their master 
They hoped that the opposition would come tc 
their help, and put on them a force to which 
they would gladly have yielded. But the ma- 
jority of the opposition, though hating the 
princess, hated Grenville more, beheld his em- 
barrassment with delight, and would do nothing 
to extricate him from it. The princess's name 
was accordingly placed in the list of persons 
qualified to hold the regency. 

The king's resentment was now at the 
height. The present evil seemed to him more 
intolerable than any other. Even the junta of 
Whig grandees could not treat him worse than 
he had been treated by his present ministers. 
In his distress he poured out his whole heart 
to his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland. The 
duke was not a man to be loved ; but he was 
eminently a man to be trusted. He had an in- 
trepid temper, a strong understanding, and a 
high sense of honour and duty. As a general, 
he belonged to a remarkable class of captains 
— captains, we mean, whose fate it has been 
to lose almost all the battles which they have 
fought, and yet to be reputed stout and skilful 
soldiers. Such captains were Coligni and 
William the Third. We might, perhaps, add 
Marshal Soult to the list. The bravery of the 
Duke of Cumberland was such as distinguish- 
ed him even among the princes of his brave 
house. The indifference with which he rode 
about amidst musket-balls and cannon-balls 
was not the highest proof of his fortitude. 
Hopeless maladies, horrible surgical opera- 
tions, far from unmanning him, did not even 
discompose him. With courage, he had the 
virtues which are akin to courage. He spoke 
the truth, was open in enmity and friendship, 
and upright in all his dealings. But his nature 
was hard; and what seemed to him justice 
was rarely tempered with mercy. He was, 
therefore, during many years one of the most 
unpopular men in England. The severity 
with which he had treated the rebels after the 
battle of Culloden, had gained for him the 
name of the butcher. His attempts to intro- 
duce into the army of England, then in a most 
relaxed state, the rigorous discipline of Pots- 
dam, had excited still stronger disgust. No^ 
thing was too bad to be believed of him. Many 
honest people were so absurd as to fancy that, 
if he were left regent during the minority of 
his nephews, there would be another smother- 
ing in the tower. These feelings, however, 
had passed away. The duke had been living, 
during some years, in retirement. The Eng 
lish, full of animosity against the Scots, now 
blamed his royal highness only for having left 
so many Camerons and Macpheisons tc be 
made gaugers and custom-house officers He 
was, therefore, at present a favourite with his 
countrymen, and especially with the inhabit- 
ants of London. 

He had little reason to love the king, an<3 
had shown clearly, though no; obtrusively, his 



T38 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



dislike of the system which had lately been 
pursued. But he had high and almost roman- 
tic notions of the duty which, as a prince of 
the blood, he owed to the head of his house. 
He determined to extricate his nephew from 
bondage, and to effect a reconciliation between 
the Whig party and the throne, on terms 
honourable to both. 

In this mind he set off for Hayes, and was 
admitted to Pitt's sick-room. For Pitt would 
not leave his chamber, and would not commu- 
nicate with any messenger of inferior dignity. 
And now began a long series of errors on the 
part of the illustrious statesman, errors which 
involved his country in difficulties and dis- 
tresses more serious even than those from 
which his genius had formerly rescued her. 
His language was haughty, unreasonable, al- 
most unintelligible. The only thing which 
could be discerned through a cloud of vague 
and not very gracious phrases was, that he 
would not at that moment take office. The 
truth, we believe, was this. Lord Temple, 
who was Pitt's evil genius, had just formed a 
aew scheme of politics. Hatred of Bute and 
of the princess had, it should seem, taken en- 
tire possession of Temple's soul. He had 
quarrelled with his brother George, because 
George had been connected with Bute and the 
princess. Now that George appeared to be 
the enemy of Bute and the princess, Temple 
was eager to bring about a general family re- 
conciliation. The three brothers, as Temple, 
Grenville, and Pitt were popularly called, 
might make a ministry, without leaning for 
aid either on Bute or on the Whig connection. 
With such views, Temple used all his influ- 
ence to dissuade Pitt from acceding to the 
propositions of the Duke of Cumberland. Pitt 
was not convinced. But Temple had an in- 
fluence over him such as no other person had 
ever possessed. They were very old friends, 
very near relations. If Pitt's talents and fame 
had been useful to Temple, Temple's purse 
had formerly, in times of great need, been use- 
ful to Pitt They had never been parted in 
politics. Twice they had come into the cabi- 
net together ; twice they had left it together. 
Pitt could not bear to think of taking office 
without his chief ally. Yet he felt that he was 
doing wrong, that he was throwing away a 
great opportunity of serving his country. The 
obscure and unconciliatory style of the an- 
swers which he returned to the overtures of 
tha Duke of Cumberland, may be ascribed to 
the embarrassment and vexation of a mind 
not at peace with itself. It is said that he 
mournfully exclaimed to Temple, 

^Extinxi te meque, soror, populumque, patresque 
Sidonios, urberaque tuam." 

The prediction was but too just. 

Finding Pitt impracticable, the Duke of 
Cumberland advised the king to submit to ne- 
cessity, and to keep Grenville and the Bed- 
fords. It was, indeed, not a time at which of- 
fices could safely be left vacant. The unset- 
*!ed state of the government had produced a 
general relaxation through all the departments 
of the public service. Meetings, which at an- 
other time would have been harmless, now 
'.urned to riots., and rapidly rose almost to the 



dignity of rebellions. The houses of i^arlia 
ment were blockaded by the Spitalfields weav* 
ers. Bedford House was assailed on all 
sides by a furious rabble, and was strongly 
garrisoned with horse and foot. Some people 
attributed these disturbances to the friends of 
Bute, and some to the friends of Wilkes. But, 
whatever might be the cause, the effect was 
general insecurity. Under such circumstances 
the king had no choice. With bitter feelings 
of mortification, he informed the ministers 
that he meant to retain them. 

They answered by deman ding from him a pro- 
mise on his royal word never more to consult 
Lord Bute. The promise was given. They 
then demanded something more. Lord Bute's 
brother, Mr. Mackenzie, held a lucrative office 
in Scotland. Mr. Mackenzie must be dis- 
missed. The king replied that the office had 
been given under very peculiar circumstances, 
and that he had promised never to take it 
away while he lived. Grenville was obstinate, 
and the king, with a very bad grace, yielded. 

The session of parliament was over. The 
triumph of the ministers was complete. The 
king was almost as much a prisoner as Charles 
the First had been, when in the Isle of Wight- 
Such were the fruits of the policy which, only 
a few months before, was represented as hav- 
ing for ever secured the throne against the 
dictation of insolent subjects. 

His majesty's natural resentment showed 
itself in every look and word. In his extremi- 
ty, he looked wistfully towards that Whig con- 
nection, once the object of his dread and 
hatred. The Duke of Devonshire, who had 
been treated with such unjustifiable harshness, 
had lately died, and had been succeeded by his 
son, who was still a boy. The king conde- 
scended to express his regret for what had 
passed, and to invite the young duke to court. 
The noble youth came, attended by his uncles, 
and was received with marked graciousness. 

This and many other symptoms of the same 
kind irritated the ministers. They had still in 
store for their sovereign an insult which would 
have provoked his grandfather to kick them 
out of the room. Grenville and Bedford de- 
manded an audience of him, and read him a 
remonstrance of many pages, which they had 
drawn up with great care. His majesty was 
accused of breaking his word, and of treating 
his advisers with gross unfairness. The prin- 
cess was mentioned in language by no means 
eulogistic. Hints were thrown out that Bute's 
h^ad was in danger. The king was plainly 
told that he must not continue to show, as he 
had done, that he disliked the situation in 
which he was placed; that he must frown 
upon the opposition, that he must carry it fair 
towards his ministers in public. He several 
times interrupted the reading, by declaring 
that he had ceased to hold any communication 
with Bute. But the ministers, disregarding 
his denial, went on ; and the king listened in 
silence, almost choked by rage. When they 
ceased to read, he merely made a gesture ex« 
pressive of his wish to be left alone. He after* 
wards owned that he thought he should have 
gctfie into a fit. 

Driven to despair, he again had recourse to 



THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 



729 



the Duke of Cumberland; and the Duke of 
Cumberland again had recourse to Pitt. Pitt 
was really desirous to undertake the direction 
of affairs, and owned, with many dutiful ex- 
pressions, that the terms offered by the king 
were all that any subject could desire. But 
Temple was impracticable; and Pitt, with 
great regret, declared that he could not, with- 
out the concurrence of his brother-in-law, un- 
dertake the administration. 

The duke now saw only one way of deli- 
vering his nephew. An administration must 
be formed of the Whigs in opposition, without 
Pitt's help. The difficulties seemed almost 
insuperable. Death and desertion had griev- 
ously thinned the ranks of the party lately 
supreme in the state. Those among whom 
the duke's choice lay might be divided into 
two classes, men too old for important offices, 
and men who had never been in any important 
office before. The cabinet must be composed 
of broken invalids or of raw recruits. 

This was an evil, yet not an unmixed evil. 
If the new Whig statesmen had little experience 
in business and debate, they were, on the other 
hand, pure from the taint of that political im- 
morality which had deeply infected iheir pre- 
decessors. Long prosperity had corrupted 
that great party which had expelled the Stuarts, 
limited the prerogatives of the Crown, and 
curbed the intolerance of the Hierarchy. Ad- 
versity had already produced a salutary effect. 
On the day of the accession of George the 
Third, the ascendency of the Whig party ter- 
minated; and on that day the purification of 
the Whig party began. The rising chiefs of 
th2l; party were men of a very different sort 
from Sandys and Winnington, from Sir Wil- 
liam Younge and Henry Fox, They were 
men worthy to have chargad by the side of 
Hampden at Chalgrovc, or to have exchanged 
the last embrace with Russell on the scaffold 
in Lincoln's-Inn Fields. They carried into 
politics the same high principles of virtue 
which regulated their private dealings, nor 
would they stoop to promote even the noblest 
and most salutary ends by means which ho- 
nour and probity condemn. Such men were 
Lord John Cavendish, Sir George Savile, and 
others whom we hold in honour as the second 
founders of the Whig party, as the restorers 
of its pristine health and energy after half a 
century of degeneracy. 

The chief of this respectable band was the 
Marquis of Rockingham, a man of splendid 
fortune, excellent sense, and stainless charac- 
ter. He was indeed nervous to such a degree, 
that, to the very close of his life, he never rose 
without great reluctance and embarrassment 
to address the House of Lords. But, though 
not a great orator, he had in a high degree 
some of the qualities of a statesman. He chose 
his friends well; and he had, in an extra- 
ordinary degree, the art of attaching them to 
him by ties of the most honourable kind. The 
cheerful fidelity with which they adhered to 
him through many years of almost hopeless 
opposition, was less admirable than the dis- 
interestedness and delicacy which they showed 
when he rose to power. 

We are inclined to think that the use and 



the abuse of party cannot be better illustrated 
than by a parallel between two powerful con- 
nections of that time, the Rockinghams and the 
Bedfords. The Rockingham party was, in our 
view, exactly what a party should be. It con- 
sisted of men bound together by common 
opinions, by common public objects, by mu- 
tual esteem. That they desired to obtain, by 
honest and constitutional means, the direction 
of affairs, they openly avowed. But, though 
often invited to accept the honours and emo- 
luments of office, they steadily refused to do so 
on any conditions inconsistent with their prin- 
ciples. The Bedford party, as a party, had, as 
far as we can discover, no principle whatever. 
Rigby and Sandwich wanted public money, 
and thought that they should fetch a higher 
price jointly than singly. They therefore 
acted in concert, and prevailed on a much 
more important and a much better man than 
themselves to act with them. 

It was to Rockingham that the Duke of 
Cumberland now had recourse. The marquis 
consented to take the treasury. Newcastle, so 
long the recognised chief of the Whigs, could 
not well be excluded from the ministry. He 
was appointed keeper of the privy seal. A 
very honest clear-headed country gentleman, 
of the name of Dowdeswell, became Chancel- 
lor of the Exchequer. General Conway, who 
had served under the Duke of Cumberland, 
and was strongly attached to his royal high- 
ness, was made Secretary of State, with the 
lead in the House of Commons. A great 
Whig nobleman, in the prime of manhood, 
from whom much was at that time expected, 
Augustus Duke of Grafton, was the other se- 
cretary. 

The oldest man living could remember no 
government so weak in oratorical talents and 
in official experience. The general opinion 
was, that the ministers might hold office during 
the recess, but that the first day of debate in 
Parliament would be the last day of their 
power. Charles Townshend was asked what 
he thought of the new administration. " It is," 
said he, "mere lute-string: pretty summer 
wear. It will never do for the winter." 

At this conjuncture Lord Rockingham had 
the wisdom to discern the value, and secure 
the aid, of an ally, who, to eloquence sur- 
passing the eloquence of Pitt, and to industry 
which shamed the industry of Grenville, united 
an amplitude of comprehension to which 
neither Pitt nor Grenville could lay claim A 
young Irishman had, some time before, come 
over to push his fortune in London. He had 
written much for the booksellers ; but he was 
best known by a little treatise, in which the 
style and reasoning of Bolingbroke were mi- 
micked with exquisite skill, and by a theory, 
of more ingenuity than soundness, touching 
the pleasures which we receive from the ob- 
jects of taste. He had also attained a high 
reputation as a talker, and was regarded by 
the men of letters who supped together at the 
Turk's Head as the only match in conversa- 
tion for Dr. Johnson. He now became private 
secretary to Lord Rockingham, and was brought 
into Parliament by his patron's influence. 
These arrangements, indeed, were not made 



130 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



without some difficulty. The Duke of New- 
castle, who was always meddling and chatter- 
ing, adjured the first lord of the treasury to be 
on his guard against this adventurer, whose 
real name was O'Bourke, and whom his Grace 
knew to be a wild Irishman, a Jacobite, a 
Papist, a concealed Jesuit. Lord Rockingham 
treated the calumny as it deserved ; and the 
Whig party was strengthened and adorned by 
the accession of Edmund Burke. 

The party, indeed, stood in nee*d of acces- 
sions ; for it sustained about this time an al- 
most irreparable loss. The Duke of Cum- 
berland had formed the government, and was 
its main support. His exalted rank and great 
name in some degree balanced the fame of 
Pitt. As mediator between the Whigs and the 
eourt, he held a place which no other person 
could fill. The strength of his character sup- 
plied that which was the chief defect of the 
new ministry. Conway, in particular, who, 
with excellent intentions and respectable ta- 
lents, was the most dependent and irresolute 
of human beings, drew from the counsels of 
that masculine mind a determination not his 
own. Before the meeting of Parliament the 
duke suddenly died. His death was generally 
regarded as the signal of great troubles, and on 
this account, as well as from respect for his 
personal qualities, was greatly lamented. It 
was remarked that the mourning in London 
was the most general ever known, and was 
both deeper and longer than the Gazette had 
prescribed. 

In the mean time, every mail from America 
brought alarming tidings. The crop which 
Grenville had sown, his successors had now to 
reap. The colonies were in a state bordering 
on rebellion. The stamps were burned. The 
revenue officers were tarred and feathered. 
All traffic between the discontented provinces 
and the mother country was interrupted. The 
Exchange of London was in dismay. Half the 
firms of Bristol and Liverpool were threatened 
with bankruptcy. In Leeds, Manchester, Not- 
tingham, it was said that three artisans out of 
every ten had been turned adrift. Civil war 
seemed to be at hand; and it could not be 
doubted, that, if once the British nation were 
divided against itself, France and Spain would 
soon take part in the quarrel. 

Three courses were open to the ministers. 
The first was to enforce the Stamp Act by the 
sword. This was the course on which the 
king, and Grenville, whom the king hated be- 
yond all living men, were alike bent. The na- 
tures of both were arbitrary and stubborn. 
They resembled each other so much that they 
could never be friends ; but they resembled 
each other a.so so much, that they saw almost 
all important practical questions in the same 
point of riew. Neither of them would bear to be 
governed by the other; but they perfectly agreed 
as to the best way of governing the people. 

Another course was that which Pitt recom- 
mended. He held that the British Parliament 
was not constitutionally competent to pass a 
law for taxing the colonies. He therefore con- 
sidered the Stamp Act as a nullity, as a docu- 
ment of no more validity than Charles's writ of 
•ihin-nioney, or James's proclamation dispens- 



ing with the penal laws. This doctrine seems 
to us, we must own, to be altogether untenable. 

Between these extreme courses lay a third 
way. The opinion of the most judicious and 
temperate statesmen of those times was, that 
the British constitution had set no limit what- 
ever to the legislative power of the British 
Kings, Lords, and Commons, over the whole 
British Empire. Parliament, they held, wag 
legally competent to tax America, as Parlia- 
ment was legally competent to commit any 
other act of folly or wickedness, to confiscate 
the property of all the merchants in Lombard 
street, or to attaint any man in the kingdom 
of high treason, without examining witnesses 
against him, or hearing him in his own defence 
The most atrocious act of confiscation or of 
attainder is just as valid an act as the Tolera- 
tion Act or the Habeas Corpus Act. But from 
acts of confiscation and acts of attainder, law- 
givers are bound, by every obligation of mo. 
rality, systematically to refrain. In the same 
manner ought the British legislature to re- 
frain from taxing the American colonies. The 
Stamp Act was indefensible, not because it 
was beyond the constitutional competence of 
Parliament, but because it was unjust and im- 
politic, sterile of revenue, and fertile of dis- 
contents. These sound doctrines were adopted 
by Lord Rockingham and his colleagues, and 
were, during a long course of years, inculcated 
by Burke, in orations, some of which will last 
as long as the English language. 

The winter came ; the Parliament met •, and 
the state of the colonies instantly became the 
subject of fierce contention. Pitt, whose health 
had been somewhat restored by the waters of 
Bath, reappeared in the House of Commons, 
and, with ardent and pathetic eloquence, not 
only condemned the Stamp Act, but applauded 
the resistance of Massachusetts and Virginia; 
and vehemently maintained, in defiance, we 
must say, of all reason and of all authority, 
that, according to the British constitution, the 
supreme legislative power does not include the 
power to tax. The language of Grenville, on 
the other hand, was such as Strafford might 
have used at the council-table of Charles the 
First, when news came of the resistance to the 
liturgy at Edinburgh. The colonists were 
traitors; those who excused them were little 
better. Frigates, mortars, bayonets, sabres, 
were the proper remedies for such distempers. 

The ministers occupied an intermediate po- 
sition ; they proposed to declare that the legis- 
lative authority of the British Parliament over 
the whole empire was in all cases supreme , 
and they proposed, at the same time, to repeal 
the Stamp Act. To the former measure, Pitt 
objected; but it was carried with scarcely a 
dissentient voice. The repeal of the Stamp 
Act Pitt strongly supported; but against the 
government was arrayed a formidable assem* 
blage of opponents.' Grenville and the Bed- 
fords were furious. Temple, who had now 
allied himself closely with his brother, and 
separated himself from Pitt, was no despicable 
enemy. This, however, was not the worst, 
The ministry was without its natural strength. 
It had to struggle, not only against its avowed 
enemies, but against the insidious hostility of 



THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 



731 



ihe king, and of a set of persons who, about 
thi* time, ^egan to be designated as the king's 
friends. 

The character of this faction has been drawn 
by Burke with even more than his usual force 
and vivacity. Those who know how strongly, 
through his whole life, his judgment was bias- 
sed by his passions, may not unnaturally suspect 
that he has lelt us rather a caricature than a 
likeness ; and yet there is scarcely, in the 
whole portrait, a single touch of which the 
fidelity is not proved by facts of unquestionable 
authenticity. 

The public generally regarded the king's 
friends as a body of which Bute was the direct- 
ing soul. It was to no purpose that the earl 
professed to have done with politics, that he 
absented himself year after year from the levee 
and the drawing-room, that he went to the 
north, that he went to Rome. The notion, that, 
in some inexplicable manner, he dictated all 
the measures of the court, was fixed in the 
minds, not only of the multitude, but of some 
who had good opportunities of obtaining infor- 
mation, and who ought to have been superior 
to vulgar prejudices. Our own belief is that 
theie suspicions were unfounded, and that he 
ceased to have any communication with the 
king on political matters some time before the 
dismissal of George Grenville. The supposi- 
tion of Bute's influence is, indeed, by no means 
necessary to explain the phenomena. The 
king, in 1765, was no longer the ignorant and 
inexperienced boy who had, in 1760, been 
managed by his mother and his groom of the 
stole. He had, during several years, observed 
the struggles of parties, and conferred daily on 
high questions of state with able and experi- 
enced politicians. His way of life had developed 
his understanding and character. He was now 
no longer a puppet, but had very decided opi- 
nions both of men and things. Nothing could 
be more natural than that he should have high 
notions of his own prerogatives, should be im- 
patient of opposition, and should wish all pub- 
lic men to be detached from each other and de- 
pendent on himself alone; nor could anything 
be more natural than that, in the state in which 
the political world then was, he should find in- 
struments fit for his purposes. 

Thus sprang into existence and intc note a 
reptile species of politicians never before and 
never since known in our country. These men 
disclaimed all political ties, except those which 
bound them to the throne. They were willing 
to coalesce with any party, to abandon any 
party, to undermine any party, to assault any 
party, at a moment's notice. To them, all ad- 
ministrations and all oppositions were the 
same. They regarded Bute, Grenville, Rock- 
ingham, Pitt, without one sentiment either of 
predilection or of aversion. They were the 
King's friends. It is to be observed that this 
riendship imj /ied no personal intimacy. These 
people had never lived with their master, as 
Dodington at one time lived with his father, or 
as Sheridan afterwards lived with his son. 
They never hunted with him in the morning, or 
played cards with him in the e/ening; never 
shared his mutton, or walked with him among 
lis turnip- Only one or two of them ever 



saw his face, except on public days. The 
whole band, however, always had early and 
accurate information as to his personal inclina- 
tions. None of these people were high in the 
administration. They were generally to be 
found in places of much emolument, little 
labour, and no l-esponsibility ; and these places 
they continued to occupy securely while the 
cabinet was six or seven times reconstructed. 
Their peculiar business was not to support the 
ministry against the opposition, but to support 
the king against the ministry. Whenever his 
majesty was induced to give a reluctant assent 
to the introduction of some bill which his con- 
stitutional advisers regarded as necessary, his 
friends in the House of Commons were sure to 
speak against it, to vote against it, to throw in 
its way every obstruction compatible with the 
forms of Parliament. If his majesty found it 
necessary to admit into his closet a Secretary 
of State or a First Lord of the Treasury whom 
he disliked, his friends were sure to miss no 
opportunity of thwarting and humbling the ob- 
noxious minister. In return for these services, 
the king covered them with his protection. It 
was to no purpose that his responsible servants 
complained to him that they were daily betray- 
ed and impeded by men who were eating the 
bread of the government. He sometimes jus- 
tified the offenders, sometimes excused them, 
sometimes owned that they were to blame, but 
said that he must take time to consider whether 
he could part with them. He never would turn 
them out ; and, while every thing else in the 
state was constantly changing, these syco- 
phants seemed to have a life-estate in their 
offices. 

It was well known to the king's friends, that 
though his majesty had consented to the repeal 
of the Stamp Act, he had consented with a 
very bad grace; and that though he had eagerly 
welcomed the Whigs, when, in his extreme 
need and at his earnest entreaty, they had un- 
dertaken to free him from an insupportable 
yoke, he had by no means got over his early 
prejudices against his deliverers. The minis- 
ters soon found that, while they were encoun- 
tered in front by the whole force of a strong 
opposition, their rear was assailed by a large 
body of those whom they had regarded as 
auxiliaries. 

Nevertheless, Lord Rockingham and his ad- 
herents went on resolutely with the bill foi 
repealing the Stamp Act. They had on their 
side all the manufacturing and commercial 
interests of the realm. In the debates the 
government was powerfully supported. Two 
great orators and statesmen, belonging to two 
different generations, repeatedly put forth all 
their powers in defence of the biii. The House 
of Commons heard Pitt for the last time, and 
Burke for the first time, and was in doubt to 
which of them the palm of eloquence should be 
assigned. It was indeed a splendid sunset and 
a splendid dawn. 

For a time the event seemed doubtful. In 
several divisions the ministers were hard 
pressed. On one occasion, not less than 
twelve of the king's friends, all men in office, 
voted against the government. It was to no 
purpose that Lord Rockingham remonstrated 



783 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



irith the king. His majesty confessed that 
there was ground for complaint, but hoped that 
gentle means would bring the mutineers to a 
better mind. If they persisted in their mis- 
conduct, he would dismiss them. 

At length the decisive day arrived. The gal- 
lery, the lobby, the Court of Requests, the 
staircases, were crowded with merchants from 
all the great ports of the island. The debate 
lasted till long after midnight. On the divi- 
sion, the ministers had a great majority. The 
dread of civil war, and the outcry of all the 
trading towns of the kingdom, had been too 
strong for the combined strength of the court 
and the opposition. 

It was in the first dim twilight of a February 
morning that the doors were thrown open, and 
that the chiefs of the hostile parties showed 
themselves to the multitude. Conway was re- 
ceived with loud applause. But when Pitt ap- 
peared, all eyes were fixed on him alone. All 
hats were in the air. Loud and long huzzas 
accompanied him to his chair, and a train of 
admirers escorted him all the way to his home. 
Then came forth Grenville. As soon as he 
was recognised, a storm of hisses and curses 
broke forth. He turned fiercely on the crowd, 
and caught one man by the throat. The by- 
standers were in great alarm. If a scuflle 
began, none could say how it might end. For- 
tunately the person who had been collared only 
said, "If I may not hiss, sir, I hope I may 
laugh," and laughed in Grenville's face. 

The majority had been so decisive, that all 
the opponents of the ministry, save one, were 
disposed to let the bill pass without any further 
contention. But solicitation and expostulation 
were thrown away on Grenville. His indomi- 
table spirit rose up stronger and stronger un- 
der the load of public hatred. He fought out 
the battle obstinately to the end. On the last 
reading he had a sharp altercation with his 
brother-in-law, the last of their many sharp 
altercations. Pitt thundered in his loftiest 
tones against the man who had wished to dip 
the ermine of a British king in the blood of the 
British people. Grenville replied with his 
wonted intrepidity and asperity. " If the tax," 
he said, " were still to be laid on, I would lay 
it on. For the evils which it may produce my 
accuser is answerable. His profusion made it 
necessary. His declarations against the con- 
stitutional powers of king, lords, and com- 
mons, have made it doubly necessary. I do 
not envy him the huzza. I glory in the hiss. 
If it were to be done again, I would do it." 

The repeal of the Stamp Act was the chief 
measure of Lord Rockingham's government. 
But that government is entitled to the praise 
of having put a stop to two oppressive prac- 
tices, which, in Wilkes's case, had attracted 
the notice and excited the just indignation of 
the public. The House of Commons was in- 
duced by the ministers to pass a resolution, 
condemning the use of general warrants, and 
another resolution, condemning the seizure of 
papers in cases of libel. 

It must be added, to the lasting honour of 
Lord Rockingham, that his administration was 
the first which, during a long course of years, 
aad 'he courasre and the virtue to refrain from 



bribing members of Parliament. His eneaues 
accused him and his friends of weakness, of 
haughtiness, of party spirit; but calumny itself 
never dared to couple his name with corrup- 
tion. 

Unhappily his government, though one of 
the best that has ever existed in our country, 
was also one of the weakest. The king's 
friends assailed and obstructed the ministers 
at every turn. To appeal to the king was only 
to draw forth new promises and new evasions. 
His majesty was sure that there must be som> 
misunderstanding. Lord Rockingham had bet 
ter speak to the gentlemen. They should be 
dismissed on the next fault. The next fault 
was soon committed, and his majesty still con- 
tinued to shuffle. It was too bad. It was quite 
abominable ; but it mattered less as the proro- 
gation was at hand. He would give the delin- 
quents one more chance. If they did not alter 
their conduct next session, he should not have 
one word to say for them. He had already 
resolved that, long before the commencement 
of the next session, Lord Rockingham should 
cease to be minister. 

We have now come to a part of our story 
which, admiring as we do the genius and the 
many noble qualities of Pitt, we cannot relate 
without much pain. We believe that, at this 
conjuncture, he had it in his power to give the 
victory either to the Whigs or to the king's 
friends. If he had allied himself closely with 
Lord Rockingham, what could the court have 
done 1 There would have been only one alter- 
native, the Whigs or Grenville ; and there could 
be no doubt what the king's choice would be. 
He still remembered, as well he might, with 
the utmost bitterness, the thraldom from which 
his uncle had freed him, and said about this 
time, with great vehemence, that he would 
sooner see the devil come into his closet than 
Grenville. 

And what was there to prevent Pitt from al- 
lying himself with Lord Rockingham ? On all 
the most important questions their views were 
the same. They had agreed in condemning 
the peace, the Stamp Act, the general warrants 
the seizure of papers. The points in which 
they differed were few and unimportant. In 
integrity, in disinterestedness, in hatred of cor- 
ruption, they resembled each other. Their 
personal interests could not clash. They sat 
in different houses, and Pitt had always de- 
clared that nothing should induce him to be 
first lord of the treasury. 

If the opportunity of forming a coalition 
beneficial to the state, and honourable to all 
concerned, was suffered to escape, the fault 
was not with the Whig ministers. They be- 
haved towards Pitt with an obsequiousness 
which, had it not been the effect of sincere ad- 
miration and of anxiety for the public interests, 
might have been justly called servile. They 
repeatedly gave him to understand that, if he 
chose to join their ranks, they were ready to 
receive him, not as an associate, but as a 
leader. They had proved their respect for him 
by bestowing a peerage on the person who, at 
that time, enjoyed the largest share of his con- 
fidence, Chief Justice Pratt. What then was 
there to divide Pitt from the Whigs? What. 



THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 



733 



on the other hand, was there in common 
between him and the king's friends, that he 
should lend himself to their purposes—he who 
had never owed any thing to flattery or intrigue, 
ne whose eloquence and independent spirit had 
overawed two generations of slaves and job- 
bers, he who had twice been forced by the 
enthusiasm of an admiring nation on a reluc- 
tant prince 1 

Unhappily the court had gained Pitt, not, it 
is true, by those ignoble means which were 
employed when such men as Rigby and Wed- 
derburn were to be won, but by allurements 
suited to a nature noble even in its aberra- 
tions. The king set himself to seduce the one 
man who could turn the Whigs out without 
letting Grenville in. Praise, caresses, pro- 
mises, were lavished on the idol of the nation. 
He, and he alone, could put an end to faction, 
could bid defiance to all the powerful connec- 
tions in the land united, Whigs and Tories, 
Rockinghams, Bedfords.andGrenvilles. These 
blandishments produce a great effect. For 
though Pitt's spirit was high and manly, though 
his eloquence was often exerted with formida- 
ble effect against the court, and though his 
theory of government had been learned in the 
school of Locke and Sidney, he had always 
regarded the person of the sovereign with pro- 
found veneration. As soon as he was brought 
face to face with royalty, his imagination and 
sensibility became too strong for his principles. 
His Whigism thawed and disappeared ; and he 
became, for the time, a Tory of the old Ormond 
pattern. Nor was he by any means unwilling 
to assist in the work of dissolving all political 
'connections. His own weight in the state was 
wholly independent of such connections. He 
was therefore inclined to look on them with 
dislike, and made far too little distinction 
between gangs of knaves associated for the 
mere purpose of robbing the public, and con- 
federacies of honourable men for the promo- 
tion of great public objects. Nor had he the 
sagacity to perceive that the strenuous efforts 
which he made to annihilate all parties tended 
only to establish the ascendency of one party, 
and that the basest and most hateful of all. 

It may be doubted whether he would have 
been thus misled, if his mind had been in full 
health and vigour. But the truth is, that he 
had for some time been in an unnatural state 
of excitement. No suspicion of this sort had 
yet got abroad. His eloquence had never 
shone with more splendour than during the 
recent debates. But people afterwards called 
to mind many things which ought to have 
roused their apprehensions. His habits were 
gradually becoming more and more eccentric. 
A horror of all loud sounds, such as is said to 
have been one of the many oddities of Wallen- 
stein, grew upon him. Though the most affec- 
tionate of fathers, he could not at this time 
bear to hear the voices of his own children, 
and laid out great sums at Hayes in buying up 
houses contiguous to his own, merely that he 
might have no neighbours to disturb him with 
their noise. He then sold Hayes, and took 
possession of a villa at Hampstead, where he 
again began to purchase houses to right and 
teft. In expense, indeed, he vied, during this 
47 



part of his life, with the wealthiest of-the con- 
querors of Bengal and Tanjore. At Burton 
Pynsent, he ordered a great extent of ground 
to be planted with cedars. Cedars enough for 
the purpose were not- to be found in Somerset- 
shire. They were therefore collected in Lon 
don, and sent down by land carriage. Relay» 
of labourers were hired ; and the work went 
on all night by torchlight. No man could be 
more abstemious than Pitt; yet the profusion 
of his kitchen was a wonder even to epicures. 
Several dinners were always dressing; for his 
appetite was capricious and fanciful ; and at 
whatever moment he felt inclined to eat, he 
expected a meal to be instantly on the table. 
Other circumstances might be mentioned, such 
as separately are of little moment, but such as, 
when taken together, and when viewed in con- 
nection with the strange events which followed, 
justifyus in believing that his mind was already 
in a morbid state. 

Soon after the close of the session of Parlia- 
ment, Lord Rockingham received his dismissal. 
He retired, accompanied by a firm body of 
friends, whose consistency and uprightness 
enmity itself was forced to admit. None of them 
tad asked or obtained any pension or any sine- 
cure, either in possession or in reversion. Such 
disinterestedness was then rare among politi- 
cians. Their chief, though not a man of bril- 
liant talents, had won for himself an honoura- 
ble fame, which he kept pure to the last. He 
had, in spite of difficulties which seemed al- 
most insurmountable, removed great abuses 
and averted a civil war. Sixteen years later, 
in a dark and terrible day, he was again called 
upon to save the state, brought to the very 
brink of ruin by the same perfidy and obsti- 
nacy which had embarrassed, and at length 
overthrown, his first administration. 

Pitt was planting in Somersetshire when he 
was summoned to court by a letter written 
with the royal hand. He instantly hastened 
to London. The irritability of his mind and 
body were increased by the rapidity with which 
he travelled; and when he reached his jour- 
ney's end he was suffering from fever. Ill as 
he was, he saw the king at Richmond, and 
undertook to form an administration. 

Pitt was scarcely in the state in which a 
mfen should be who has to conduct delicate and 
arduous negotiations. In his letters to his wife,, 
he complained that ths conferences in which 
it was necessary for him to bear a part heateu 
his blood and accelerated his pulse. From 
other sources of information we learn, that his 
language, even to those whose co-operation he 
wished to engage, was strangely peremptory 
and despotic. Some of his notes written at 
this time have been preserved, and are in a 
style which Louis the Fourteenth would have 
been too well bred to employ in addressing 
any French gentleman. 

In the attempt to dissolve all parties, Pitt 
met with some difficulties. Some Whigs, whom 
the court would gladly have detached from 
Lord Rockingham, rejected all offers. Th« 
Bedfords were perfectly willing to break with 
Grenville ; but Pitt would not come up to thei? 
terms. Temple, whom Pitt at first meant tc 
place at the head of the treasury, proved ir.- 



734 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



^actable. A coldness indeed had, during some 
months, been fast growing between the brothers- 
'n-law, so long and so closely allied in poli- 
ces. Pitt was angry with Temple for oppos- 
ing the repeal of the Stamp Act. Temple was 
angry with Pitt for refusing to accede to that 
family league which was now the favourite 
plan at Stowe. At length the Earl proposed 
an equal partition of power and patronage, 
and offered, on this condition, to give up his 
brother George. Pitt thought the demand ex- 
orbitant, and positively refused compliance. 
A. bitter quarrel followed. Each of the kins- 
men was true to his character. Temple's soul 
festered with spite, and Pitt's swelled into 
contempt. Temple represented Pitt as the 
most odious of hypocrites and traitors. Pitt 
held a different, and perhaps a more provoking 
tone. Temple was a good sort of man enough, 
whose single title to distinction was, that he 
had a large garden, with a large piece of water, 
and a great many pavilions and summer- 
houses. To his fortunate connection with a 
great orator and statesman he was indebted 
for an importance in the state which his own 
alents could never have gained for him. That 
importance had turned his head. He had 
begun to fancy that he could form administra- 
tions, and govern empires. It was piteous to 
see a well-meaning man under such a delusion. 

In spite of all these difficulties, a ministry 
was made such as the king wished to see, a 
ministry in which all his majesty's friends 
were comfortably accommodated, and which, 
with the exception of his majesty's friends, 
contained no four persons who had ever in 
their lives been in the habit of acting together. 
Men who had never concurred in a single vote 
found themselves seated at the same board. 
The office of paymaster was divided between 
two persons who had never exchanged a word. 
Most of the chief posts were filled either by 
personal adherents of Pitt, or by members of 
the late ministry, who had been induced to 
remain in place after the dismissal of Lord 
Rockingham. To the former class belonged 
Pratt, now Lord Camden, who accepted the 
great seal, and Lord Shelburne, who was made 
one of the secretaries of state. To the latter 
class belonged the Duke of Grafton, who be- 
came First Lord of the Treasury, and Conway 
^who kept his old position both in the govern- 
ment and in the House of Commons. Charles 
Townshend, who had belonged to every party, 
and cared for none, was Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer. Pitt himself was declared prime 
minister, but refused to take any laborious 
office. He was created Earl of Chatham, and 
the privy seal was delivered to him. 

It is scarcely necessary to say, that the fail- 
ure, the complete and disgraceful failure, of 
this arrangement, is not to be ascribed to any 
want of talents in the persons whom we have 
named. None of them were deficient in abili- 
ties ; and four of them, Pitt himself, Shelburne, 
Camden, and Townshend, were men of high 
intellectual eminence. The fault was not in 
the materials, but in the principle on which 
the materials were put together. Pitt had 
mixed up these conflicting elements, in the 
inH confidence mat he should be abie to teeo 



them all in perfect subordination to himself 
and in perfect harmony with each other. We 
shall soon see how the experiment succeeded. 
On the very day on which the new prime 
minister kissed hands, three-fourths of that 
popularity which he had long enjoyed without 
a rival, and to which he owed the greater part 
of his authority, departed from him. A violent 
outcry was raised, not against that part of his 
conduct which really deserved severe condem- 
nation, but against a step in which we can see 
nothing to censure. His acceptance of a peer- 
age produced a general burst of indignation- 
Yet surely no peerage had ever been better 
earned ; nor was there ever a statesman who 
more needed the repose of the Upper House. 
Pitt was jow growing old. He was much 
older in constitution than in years. It was 
with imminent risk to his life that he had, on 
some important occasions, attended his duty 
in Parliament. During the session of 1764, 
he had not been able to take part in a single 
debate. It was impossible that he should go 
through the nightly labour of conducting the 
business of the government in the House of 
Commons. His wish to be transferred, under 
such circumstances, to a less busy and a less 
turbulent assembly, was natural and reason- 
able. The nation, however, overlooked all 
these considerations. Those who had most 
loved and honoured the great Commoner, 
were loudest in invective against the new 
made Lord. London had hitherto been true to 
him through every vicissitude. When the 
citizens learned that he had been sent for from 
Somersetshire, that he had been closeted with 
the king at Richmond, and that he was to be 
first minister, they had been in transports of 
joy. Preparations were made for a grand en- 
tertainment, and for a general illumination. 
The lamps had actually been placed round the 
Monument, when the Gazette announced that 
the object of all their enthusiasm was an earl. 
Instantly the feast was countermanded. The 
lamps were taken down. The newspapers 
raised the roar of obloquy. Pamphlets, made 
up of calumny and scurrility, filled the shops 
of" all the booksellers ; and of those pamphlets, 
the most galling were written under the direc- 
tion of the malignant Temple. It was now 
the fashion to compare the two Williams, 
William Pulteney and William Pitt. Both, i 
was said, had, by eloquence aud simulated pa- 
triotism, acquired a great ascendency in the 
House of Commons and in the country. Both 
had been intrusted with the office of reforming 
the government. Both had, when at the height 
of power and popularity, been seduced by the 
splendour of the coronet. Both had been 
made earls, and both had in a moment become 
objects of aversion and scorn to the nation, 
which a few hours before had regarded them 
with affection and veneration. 

The clamour against Pitt appears to have 
had a serious effect on the foreign relations ot 
the country. His name had till now acted 
like a spell at Versailles and Saint Ildefonso. 
English travellers on the Continent had re- 
marked, that nothing more was necessary 
to silence a whole room-full of boasting 
Frenchmen, than to drop a hint of the rroba 



THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 



735 



biliry that Mr. Pitt would return to power. In 
an instant thers was deep silence : all shoulders 
rose, and all faces wore lengthened. Now, 
unhappily, every foreign court, in learning 
that he was recalled to office, learned also that 
he no longer possessed the hearts of his coun- 
trymen. Ceasing to be loved at home, he 
ceased to be feared abroad. The name of Pitt 
had been a charmed name. Our envoys tried 
in vain to conjure with the name of Chatham. 

The difficulties which beset Chatham were 
daily increased by the despotic manner in 
which he treated all around him. Lord Rock- 
ingham had, at the time of the change of 
ministry, acted with great moderation, had 
expressed a hope that the new government 
would act on the principles of the late govern- 
ment, and had even interfered to prevent 
many of his friends from quitting office. Thus 
Saunders and Keppel, two naval commanders 
of great eminence, had been induced to remain 
at the Admiralty, where their services were 
much ireeded. The Duke of Portland was still 
lord-chamberlain, and Lord Besborough post- 
master. But within a quarter of a year, Lord 
Chatham had so effectually disgusted these 
men, that they all retired in deep disgust. In 
truth, his tone, submissive in the closet, was 
at this time insupportably tyrannical in the 
cabinet. His colleagues were merely his 
clerks for naval, financial, and diplomatic 
business. Conway, meek as he was, was on 
one occasion provoked into declaring that 
such language as Lord Chatham's had never 
been heard west of Constantinople, and was 
with difficulty prevented by Horace Walpole 
from resigning, and rejoining the standard of 
Lord Rockingham. 

The breach which had been made in the 
government by the defection of so many of the 
Rockinghams, Chatham hoped to supply by the 
help of the Bedfords. But with the Bedfords 
ne could not deal as he had dealt with other 
parties. It was to no purpose that he bade 
high for one or two members of the faction, 
in the hope of detaching them from the rest. 
They were to be had ; but they were to be had 
only in the lot. There was indeed for a 
moment some wavering and some disputing 
among them. But at length the counsels of the 
shrewd and resolute Rigby prevailed. They 
determined to stand firmly together, and plainly 
intimated to Chatham that he must take them 
all, or that he should get none of them. The 
event proved that they were wiser in their 
generation than any other connection in the 
state. In a few months they were able to dic- 
tate their own terms. 

The most important public measure of Loi'd 
Chatham's administration was his celebrated 
interference with the corn-trade. The harvest 
had been bad ; the price of food was high ; and 
he thought it necessary to take on himself the 
responsibility of laying an embargo on the ex- 
portation of grain. When Parliament met, 
this proceeding was attacked by the opposition 
as unconstitutional, and defended by the minis- 
ters as indispensably necessary. At last, an 
act was passed to indemnify all who had been 
concerned in the embargo. 

The first words vttered by Chatham, in the 



House of Lords, were in defence of his eonduo 
on this occasion. He spoke with calmness, 
sobriety, and dignity, well suited to the audienc* 
which he was addressing. A subsequent 
speech which he made on the same subjeel 
was less successful. He bade defiance to 
aristojratical connections, with a supercilious- 
ness to which the Peers were not accustomed, 
and with tones and gestures better suited to a 
large and stormy assembly than to the body of 
which he was now a member. A short alter- 
cation followed, and he was told very plainly 
that he should not be suffered to browbeat the 
old nobility of England. 

It gradually became clearer and clearer that 
he was in a distempered state of mind. His 
attention had been drawn to the territorial ac- 
quisitions of the East India Company, and he 
determined to bring the whole of that great 
subject before Parliament. He would not, 
however, confer on the subject with any of his 
colleagues. It was in vain that Conway, who 
was charged with the conduct of business in 
the House of Commons, and Charles Town- 
shend, who was responsible for the direction of 
the finances, begged for some glimpse of light 
as to what was in contemplation. Chatham's 
answers were sullen and mysterious. He must 
decline any discussion with them ; he did not 
want their assistance ; he had fixed on a per- 
son to take charge of his measure in the House 
of Commons. This person was a member 
who was not connected with the government, 
and who neither had, nor deserved to have, the 
ear of the House — a noisy, purseproud, illiterate 
demagogue, whose Cockney English and scraps 
of mis-pronounced Latin were the jest of the 
newspapers, Alderman Beckford. It may well 
be supposed that these strange proceedings 
produced a ferment through the whole political 
world. The city was in commotion. The 
East India Company invoked the faith of char 
ters. Burke thundered against the ministers. 
The ministers looked at each other, and knew 
not what to say. In the midst of the confu- 
sion, Lord Chatham proclaimed himself gouty 
and retired to Bath. It was announced, after 
some time, that he was better, and that he 
would shortly return, that he would soon put 
every thing in order. A day was fixed for 
his arrival in London. But when he reached 
the Castle inn at Marlborough, he stopped, 
shut himself up in his room, and remained 
there some weeks. Everybody who travelled 
that road was amazed by the number of his 
attendants. Footmen and grooms, dressed in 
his family livery, filled the whole inn, though 
one of the largest in England, and swarmed 
in the streets of the little town. The truth 
was, that the invalid had insisted that, during 
his stay, all the waiters and stable-boys of the 
Castle should wear his livery. 

His colleagues were in despair. The Duke 
of Grafton proposed to go down to Marlbo- 
rough in order to consult the oracle. But he 
was informed that Lord Chatham must decline 
all conversation on business. In the mean 
time, all the parties which were out of office, 
Bedfords, Grenvilles, and Rockinghams, joined 
to oppose the distracted government on tho 
vote for the land-tax. They were rem forced 



786 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



by almost all the county members, and had a 
considerable majority. This was the first 
time that a ministry had been beaten on an im- 
portant division in the House of Commons 
since the fall of Sir Robert Walpole. The 
administration, thus furiously assailed from 
without, was torn by internal dissensions. It 
had been formed on no principle whatever. 
From the very first, nothing but Chatham's 
authority had prevented the hostile contingents 
which made up his ranks from going to blows 
with each other. That authority was now 
withdrawn, and every thing was in commotion. 
Conway, a brave soldier, but in civil affairs 
the most timid and irresolute of men, afraid 
of disobliging the king, afraid of being abused 
in the newspapers, afraid of being thought 
factious if he went out, afraid of being thought 
interested if he stayed in, afraid of every thing, 
and afraid of being known to be afraid of any 
thing, was beaten backwards and forwards 
like a shuttlecock between Horace Walpole, 
who wished to make him prime minister, and 
Lord John Cavendish, who wished to draw him 
into opposition. Charles Townshend, a man 
of splendid talents, of lax principles, and of 
boundless vanity and presumption, would sub- 
mit to no control. The full extent of his parts, 
of his ambition, and of his arrogance, had not 
ye* been made manifest; for he had always 
quailed before the genius and the lofty charac- 
ter of Pitt. But now that Pitt had quitted the 
House of Commons, and seemed to have ab- 
dicated the part of chief minister, Townshend 
brok« loose from all restraint. 

While things were in this state, Chatham at 
length returned to London. He might as well 
have remained at Marlborough. He would see 
nobody. He would give no opinion on anypublic 
mailer. The Duke of Grafton begged piteously 
for an interview, for an hour, for half an hour, 
for five minutes. The answer was, that it was 
impossible. The king himself repeatedly con- 
descended to expostulate and implore. " Your 
duty," he wrote, "your own honour, require 
you to make an effort." The answers to these 
appeals were commonly written in Lady Chat- 
ham's hand, from her lord's dictation ; for he 
had not energy even to use a pen. He flings 
himself at the king's feet. He is penetrated 
by the royal goodness, so signally shown to 
the most unhappy of men. He implores a 
little more indulgence. He cannot as yet 
transact business. He cannot see his col- 
leagues. Least of all can he bear the excite- 
ment of an interview with majesty. 

Some were half inclined to suspect that he 
was, to use a military phrase, malingering. 
He had made, they said, a great blunder, and 
had found it out. His immense popularity, 
his high reputation for statesmanship, were 
gone for ever. Intoxicated by pride, he had 
undertaken a task beyond his abilities. He 
now saw nothing before him but distresses 
and humiliations , and he had therefore simu- 
lated illness, in order to escape from vexations 
which he had not fortitude to meet. This sus- 
picion, though it derived some colour from 
'hat weakness which was the most striking 
blemish of his character, was certainly un- 
funded His mind, before he became first 



minister, had been, as we have said, in an ua 
sound state; and physical and moral causes 
now concurred to make the derangement of hij 
faculties complete. The gout, which had been 
the torment of his whole life, had been sup* 
pressed by strong remedies. For the first time 
since he was a boy at Oxford, he passed seve- 
ral months without a twinge. But his hand 
and foot had been relieved at the expense of 
his nerves. He became melancholy, fanciful, 
irritable. The embarrassing state of public 
affairs, the grave responsibility which lay on 
him, the consciousness of his errors, the dis 
putes of his colleagues, the savage cJamcurs 
raised by his detractors, bewildered his en- 
feebled mind. One thing alone, he said, could 
save him. He must repurchase Hayes. The 
unwilling consent of the new occupant was 
extorted by Lady Chatham's entreaties and 
tears; and her lord was somewhat easier. 
But if business were mentioned to him, he, 
once the proudest and boldest of mankind, 
behaved like an hysterical girl, trembled frcm 
head to foot, and burst into a flood of tears. 

His colleagues for a time continued to en- 
tertain the expectation that his health would 
soon be restored, and that he would emerge 
from his retirement. But month followed 
month, and still he remained hidden in myste- 
rious seclusion, and sunk, as far as they could 
learn, in the deepest dejection of spirits. They 
at length ceased to hope or to fear any thing 
from him ; and, though he was still nominally 
prime minister, took, without scrupl'e, steps 
which they knew to be diametrically opposed 
to all his opinions and feelings, allied them- 
selves with those whom he had proscribed, 
disgraced those whom he most esteemed, and 
laid taxes on the colonies, in the face of the 
strong declarations which he had recentlj 
made. 

When he had passed about a year and 
three-quarters in gloomy privacy, the king 
received a few lines in Lady Chatham's hand. 
They contained a request, dictated by her 
lord, that he might be permitted to resign the 
privy seal. After some civil show of reluc- 
tance, the resignation was accepted. Indeed 
Chatham was, by this time, almost as much 
forgotten as if he had already been lying in 
Westminster Abbey. 

At length the clouds which had gathered 
over his mind broke and passed away. His 
gout returned, and freed him from a more 
cruel malady. His nerves were newly braced. 
His spirits became buoyant. He woke as from 
a sickly dream. It was a strange recovery. 
Men had been in the habit of talking of him 
as of one dead, and, when he first showed 
himself at the king's levee, started as if they 
had seen a ghost. It was more than two 
years and a half since he had appeared in 
public. 

He, too, had cause for wonder. The world 
which he now entered was not the world 
which he had quitted. The administration 
which he had formed had never been, at any 
one moment, entirely changed. But there had 
been so many losses and so many access ons, 
that he could scarcely recognise his own 
work. Charles Townshend was dead. Lord 



THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 



737 



Bhelbume had been dismissed. Conway had 
sunk into utter insignificance. The Duke of 
Grafton had fallen into the hands of the Bed- 
fords. The Bedfords had deserted Grenville, 
had mad« their peace with the king and the 
king's friends, and had been admitted to office. 
Lord North was Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
and was rising fast in importance. Corsica 
had been given up to France without a strug- 
gle. The disputes with the American colo- 
nies had been revived. A general election 
had taken place. Wilkes had returned from 
exile, and, outlaw as he was, had been chosen 
knight of the shire for Middlesex. The mul- 
titude was on his side. The court was obsti- 
nately bent on ruining him, and was prepared 
to shake the very foundations of the constitu- 
tion for the sake of a paltry revenge. The 
House of Commons, assuming to itself an au- 
thority which of right belongs only to the 
iphole legislature, had declared Wilkes inca- 
pable of sitting in Parliament. Nor had it 
been thought sufficient to keep him out. 
Another must be brought in. Since the free- 
holders of Middlesex had obstinately refused 
to choose a member acceptable to the court, 
the House had chosen a member for them. 

This was not the only instance, perhaps not 
the most disgraceful instance, of the inveterate 
malignity of the court. Exasperated by the 
st-eady opposition of the Rockingham party, 
the king's friends had tried to rob a distin- 
guished Whig nobleman of his private estate, 
and had persisted in their mean wickedness 
till their own servile majority had revolted 
from mere disgust and shame. Discontent 
had spread throughout the nation, and was 
kept up by stimulants such as had rarely 
been applied to the public mind. Junius had 
taken the field, had trampled Sir William 
Draper in the dust, had wellnigh broken the 
heart of Blackstone, and had so mangled the 
reputation of the Duke of Grafton that his 
grace had become sick of office, and was be- 
ginning to look wistfully towards the shades 
of Euston. Every principle of foreign, do- 
mestic, and colonial policy which was dear to 
.he heart of Chatham, had, during the eclipse 
of his genius, been violated by the govern- 
ment which he had formed. 

The remaining years of his life were spent 
in vainly struggling against that fatal policy 
which, at the moment when he might have 
given it a death-blow, he had been induced to 
take under his protection. His exertions re- 
deemed his own fame, but they effected little 
for his country. 

He found two parties arrayed against the 
government, the party of his own brothers-in- 
law, the Grenvilles, and the party of Lord 
Rockingham. On the question of the Middle- 
sex election these parties were agreed. But 
on many other important questions they dif- 
fered widely ; and they were, in truth, not less 
hostile to each other than to the court. The 
Grenvilles had, during several years, annoyed 
the Rockinghams with a succession of acri- 
monious pamphlets. It was long before the 
Rockinghams could be induced to retaliate. 
But an ill-natured tract, written under Gren- 
ville's direction, and entitled a State of the 



Nation, was too much for their patience. 
Burke undertook to defend and avenge his 
friends, and executed the task with admirable 
skill and vigour. On every point he was vic- 
torious, and nowhere more completely victo* 
rious than when he joined issue on those dry 
and minute questions of statistical and finan- 
cial detail in which the main strength of Gren- 
ville lay. The official drudge, even on his 
own chosen ground, was utterly unable to 
maintain the fight against the great oratoi 
and philosopher. When Chatham reappeared, 
Grenville was still writhing with the recent 
shame and smart of this well-merited chas- 
tisement. Cordial co-operation between the 
two sections of the opposition was impossible. 
Nor could Chatham easily connect himself 
with either. His feelings, in spite of many 
affronts given and received, drew him towards 
the Grenvilles. For he had strong domestic 
affections ; and his nature, which, though 
haughty, was by no means obdurate, had been 
softened by affliction. But from his kinsmen 
he was separated by a wide difference of opi- 
nion on the question of colonial taxation. A 
reconciliation, however, took place. He visited 
Stowe : he shook hands with George Grenville ; 
and the Whig freeholders of Buckinghamshire, 
at their public dinners, drank many bumpers 
to the union of the three brothers. 

In opinions, Chatham was much nearer to 
the Rockinghams than to his own relatives. 
But between him and the Rockinghams there 
was a gulf not easily to be passed. He had 
deeply injured them, and, in injuring them, 
had deeply injured his country. When the 
balance was trembling between them and the 
court, he had thrown the whole weight of his 
genius, of his renown, of his popularity, into 
the scale of misgovernment. It must be added, 
that many eminent members of the party still 
retained a bitter recollection of the asperity 
and disdain with which they had been treated 
by him at the time when he assumed the direc- 
tion of affairs. It is clear from Burke's pam- 
phlets and speeches, and still more clear from 
his private letters, and from the language 
which he held in conversation, that he long 
regarded Chatham with a feeling not far re- 
moved from dislike. Chatham was undoubt- 
edly conscious of his error, and desirous to 
atone for it. But his overtures of friendship, 
though made with earnestness, and even v ith 
'unwonted humility, were at first received by 
Lord Rockingham with cold and austere re- 
serve. Gradually the intercourse of the two 
statesmen became courteous and even ami- 
cable. But the past was never wholly for- 
gotten. 

Chatham did not, however, stand alone 
Round him gathered a party, small in number, 
but strong in great and various talents. Lord 
Camden, Lord Shelburne, Colonel Barre, and 
Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton, were 
the principal members of this connection. 

There is no reason to believe that, from this 
time till within a few weeks of Chatham's 
death, his intellect suffered any decay. His 
eloquence was almost to the last heard with 
delight. But it was not exactly the eloquence 
of the House of Lords. That lofty and pas« 



738 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



sionate, but somewhat desultory declamation 
lq which he excelled all men, and which was 
set off by *ooks, tones, and gestures, worthy of 
Garrick or Talma, was out of place in a small 
apartment where the audience often consisted 
of" three or four drowsy prelates, three or four 
old judges, accustomed during many years to 
disregard rhetoric, and to look only at facts 
and arguments, and three or four listless and 
supercilious men of fashion, whom any thing 
like enthusiasm moved to a sneer. In the 
House of Commons, a flash of his eye, a wave 
of his arm, had sometimes cowed Murray. But, 
in the House of Peers, his utmost vehemence 
and pathos produced less effect than the mo- 
deration, the reasonableness, the luminous 
order, and the serene dignity, which character- 
ized the speeches of Lord Mansfield. 

On the question of the Middlesex election, 
all the three divisions of the opposition acted 
in concert. No orator in either House de- 
fended what is now universally admitted to 
have been the constitutional cause with more 
ardour or eloquence than Chatham. Before 
this subject had ceased to occupy the public 
mind, George Grenville died. His party ra- 
pidly melted away ; and in a short time most 
of his adherents appeared on the ministerial 
benches. 

Had George Grenville lived many months 
longer, the friendly ties which, after years of 
estrangement and hostility, had been renewed 
between him and his brother-in-law, would, in 
all probability, have been a second time vio- 
lently dissolved. For now the quarrel between 
England and the North American colonies 
took a gloomy and terrible aspect. Oppres- 
sion- provoked resistance ; resistance was 
made the pretext for fresh oppression, The 
warnings of all the greatest statesmen of the 
age were lost on an imperious court and a de- 
luded nation. Soon a colonial senate con- 
fronted the British Parliament. Then the 
colonial militia crossed bayonets with the Bri- 
tish regiments. At length the commonwealth 
was torn asunder. Two millions of English- 
men, who, fifteen years before, had been as 
loyal to their prince and as proud of their 
country as the people of Kent or Yorkshire, 
separated themselves by a solemn act from the 
empire. For a time it seemed that the insur- 
gents would struggle to small purpose against 
the vast financial and military means of the 
mother country. But disasters, following one 
another in iapid succession, rapidly dispelled 
the illusions of national vanity. At length a 
great British force, exhausted, famished, 
harassed on every side by a hostile peasantry, 
was compelled to deliver up its arms. Those 
governments which England had, in the late 
war, so signally humbled, and which had dur- 
ing many years been sullenly brooding over 
the recollections of Quebec, of Minden, and of 
the Moro, now saw with exultation that the 
day of revenge was at hand. France recog- 
nised the independence of the United States ; 
and there could be little doubt that the example 
would soon be followed by Spain. 

Chatham and Rockingham had cordially 
roncurrcd in opposing every part of the fatal 
policy which had brought the state into this 



dangerous situation. But their paths now di 
verged. Lord Rockingham thought, and, as 
the event proved, thought most justly, that the 
revolted colonies were separated from the em- 
pire for ever, and that the only effect of pro- 
longing the war on' the American continent 
would be to divide resources which it was de- 
sirable to concentrate. If the hopeless attempt 
to subjugate Pennsylvania and Virginia were 
abandoned, war against the house of Bourbon 
might possibly be avoided, or, if inevitable, 
might be carried on with success and glory. 
We might even indemnify ourselves for part 
of what we had lost, at the expense of those 
foreign enemies who had hoped to profit by 
our domestic dissensions. Lord Rockingham, 
therefore, and those who acted with him, con- 
ceived that the wisest course now open to 
England, was to acknowledge the independ- 
ence of the United States, and to turn her 
whole force against her European enemies. 

Chatham, it should seem, ought to have 
taken the same side. Before France had 
taken any part in our quarrel with the colo- 
nies, he had repeatedly, and with great energy 
of language, declared that it was impossible ta 
conquer America; and he could not without 
absurdity maintain that it was easier to con- 
quer France and America together than 
America alone. But his passions overpowered 
his judgment, and made him blind to his own 
inconsistency. The very circumstances which 
made the separation of the colonies inevitable, 
made it to him altogether insupportable. The 
dismemberment of the empire seemed to him 
less ruinous and humiliating, when produced 
by domestic dissensions, than when produced 
by foreign interference. His blood boiled at 
the degradation of his country. Whatever 
lowered her among the nations of the earth, he 
felt as a personal outrage to himself. And the 
feeling was natural. He had made her so 
great. He had been so proud of her ; and she 
had been so proud of him. He remembered 
how, more than twenty years before, in a day 
of gloom and dismay, when her possessions 
were torn from her, when her flag was dis- 
honoured, she had called on him to save her. 
He remembered the sudden and glorious 
change which his energy had wrought, the 
long series of triumphs, the days of thanks- 
giving, the nights of illumination. Fired by 
such recollections, he determined to separate 
himself from those who advised that the inde- 
pendence of the colonies should be acknow- 
ledged. That he was in error, will scarcely, 
we think, be disputed by his warmest admirers. 
Indeed, the treaty by which, a few years later, 
the republic of the United States was recog- 
nised, was the work of his most attached 
adherents and of his favourite son. 

The Duke of Richmond had given notice of 
an address to the throne, against the further 
prosecution of hostilities with America. Chat- 
ham had, during some time, absented himself 
from Parliament, in consequenee of his grow- 
ing infirmities. He determined to appear in 
his place on this occasion, and to declare that 
his opinions were decidedly at variance with 
those of the Rockingham party. He was in a 
state of great excitement. His medical a*. 



THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 



7S9 



lendants were uneasy, and strongly advised 
him to calm himself, and to remain at home. 
But he was not to be controlled. His son Wil- 
liam, and his son-in-law Lord Mahon, accom- 
panied him to Westminster. He rested him- 
self in the chancellor's room till the debate 
commenced, and then, leaning on his two young 
relations, limped to his seat. The slightest 
particulars of that day were remembered, and 
have been carefully recorded. He bowed, it 
was remarked, with great courtliness to those 
peers who rose to make way for him and his 
supporters. His crutch was in his hand. He 
wore, as was his fashion, a rich velvet coat. 
His legs were swathed in flannel. His wig was 
so large, and his face so emaciated, that none 
of his features could be discerned except the 
high curve of nose, and his eyes, which still 
retained a gleam of the old fire. 

When the Duke of Richmond had spoken, 
Chatham rose For some time his voice was 
inaudible. At length his tones became distinct 
and his Action animated. Here and there his 
hearers caught a thought or an expression 
which reminded them of William Pitt. But it 
was clear that he was not himself. He lost the 
thread of his discourse, hesitated, repeated the 
same words several times, and was so confused, 
that in speaking of the Act of Settlement he 
could not recall the name of the Electress So- 
phia. The House listened in solemn silence, 
and with the aspect of profound respect and 
compassion. The stillness was so deep that 
the dropping of a handkerchief would have 
been heard. The Duke of Richmond replied 
with great tenderness and courtesy ; but, while 
he spoke, the old man was observed to be rest- 
less and irritable. The duke sat down. Chat- 
ham stood up again, pressed his hand on his 
breast, and sank down in an apoplectic fit. 
Three or four lords who sat near him caught 
him in his fall. The House broke up in con- 
fusion. The dying man was carried to the re- 
sidence of one of the officers of Parliament, 
and was so far restored as to be able to bear a 
journey to Hayes. At Hayes, after lingering 
a few weeks, he expired in his seventieth year. 
His bed was watched to the last, with anxious 
tenderness, by his wife and children ; and he 
well deserved their care. Too often haughty 
and wayward to others, to them he had been 
almost effeminately kind. He had through life 
been dreaded by his political opponents, and 
regarded with more awe than love even by his 
political associates. But no fear seems to have 
mingled with the affection which his fondness, 
constantly overflowing in a thousand endearing 
forms, had inspired in the little circle at Hayes. 

Chatham, at the time of his decease, had not, 
in both Houses of Parliament, ten personal ad- 
herents. Half the public men of the age had 
been estranged from him by his errors, and the 
other half by the exertions which he had made 
lo repair his errors. His last speech had been 
an attack at once on the policy pursued by 
ihe government, and on the policy recommended 



by the opposition. But death at once restored 
him to his old place in the affection of his 
country. Who could hear unmoved of the 
fall of that which had been so great, and which 
had stood so long 1 The circumstances, too, 
seemed rather to belong to the tragic stage than 
to real life. A great statesman, full of years 
and honours, led forth to the senate-house by a 
son of rare hopes, and stricken down in full 
council while straining his feeble voice to 
rouse the drooping spirit of his country, could 
not but be remembered with peculiar venera- 
tion and tenderness. Detraction was overawed 
The voice even of just and temperate censure 
was mute. Nothing was remembered but the 
lofty genius, the unsullied probity, the undis- 
puted services, of him who was no more. Foi 
once, all parties were agreed. A public fu- 
neral, a public monument, were eagerly voted 
The debts of the deceased were paid. A pro- 
vision was made for his family. The city of 
London requested that the remains of the great 
man whom she had so long loved and honoured 
might rest under the dome of her magnificent 
cathedral. But the petition came too late. 
Every thing was already prepared for the in- 
terment in Westminster Abbey. 

Though men of all parties had concurred in 
decreeing posthumous honours to Chatham, 
his corpse was attended to the grave almost 
exclusively by opponents of the government. 
The banner of the lordship of Chatham was 
borne by Colonel Barr6, attended by the Duke 
of Richmond and Lord Rockingham. Burke, Sa- 
vile, and Dunning upheld the pall. Lord Camden 
was conspicuous in the procession. The chief 
mourner was young William Pitt. After the 
lapse of more than twenty-seven years, in a 
season as dark and perilous, his own shattered 
frame and broken heart were laid, with the 
same pomp, in the same consecrated mould. 

Chatham sleeps near the northern door of 
the church, in a spot which has ever since 
been appropriated to statesmen, as the other 
end of the same transept has long been to 
poets. Mansfield rests there, and the second 
William Pitt, and Fox, and Grattan, and Can- 
ning, and Wilberforce. In no other Cemetery 
do so many great citizens lie within so nar- 
row a space. High over those venerable graves 
towers the stately monument of Chatham, and 
from above, his own effigy, graven by a cun- 
ning hand, seems still, with eagle face and! 
outstretched arm, to bid England be of gooi 
cheer, and to hurl defiance at her foes. The 
generation which reared that memorial of him 
has disappeared. The time has come when 
the rash and indiscriminate judgments which 
his contemporaries passed on his character 
may be calmly revised by history. And history 
while, for the warning of vehement, high, and 
daring natures, she notes his many errors, will 
yet deliberately pronounce, that, among the 
eminent men whose bones lie near his, scarcely 
one has left a more stainless, and none a mo-rV 
splendid name. 



tl£ 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



SPEECH 



ON HIS INSTALLATION AS LORD RECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 



[March 21, 1849.1 



My first duty, gentlemen, is to return you 
my thanks for the high honour you have con- 
ferred on me. That honour, as you well know, 
was wholly unsolicited, and I can assure you 
it was wholly, unexpected. I may add, that 
if I had been invited to become a candidate for 
your suffrages, I should have respectfully de- 
clined the invitation. My predecessor, whom 
I am so happy as to be able to call my friend — 
declared from this place last year, in language 
which well became him, that he would not have 
come forward to displace so eminent a states- 
man as Lord John Russel. I can with equal 
truth declare that I would not have come for- 
ward to displace so estimable a gentleman and 
so accomplished a man as Colonel Mure. But 
he felt last year that it was not for him, and I 
feel this year that it is not for me, to question 
the propriety of your decision, in a point on 
which, by the constitution of your body, you 
are the sole judges. I therefore accept with 
thankfulness the office to which I am called, 
fully purposing to use whatever powers belong 
to it with the single view of the promotion of 
the credit and the welfare of this university. 

I am not using a mere phrase, of course, 
when I say that the feelings with which I bear 
a part in the ceremony of this day, are such 
as I find it difficult to utter in words. I do not 
think it strange, that when that great master 
of eloquence, Edmund Burke, stood where I 
now stand, he faltered and remained mute. 
Doubtless the multitude of thoughts which 
rushed into his mind were such as even he 
could not easily arrange or express. In truth, 
there are few spectacles more striking or affect- 
ing, than that which a great historical place 
of education presents on a solemn public day. 

There is something strangely interesting in 
the contrast between the venerable antiquity 
of the body and the fresh and ardent youth of 
the great majority of the members. Recollec- 
tions and hopes crowd upon us together. The 
past and the future are at once brought close 
to us. Our thoughts wander back to the time 
when the foundations of this ancient building 
were laid, and forward to the time when those 
whom it is our office to guide and to teach will 
be the guides and teachers of our posterity. 
On the present occasion we may, with peculiar 
propriety, give such thoughts their course. 
For it has chanced that my magistracy has 
fallen in a great secular epoch. This is the 
four hundredth year of the existence of your 
university. At such jubilees as these — jubilees 
of which no individual sees more than one — it 
i« natural, it is good, that a society like this — 
a society which survives all the transitory parts 
of which it is composed — a society which has 



a corporate existence and a perpetual succes 
sion, should review its annals, should retrac« 
the stages of its growth, from infancy to ma- 
turity, and should try to find in the experience 
of generations which have passed away, lessont 
which may be profitable to generations yet un- 
born. The retrospect is full of interest an<J 
instruction. 

Perhaps it may be doubted whether, sinca 
the Christian era, there has been any point of 
time more important to the highest interests 
of mankind, than that at which the existenco 
of your university commenced. It was the 
moment of a great destruction and of a great 
creation. Your society was instituted just 
before the empire of the east perished — that 
strange empire, which, dragging on a languid 
life through the great age of darkness, con- 
nected together the two great ages of light — 
that empire which, adding nothing to our stores 
of knowledge, and producing not one man great 
in letters, in science, or in art, yet preserved, 
in the midst of barbarism, those master-pieces 
of Attic genius which the highest minds still 
contemplate, and long will contemplate, with 
admiring despair; and, at that very time, 
while the fanatical Moslem were plundering the 
churches and palaces of Constantinople, break- 
ing in pieces Grecian sculpture, and giving to 
the flames piles of Grecian eloquence, a few 
humble German artisans, who little knew that 
they were calling into existence a power far 
mightier than that of the victorious sultan, 
were busied in cutting and setting the first 
types. The University came into existence just 
in time to see the last trace of the Roman 
empire disappear, and to see the earliest printed 
book. 

At this conjuncture — a conjuncture of un- 
rivalled interest in the history of letters — a 
man never to be mentioned without reverence 
by every lover of letters, held the highest 
place in Europe. Our just attachment to that 
Protestant faith to which our country owes so 
much, must not prevent us from paying the 
tribute which, on this occasion and in this 
place, justice and gratitude demand to the 
founder of the University of Glasgow, the 
greatest of the revivers of learning, Pope 
Nicholas the Fifth. He had sprung from the 
common people ; but his abilities and his eru- 
dition had early attracted the notice of the 
great. He had studied much and travelled far. 
He had visited Great Britain, which, in wealth 
and refinement, was to his native Tuscany what 
the back settlements of American now are to 
Britain. He had lived with the merchant 
princes of Florence, those men who first en- 
nobled trade by making trade the ally »f phi* 



INSTALLATION SPEECH. 



741 



J<y=Dphy, of eloquence, and of taste. It was 
he who, under the protection of the munificent 
and discerning Cosmo, arrayed the first public 
library that modern Europe possessed. From 
privacy your founder rose to a throne ; but on 
the throne he never forgot the studies -which 
had been his delight in privacy- He was the 
centre of an illustrious group, composed partly 
of the last great scholars of Greece, and partly 
of the first great scholars of Italy, Theodore 
Gaza and George of Trebizond, Bessarin and 
Tilelfo, Marsilio Ficino and Poggio Bracciolini. 
By him was founded the Vatican library, then 
and long after the most precious and the most 
extensive collection of books in the world. By 
him were carefully preserved the most valuable 
intellectual treasures which had been snatched 
from the wreck of the Byzantine empire. His 
agents were to be found everywhere — in the 
bazaars of the farthest East, in the monasteries 
of the farthest West — purchasing or copying 
worm-eaten parchments, on which were traced 
words worthy of immortality. Under his pa- 
tronage were prepared accurate Latin versions 
of many precious remains of Greek poets and 
philosophers. But no department of literature 
owes so much to him as history. By him were 
introduced to the knowledge of Western Europe, 
two great and unrivalled models of historical 
composition, the work of Herodotus and the 
work of Thucydides. By him, too, our ances- 
tors were first made acquainted with the grace- 
ful and lucid simplicity of Xenophon, and with 
the manly good sense of Polybius. 

It was while he was occupied with cares like 
these that his attention was called to the intel- 
lectual wants of this region — a region new 
swarming with population, rich with culture, 
and resounding with the clang of machinery — 
a region which now sends forth fleets laden 
with its admirable fabrics to lands of which, 
in his days, no geographer had ever heard — 
then a wild, a poor, a half-barbarous tract, 
lying in the utmost verge of the known world. 
He gave his sanction to the plan of establishing 
a University at Glasgow, and bestowed on the 
new seat of learning all the privileges which 
belonged to the University of Bologna. I can 
conceive that a pitying smile passed over his 
face as he named Bologna and Glasgow together. 
At Bologua he had long studied. No spot in the 
world has been more favoured by nature or by 
art. The surrounding country was a fruitful 
and sunny country, a country of corn-fields and 
vineyards. In the city the house of Bentivoglio 
bore rule — a house which vied with the Medici 
in taste and magnificence — which has left to 
posterity noble palaces and temples, and which 
gave a splendid patronage to arts and sciences. 

Glasgow he knew to be a poor, a small, a 
rude town, and, as he would have thought, not 
likely ever to be otherwise ; for the soil, com- 
. pared with the rich country at the foot, of the 
Apennines, was barren, and the climate was 
Buch that an Italian shuddered at the thought 
of it. But it is not on the fertility of the soil — 
it is not on the mildness of the atmosphere that 
the prosperity of nations chiefly depends. 
Slavery and superstition can make Campania a 
land of beggars, and can change the plain of 
Enna into a desert. Nor is it beyond the power 
ef h^man intelligence and energy, developed 



by civil and spiritual freedom, to turn sterilf 
rocks and pestilental marshes into cities and 
gardens. Enlightened as your founder was, 
he little knew that he was himself a chief agent 
in a great revolution — physical and moral, po- 
litical and religious — in a revolution destined 
to make the last first, and the first last — in a 
revolution destined to invert the relative posi 
tions of Glasgow and Bologna. We cannot, I 
think, better employ a few minutes than in re- 
viewing the stages of this great change in 
human affairs. The review shall be short. 
Indeed, I cannot do better than pass rapidly 
from century to century. Look at the world, 
then, a hundred years after the seal of Nicholas 
had been affixed to the instrument which called 
your college into existence. We find Europe — 
we find Scotland especially, in the agonies oi 
that great revolution which we emphatically 
call the Reformation. 

The liberal patronage which Nicholas, and 
men like Nicholas, had given to learning, and 
of which the establishment of this seat of 
learning is not the least remarkable instance, 
had produced an effect which they had never 
contemplated. Ignorance was the talisman on 
which their power depended, and that talisman 
they had themselves broken. They had called 
in knowledge as a handmaid to decorate su- 
perstition, and their error produced its natural 
effect. I need not tell you what a part the 
votaries of classical learning, and especially 
of Greek learning, the Humanists, as they were 
then called, bore in the great movement against 
spiritual tyranny. In the Scotch University, 
I need hardly mention the names of Knox, of 
Buchanan, of Melville, of Maitland, of Lething- 
ton. They formed, in fact, the vangaard of 
that movement. Every one of the chief re- 
formers — I do not at this moment remember a 
single exception — was a Humanist. Every 
eminent Humanist in the north of Europe was, 
according to the measure of his uprightness 
and courage, a reformer. In truth, mind,? 
daily nourished with the best literature of 
Greece and Rome, necessarily grew too strong 
to be trammelled by the cobwebs of the scho- 
lastic divinity ; and the influence of such mindi 
was now rapidly felt by the whole community; 
for the invention of printing had brought 
books within the reach even of yeomen and 
of artisans. 

From the Mediterranean to the Frozen Sea, 
therefore, the public mind was everywhere in 
a ferment, and nowhere was the ferment greater 
than in Scotland. It was in the midst of mar- 
tyrdoms and proscriptions, in the midst of a 
war between power and truth, that the first 
century of the existence of your University 
closed. Pass another hundred years, and we 
are in the midst of another revolution. The 
war between Popery and Protestantism had, in 
this island, been terminated by the victory of 
Protestantism. But from that war another 
war had sprung — the war between Prelacy and 
Puritanism. The hostile religious sects were 
allied, intermingled, confounded with hostila 
political parties. The monarchical element of 
the constitution was an object of almost ex- 
clusive devotion to the prelatist. The popular 
element of the constitution was especially dear 
to the Puritan. At length an appeal was madi 



742 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



the sword. Puritanism triumphed; but 
uritanism was already divided against itself. 
Independency and republicanism were on one 
Bide, presbyterianism and limited monarchy on 
the other. It was in the very darkest part of 
that dark time — it was in the midst of battles, 
sieges, and executions — it was when the whole 
world was still aghast at the awful spectacle 
of a British king standing before a judgment 
seat, and laying his neck on a block — it was 
when the mangled remains of the Duke of 
Hamilton had just been laid in the tomb of his 
house — it was when the head of the Marquis 
of Montrose had just been fixed on the Tolbooth 
of Edinburgh, that your University completed 
her second century ! 

A hundred years more, and we have at 
length reached the beginning of a happier pe- 
riod. Our civil and religious liberties had, 
indeed, been bought with a fearful price. But 
they had been bought. The price had been 
paid. The last battle had been fought on 
British ground. The last black scaffold had 
been set up on Tower Hill. The evil days were 
over. A bright and tranquil century — a cen- 
tury of religious toleration, of domestic peace, 
of temperate freedom, of equal justice — was 
beginning. That century is now closing. When 
we compare it with any equally long period in 
the history of any other great society, we shall 
find abundant cause for thankfulness to the 
Giver of all Good ; nor is there any place in 
the whole kingdom better fitted to excite this 
feeling than the place where we are now as- 
sembled. For in the whole kingdom we shall 
find no district in which the progress of trade, 
of manufactures, of wealth, and of the arts 
of life, has been more rapid than in Clydesdale. 
Your university has partaken largely of the 
prosperity of this city and of the surrounding 
region. 

The security, the tranquillity, the liberty, 
which have been propitious to the industry of 
the merchant and of the manufacturer, have 
been also propitious to the industry of the 
scholar. To the last century belong most of 
the names of which you justly boast. The time 
would fail me if I attempted to do justice to 
the memory of all the illustrious men, who, 
during that period, taught or learned wisdom, 
within these ancient walls — geometricians, ana- 
tomists, jurists, philologists, metaphysicians, 
poets — Simpson and Hunter, Miller and Young, 
Reid and Stewart ; Campbell — whose coffin was 
lately borne to a grave in that renowned transept 
which contains the dust of Chaucer, of Spencer, 
and of Dryden ; Black, whose discoveries form 
an era in the history of chemical science ; 
Adam Smith, the greatest of all the masters of 
political science ; James Watt, who perhaps 
did more than any single man has done since 
the new Atlantis of Bacon was written, to ac- 
complish the glorious prophecy. 

We now speak the language of humility when 
we say that the University of Glasgow need not 
fear a comparison with the University of Bo- 
logna. Another secular period is now about 
to commence. There is no lack of alarmists, 
Srho will tell you that it is about to commence 



under evil auspices. But from me yom mw 1 
expect no such gloomy prognostications. I au 
too much used to them to be scared by them. 
Ever since I began to make observations on the 
state of my country, I have been seeing nothing 
but growth, and I have been hearing of nothing 
but decay. The more I contemplate our noble 
institutions, the more convinced I am that they 
are sound at heart, that they have nothing of 
age but its dignity, and that their strength is 
still the strength of youth. The hurricane 
which has recently overthrown so much that 
was great and that seemed durable, has only 
proved their solidity. They still stand, august 
and immovable, while dynasties and churches 
are lying in heaps of ruin all around us. I see 
no reason to doubt that, by the blessing of God 
on a wise and temperate policy, on a policy in 
which the principle is to preserve what is good 
by reforming in time what is evil, our civil 
institutions may be preserved unimpaired to a 
late posterity, and that, under the shade of our 
civil institutions, our academical institutions 
may long continue to flourish. 

I trust, therefore, that when a hundred years 
more have run out, this ancient college will still 
continue to deserve well of our country and of 
mankind. I trust that the installation of 194S 
will be attended by a still greater assembly of 
students than I have the happiness now to see 
before me. The assemblage indeed may not 
meet in the place where we have met. These 
venerable halls may have disappeared. My 
successor may speak to your successors in a 
more stately edifice, in an edifice which, even 
among the magnificent buildings of the future 
Glasgow, will still be admired as a fine specimen 
of architecture which flourished in the days 
of the good Queen Victoria. But though the 
site and the walls may be new, the spirit of the 
institution will, I hope, be still the same. My 
successor will, I hope, be able to boast that the 
fifth century of the University has been even 
more glorious than the fourth. He will be able 
to vindicate that boast, by citing a long list of 
eminent men, great masters of experimental 
science, of ancient learning, of our native elo- 
quence, ornaments of the senate, the pulpit, and 
the bar. 

He will, I hope, mention with high honour 
some of my young friends who now hear me ; 
and he will, I also hope, be able to add that 
their talents and learning were not wasted on 
selfish or ignoble objects, but were employed to 
promote the physical and moral good of their 
species, to extend the empire of man over the 
material world, to defend the cause of civil and 
religious liberty against tyrants and bigots, and 
to defend the cause of virtue and order against 
the enemies of all divine and human laws. I 
have now given utterance to a part, and a part 
only of the recollections and anticipations of 
which on this solemn occasion my mind is full. 
I again thank you for the honour which you 
have bestowed on me ; and I assure you thai 
while I live I shall never cease to take a deep 
interest in the welfare and fame of the body 
with which, by your kindness, I have this daj 
become connected. 



SPEECH ON RETIRING FROM POLITICAL LIFE. 



743 



SPEECH 



ON RETIRING FROM POLITICAL LIFE. 



[March 22," 1849.] 



I thank you, my Lord Provost — gentlemen, I 
thank you from my heart for this great honour.* 
I may, I hope, extend my thanks further — ex- 
tend them to that constituent body, of which 
I believe you are, upon this occasion, the ex- 
positors — and which has received me here in a 
manner which has made an impression never to 
be effaced from my mind. [Alluding to the box 
containing the document, verifying his admis- 
sion as-a freeman, he continued:] That box, 
my lord, I shall prize as long as I live, and 
when I am gone, it will be appreciated by those 
who are dearest to me, as a proof that, in the 
course of an active and chequered life, both 
political and literary, I succeeded in gaining 1 
the esteem and good will of the people of one 
of the greatest and most enlightened cities in 
the British empire. My political life, my lord, 
has closed. The feelings which contention and 
rivalry naturally called forth, and from which 
I do not pretend to have been exempted, have 
had time to cool down. I can look now upon 
the events in which I bore a part, as calmly, I 
think, as on the events of the past century. I 
can do that justice now to honourable opponents 
which perhaps in moments of conflict I might 
have refused to them. 

I believe I can judge as impartially of my 
own career, as I can judge of the career of an- 
other man. I acknowledge great errors and 
deficiencies, but I have nothing to acknowledge 
inconsistent with rectitude of intention and in- 
dependence of spirit. My conscience bears me 
this testimony, that I have honestly desired the 
happiness, the prosperity, and the greatness 
of my country ; that my course, right or wrong, 
was never determined by any selfish or sordid 
motive, and that, in troubled times and through 
many vicissitudes of fortune, in power and out 
of power, through popularity and unpopularity, 
I have been faithful to one set of opinions, and 
to one set of friends. I see no reason to doubt 
that these friends were well chosen, or that 
these opinions were in the main correct. 

The path of duty appeared to me to be 
between two dangerous extremes — extremes 
which I shall call equally dangerous, seeing 
that each of them inevitably conducts society 
to the other. I cannot accuse myself of having 
ever deviated far towards either. I cannot 
accuse myself of having ever been untrue, 
either to the cause of civil or religious liberty, 
or to the cause of property and law. I reflect 
with pleasure that I bore a part in some of those 
reforms which corrected great abuses, and re- 
moved just discontents. I reflect with equal 
pleasure, that I never stooped to the part of a 



* The tender of the freedom of the city of Glasgow. 



demagogue, and never feared to confront what 
seemed to me to be an unreasonable clamour. 
I never in time of distress incited my country- 
men to demand of any government, to which I 
was opposed, miracles — that which I well knew 
no government could perform ; nor did I seek 
even the redress of grievances, which it was 
the duty of a government to redress, by any 
other than strictly peaceful and legal means. 

Such were the principles upon which I acted, 
and such would have been my principles still. 
The events which have lately changed the face 
of Europe, have only confirmed my views of 
what public duty requires. These events are 
full of important lessons, both to the governors 
and the governed ; and he learns only half the 
lesson they ought to teach, who sees in them 
only a warning against tyranny on the one 
hand, and anarchy on the other. The great 
lesson which these events teach us is that ty- 
ranny and anarchy are inseparably connected ; 
that each is the parent, and each is the offspring 
of the other. The lesson which they teach is 
this — that old institutions have no more deadly 
enemy than the bigot who refuses to adjust 
them to a new state of society ; nor do they 
teach us less clearly this lesson, that the sove- 
reignty of the mob leads by no long or circuit- 
ous path to the sovereignty of the sword. I 
bless God that my country has escaped both 
these errors. 

Those statemen who, eighteen years before, 
proposed to transfer to this great city and to 
cities like this, a political power which bul 
belonged to hamlets which contained only a 
few scores of inhabitants, or to old walls with 
no inhabitants at all — these statesmen, and I 
may include myself among them, were then 
called anarchists and revolutionists ; but let 
those who so called us, now say whether we are 
not the true and the far-sighted friends of 
order ? Let those who so called us, now say 
how would they have wished to encounter the 
tempest of the last spring with the abuses of 
Old Sarum and Gatton to defend — with Glasgow 
only represented in name, and Manchester and 
Leeds not even in name. We then were not 
only the true friends of liberty, but the true 
friends of order ; and in the same manner aided 
by all the vigorous exertions by which the go- 
vernment (aided by patriotic magistrates and 
honest men) put down, a year ago, those ma ■ 
rauders who wished to subvert all society— 
these exertions, I say, were of inestimable ser- 
vice, not only to the cause of order, but also 
to the cause of true liberty. 

But I am now speaking the sentiments of a 
private man. I have quitted politics — I quitted 
them without one feeling of resentment, with • 



Ui 



MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



out one feeling of regret, and betook myself to 
pursuits for which my temper and my tastes, I 
believe, fitted me better. I would not willingly 
believe that in ceasing to be a politician I re- 
linquish altogether the power of rendering any 
service to my country. I hope it may still be 
in my power to teach lessons which may be 
profitable to those who still remain on the busy 
stage which I have left. I hope that it may 
still be in my power so faithfully, without fear 
or malignity, to represent the merits and faults 
of hostile sects and factions, as to teach a com- 
mon lesson of charity to all. I hope it will be 
in my power to inspire, at least, some of my 
countrymen with love and reverence for those 
&ee and noble institutions to which Britain 



owes her greatness, and from which, I trust, 
she is not destined soon to descend. 

I shall now, encouraged by your approbation, 
resume, with alacrity, a task, under the mag- 
nitude and importance of which I have some- 
times felt my mind ready to sink. I thank yon 
again, most cordially, for your kindness, I 
value, as it deserves, the honour of being en- 
rolled in your number. I have seen- with de- 
light and with pride, the extent, the grandeur, 
the beauty, and the opulence of this noble 
city — a city which I may now call mine. With 
every wish for the prosperity, the peace, anq! 
the honour of our fair and majestic Glasgow, 1 
now bid you, my kind friends and fellow-citi- 
zens, a most respectful farewell. 



THE END. 



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